Statistics and Reality

For the first year since records have been kept, motor vehicle fatalities in Canada have dropped below the 3,000 mark. When the Canada Safety Council formed in 1968, there were 5,318 traffic deaths. Fatalities peaked in 1973 at 6,706. Transport Canada reported 2,927 deaths in 1998.

While this is a significant achievement, traffic collisions continue to cause a huge drain on health care resources. At a time when Canadians are facing tough choices about health care funding, we are spending up to $25 billion annually in emergency care, rehabilitation and other costs resulting from crashes that were largely preventable

More than 600,000 traffic collisions were reported in 1997, resulting in over 200,000 injuries and 3,000 deaths. That means there's a traffic collision every minute in Canada; an injury every three minutes; and a death every three hours.

Statistics, however, can never relay the untold emotional and physical suffering for individual Canadians.

Road Safety Vision 2001 is a national effort supported by all levels of government and private sector stakeholders including the Canada Safety Council. Its initiatives aim to: raise public awareness of road safety issues; improve communication, cooperation and collaboration among road safety agencies; toughen enforcement measures; and improve national road safety data collection

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