Traffic Deaths, Crash Testing, and Ted Nugent

You all know the "Nuge." He's the washed up rock and roller turned right-winger celeb of the era.

You may know in defense of gun ownership he recently compared gun deaths to traffic deaths and has been one of several gun defenders spouting off the seeming apples-to-oranges logic.

Here's a crappy USA Today link that attempts to bring it all together:

USA Today on Nuge's Gun Claims

The article opens with an 'interpretable' claim itself:

"Deaths from traffic accidents have dropped dramatically over the last 10 years"

Here's the ever-handy wiki of traffic deaths as a percentage of the population and the raw total to the left:

Wikipedia Traffic Deaths

A more or less constant yearly total in the 30-50 K range since the 1930s is not my idea of safe.

Also, there was a 5% increase in 2012, read here:

National Safety Council

We're not really getting anywhere.
Show me a reduction to less than 10K and I'll see real progress.

So Ted, the correct answer is that any gun and any car can be a weapon in the wrong hands.

And guns designed to kill people efficiently are more dangerous than say, a .22 caliber rifle.
High caliber weaponry is much harder to handle and control in most cases. I know. I've shot them.

Here's the funny thing though:

With the automobile-as-weapon, any idiot knows that in regards to crash testing, all the 'crumple zones,' and air bags in the industry don't mean shit when a large automobile hits a smaller one.

I know many fathers who buy their texting teenagers huge SUVs, (as big as a bathroom,) for safety.

As I've stated before, for the driver, current automobile safety technology has made them exponentially more controllable on the road than the deathtraps made in earlier eras, but the sheer size and power of these vehicles makes them devastating to what or who they may hit.

A safer car for its occupants is less safe for its target. It's an inverse relationship.

We value safe vehicles. Too bad we don't value safety for those that share the street with them.