|
Posted Jan 7, 2013, 11:48 PM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Toronto
Posts: 52,200
|
|
Are Some Cities Built to Encourage Drunk Driving?
Are Some Cities Built to Encourage Drunk Driving?
January 7th, 2013
By Henry Grabar
Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/com...-driving/4325/
Quote:
.....
The bulk of the data, though, involves the 25 largest U.S. cities, sorted in a chart by four different metrics:
• The 25 Most Populous Cities in the United States
• Fatal Traffic Crashes per 1,000 People
• Fatal Traffic Crashes Involving Intoxication per 1,000 People
• Rate of Fatal Crashes Involving Intoxication
.....
1. Relatively safe cities for driving
New York City and Philadelphia are the biggest ones in this category, but there are a number of smaller municipalities that also qualify – Baltimore, Washington D.C., Boston, and San Francisco. They have a low number of fatal car accidents per capita, a low number of fatal accidents per capita involving intoxication, and the percentage of fatal accidents that involve alcohol is also low.
2. Across-the-board dangerous cities for driving
The roads of Houston, Phoenix, Dallas, and Jacksonville all seem like great places to avoid. Statistically, these are some of the least safe large cities for driving in the United States. Between 2001 and 2010, each of them had a rate of fatal car accidents higher than one per thousand residents. They also had very high rates of fatalities involving intoxication.
3. Cities whose roads are generally safe, but with high rates of drunk driving
The fourth column indicates the percentage of fatal crashes that involved intoxication, also understood as the ratio of columns two and three. Here lie some of the chart's most interesting findings. Many cities, from the safe-driving (NYC, Boston) to the not-so-safe-driving (Phoenix, Houston) have similar positions in all three lists. But not all. Some cities with fewer fatalities per capita move sharply up the table in column four. Consider Seattle, Chicago, San Jose and San Diego. They are all in the bottom ten for fatalities per capita. A large percentage of those fatalities, though, involve alcohol, putting them in the top ten for rates of fatal accidents where intoxication was involved.
4. Memphis
Memphis is a bizarre outlier here, 3rd in fatal crashes per capita, but 18th in fatal crashes involving intoxication per capita. Measured by percentage of fatal crashes involving intoxication, Memphis is last, with a lower rate -- 14 percent -- than even New York City! This is so curious I'm working on a follow-up post on why Memphis is such an outlier.
5. Do Southerners drive drunk less?
Nelson also calculated which U.S. cities have the highest and lowest percentages of fatal crashes involving intoxication, regardless of size. Even with no population restrictions, New York and Memphis are on that list, joined by Birmingham and Salt Lake City. Five of the ten are in the South. Remember -- this is not necessarily an endorsement of these cities as places to drive. Memphis has more fatalities per capita than all but two of the largest U.S. cities.
.....
- But now is a good time to point out a caveat: these per capita statistics weigh accidents within city lines against city population, as an approximate indicator of how many people are driving. This makes some cities look deceptively small, though as anchors of metro areas they contain a much larger number of drivers, many of whom commute in and out of the city. Since the population of many cities -- L.A., Houston, Phoenix, San Diego, etc. -- hovers at around one-third that of their metro area, the effect is pretty evenly distributed.
Here's the top ten:
1. Birmingham, Alabama (13.6 percent)
2. Coral Springs, Florida (13.7 percent)
3. Memphis, Tennessee (14.7 percent)
4. Miramar, Florida (14.8 percent)
5. Provo, Utah (15.4 percent)
6. New York, New York (16.3 percent)
7. Surprise, Arizona (16.7 percent)
8. Hialeah, Florida (16.7 percent)
9. Salt Lake City, Utah (17.7 percent)
10. Miami Gardens, Florida (18.3 percent)
And the highest, in which fatal crashes involve intoxication more often than not. Three are in Colorado; two in Wisconsin. None are in the South:
1. Stamford, Connecticut (55.8 percent)
2. Flint, Michigan (55.6 percent)
3. Bellevue, Washington (54.6 percent)
4. Santa Maria, California (54.2 percent)
5. Denver, Colorado (54.2 percent)
6. Colorado Springs, Colorado (54.1 percent)
7. Green Bay, Wisconsin (52.6 percent
8. Lakewood, Colorado (52.5 percent)
9. Billings, Montana (52.5 percent)
10. Madison, Wisconsin (52.3 percent)
.....
|
__________________
ASDFGHJK
|
|
|