[SystemSafety] Spike or No Spike in US Road Accidents after 9/11?

Peter Bernard Ladkin ladkin at rvs.uni-bielefeld.de
Thu Nov 27 07:47:00 CET 2014


After the World Trade Center attacks on 11 September 2001, it was reported that many people in the
US were driving long distances rather than flying because of concerns about commercial aviation
security. And I recall William Safire pointing to the irony of this - one is much more likely to die
through road traffic accident (the book chapter by Leonard Evans which I have referenced includes a
number of comparisons).

So I was curious whether this effect appeared in the statistics. It doesn't appear in a comparison
of the annual statistics for 2000 and 2001: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/TSF2000.pdf
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/TSF2001.pdf  There are of course confounding factors.

Does anyone know of an analysis which shows a "9/11 effect" on US road accident statistics?

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Faculty of Technology, University of Bielefeld, 33594 Bielefeld, Germany
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de






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