US Government: 38,000 People Die Yearly In Car Crashes, More Than On 747s

According to the report, the 747 comparison has been repeated often, mainly because one hasn't gone down with a tragic total loss of life since 1996 (and that was Saudi Arabian Airlines).

The death of 38,000 people per annum in the U.S. is an alarming number of deaths every year.

Although the number has declined somewhat in recent years, it has been ticking back up as more Americans drive amid the economic recovery and cheaper gas prices, the report said.

And the auto industry has made great strides with safety since the 1980s. Nevertheless, if you knew today almost 40,000 people would die every year in exchange for abundant personal mobility, you might question whether the personal car was such as great idea, the report said.
The drive for self-driving cars is getting more and more serious as the U.S. government prepares to regulate these cars more stringently, with new rules coming next month, Business Insider reports.

Mark Rosekind, who oversees the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), took the opportunity to say as exciting as self-driving vehicles could be, they have a long way to go before they improve on one of the grimmest statistics around: the 38,000 people who are killed annually in the U.S. in car accidents, Bloomberg's Keith Naughton reports.
SOURCE: WN.com, Jack Durschlag "It's a 747 crashing every week for a year, that's what the losses are on our highways. And that is unacceptable.” – Mark Rosalind, NHTSA