An oxymoronically happy story … about dying on the road.  

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When I was six, in 1970, road death was out of control in this country. In total, 3798 people died on the roads. Today, the annual death toll is just over 1100.  A bit less than five million vehicles were on the road in 1970. About 20 million today, in Shitsville. Population in 1970: 12.5 million. Today, double that. Four times the vehicles and twice the people - but significantly less than one third of the death. If that’s not the happiest story ever, I don’t know what is.  In 1970, nearly eight people died for every 10,000 registered vehicles. Today it’s well below 1 death for every 10,000 vehicles (0.56 in 2018). According to the Feds.  In 1970, 30-ish people died on the road for every 100,000 people in the nation. In 2018, it was about 4.5. Essentially, in real terms, the roads are between seven and 14 times safer, depending on how you decide to measure such a thing.  In 2018, we drove, collectively 227 billion kilometres. That’s 5.7 million laps of the planet. 57 million transcontinental runs from Steep Point to Cape Byron. It’s 22 return trips to Pluto, which isn’t even a planet any more - so, why bother going even once?  And, in all this driving, 1100 people died. Every death is a tragedy, certainly - I’m not suggesting those lives don’t matter. They do. There’s a burden on each of us, every time you put your hands on the wheel to act responsibly and avoid this kind of thing. It’s, like, the primary responsibility of driving.   To me, however, those 1100 deaths are tantamount to a cost of enjoying all that mobility, in an imperfect world. I’m sure many of those deaths were preventable, and I’m sure we can work on it, but it’s not out of control. It’s not even disproportionate.  If you compare those 1100 road deaths to accidental falls, which killed 3300 people in 2019, it kinda puts it in perspective. (Admittedly, the average age of the deceased there was 87.4, so that’s pretty much age-related, it seems.) Poisonous or noxious substances killed 1357 Australians in 2019 - about 200 more than on the road.  The big one for the grim reaper is what the statisticians call ‘intentional self harm. In total, this claimed 3317 Australians in 2019. Three times higher than the road toll.   (I know what a touchy subject this is. Suicide is absolutely not a solution to a problem. If this is confronting to you - call Lifeline in Australia on 13 11 14.) The median age for the deceased here: 43.9 - so, a lot of life-years lost to self-harm. Just like the road toll, and also skewed significantly towards males in both cases. Odd similarities there.  These data - from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, from: Causes of Death, Australia.  What I always find amazing is that - without controlling for risk factors specifically - the risk of dying from self harm is three times higher than that of dying on the road. That does my head in. Then I look at the resources marshalled at the prevention of road trauma versus the prevention of suicide, and I wonder about society’s priorities there.  (I’m not suggesting we take resources away from preventing road trauma - I’m suggesting we pay attention to other salient causes of preventable, premature death, to the overall betterment of society.)