The American Automobile Association says it’s time for motor vehicle crashes to be viewed as the public health threat that they are. Nearly 43,000 people die on the nation’s roadways each year, yet [it] barely registers as a blip in most people’s mind, according to AAA President and CEO Robert L. Darbelnet.

In addition to the loss of human life, traffic accidents cost American motorists $164.2 billion per year, more than double the costs for traffic congestion, according to a new report released by AAA this month. The report titled Crashes vs. Congestion: What’s the Cost to Society? demonstrates that traffic safety issues warrant increased attention from the public and policymakers.

If there were two jumbo jets crashing every week, the government would ground all planes until we fixed the problem” said Darbelnet. Yet, we’ve come to accept this sort of death toll with car crashes.

Unfortunately, the reality is that car accidents do happen and they can change the lives of people forever. I whole-heartedly agree that we need to implement laws that enhance road safety, such as AAA’s support for a national safety goal to cut surface transportation fatalities in half by 2025. While the per person cost of traffic accidents is staggering, I would surmise that those figures are less that one percent of the revenue generated by the automobile industry which has largely floated our economy in the 1950s and decades thereafter.

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