The first question, clearly rhetorical, begs analysis of the thornier issue noted by almost all of the bloggers of our seeming “societal willingness” to tolerate such numbers.  As one blogger put it: were such numbers “the result of “disease, contagion or environmental disaster people would be marching in the streets and raising money door to door.”  Another highlights the scale of the problem by comparing the fatalities for each month to the “same number of people who were killed on 9/11.”  Recognizing that we distinguish road fatalities from other causes of death and react differently to them is at the heart of the notion of there being a ‘tolerance’.

 

The bloggers offer a number of explanations:

 

Above all, we accept these tragedies as “the cost we pay for the mobility we enjoy.”  We seem psychologically able to tolerate a certain number of deaths—the cost—and collectively will drive recklessly until the number exceeds the limit of our tolerance—the cost becomes too high.

 

But we also don’t see the ‘big picture’.  Crashes “happen in small numbers, are geographically dispersed and aren’t considered headline-grabbing news.”  Taken one by one, crash fatalities and injuries are comparatively small, discrete tragedies that are “all too easy to ignore.”

 

Fundamentally, argues one, our tolerance stems from having “built our communities for cars, not people.”  Starting in the 1930’s, “America changed the DNA of its cities in a manner that led to auto-centric streets and places” that ultimately led to accessibility “almost exclusively by car.”

 

Plus we see ourselves as being in control of our individual “crash” destiny.  Studies show that drivers know about unsafe driving behaviours but nevertheless choose to engage in them and also find it easy to blame “the drunk or careless driver saying it can’t happen to me.”

 

Our tolerance stems from courtesy and deference to competing interests: of the telecommunications industry, of the automakers, and even of the distillers and food service interests.”  We tolerate lack of driving skillfulness “in service to the most American notion of universal mobility” and while generally favouring health and safety, “dislike [any] restrictions on personal freedom or comfort.”

 

Some link tolerance to character shortcomings:

 

We lack the stomach for the fight to make the changes that would really work.  We lack vision: “many of us haven’t realized that we can do far better.”  And our tolerance is a manifestation of our collective unwillingness to take responsibility for our own actions and to make safety “Priority No. 1.”

 

To read the eleven answers in their entirety, google ‘New York Times Room for Debate’ and search ‘Do We Tolerate Too Many Traffic Deaths?’