Driving Fatalities Surge on U.S. Presidential Election Days
Sunnybrook researcher Dr. Donald
Redelmeier and StanfordUniversity statistician
Robert Tibshirani have found an increased risk of fatal motor vehicle crashes
on United States (US) presidential election days.
The investigation looked at all US presidential election days over
the last 32 years, from Jimmy Carter in 1976 to George Bush in 2004, during the
hours of polling. They also looked at the same hours on the Tuesday immediately
before and immediately after as control days. Their main finding was that
the average presidential election led to about 24 deaths from motor vehicle
crashes.
"We thought efforts that mobilize about 55 per
cent of the population to vote, along with US reliance on motor vehicle travel,
might result in increased fatal motor vehicle crashes during US presidential
elections," says Redelmeier, lead investigator of the study and staff physician
at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, "indeed, we found a significant increase
in traffic deaths on election days."