In 2022, there were 235,086,153 licensed drivers and 303,528,576 registered vehicles in the United States. These drivers drove a total of 3,196,191 million (i.e., over three trillion) vehicle miles that year. (NHTSA, August 2024) (Source: https://driving-tests.org/driving-statistics/)
Which is just over 500,000 miles between police reported crashes.
Thanks, then people are not so bad at driving after all.
I checked your numbers and you seem to be correct. Except from the chart it’s 1.38 per 100 million or 72 million miles between deadly accidents, but that is still a lot better than ½ a million that I originally thought. I’m guessing 77 was a typo? 👍
Its not that most people are shit drivers, if you could dissect the numbers further you would see a minority of drivers involved in the majority of crashes. I know people who have been in 3 crashes in the past year and have driven under 15K miles.
If you look at countries where the driver training is more vigorous and the punishment for bad driving more severe, you’ll see that accident rate plummet further. This is especially true of traffic fatalities
I have driven more than a million miles in North america over the past 20 years and been rear-ended once due to the shit driver behind me failing to stop. I have zero accidents that are my fault in my driving history. I credit it to going through the British driver training system. It was an absolute nightmare to pass but it made me a much better driver.
That sounds extremely high IMO.
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/
As far as I can tell, that 500,000 miles number is between deadly crashes.
So I’m not sure this is an apples to apples comparison.
Sorry I have to downvote the article as grossly misleading.
Edit:
Deadly crashes are 1,38 per 100 million miles! so about 72 million miles between deadly crashes. Way way better than I thought.
From the linked article:
This is about 72,000,000 miles between motor vehicle deaths, not 500,000 miles.
According to this article https://driving-tests.org/driving-statistics/:
And
Which is just over 500,000 miles between police reported crashes.
Edited to correct numbers as noted by comments!
They did the math
Thanks, then people are not so bad at driving after all.
I checked your numbers and you seem to be correct. Except from the chart it’s 1.38 per 100 million or 72 million miles between deadly accidents, but that is still a lot better than ½ a million that I originally thought. I’m guessing 77 was a typo? 👍
Thanks for checking! That was in fact a typo and I edited my comment to reflect it!
Its not that most people are shit drivers, if you could dissect the numbers further you would see a minority of drivers involved in the majority of crashes. I know people who have been in 3 crashes in the past year and have driven under 15K miles.
If you look at countries where the driver training is more vigorous and the punishment for bad driving more severe, you’ll see that accident rate plummet further. This is especially true of traffic fatalities
I have driven more than a million miles in North america over the past 20 years and been rear-ended once due to the shit driver behind me failing to stop. I have zero accidents that are my fault in my driving history. I credit it to going through the British driver training system. It was an absolute nightmare to pass but it made me a much better driver.