[takk309]

Drunk drivers and people that don't wear seat belts are still worth reviewing. While there are rarely engineering solutions to the fatalities that result, it can help inform education programs and initiatives. Amazingly, buckle-up and don't drive drunk advertising can make a difference.

[apendleton]

They absolutely are, but are rare enough that it's difficult to reach statistical significance when talking in the aggregate. That a particular part of town went from one fatality one year to zero fatalities the next year is probably not evidence of the success of any particular safety-related policy intervention, it's just noise. Studying all crashes provides a proxy that hopefully helps decrease the odds that the fatal ones will occur will making it possible to make robust, data-driven claims about success or failure.

[takk309]

On a project I am currently working on, we saw pedestrian fatalities shift from 7 to 13 in consecutive years. it is a nearly 100% increase but like you said, it is just noise. This is in a city with around 100,000 residence. Convincing politicians that it is just noise is a whole different story.

[jamiek88]

I came of age at the end of the campaign making drink driving socially unacceptable in the UK to the point of being a social lepper if you drive drunk, even two or three drinks not falling about drunk - so it was normal to me that you don’t combine a night out with drink and your car.

I then moved to Texas where it was still just a ‘naughty boy’ type social offense until a major campaign that is still underway changed minds and hearts about it.

I’d like to see he stats in 10 years because it has been anecdotally very successful.