Statistics and Lives

September 11, 2008, 11:30 am; posted by
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I read an article that noted a surprising consequence of high gasoline prices: a drop in US traffic deaths, producing the lowest figure in nearly a decade. 42,708 people died in traffic accidents in 2006; the total dropped to 41,059 in 2007. 1,649 fewer people died last year, in part because gas prices rose, people drove less, and fatal accidents occurred at a diminished rate. Statistics can be so cold and calculated.

It isnʼt a crisis of faith that prompts me to think about this. I know God holds us in His hands — I’m the first to agree that we enter and leave this world on His timetable — but something about the thought of whimsical economic forces defining the boundaries of my existence baffles me. After all, you or me — either of us — could be one of those 1,649, now still free to touch and affect others in myriad untraceable ways. I guess it gets all mixed in with chaos theory, the “butterfly effect.” A dictator flaps his mouth, and on the other side of the world, 1,649 more people stay alive.

Why do I care so much about this? 43,510 people died on the highway in 2005; that’s another statistic. But one of them was more than a statistic to us. His name was Bobby, and he lived in Florida. He was 78; he had a wife; he died in an accident because my wife didnʼt see his car and pulled out in front of him.

I got to pray for him and tell him, through tears of grief, how sorry she was. We shared an emergency room together — Bobby with internal injuries, my wife with a fractured neck.

Itʼs been almost three years now, but sometimes the shadow of that grief passes over my wife again, and I can see it. A scene from some movie, or an offhand comment, can bring the whole thing back, and I try to comfort her. I remind her that there were extenuating circumstances. The intersection was under construction: barrels, equipment, confusing signs. Her accident was the second that day at the intersection, the sixth in two weeks. Someone was rushing her, vigorously motioning from the far side of the intersection for her to hurry up. She looked twice, both ways, and saw no one. The gentleman was speeding.

I remind her that there was an investigation, and no negligence was found. She was not speeding, talking on her cell phone, or using drugs or alcohol; in fact, in over 30 years of driving, she never had so much as a single speeding ticket on her record.

I remind her that it was an accident.

It passes eventually, and sheʼs okay again. Itʼs just life, and if Iʼve learned anything in life, Iʼve learned that everyone has to learn to live with pain. Every family has a statistic or a skeleton that can jump out of the closet at any moment and reopen old wounds.

It just seems so capricious; so arbitrary. Gas hits $4 a gallon and 1,649 people live who would have died.

But 2005 is history; unchangeable.


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