YTD ROADWAY FATALITIES
2012 – 820
2013 – 822
I believe there was a plea at the bottom to not become a
statistic, but I was so fascinated by the numbers, I can’t remember anything
else about it. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this information. Is
it one of those records like home runs, where it took Roger Maris 40+ years to
break Babe Ruth’s record, and then only by one? It wasn’t broken again for
another 35 years, and that required steroid users? Is there a way to measure “pure”
roadway fatalities, or do steroid-induced crashes count the same way? Will the
recorders of history put an asterisk by the total?
Or is it the sort of number that gets shattered each year? I
calculated and figured out there are 67 days remaining in 2013. That’s roughly
2/11ths of a year. 1/11 of 822 is… um… 75ish. So we should expect another 150
before New Year’s Day? I’d expect winter to bring worse driving conditions and the
holidays to increase the threat of drunk driving, which leads me to question
whether we’ll break 1,000.
I caught myself drifting into the next lane because I was
concentrating so hard on the sign. Slick move, sign maker! I don’t want to add
to that number. What I did want to know was when do they update the figure? Is
there someone clicking the counter every time someone flatlines, and if so, why
have I never seen the number increase? Both of my vehicles crossed over 200,000
miles over the last month, and you better believe I watched those odometers
roll! If I parked on the side of I-65 and watched, would the number eventually count
up one by one? Or is it a tally that updates once daily? If so, when?
What happens if a car accident occurs on the border between
states, and part of the vehicle ends up in Tennessee but the rest is in Georgia,
Alabama, or Kentucky? (I’m no geography wunderkind, so I’ll quit listing states
while I’m ahead.) Does Tennessee get half credit? That seems morbid, even for a
thought pattern like this one.
I continued up I-65 toward downtown and passed a billboard advertising
treatment for Alzheimer’s. I’m pretty sure I read it, but damned if I can
remember any details.
