Over the last 30-40 years dramatic improvements have been seen in the development of new methods for saving the lives of those involved in traffic crashes. This ranges from improvements in emergency medical response systems to advanced trauma care procedures to specific surgical intervention techniques. This paper reviews the evidence for these improvements as documented in the safety and medical literature. The overall impact on traffic fatalities has been examined in several recent studies that have attempted to examine these effects empirically using data from the US, Great Britain, and international data from a selection of western countries. Overall results suggest impressive reductions in total fatalities when trends in medical care and technology improvements are controlled. This has interesting implications for maintaining future reductions in fatalities and the likelihood of attaining significant further improvements in many countries. In addition, analysts and policy makers should be aware of how fatality reductions from these factors may affect analyses of traffic safety policies. (Author/publisher).
Abstract