Driving Is Safer Than They Tell You

I'm a big fan of mass transit, bikes, and walking, but bad numbers are not the way to get people out of their cars. Someone came up with the statistic that the rate of traffic fatalties is 1.07 deaths per million vehicle miles traveled. Then, the NYT, ABC, NBC, Bloomberg, and AP all picked up this number.

Think about that one for a moment. The average car is driven roughly 10,000 miles a year. If you have 20 friends who are regular drivers, these news outlets want you to believe that one will...