I like comparisons, especially ones based on proportions.  Why?Because they’re fun!

But they’re more than just fun. Comparisons are an essential way of making sense of the world, while proportions help you figure out if there are any elephants in the room, metaphorically speaking. To put it another way, comparisons through  proportions give you a quick and accurate way of understanding whether certain figures (e.g., the number of miles driven annually by the average adult or the number of people killed per 100,000 due to road traffic) are larger or smaller than you’d expect them to be when crosschecked with other countries.

Which kinds of comparisons stand out?

We once looked at how many children died per year due to road traffic in Norway compared to in the US, and concluded that it was far, far safer to be a child in Norway than one in the US. At another time, we compared the per capita death rates in Iceland to those of every state in the United States, and concluded that it was far safer to be a driver in Iceland than anywhere in the US, and several times safer than a state with a similar population and size, Wyoming. Another time, we compared the average number of miles driven per man and woman in the US with those driven in Norway, Sweden, and the UK, and deduced that we drove a lot more in the US each year.

What about car seats? Alcohol? Where else have we looked?

At another time, we compared the kinds of car seats available in Sweden to those available in the US to figure out whether or not the seats were why kids were so much less likely to die in road traffic there than here. We’ve looked at how much alcohol you can get away with drinking before getting behind the wheel in the United States compared to amounts in other wealthy countries. Most recently, we took a look at how current laws by US state regarding car seat use compared to those based on best practices in Sweden to see which differences, if any, existed between the average US state and Swedish national policy.

These comparisons teach us things. In many cases, they underscore how important simple behavioral changes (such as driving less or at slower speeds or on safer roads) can add up to the tune of thousands of lives saved–or lost–per year. At a very personal level, they can give us the tools to help us make it home to our loved ones each night.

We do many things right. But we’ve still got a ways to go

It’s important to be able to learn from our neighbors, because there are a great many things we do in the United States that, while better than they are in a great many poor countries, are far worse than how things are done in a great many rich countries. We can learn from Sweden about how long kids actually benefit from rear-facing. We can learn from the UK about how important it is to limit our annual miles. We can learn from Iceland about how few deaths we actually need to accept per capita if we make safe driving and community-oriented living national level priorities. We need fewer heros and more Vision Zeroes.

We need to be able to learn from each other to improve.

If you find my information on best practices in car and car seat safety helpful, you can buy my books here or do your shopping through this Amazon link. Canadians can shop here for Canadian purchases.  It costs nothing extra to do so, but when you shop through my links, a small portion of your purchase, regardless of what you buy, will go toward the maintenance of The Car Crash Detective.