capitalism's drive to carmageddon || news & comments
The NHTSA, which soft-peddles the phenomenon, estimates that, in 2017, 37,150 people died in U.S. car crashes. 8,210 of these people were children — individuals aged 1-24, whose brains were still maturing.
For those counting, that is a 9/11’s worth of artificial death every single month.
Somehow, it doesn’t count or even get mentioned, though, does it?
The East Coast Blizzard of 2016 is killing people, report the corporate media. Balderdash. By keeping people from driving their cars, the snowstorm is saving lives on a big scale, as is very occasionally almost acknowledged in self-same media.
“I think in reporting any story, journalists are taught that human life is the ultimate value,” said Joe Saltzman, professor of journalism at the University of Southern California. “So the first question we ask on any story is, what’s the death toll?”
Yes, quite so, except when the story is cars. There, the ultimate value is profits for corporate capitalists, so the basic facts are not newsworthy.
Per the WHO, via Harper’s magazine:
Number of deaths in traffic accidents for every 100,000 vehicles on the road in developed nations : 11
In Ethiopia : 3,865