and...I lot more of them fail to wear seatbelts!
The British crash less
· By: Drivers.com staff
· Date: 2007-07-04
Comments (8) Join conversation
The U.K. Department of Transportation has just released its national statistics on road casualties for Great Britain in 2006. It reports that the number of people killed in road accidents declined slightly by 1%, from 3,201 in 2005 to 3,172 in 2006.
By way of comparison, annual fatalities in the United States seem to be holding steady in the region of about 42,000 per year. That's about 13 times as many as the UK. The population of the UK is estimated at just over 60 million in 2007, compared with just over 300 million in the U.S.
However, the difference in fatality rate may not be as dramatic as it seems. At almost 10 million square kilometers, the U.S. is 40 times the size of the U.K., which means Americans drive a lot more.
Comments
Ian Adams, on Thursday, 05. July 2007 at 08:35 PM
Colin At, on Thursday, 05. July 2007 at 11:48 PM
Driving in the UK is fast and roads are crowded, but you've got to pay attention ALL the time. When I drove in Florida a few years ago I found it almost too easy, and hard to concentrate. Almost fell asleep several times!
Beth, on Friday, 06. July 2007 at 10:24 AM
Do you think that the requirement that the drivers there in Britain have to be 18 years old have anything to do with the crash rate? I think so. And also the public transportation there is wonderful. By the way, I lived there a couple of years and really didn't miss my license because a bus came by within 50 yards of my home every 20 minutes. Young people and the elderly really take advantage of the low price bus fees.
Rahim, on Saturday, 07. July 2007 at 02:47 PM
What does the square kilometrage have to do with anything? Do you not have numbers on the factor you seem to be attempting to address -- fatalities per km driven?
Edgar, on Saturday, 07. July 2007 at 10:32 PM
What does fatalities per km driven have to do with anything?
Tommy the D, on Sunday, 15. July 2007 at 09:27 PM
In the UK, driver licensing is a strict affair, and expensive, costing thousands of dollars. It isn't taken lightly. And car's brakes and running gear are inspected by law regularly. It is also true that, as one poster said, there are fewer roads such as the US Interstates which can lull a driver to sleep. People just don't take long road trips there, which is where most of the fatalities occur.
SpeedKills, on Monday, 01. October 2007 at 02:50 PM
Deaths per 100,000 pop.
USA : 15.8
Canada : 10.3
UK : 6.1
Portugal : 21.1
Japan : 7.9
Germany : 10.7
France : 13.8
Italy : 10.8
Spain : 14.0
Greece : 19.7
Ref: http://www.factbook.net/EGRF_Regional_analyses_HMCs.htm
Ben, on Monday, 05. November 2007 at 12:56 AM
Edgar: The number of fatalities must be compared to the amount of exposure to arrive at a rate that means anything. Accidents per vehicle miles/km (or 100 million for fatalities) traveled is a common measure of accident experience used to objectively rank the safety of a given roadway. Obviously, the authors didn't use this unit frequently used in traffic engineering literature which takes into account that people in certain nations/areas drive more than others. This article is basically meaningless.
Tommy the D: Very few US fatalities involve motorists asleep at the wheel. Also, the facilities with the most fatalities are rural two-lane roadways, while rural four-lane divided interstates normally have the lowest numbers of deaths.
