(Yes, this is a rant. The voice recognition software seems to work better when I express some vehemence.)
I've lost count of how many times I've heard that question. Very few people seem to believe me when I say it's safer not to be in a car, from both anecdotal and statistical bases.
* I've been in two major accidents requiring medical treatment, neither of which have involved major trauma. Since I've been at home the last couple of months, I've been reading the local paper. For every day I've read the obituaries (which is admittedly most, but not all days) someone has been listed as dying in an automobile accident. A quick search of the
Chronicle Herald for this week, to give a sample:
"Memorial service today for mother, 3 children
Natalie Margaret Crawford loved to play the violin to her three children. They were her life.
Ms. Crawford, 27, her children, Sara Marie Barnes, 7, Kyle Angus Kaiser, 5, and Justin Fredrick Boutilier, 3, were killed in a car crash June 3 in Alberta."
"Retired music teacher has condition upgraded
Vesta Mosher, a retired New Glasgow music teacher seriously hurt in a car crash last week, has had her condition upgraded from critical to serious, a hospital spokesperson said Tuesday.
Last Wednesday, Ms. Mosher, 79, was thrown from her car in a single-vehicle accident near Shubenacadie. She was airlifted to the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre with serious head trauma after the crash."
"BRIDGEWATER — Fenton Thompson was convicted Monday of failing to stop after hitting a man in a crosswalk with his car, even though his videotaped confession was thrown out.
The confession was ruled inadmissible because police failed to tell him he had the right to apply for legal aid.
The 19-year-old Blockhouse man told police and the judge that he was behind the wheel when Matthew Berry was hit last Oct. 14.
But he pleaded not guilty and went ahead with his trial, as well as a separate hearing to determine whether his statement to police was voluntary.
At the hearing, Mr. Thompson said he freely confessed. He said the arresting officer read him his rights, told him he could call his own lawyer or a legal aid lawyer, and that no one pressured him into saying anything. "I said I was the driver," he said.
He also said on the tape he was guilty, but added in court: "When I said on the video I was guilty I mean guilty of failing to stop at the scene of an accident."
Mr. Thompson said in his confession he knew he had hit something but didn’t know what. He was arrested after returning to the accident scene a couple of hours later and a police officer saw his father looking in the grass to see if he could find what his son had hit."
"Accident victim worries about cap on insurance
Industry says rates went down
By MARY ELLEN MacINTYRE Truro Bureau
STEWIACKE — Shirley MacPhee has paid both physically and financially every day since the vehicle she was riding in two years ago was hit at an intersection in nearby Brookfield.
"It’s been a long, hard time for us," Ms. MacPhee, 68, said in an interview at her Stewiacke home.
"It just doesn’t seem to get any better."
Her husband Percy, 69, pulled out a folder full of receipts, letters and business cards.
"It’s this cap the Province of Nova Scotia has put on for the insurance industry that worries me. People like us keep paying and the insurance companies get off pretty well scot-free," Mr. MacPhee said.
The couple said since Ms. MacPhee’s back injury, they have shelled out more than $3,000 in medical expenses. So far, the insurance company has paid them $500."
"Victims of N.L. accident mourned
Wet, foggy road conditions blamed for crash
Two Nova Scotia families are in mourning after a van crash killed two local men who were working in Newfoundland.
Local rapper Shane Jackson, 27, of Lower Sackville and Richard Slauenwhite, 28, who moved to Dartmouth from Bridgewater about a year ago, died Tuesday night when the van they were passengers in left a highway near Terrenceville, N.L."
"Unlicensed driver loses wife in fatal crash
By SHERRI BORDEN COLLEY Staff Reporter
Wayne Hubley only meant to pick up his common-law wife from work last Friday. He never imagined it would be their last day together.
And now Mr. Hubley, whom police charged Wednesday with driving without a licence, is left to reflect on his mistake in a crash that cost Diann Marie Weeks her life."
"Charges expected after pickup rams into house
PICTOU (CP) — It was a typical night in front of the television for Donald Gendron — until a pickup truck slammed into his house.
“It was so loud that the neighbours up on the next street and down below heard the crash,” says Gendron."
This one is deserving of a muppet award:
"Driver who slammed into boulders sues HRM
By JENNIFER STEWART Court Reporter
A Halifax woman who drove her car into a row of boulders on a municipal street is claiming the city did not provide adequate signage to warn motorists that the road comes to an end.
Fatina Elkurdi filed a lawsuit against Halifax Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia Supreme Court on Monday.
According to court documents, it was foggy on June 10, 2006, the night Ms. Elkurdi was driving her 1997 Hyundai Accent on Prospect Road near Peggys Cove.
It was just before 11 p.m. when she pulled into a gas station for a drink. When she left, the documents said, she turned right onto Evergreen Place, thinking it was Prospect Road.
Ms. Elkurdi then drove a ways on Evergreen at the posted speed limit of 50 kilometres an hour until she spotted a row of boulders blocking her path."
"Car accident sends man to hospital
By PAUL EVEREST
A 45-year-old man ended up in hospital after he lost control of his car and slammed into a parked vehicle in Spryfield on Monday evening.
The man was treated for non-life-threatening injuries at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre after his Chrysler Intrepid hit the parked vehicle on Williams Lake Road and slid onto private property at about 8:15 p.m."
"Woman killed in crash
Parking lot entrance was also scene of fatal accident in March
By DAN ARSENAULT Staff Reporter
A woman died in a car crash Friday afternoon near the same Dartmouth parking lot where a man died following a similar midday collision in late March.
At 12:39 p.m., the 45-year-old victim was a passenger in a Chevrolet Corsica that tried to enter the lot at Ben’s Bakery and Dave’s Farm Market at 322 Main St., according to police."
"Funeral held for beloved young mom killed in crash
By DAVENE JEFFREY Staff Reporter
Raella Haines was remembered Thursday as a kind, gentle young mother with a winning personality who knew how to pick out a killer pair of shoes.
“She loved people. People loved to be around her,” Pastor Glen Lucas said as he tried to comfort nearly 350 mourners during the afternoon funeral service at the Atlantic Funeral Home in Dartmouth."
"Friends pour out their grief
By BEVERLEY WARE South Shore Bureau
BRIDGEWATER — It was the wee hours of the morning in January and Mindy Baker’s car broke down on Highway 10 just outside Bridgewater. The nearby Irving was open, so she went in for help.
Tanya Robar was inside laughing away with her co-workers. She had just spilled gasoline on a cut on her hand and was joking about the hazards to which she was now exposed. She laughed and cracked jokes and Mindy Baker joined in.
"She seemed like such a wonderful person, hell-bent on making people smile and laugh, and I could tell that in just the few hours that I spent there," wrote Ms. Baker on Facebook on a site friends and relatives set up as a memorial to Ms. Robar, one of the five people killed in an horrific crash Sunday afternoon at Exit 11 on Highway 103."
Now, this isn't
Toronto, but for the size of Halifax that seems pretty high.
* I know lots of people who have been injured in auto accidents; I also knew several who died in auto accidents. I know several people who've been injured while biking, but I don't personally know anyone killed while biking (although I've heard of people like
Ken Kifer).
* Statistically, it's safer. The canonical example is the Failure Analysis Associates study:
Fatalities per million hours
Skydiving = 128.71
General aviation = 15.58
On-road motorcycling = 8.80
Scuba diving = 1.98
Living (all causes of death) = 1.53
Swimming = 1.07
Snowmobiling = 0.88
Passenger cars = 0.47
Water skiing = 0.28
Bicycling = 0.26
Flying (domestic airlines) = 0.15
Hunting = 0.08
Cosmic radiation from transcontinental flights = 0.035
Home living (active) = 0.027
Traveling in a school bus = 0.022
Compiled by Failure Analysis Associates, Inc. (Design News, 10/4/93)
So statistically, driving (or simply being inside) a car is almost twice as likely as cycling to end in death.
* Another comment is that I would be safer with a steel cage around me. My personal opinion is that cars are too safe, so people tend to take risks they wouldn't otherwise. My solution would be to ban airbags and replace them with a metal spike in order to concentrate the driver's mind. I doubt this would be accepted, though.
The flip side of having a steel cage for protection is the massive increase in inertia, increasing the stopping distance dramatically. The effect of this is that if a car suddenly pulls out in front, a big heavy vehicle has less chance of stopping in time and avoiding an accident than a small light vehicle (ie, bicycle). Naturally, most people want to buy an SUV because it's "safer" (presumably so long as it doesn't roll over, anyway).
* Anecdotally, after seeing how people drive at high speeds on the highway for the past few weeks while I've been going to medical appointments, I really don't want to be out there. Just this morning we had a car approximately 3 meters from our rear bumper (or at least, so close to us I couldn't see his rear bumper). At the time we were traveling at 110km/hr overtaking a large tractor trailer; one gust of wind blasting through the slipstream off the truck would have been enough to slow us enough to hit the car behind, causing an accident.
Maybe when gas hits $5/liter it will have an effect. $1/liter certainly didn't seem to make any difference...
I'm starting to heal up pretty well. I've started physio, and as part of it I've been having
Laser therapy. It sounds like the biggest crock of crystal healing ley line garbage, and I wasn't expecting anything much out of it, but rather surprisingly it's done the trick - after not being able to do anything with my right arm last week due to the pain of moving it, I can now get dressed without pain, tie shoelaces (albeit very carefully) and scratch my left shoulder, so I'm quite a ways ahead. The physio is helping, but I think it's going to take a while; the muscles in my right arm have wasted away so much I can't even lift my right arm without help from my left. I can at least straighten the arm out, after being stuck in one position for so long it was great to finally straighten it out - after I'd got over the pain of all the muscles tearing...
Back in to have an X-Ray and see the surgeon tomorrow, with any luck I should have some good news...
