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July 2, 2009
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Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya
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by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts
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Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief
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The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'
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Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law
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Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip:
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June 24, 2009
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June 23, 2009
Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin
Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect
June 22, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm
N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?
June 19, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect
Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity
June 18, 2009
Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip:
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June 17, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …
June 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel
Richard Z. Chesnoff: Palestinians: Never Missing an Opportunity …
June 15, 2009
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'
Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed
June 12, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big
Caroline B. Glick:
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June 11, 2009
Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President
Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers
Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos
June 10, 2009
Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world
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by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste
June 9, 2009
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Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?
June 8, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?
Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past
Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?
June 5, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams
Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth
June 4, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock
The Kosher Gourmet
by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette
June 3, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?
Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action
June 2, 2009
Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)
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Jewish World Review
July 31, 2007
/ 16 Menachem-Av, 5767
Good news on auto accident trends
By
Michael Barone
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
When I was in second or third grade, my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Mills, was killed in an auto accident. I was told that she was in a car hit head-on by someone going the wrong way on the then new Ohio Turnpike. She was an excellent teacher, and I still feel sad when I think of her death.
The number of people killed in traffic accidents every year is daunting: 42,682 in 2006. That's more than the number of Americans killed in the Korean War and more than 10 times the number of Americans killed in Iraq.
But there's good news here. The number of traffic fatalities is going down—down 2 percent from 2005 to 2006. The relevant figure here is the number of traffic fatalities per 1 million miles driven. In 2006, that number was 1.42, the lowest number in American history, according to NHTSA's 2006 Traffic Safety Annual Assessment. Data from Historical Statistics of the United States, Millennial Edition, Volume 4, Pages 4-840 and 4-841, confirm this. There were 37,819 traffic fatalities, nearly 90 percent of the 2006 figure, as long ago as 1937, and the rate per million miles of travel was 14.00, nearly 10 times the rate for 2006. The peak years for traffic fatalities were 1969, 1972, and 1973, with 55,043, 55,600, and 55,096. But a lot more people were driving then than in 1937, and the fatalities per million miles driven had fallen to 5.18, 4.41, and 4.20, respectively. Now it's down to 1.42 per million miles driven—a huge change.
I get something of a shiver when I think back to those years, since I drove a lot more miles then than I do now. I have driven across the country only twice, in June 1969 and January 1972. In July 1972, I decided to drive down from Detroit, where I lived then, to the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach. I went down without a hotel reservation or any guarantee of access to the convention. As it turned out, I got a hotel room and a set of floor passes within a day when I arrived. But I almost didn't make it. On the trip down, I decided to make a detour and drive southeast of Chattanooga, Tenn., on Interstate 59, so that I could say that I had set foot in Alabama, a state I had never been in. At one point, I thought about passing the car ahead of me, then decided I was going fast enough and just stayed in the right lane. A few minutes later, a car came down the left lane, heading in the wrong direction. Would I have died in a head-on collision if I had moved out to pass, as Mrs. Mills had two decades before? Quite possibly. I still get something of a chill when I think about it.
Why are traffic fatalities so much less frequent, per million miles traveled, today than they were years ago? Because learning is cumulative. And because we, as a society, have taken intelligent steps to reduce traffic fatalities. Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote in the 1950s urging that cars be built more safely. He made a distinction between the external collision, between vehicle and vehicle (or fixed object), and the internal collision, between the occupant of the car and the interior of the vehicle. The internal collision, he argued, could be prevented or the damage reduced by seat belts and other devices (like the airbags that were later developed). In the 1960s, Ralph Nader followed Moynihan's lead and urged that cars be required to be built with more safety features. Congress and the regulators acted; auto manufacturers also worked to make their products safer. Roads are designed to be safer; nobody's building anything like the 1940s Pennsylvania Turnpike anymore. Crackdowns on drunk driving have clearly had an impact in reducing fatalities. And drivers have learned how to drive more safely. Government, private-sector firms, voluntary associations, conscientious individuals—all have played a role. While we're busy complaining about things, we ought to take a minute to appreciate this positive trend.
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JWR contributor Michael Barone is a columnist at U.S. News & World Report. Comment by clicking here.
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