From a 2022 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report recounting 2017 data (i.e., during the Ferguson Effect, but not yet during the Floyd Effect):
American Indians (“AIAN”) are, by far, the worst drivers per mile and Asians are the best, dying about 1/8th as often per mile driven as American Indians.
Hispanics are equal to whites in road deaths per mile, which is an impressive improvement. Back in the 20th century, young Latino men were notorious drunk drivers. I can recall Thomas Sowell referencing their horrible driving statistics about 40 years ago.
But America became much less tolerant of drunk driving and… strikingly, Latinos seemed to have gotten the message. Similarly, they became less homicidal as we cracked down on crime. I would like it if social constructionist academics studied how Anglo society successfully got the message through to Latinos not to drive drunk or shoot people as much. But they won’t. (Unfortunately, both homicide and car crash death rates among Latinos shot up in 2021 after they noticed that gringo society had decided in mid-2020 that they weren’t serious about law and order anymore.)
The black death rate per mile driven was about two-thirds worse than the white rate in 2017. Before Ferguson and the rise of BLM, the ratio was lower. But, still, 1.66 times isn’t that bad. If the black murder rate were 1.66 times the white murder rate, instead of an order of magnitude worse, America would be a racial utopia. (Unfortunately, the black death rate on the streets exploded in June 2020 during the Mostly Peaceful Protests.)
What about bicycling, which our political leadership constantly encourages?
Well, bicycling is about eight times more lethal per mile than driving:
American Indians are catastrophic bike riders. Apparently, a Native American on a bike is likely an alcoholic who totaled his car. Blacks are bad too, about 18 times more likely to die per mile ridden than mile driven. Asians are 15 times worse (probably due to tending urban), while Hispanics are a dozen times worse. Whites, in their annoying spandex, are the best bike riders relative to how bad they are at driving vehicles at 6.75 times worse.
Walking is twice as dangerous per mile as bike-riding. Asians are the best walkers.
It’s scary out there for dog walkers these days. I’ve had to yank my dog out of the way of drivers making turns without looking in my direction every few months over the last year. I now raise my arm and wave my hand around whenever I step into an intersection.
Seriously, we should be doing more to improve pedestrian safety, such as putting in more stoplights. We’ve got the technology now to network them to vehicle traffic monitors and have artificial intelligence decide when would be the time least inconvenient to cross traffic for a red light to enable pedestrians to cross.
Also, when repaving roads, we should bury LEDs in all the crosswalks to flash when pedestrians are crossing. Glendale has been doing this over the last decade and it definitely rivets the attention.
