FIRE! Part 2: 2 FIREZ 2 FURIOUS

Last week when I wrote that post about fire, I forgot that I had this buried in my archives of drafts meant-to-be-but-never-written.

You know that fun (read: stupid; read: I don't think even they believe it, they're just afraid of change) refrain you hear from opponents of road-calming measures about how the bike lane/bulb-out/crosswalk is going to kill Grandma because it's going to keep the ambulance from getting to her in time?

I'll hand it over to YMIWT guest commentator Tom Vanderbilt, author of the fabulous Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do and What It Says About Us.

…the risk of dying in a fire in the U.S. is roughly the same as drowning: In one year, 1 in 88,000, and, over a lifetime, 1 in 1100. The risk of dying in a car crash, according to the article, is 1 out of 6500 in a year. The risk of being killed while being a pedestrian? “A one-year risk of one in 48,500 and a lifetime risk of one in 625.”

Designing roads to meet some supposed emergency response criteria, for that dramatic last-second rescue, actually helps raise the risk of dying in a much more common way: In traffic.

Thanks, Tom.

So, it turns out not only is that blatantly wrong, but the roads that we keep as big, fast (see above) traffic sewers so all the grandmas won't burn to death?  Yeah, they're actually a serious danger to the firefighters coming to her rescue, too.

"The United States Fire Administration...cites motor vehicle crashes as the cause of death for between 20–25% of the annual line-of-duty fatalities. Motor vehicle crashes are the second highest cause of death for firefighters. The leading cause of death is stress and overexertion which accounts for approximately 50% of the fatalities"

Occupational driving injuries are a big deal.  If you drive for work, they're a big deal for you, too. Most of us don't get our hands chopped off in machinery anymore (though you might be shocked how much that still happens even in the US), but we do face significant danger from driving for work. The annual risk of dying in a road accident for drivers who average >25 000 miles per year is 1 in 7000, a figure comparable with coal mining and worse than the construction industry (Harris 2004).  Road traffic injuries cost US employers $60 billion annually, 

Shocked?  I hope not.  Some damn bike lane might keep the paramedics from rescuing you...