Buckle Up on Election Day

Sept. 30, 2008 -- Be extra careful driving on Nov. 4, because driving deaths tend to increase on U.S. presidential election days.

In fact, there are more traffic-related deaths on presidential election days than on the day of the Super Bowl, according to a report in tomorrow's edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

The report comes from Donald Redelmeier, MD, of Canada's University of Toronto and Robert Tibshirani, PhD, of Stanford University.

Using a national database, they counted the number of driving deaths on every presidential election day from 1976 (when Jimmy Carter was elected) to 2004 (when George W. Bush won).

For comparison, Redelmeier and Tibshirani also tracked the number of crash fatalities on the Tuesdays immediately before and after presidential election days.

An average of 158 people died in crashes per presidential election day, compared with 134 crash deaths per day on Tuesdays before and after presidential election days.

The typical victim was a young adult driving in a Southern state. Polling hours and whether a Democrat or Republican was elected didn't affect the trend.

Why would presidential election days be particularly deadly on the roads? There are more people on the roads, and if they're speeding, distracted, and not familiar with where they're going, those could all be factors, Redelmeier and Tibshirani say.

Their advice: Get-out-the-vote campaigners should emphasize basic driving safety tips, such as wearing your seatbelt, not speeding, abstaining from alcohol, and minimizing distractions.

The researchers' other suggestions include subsidized public transportation, voting centers within walking distances, tamper-proof remote voting, or more traffic enforcement on Election Day.