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Original Research

Author comment: In the weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, many Americans chose to drive long distances rather than to fly. At least one study has suggested that the number of car-related fatalities increased during that period. We were curious about whether car-related injuries had also increased. By analyzing publicly-available traffic incident data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, just for the days in September after the 11th, we found some evidence that the number of non-incapacitating car-related injuries increased in the last 2 weeks of September 2001 compared to the same dates in the previous year. At the state level, this observation was also true in New York, though not in any of the other examined states. While these findings are by no means conclusive, they do suggest a need for improvement in risk communication, as individuals may make poor and possibly dangerous choices for fear of risks (such as terrorism) that may have been inflated by word-of-mouth and by the lay media.

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Driving deaths and injuries post-9/11

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