Traffic accidents tend to be more fatal in the countryside, where cars travel at higher speeds.
Another study has come out suggesting that life in the city is safer than life in the suburbs and countryside. In “Safety in Numbers: Are Major Cities the Safest Places in the United States,” Sage R. Myers and several co-authors run the numbers on fatal injuries from a wide range of causes, ranging from murders, automobile accidents and suicides to fire, flood, industrial accidents and even animal attacks.
And how many city dwellers die in forest fires? Eh? I bet you didn’t think of that.
Between 1999 to 2006, nearly 1.3 million people died of injuries in the United States. Injury is the No. 1 cause of death for Americans 44 years old and younger. From a political perspective, the injuries that matter the most are those caused by crime. Crime generates the most fear and has driven the middle class from central cities where crime rates are highest. But crime accounts for only a fraction of all injuries, and cities actually tend to be safer. The conclusion:
Despite public perception to the contrary, when all types of injuries are considered together, rural areas, not urban, bear a disproportionate amount of injury-related mortality risk in the United States. Although variability among urban areas clearly exists, when urban areas were considered as a group, risk of serious injury resulting in death was approximately 20% lower than in the most rural areas of the country.
Speaking on a national scale, the incidence of motor vehicle fatalities, which occur more frequently in low-density human settlement patterns, outweigh the incidence of murders, which occur more frequently in higher-density areas.
But there is a fair amount of variability within the counties of major cities. San Jose and New York are the safest two of 23 major cities detailed in the report, while Las Vegas and Philadelphia were the least safe. No figures were provided for Virginia cities or Washington, D.C.
— JAB
