I heard once that more Americans died in fatal car
accidents during the Vietnam war than the number of
Americans that died in combat during the war. No one
believes me. If it is true, it is an interesting
fact that you could comment on.
You can find the information for 1997 here 41,480 died in traffic accidents. I believe that the 60’s and 70’s averaged somewhat higher, about 50,000 but was unable to find the information quickly. There were about 56,000 killed in Vietnam over a 10 year period, during the same period there were about 500,000 killed in traffic accidents in the United States. There were lots of demonstrations against the war, no demonstrations against automobiles.
This from the UK traffic statistics office,
Now given that the population of the UK is around one fifth fo the US then for the US to have traffic mortality at our levels would mean around 17500.
I know that I am not comparing like with like given that the mileage by the US citizen is probably much greater than the but take that together with other violents deaths, such as murder which is just over 8 times our per capita rate, it just makes me think what a stressed out dangerous place the US can be.
According to info at this site http://www.dps.state.mn.us/trafsafe/97crashfacts/introtoc/introduction.html
There were 53,041 traffic fatalities in the U.S. in 1966 alone. You can probably come up with a reasonable estimate for that compares with the number of U.S. fatalities in Vietnam.
One obvious reason for there being more traffic fatalities is that there many more people who ride in cars than serve in the Army. You had a much better chance of coming home in a body bag from Vietnam than you do getting in your car and driving down to the grocery store.