NHTSA just announced the number of US traffic deaths for 2010 and it was staggeringly low – 32,788. There are fewer traffic deaths now than there were in 1949, despite the fact that we drive a lot more. In fact, we drove 28.5 billion more miles in 2010 than we did in 2009, when deaths numbered more than a thousand more.
According to Freakonomics co-author Steven Dubner, there are now more suicides than traffic deaths in America.
The declining number of car wreck deaths is a testament to the power of safety engineering, but, as American Association for Justice president Gibson Vance explains in this Washington Post editorial, it’s also a tribute to trial lawyers, who have been forcing safety measures on auto manufacturers since the days of the Ford Pinto.

This blog in maintained by the Boston car accident lawyers at The Law Office of Alan H. Crede, P.C.