Do you ever drive too fast?
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In 2009 over 10,000 people between the ages of sixteen
and twenty-four were killed in motor vehicle accidents—
the leading cause of death among young people. Each
month nearly as many Americans died in car crashes as
perished at the World Trade Center on September 11,
- American traffic fatalities totaled 34,000.
But it could have been worse—and once was. Duringthe decade of the 1970s, a half million Americans died in
traffic accidents—over 50,000 each year. In 1972—the worst
ever—54,589 were killed, more than the total American
deaths in the Korean War. Since Henry Ford first rolled out
the Model-T, over three and a half million Americans have
died on the nation’s roads and highways. Despite the car-
nage, automobiles have become so much a part of
American life that few can imagine living without them.
The ascendancy of the automobile over mass transit
was well-established during the 1930s. But World War II put
more Americans in motion than ever before. Afterwards,
car ownership soared. Designers produced faster and heav-
ier cars for “a wartime generation” that was far “bigger,
taller and more active” than its predecessors. The war influ-
enced automotive design in other ways. The 1955 Chevy