There may be a silver lining in the pain felt at the pump these days.  Time Magazine recently noted higher gas prices causes people to drive slower and drive less.  Both “side-effects” have the potential to reduce the number of traffic accidents and fatalities in not only Georgia, but also nation wide.  Time consulted with two professors who concluded $4/gallon gas for an entire year could spare as many as 1,000 traffic fatalities per month in the US – a reduction of a 1/3rd.

What does this mean for Georgia and Atlanta residents?  The statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) show there were 1,693 deaths in Georgia for 2006.  Using the Time Magazine 1/3rd conclusion, that means $4/gallon gas could save as many as 508 Georgians a year.  Looking just to metro-Atlanta (Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett, and DeKalb), there were 361 fatalities reported in 2006.  High gas prices means that number could drop by as much as 120.

There is however an adverse effect Time Magazine did not consider.  High gas prices are changing the types of cars people are driving.  It is already all over the news that SUV usage is rapidly declining because drivers are switching to smaller, more fuel efficient cars.  Despite SUV’s bad reputation for rollovers, they still remain safer than other types of cars in terms of multi-car accidents.  I retain expert accident reconstructionists to assist in my investigations in many of my more complicated auto accident cases.  These experts usually have backgrounds in engineering or physics and can calculate forces of impact among other things.  I noticed most of the experts were driving SUV’s so I asked them why.  I thought they were going to tell me it was so they could carry around all their investigation gear.  Instead, they all said because SUV’s were safer.  Simple physics says the object with more mass will sustain less damage in an accident.  So as more and more people ditch their SUV’s and get into smaller cars, does this mean injuries will rise?  And what about motorcycles.  There were 154 motorcycle deaths in Georgia in 2006.  As more people look to motorcycles to save on gas, those statistics are sure to rise as well.