• sure: florida is cold. but chicago is much colder. #
• this whole political thing is going to get very boring. #
• Things to think about: false luxery or when the marleting is more luxerious than the end product / service. #

Since it’s colder than Costa Rica here in Sunny FLA, I’m doing new car research. I ended up over here at the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (aka “FARS“) and noticed something I find rather interesting. Left turns accounted for someplace between 7.2x and 10.2x the number of fatalities that right turns did. 2003 was a particularly bad year.

In full disclosure mode: These statistics are from FARS’s “Vehicles Involved in Single- and Two-Vehicle Fatal Crashes by Vehicle Maneuver”

“What does it all mean, Basil?”* you ask?

Either:

• People execute left turns 7.2-10.2x more frequently than right turns.
• People are 7.2-10.2x more careless when turning left than when turning right.
• Left turns are inherently more dangerous than right.

And before anyone brings up the Michigan Left, I’m fascinated to find out that the different in fatalities is EVEN HIGHER in The Great Lakes State: 7.2x-31.0x. Yeah: you read that right: 31.0x!!! That was in 2003.

So a follow up question of curiosity is this: what was up with 2003? Was there some economic thing? Were people feeling substantially more indestructible and therefore were willing to take more traffic risks? It would be interesting to find out.

10:00p Bonus!  Human Factors in Traffic Safety has a whole chapter called Left Turn and Gap Analysis Crashes.  Fascinating!

*Apologies to Austin Powers.