Automobile Fatalities and Compulsory Insurance

Report Outline
Compulsory Automobile Insurance
Automobile Accident Compensation Plans
Automobile Accident Prevention

During the last ten years automobile fatalities in the United States have more than doubled. In the same period the number of motor vehicles in operation in the United States has more than quadrupled. While the total of deaths, in proportion to the number of cars, trucks and busses registered, was cut nearly in half during the decade 1917–1926, the fatalities for each 100,000 of the population from accidents in which automobiles were involved increased from 9.9 to 19.9. The steady upward trend of automobile fatalities during this period is shown in the following table.

The foregoing estimates of automobile fatalities for the country as a whole are based upon the reports of the Census Bureau for the death registration area, which now includes 89.9 per cent of the population of the United States. They take account of deaths due to collisions of automobiles with street cars and locomotives, which are not ordinarily included in the Census Bureau's classification of automobile fatalities. Figures of comparable accuracy for the year 1927 will not be available until December, 1928, when the Census Bureau completes its compilation of last year's reports for the registration area.

Seventy six cities with populations in excess of 100,000 accounted for 28.3 per cent of the automobile deaths in 1926. Census Bureau figures show that deaths in these cities increased from 6586 in 1926 to 7016 in 1927, an increase of 6.5 per cent. If the rate of increase in the rest of the country during 1927 was the same as in these 76 large cities, the total of automobile fatalities for the year was in the neighborhood of 24,775.