ABSTRACT
Although the statistics of deaths and injuries on our roadways are sobering, there is an optimistic side to them. Thanks to improvements in safety, the death rate has declined significantly in the past three decades. In 2004, for example, the death rate was 1.48 deaths per million miles. This is the lowest it has been in the 40 years since such records have been kept. In 1977, the death rate was 3.3 deaths per million miles. Amazingly, the death rate has been reduced more than half in less than three decades.
