Car Accident Statistics, Fatalities, Women Drivers and a Few Drunks

Car accident statistics seemed like a good topic to post since my two teens are in the midst of getting their driver's licenses and their first (very used) cars. On top of that, my latest writing assignment was coincidentally on car insurance - just as I was panicking over how high my car insurance rates will rise once they're both on my policy. Fortunately, I have stayed alive to write this post even through their first bout of city driving.

Just to warn everyone - there's going to be a couple more women drivers on the road. Statistically speaking, despite slanderous jargon about women drivers (mostly from my father), people should be grateful that these two new drivers are women and not men. Even recent 2007 fatality statistics by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows that men are the drivers in the high majority of fatal accidents. The Institute's 2007 Fact Sheet has charts demonstrating fatal accident and gender statistics from 1975 to 2007.

Of course, the Center for Disease Control's Teen Driver Fact Sheet's mention of car accidents being the number one reason for teenage deaths in the US doesn't help me sleep well at night when my teens are out with their friends. But within these teenage statistics from the CDC is the data that teen female drivers between the ages of 16 and 19 are far less likely to die than their male friends. The CDC looks like they also have some interactive statistics and mapping toys that can be used to investigate car accident statistics.

Personally, if I were to compare my older boys with my two teen girls and their driving style, I have one in each gender that is very cautious and rule abiding, and I also have on in each gender that is over-confident about their driving abilities. Over-confidence can be a killer, but it is probably not as deadly as alcohol. (However, that's debatable. We haven't mastered measuring car accidents due to over-confidence yet.)

Men are responsible for the majority of alcohol realted deaths. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, in their gender report states the difference:

From 1982 to 2007, the proportion of fatally injured passenger vehicle drivers with blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) at or above 0.08 percent declined by 29 percent among males and 37 percent among females. Since 1985 the percentage of fatally injured male drivers with high BACs has been about twice that of female drivers.

Under the quote in that report is data from the 1980s to 2007 that lists statistics on alcohol related car accidents and BAC levels. The good news is that alcohol related fatal deaths are decreasing. And so are car accidents. CNN has a news article summarizing some alcohol related car accident statistics.

In the US, car accidents reached their all-time low since the rumbling days of hot rods and drag racing in the 1960s and the peak of the 1970s according to 2008 statistics (reported in June 2009) from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in their 2008 statistics summary of traffic safety facts. If you need to go global, you'll find some links on the US Department of State Travel page that has links to transportation and traffic statistics. (More global websites for international car accident statistics are listed later on in this blog post.)

Here is a link to the cache version of the NHTSA report that appears in Google Doc form:

Google Doc version of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA)2008 Traffic Safety Facts.

Here is a link to the pdf version of the NHTSA report:

PDF version of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA)2008 Traffic Safety Facts.

Overall, the number of people injured in car accidents in the US dropped from the 2.49 million in 2007 to "only" 2.35 million in 2008. The 2008 NHTSA car accident statistic report has a lot of valuable statistics and data and is likely one of the more recent sources for car accident statistics. You can also take a look at the Bureau of Transportation Statistics website for traffic data to support car accident data research. You'll also find some car accident statistics hiding in railroad, airline and boat accident statistics. (I have more research links on plane crashes and holiday travel statistics under the "transportation" labeled blog posts if you need more information in those areas.)

Another popular source for car accident statistics is the FARS - Fatality Analysis Report System. They have comparative statistics of car accidents and motorcycle accidents in a nicely laid out table that runs from 1994 to 2007. Ratios, mileage and population comparisons are listed as well as car accident statistics involving pedestrians and bicylists. FARS also has links to 2007 car accident statistics by state, (no surprise that California has the most and Rhode Island has the least) which list fatal accident statistics, as well as car accident statistics that involve a collision with an object. Their car accident reports by state also includes a page of alcohol related car accident statistics and BAC level statistics by state.

The FARR website also has links to trends and other reports, data and statistics on vehicle accidents. They even have a link to an excellent query page that offers tabulation reports on all sorts of data like vehicle types, times, license status, driver height, and all kinds of goodies. Great stuff if you need to get down and dirty and put your stats into a spreadsheet or need some good data to prove or refute a point. Ooooo time to play...wow that's great - after doing a query you get to go to see the full information of each report filed if you want. Code 11 in sequence of events is hitting an animal. I was just looking at deer statistics, however I know that there are always people hitting deer around here and getting their cars dented, but accident reports are hardly ever made.

Since I have no need for the data now I better stop playing. Let's move on to global and international car accident statistics. What better place to start than the World Health Organization. WHO knows everything about what's going on in the world, because in one way or another, everything will probably affect a person's health. They even have a page on world car accident information. A 2004 page describes motor vehicle accidents as a "hidden epidemic" with statistics backing up the claim. WHO has a lot of pdf reports on road injuries and road safety around the world.

There is a "Causes of Death" Excel file on the World Health Organizations Data and Statistics page that gives you a great spreadsheet of deaths by countries, and it includes data on deaths due to "road traffic accidents" by country. On the Pan American page of unintentional accidents on the WHO website you can find a link to a world traffic injury and prevention report that contains road traffic and vehicle accident research and statistics. You can also take a look at a WHO European page that shows some car accident statistics that closely mirrors the US and a list of links to European road traffic safety, injury and transport reports. You can also find some nice graphs and charts in the 2007 European Road Safety Day car accident and traffic safety report.

The BAST (Federal Highway Research Institute in Germany) has pdfs and links to car accident statistics in Germany.

A google book result brings up the WHO's World Report on Road Traffic which contains a lot of statistics and information, although I'm not sure how the information on the website differs from the information in the book, but it might be quicker just to look at the google book result to get a quick overview of international car accident statistics.

Wikipedia has links to resources for car accident statistics on their entry for Traffic Collision and Road Traffic Safety. From there you'll also see a Wikipedia link to information on the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Road Casulaties Great Britain, a list of car accidents (motor vehicle accidents) in Japan and car accidents in Thailand.

UK car accident statistics can be found on the Department of Transport (DfT) website page containing transportation and traffic statistics and statistics on UK accidents. They also have a report on forecasting older driver accidents.

If those aren't enough, you can find more UK car accident statistics at the UK's Office of National Statistics (ONS) website and their page on UK road traffic accident statistics. The British Medical Journal has a free text study which includes statistics comparing car accident police reports and hospital records. (I love the BMJ and use it a lot. I wish all journals would provide free full text!)

If you want to go a wee bit south in the Commonwealth and need some car accident statistics on New South Wales, Australia, head over to their Road and Traffic Authority website and look at their page on crash statistics for free download information on Australia car accident statistics.

Staying south, the South African Department of Transportation website has a link to car accident statistics and road safety information in South Africa covering 2001 to 2005,with some statistics from the 1990s thrown in. There's also graphs in the report comparing South Africa statistics to Australia, China and other countries. Other statistics on South Africa car accidents can be found at the "about us" page Road Safety in South Africa and the "Arrive Alive" website that published the "about us" post, including some 2009 accident stats from Africa's N4 Toll Route.

Science Daily, (one of my favorite websites), has a short article stating some car accident statistics in Africa while claiming that Africa has the highest death rate from car accidents compared to other countries. If you're interested in data collection methods used in collecting Africa car accident statistics, someone was kind enough to upload a report on the implementation and process of using a MAPP data collection method in Africa. (If you're interested in more links on statistics and data involving Africa in general, take a look at my blog posts tagged Africa.)

If you want to delve into some car accident statistics and road traffic statistics, check out the uploaded documents at thesearch results at Scribd for "road traffic accidents," and the graphs and charts posted on "car accidents" at Swivel, or even the "road traffic safety" search results from my blog (that now needs some serious updating).

Looking at these stats, I'm very grateful that my life has never been touched directly by a fatal car accident, although my teenagers always seem to know somebody who knows somebody who was in a near-fatal accident. I have known a few women from church who lost their teens in car accidents - an unbearable thought to me. My boyfriend, however, was touched directly by fatal accidents, and lost his brother and his son to two different motorcycle accidents (years apart) - one caused by a drunk driver in a car, and one caused by teenage over-confidence. No statistic in the world can represent that loss and pain of losing a family member, and especially a child.

It's good to see that car accidents are being lowered, and drunk driving is on a downhill slide. I hope the road safety advocates keep up the good work and are continuously successful at saving lives and keeping our young ones alive.

Foreclosure Statistics and Foreclosure Defense Links

Foreclosure news is getting tiring, but since I'm joining the ranks of people with their houses in foreclosure and I haven't written in a while, I thought I'd throw up a post on foreclosure statistics to help those who are looking to find the latest foreclosure statistics. Personally, I'm just sick of reading about and dealing with foreclosure news and information. On top of my own foreclosure, I've had a few assignments writing articles on foreclosure and bankruptcy. No pity for me though, I'm looking forward to moving, my house is falling apart, and the house is in my ex-husband's name whom I haven't seen in four years. It'll be a weather shock though - we're planning on moving from NY to the Tri-cities area in TN. I'll be positioned right in the middle of my kids in PA, VA and NC. I'm tired of fighting winter and I have a low-tolerance for the cold, so I'll appreciate the above-zero no-shoveling-or-getting-stuck-in-the-driveway winters.

If you're looking for NY courts, forms and regulations, try the New York State Unified Court System website, and their page with a couple new 2008 foreclosure regulations. You can also find lots of court forms needed for foreclosure proceedings at the NY Bar Association website. A NY Times May 2009 article stated foreclosures are happening now more than ever in NY, so I don't feel all alone. The article has some easy to refer to charts and statistics as well. CNN reported that California is suffering from the most foreclosures, and also brought to light that the children suffer as a result of unexpected and financially difficult moves. Even as a mother of six, I hadn't given thought to the great impact foreclosure has on young children. Perhaps because my kids are going off to college anyhow (4 down, 2 to go), and the remaining two and I are looking forward to moving. I do think the effects of foreclosure on children is a topic that definitely deserves more attention, and likely more study.

Statehealth.org has foreclosure ranks and percentage changes by state. Virginia University has a 2009 report ccomparing foreclosure and housing statistics between states and metro areas. The Center for Housing Policy, a partner of the National Housing Conference, has a comprehensive state and metro comparison, drop down search option for statistics by metro area on their "Paycheck to Paycheck" analysis, and a list of housing and foreclosure reports.

If you need Federal data and statistics on foreclosure, the Federal Reserve Board has foreclosure maps and foreclosure trends, as well as a dedicated area for foreclosure resources. Docuticker is a "ticker" website of updated government news, and has updates of the latest foreclosure news from government agencies. You can always review the latest foreclosure search results from the White House website, or US Treasury search results on foreclosure,. The FDIC has some random foreclosure statistics, and if you want to browse through some 2009 foreclosure statistics in pdf files you can take a look at the FDIC's foreclosure search results. If you're looking for information on the banking industry, the FDIC also has links to banking data and statistics (obviously). The FDIC has a quarterly report in pdf form that you can view for 2009 statistics.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) gets quoted a lot in the news, but they don't have a lot of free statistics on their website. However, the Research Institute of Housing America (RIHA) is a trust 501(c) under the Mortgage Bankers Association, and is a good source for mortgage and housing data. You can also find the latest foreclosure statistics in news articles from websites like Market Watch.

Having a blog post on foreclosure statistics would be incomplete without mentioning HUD. First of all, they have datasets from the oft-referred to yearly American Housing Survey. HUD also has a research link with some housing data and statistics, and an "online library" to pursue HUD related topics a little further.

If you've gone to Realty Trac, take a look at this recent article examining the accuracy of foreclosure statistics reported by Realty Trac. I just found the Foreclosure Industry website, and it looks like it's keeping up with current foreclosure statistics, and the "Loan Audit" blog that is keeping up with mortgage and housing news.

You'll also find more data and recent news on foreclosure from a search result at the search engine in my blog.

For anyone wanting some legal resources on affirmative defenses to foreclosure, or just general legal information on foreclosure, I found the "Foreclosure Defense Group" website helpful, and I believe I used information from the Patriot's War website (although it was on their old website, they have a lot of info on their new one). NOLO is a publisher of legal books and their website is to promote their products, but they have a lot of links to free information, and I've often found their website very helpful in the beginning stages of research. They also have a useful page dedicated to foreclosure information and proceedings. You can also take a look at Kenneth M DeLashmutt's very nice article which includes easy to understand steps and defenses as well as a few case citations and useful foreclosure links. The Preventing Foreclosure blog has useful information, foreclosure defenses, and forms. If you haven't paid a visit to Scribd, they have tons of documents that people have uploaded to search. Try the search results for foreclosure or foreclosure affirmative defenses. There's also the Foreclosure Defense Nationwide blog with case citations and quotes from court foreclosure filings.

Above all, if you know someone who has received a Summons and Complaint for a foreclosure, make sure they serve their legal Answer within 20 days, even if it's "pro se." It will stall the foreclosure for months, and they'll have time to either get an attorney, look into loan modification, arbitration and settlement opportunities, deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, short sales, bankruptcy, and other prevention strategies and foreclosure options, or even wait for upcoming help for homeowners. There's a lot out there, and if you serve an Answer in time, you'll have time to review those options. Shoot me an email at getanswerserved at gmail dot com if you need some help typing up an answer to serve "pro se" and can't afford an attorney.

Well, I'm still sick of reading about foreclosure but they're not going away any time soon. I know there are thousands of other resources out there, unfortunately I wasn't able to pinpoint them all. I'll keep updating my blog's search engine so you can always check for more foreclosure statistics.

It's time for me to pack up now (pathetic pun intended)...happy statistics hunting or happy house hunting!

P.S. How could I forget my dear friend Swivel? Don't forget to check out foreclosure statistics, graphs and charts created by the Swivel community!

Buffalo's Bash the Grass Cuts Grass and Leads to Quicksand

Statistics are often muddled by city officials hoping to promote their faltering city - or themselves. (Take a look at this New York Times article on Rudolph Guiliani, Hillary and Obama for starters.) Journalists and corporate interest groups get in on the act, and before you know it, the muddled statistics are worshipped with biblical reverence. Buffalo's recent publicising on their "Quality of Life" efforts - increasing tickets on overgrown lawns, indoor furniture on outdoor porches, and unregistered vehicles in a yard - is a prime example. (Junk car removal services surely have financial interest!)

The article starts out with:

Crime in the neighborhood “took a nose dive,” said Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson. Assaults, robberies, burglaries and rapes dropped by double-digit percentages last month compared with a year earlier. Motor vehicle thefts dropped 39 percent. Even larceny dropped slightly.

Mentioning only briefly

"While a special robbery detail likely contributed to the drop in crime, city officials give much of the credit to the quality-of-life squad,"

before going on and on about the benefits of ticketing people for overgrown grass. (Buffalo limits grass growth to ten inches). The "special robbery detail" isn't expounded on at all. But - giving Buffalo the benefit of the doubt (not really) - it is possible they didn't have all the statistics since apparently the mayor had to ORDER the police to give crime access data to the media.

Since I live in a safe rural area, amongst fields and unregistered cars and haven't locked my door in five years and people park in "town" with their keys in their car - I found this methodology absurd. (Long grass raising crime?) Since I am disabled and raised my kids as a single parent working full time most of their lives - I found it even more absurd. (Hmmm leave the kids alone in the house, feed the baby, or cut the lawn? Buy diapers, pay the babysitter to work, pay bills, take the kids out for ice-cream, or pay someone to cut the lawn? Ice-cream wins every time.) Looking out the window and realizing we haven't gone even a week without rain turned the absurdity turned to infuriation.

"Don't sweat the small stuff" is a mantra I've lived by long before the book came out. In fact, when I read it I thought "I already know all this." (Raising six kids you learn REAL quick not to sweat the small stuff! And sorry about the overused cliche but it's repeatedly used in the Buffalo News related articles.) I've also learned "nip it in the bud" is an equally important cliche. Are my kids going to stay away from crime if my lawn is cut? Will the kids in school stop offering them drugs if my lawn is cut?

I've seen more than a few coke-induced and alcoholic mothers with impeccable homes and yards over the years. (Outside appearances are important to police - and many of them know that.) Health, education, economy and loving relationships impact crime a hundred fold over long grass. If you want to start small - start with health, education and economy - then move to drugs. Violent crimes and murders would likely be reduced from there. Invest in free health care. Invest in education. Invest in small businesses and lower taxes. Don't add stress to struggling residents. Everybody's working for gas to get to work now. Who can afford a ticket?

Is $60 and $150 fines for grass growing more than ten inches the key to stopping crime? Crime across the nation has decreased steadily - even without intense "bash the grass" police parties. (Decrease in crime humorously correlated with an increase of wine consumption on swivel.com.)

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics property crime rates have nationally been on a steady decrease since 1993. "Property Crime" can have many definitions. But if we look at the FBI data from 2007 we see that property crime in Buffalo increased. Property crime in these sets include burglary, larceny, motor-vehicle theft and arson - exactly the crimes that the Bash the Grass (my name) Quality of Life program is meant to deter. Statistical relationships? In 2007, the same year, they bragged about "record number of tickets for Quality of Life being issued."

"Causation" and "Statistical Correlation" are two different things. Factcheck.org brings up an interesting point when considering handgun ownership to violent crimes. Statistical correlations don't take into consideration WHY a person buys a gun. A comparison of gun ownership in a rural area to crime would vary significantly from the same comparison to urban areas. Has anyone compared those who purchased a gun for hunting purposes against those who purchase guns for protection and the correlation to violent crime? (Personally, I have the Bambi syndrome and don't like guns - but they are a significant part of our constitutional rights - and you never know when you may need to exercise that right. God forbid WWIII is in the works.)

If Buffalo thinks cut lawns are going to increase newcomers to Buffalo - they have another thing coming. I would bet that people look at crime rates and educational standards before taking a ruler to the grass in the neighborhood. Buffalo wouldn't get past the crime and educational evaluations.

Looking for Outliers had a great post on Journalism and Auditors and makes a valid point that an audit can "increase public confidence." Having run my own business and being the sort of owner that keeping receipts in a shoebox would be a step up - auditors make me nervous. But "AuditorPOV" make an auditor seem - well - almost human.

Most people are smart enough not to believe everything they read. Fact-checking is a time consuming process. Journalists and auditors frequently serve the public to protect us from political and corporate influences. Unfortunately, many journalists and auditors also have political and corporate motives to manipulate information and statistics. (Hmmm, maybe I should add bloggers to that list...)

While searching for statistics, I found (surprisingly) that short search terms fared better than "long tail" search terms for statistics.

Having vented enough - and spending too much time looking at statistics I have no use for - I'll leave some links for crime statistics:

FBI Uniform Crime Reports for Nation, State and Region

Bureau of Justice Statistics

USA.gov State and Local and lots of other links!

US Census Bureau 2008 Abstract

Lots of Law and Crime Links including statutes, statistics and journals.

Listing of Encyclopedias and Links on Crime

Buffalo Fights Crime Report 2008

Mayors' Action Forum on Crime

• Buffalo, NY: Gangs are in almost every neighborhood. This has led to more violence in
schools. Youth are committing more street crimes, such as robberies and shootings.

White House Social Statistics Briefing Room


I'm not doing this list "justice" (no pun intended until after I wrote that) - but I'll keep adding to the list in the future. If you need more stats - try the search engine in this blog - it's set up to search only websites with statistics. (The database increases regularly so if you can't find the information you need now - it may be there at another date.)

Guess I'll go watch the grass grow now...



Book to for Serious Sleuths:
The Technology of Policing: Crime Mapping, Information Technology, and the Rationality of Crime Control


Or try these:

Links for Data and Statistics

Swivel is a great place to find obscure data.

www.swivel.com

If you haven't visited swivel yet, you need to take a spin over. Swivel is a statistical junkie's paradise. Random data on economics, entertainment, health, politics, science, society, sports, technology and miscellaneous topics are submitted from the swivel community complete with graphs and pictures. You can find pie charts, bar graphs, links to spreadsheets, polls, information on web 2.0, water pollution, crime, and the top ten and top 100 on just about anything.

Here's some demographic data on blogging that's available through the Creative Commons license:

http://www.swivel.com/users/show/1008410

Thanks to "grjenkin" (makes me think of little gherkin pickles) over at Swivel. I don't know "grjenkin" but looks like he has a great blog for more statistics at "Garry's Blog" . If you're looking for prison statistics and are a fanatic for reform like I am you'll love what he has to offer over at his blog - but even if you're not, Garry provides a wealth of data and statistics that can be applied to a wide array of subjects from MS to photography. If you're a junkie for justice you'll love Garry.






If you're into free speech, take a look at the advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation by clicking on this banner. You need to make a donation to join but even if you don't, their website has indepth information on current court proceedings involving online activity and free speech.

Better get back to work..Cheers!