Fun Facts
 

I found out today from my socials 11 teacher that while 9/11 was a travesty only appx. 3500 people died, not wounded or injured, but died.

each day in America alone appx. 5000 people die from vehicle related accidents. Hit and runs, pedestrians, collisions etc.

Why isnt this in the news more often?

Re: Fun Facts
 

It is, but you're in Canada so you don't see my Local news, which a few months ago went something like this:

Shooting
Murder
Abduction/Amber Alert
Health
Murder
Protests
Shooting
Accident
Lakers
Weather

and all sorts of stuff in between.

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Because those few thousand people a day die from traffic accidents. The people who died on September 11th were attacked by terrorists. Minor difference there...

How many people each day die of vehicle related accidents in Canada?

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i couldnt find recent ones, but im guessing that its not too far off.

In the year of 2001, in all of Canada 2778 people died from vehicle related accidents.

Nothing compared to the 5000 A DAY in America.

I worked it out, and about 7.6 people die a day in Canada from vehicle related accidents.

But be reminded that these stats are 3 years old, ill try find newer ones.

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Accidents are accidents. They are unfortunate events that happen without the intent to cause harm.

Terrorism is done with the intent to kill a few to bully the majority into cow-towing to the terrorists political/social agenda. Example: Spain.

Like Bond said, there is a BIG difference.

As for agendas... it seems like your teacher has one of their own to compare auto accidents with the 9/11 terrorist attack. I wonder if he/she would think the same thing if several planes crashed in Toronto, Montreal and took down the CN Tower killing thousands in the process.

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Im sure he wasnt comparing the terrorist attacks to the vehicle accident deaths. But it got me wondering why more stuff isnt done to stop accidents, i dont know how they would do it though.

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Also news, there's more radioactive buildup in the Columbia river than the entire world's bomb supply. And funny to say, it's natural. Radiation occurs in every stream.

Propaganda ahoy!

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Are they exactly the same?
I am so glad you find this amusing, .I do not understand.
What time is it there?

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I actually think everything that can really be done to prevent auto accidents is being done short of lowering the national speed limit to 25 mph.

Human beings are accident prone, and when you put that tendency behind a 1 ton hunk of metal, sometimes people die.

The real way to help prevent more accidents would be to promote a national form of public transportation, but considering the sheer size of the USA, that would be fiscally impossible.

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Well not EXACTLY the same Camfubot. And it's dinner time over here. I better go eat!

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Well, going to war is deemed fiscally possible by the government. I'm sure that if the US didn't stick their nose into so many other countries' business then there would be more money for stuff 'back home' like a national transit system.

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On the original comparison factor (which I know is not an issue anymore) but I just wanted to say that part of the reason the car accidents go un-noticed is because each accident is small to the country. But something like thousands of people dieing in one incident is big.

And I do think it is crazy that Americans have more traffic accidents but the way our society grew makes it really difficult to do anything different

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Are you entirely sure the 5000 a day number is accurate? It sounds like an urban legend to me, and I've heard teachers spout those off as facts before.


*shrugs and walks away*

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Appx. means approximately, and he showed me a sheet from one of his other students Law 12 classes, ( it was a sheet on auto accidents in north america and what could be dont to prevent them) Urban myth or not, im pretty sure the numbers are up there all right.


Think about it, U.S.A. has hundreds of millions of people, so this is only a fraction of the population each day.

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It's just that its a very large number (no matter what the actual percentage is) and its certainly not unheard of for someone to exaggerate something and call it fact for some purpose and then spread it around.


*shrugs and walks away*

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Wow, someone actually turned a thread about car accidents into a tirade against the war. High points for creativity, but none for validity.

Building and maintaining a nationwide public transportation system throughout the US would make the money spent in Iraq seem like just enough for a cup of coffee, and the time spent doing it would make the past year of conflict seem like 10 minutes.

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In a sense, not fully, i agree with bouncer. Because America does spend ridiculously high amounts of money on war related items. and dont change the subject and say so does China, because we are talking about America.

Just think if they cut "a few" bucks from the war items, and put them into other things, for lack of better, transportation, there would be alot less deaths.

But bouncer, dont go off about war on a transportation thread... :p

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Just pointing out that there's a couple hundred billion dollars being spent right now that could go to something like starting a national transportation system or other projects that would help the infrastructure and mostly the lower income population.

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And next time you're up for President I'll make sure to have everyone I know vote for you because you know exactly how and why to do everything!

You know, as opposed to the people who have done this stuff for their whole lives.

I'm not saying Bush is a perfect President or anything, I'm just saying that it probably wouldn't have been so easy as not having a war and spending the money on transit.

Besides, what do you care about America's trasnportation system? You're Canadian.


*shrugs and walks away*

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Im pretty sure its a general interest thing, like why did Americans post on the "Green party" thread? its a thread that only relates to Canadians, its all general interest.

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Don't start making that your auto response to every political opinion on this board.

The army has a great effect on the economy. The scaling back of it would have bad results. But, at the same time that money is also being pumped back into the country and building up a stronger society as a whole. Let's take an example from Hitler. He started the building of the Autoban road system. That boosted economy and pretty much revolutionized transportation in Germany at the time.

I know this is hard to grasph for many americans but politics don't end at your country's border. I can't help but be interested in what's happening in the most powerful country on earth.

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We have the Green Party here in America too, and also considering the amount of weed that is illegally brought to America from Canada, the Green Party being elected has definite reprocussions to us.

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On the original subject of the thread, my professor pointed something similar out to that. Like she asked us, what we think occurred more often, plane crashes or auto accidents. And of course the correct response is auto accident but you would hear about an airplane crash a lot more than a car accident.

The simple fact is, car accidents are far too common, trying to make a car accident seem new is like saying it's gonna rain, it really doesn't seem to affect too many people. Now a plane going down that's a big deal. They have to see what went wrong to hopefully prevent it in the future.

It's similar to the 9/11, car accident comparision, in the fact that 9/11 was a huge deal because it was uncalled for, it wasn't an accident and was a planned assault.

On the issue of public transportation, take it from me, it wouldn't work no matter how much money your pour into it. I mean as far as I can remember the toll for it here has increased like 75 cents in the last 6 years or so. Which may not seem like a lot, but you factor in most people have round trips, and like 5 days a week, it really starts to add up fast.

Then you got to deal with delays, breakdowns, attacks and all this other stuff. The upkeep expense is just too much. Even in my city, I can only imagine the nightmare of a country wide one.

:(

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Just to provide the real statistics so no one is misinformed:

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if ghe world took military funding of 3 days and put it aside, it would be enough the put everyone alive in a home with food for the rest of their lives..... just a fun fact

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bingo... she probably watched a michael moore video and came up with the numbers....

so that's about 100 a day, not 5000....

either that or 4900 people a day are killed by cars as pedestrians.

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Umm... Good for it?

*doesn't see how it's relevant*


*shrugs and walks away*

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Whos this "she" you keep referring to?

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Probably your teacher who supplied the "fun fabrications."

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This is a perfect example of a lot of the misinformation that is not only going around the media, but our damn school systems as well. How the hell are our kids going to grow up being free thinkers when teachers, and I'm not just talking about your teacher Typhoid, feel the need to taint lessons with politics slanted to their particular brand of propoganda.

I'm going to school to become a teacher, and one of the first things I id was promise myself to present every side of an argument, and let the student decide for themselves. If a student is positive that one idea is true, I will present him with the argument forthe counter to that idea. It's called creating Cognitive Disequilibrium and is a Contructivist way to let students decide for themselves what their views are, and not simply to shove your ideas down their impressionable throats.

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read the first post i made ( i think) i mentioned he found it on the ground because a student from a law class left it behind, so he read it out, these wernt his opinions, the sheet was from some states website...( i think it was like, Alabama or something) and he was reading it out in front of the class.

just to clear it up, and i agree, it does sound like a high number, but if you look at the population of America it sounds reasonable.

And it wasnt talking about vehicle-vehicle collisions, it included pedestrians hit by hit& runs, and things like that.