Most weather deaths from car crashes
Although it’s the large weather events such as tornadoes and hurricanes that get most of the news media’s attention, the U.S.’s biggest weather killer by far is car accidents, said James Koermer, a meteorology professor at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.
On average, more than 7,000 Americans die in weather-related wrecks each year on our nation’s highways, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration. The FHA defines weather-related crashes as those that occur in adverse weather such as rain, sleet, snow or fog, or on slick pavement.
Although the news media do pay some attention to multicar pileups — of which there have been at least 19 on U.S. highways so far this year, leaving eight people dead and 700 wrecked cars — it’s the mundane but still tragic single- or two-car accidents on wet roads that cause most of the deaths.
“There is such a focus on the big events that to have one or two people dying at a time just isn’t a catastrophic event,” said Kevin Petty, chief science officer of Finnish meteorology firm Vaisala, which studies the subject.
Until very recently, “there was no awareness of how big an issue it is,” said Sheldon Drobot, science program manager of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. Indeed, these numbers are not included in the National Weather Service’s toll of annual deaths caused by weather, which usually numbers in the hundreds, mostly from heat, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods.
“The weather event must be an active agent in the fatality or
‘‘ If heavy snow falls from a tree and crushes someone, that would be the snow killing the person. If the roads are slippery and someone crashes and dies, that would be the person’s driving too fast in the elements that killed the person.”
Weather service spokesman injury,” weather service spokesman Chris Vaccaro said. “If heavy snow falls from a tree and crushes someone, that would be the snow killing the person. If the roads are slippery and someone crashes and dies, that would be the person’s driv- ing too fast in the elements that killed the person.”
At Vaisala, Petty said there is “a growing understanding that we have to bring traffic and weather together.
“Cars themselves have the ability to sense what’s going on in the environment, and the key is to share the information with the other nearby vehicles on the road, such as those following 10 miles behind,” he said.
At NCAR, Drobot is overseeing development of a prototype system, known as the “Vehicle Data Translator,” to provide drivers with up-to-the-minute information on road and atmosphere conditions.
The system will use wireless technology to use cars as mobile weather stations, collecting and relaying detailed information about local weather and road conditions and thereby helping prevent other drivers from being surprised by such hazards as black ice, fog, and hail.
The idea is to eventually have data sampling of all cars on the road.
“Cars have all these computers in them nowadays, and they’re incredibly complicated. They know all kinds of stuff that’s going on, but they don’t really share that information,” said Drobot, principal investigator of the research project, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation.