Graph: Annual Minnesota motor vehicle, pedestrian and bicycle fatalities
Posted October 2nd, 2008 by Antonio Rosell
MinnesotaFatalities-motor_and_non-motor.jpg
Annual Minnesota fatalities for pedestrians, cyclists, and people traveling in motor vehicles. Data source: US Department of Transportation.
A graph showing Minnesota motor vehicle occupant fatalities and pedestrian and bicycle fatalities for the years 1994 to 2006.
On average, more than one motor vehicle occupant is killed on Minnesota roads everyday. In 2006 (the most recent year for which statistics are available), 446 Minnesota motor vehicle occupants were killed in crashes.
Annually, more than 41,000 people are killed in motor vehicle crashes across the US.
Compiled from data collected by the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) of the US Department of Transportation.
A higher-resolution graph image is included as an attachment to this post.
Link to additional information:
| Attachment | Size |
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| MinnesotaFatalities-motor_and_non-motor.jpg | 191.82 KB |
per VMT
It is hard to really draw conclusions about the relative safety of each mode with this data alone. It would help to see this same graph with each mode divided by VMT or VHT. Unfortunately, pedestrian and bike VMT/VHT are hard to estimate.
A fatality is a fatality is a fatality
I don't think the graph is trying to make any claims about the relative safety of one mode over another - I see it as simply showing the number of people killed as a result of collisions for each of the travel modes listed. I think we forget about the human toll of our present automobile-centered transportation network - 41,000 people per year killed in the US! How many 9-11s is that? And what are we doing to address it?
Plus, even if you had VMT/VHT data, that wouldn't shed any light on the different characteristics of and reasons for choosing each mode (you most likely wouldn't walk clear across town, in the same way you wouldn't ride your bike to Duluth). And nobody is collecting or estimating that data anyway!
vmt/vht?
I know you planners are very smarrt and all, but please stop using abreviations nobody knows - what is VMT/VHT? Thank you.
Jim
Vehicle Miles Traveled and Vehicle Hours Traveled
There you go Jim. Please feel free to post any other questions you might have. Our intent is to make this information as accessible as possible so your comment is very helpful in that regard.
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