•• Aug. 24, 2002 •• SolarQuest® iNet News Service ••
On May 9, 2002, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta announced that the economic impact of motor vehicle crashes on America's roadways has reached $230.6 billion a year, or an average of $820 for every person living in the United States. The announcement was based on a new research study released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. What Norm didn't say is that cars kill 40,000 Americans per year, and that's the good news. Before air bags, they killed 50,000 per year and they literally did this for decades. Although we should never forget September 11 (and thanks to all of our Democratic and Republican Secretaries of Transportation for never realizing that they had a responsibility to protect the general public from jet fuel, instead of just working to maximize the number of people that fly, and for crying out load, they haven't even shut the cockpit doors yet), we lost less that 3000 folks that horrible day, while cars kill more than 3000 every single month. Some modes of transportation are inherently more dangerous than others. But our (oil company) officials rank transportation modes by how much oil they can consume per passenger mile, not on inherent safety. Mike Bullock What Mike didn't say is that PRT is virtually crash-proof and is the least expensive solution to this problem.
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