High fuel price saves lives?

High fuel prices helped to save up to 140 lives this year because motorists slowed down and drove less aggressively to save money, an analysis by the AA suggests. Road deaths fell by a fifth in April, May and June, the biggest drop in any three-month period for 20 years. There were 580 deaths compared with 721 in the same period last year, the Department for Transport said. Traffic fell by 1 per cent over the period, indicating that only a small proportion of the decline in deaths was due to people driving less.

In a survey of more than 9,000 AA members conducted in August, 22 per cent said they had slowed down to save fuel and 42 per cent said they were accelerating more gently and avoiding sharp braking. Edmund King, the AA president, said: “These actions could have contributed to a reduction in deaths.” - Timesonline.com

Coincidentally, while having coffee with Audrey from Msportsbike last week, we talked about the social problem of Mat Rempits here and how high prices of higher cc bikes actually help to curb the problem from escalating; imagine dangerous machines in naive hands. And come to think of it, because of the fuel price, it may in a way help discourage these malicious groups to hang out too much on the road. But then again, it could swing the other way. When they become desperate, the frustration increases proportionately as well. They may very well do something, anything just to sustain their need for petrol. Haihh...