But traffic fatalities are real whereas pollution fatalities are entirely imaginary. Show us a body!
CarAdvice reports:
A team from MIT’s Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment found that of the 200,000 premature deaths in the US caused by changes in concentrations of fine particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) every year, road transportation emissions account for around 53,000 per year, or roughly one quarter.
Titled ‘Air pollution and early deaths in the United States’ and published in the journal Atmospheric Environment, the paper assesses the health impacts of major emissions sectors in US via a multiscale air quality model.
A surprising map of countries that have the most traffic deaths
Washington Post: But outside of Russia, road safety has increasingly become a major issue around the world as the middle class grows. Thanks to a combination of insufficient or nonexistent safety laws, poor infrastructure and a lack of enforcement, low- and middle-income countries account for 48 percent of the world’s vehicles but more than 90 percent of the world’s road traffic fatalities. The economic cost of road collisions to low- and middle-income countries is at least $100 billion a year.
Each year, 1.3 million people die in car accidents, so these 10 countries are responsible for nearly half of all road deaths. Overall, though, India is responsible for the highest overall number of road deaths, followed by China and the U.S. Meanwhile, Eritrea is home to the highest concentration of road deaths (48.4 per 100,000 people), followed by the Cook Islands, Egypt and Libya, according to World Health Organization figures.
The WHO also estimates that road traffic fatalities will be the fifth leading cause of death by 2030.
It’s such a big problem, in fact, that the U.N. feels it needs an entire decade to fix it. In 2011, the U.N. launched a “Decade of Action” that aims to “stabilize and
then reduce” global road traffic fatalities by 2020.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/01/18/a-surprising-map-of-countries-that-have-the-most-traffic-deaths/
The same way MIT did, guessed.
How do they know how long the 200,000 people would have lived in a pristine world? What if half had fatal illnesses that would have killed them anyway?
Did you factor in the size of the car, engine displacement and other factors? I drove about 700 miles this weekend, in a Tahoe pulling a trailer. I probably had a larger premature death potential. I didn’t see any premature deaths reported on my route. How did you get your stats?
I drove a 100 mile round trip to see my mother yesterday so by MIT’s calculations I must have killed at least 2 people.