Ariz. drivers are the ones who need tips

While reading Shane Dale's slam on California drivers, I kept wondering to myself: "Are we really that bad? Are Arizonans good drivers and Californians bad drivers?" So I did what comes naturally to me, and did some research. Who would have though of that? (Shane?) It turns out that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration keeps track of this stuff. I happened to run into their latest (2001) statistics (DOT HS 809 482 at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/TSF2001/2001statedata.pdf). According to this report, there are about 20 traffic fatalities per 100,000 people each year in Arizona versus 12 in California. Hmm. It also appears that Arizonans got worse at driving between 1975 and 2001, causing a 56 percent increase in highway fatalities. Californians showed a 3 percent decrease over the same period. Moreover, there seem to be about 7 to 8 percent more drunks on average causing fatal accidents in Arizona than in California. Arizonans also die more often from not wearing seat belts. Finally, Arizonans are roughly twice as likely as Californians to kill a pedestrian or a cyclist with a vehicle. It must be all those Californian tourists trying to get away from their ugly state and crashing into each other around here!

Patrick Bolger
second language acquisition and teaching graduate student