Changing patterns in motor vehicle crash mortality: 1940-1980

Overall motor vehicle mortality rates in the United States varied little between 1940 (26 deaths per 100,000 per year) and 1980 (23 deaths per 100,000 per year). However, the distribution of motor vehicle deaths by age, sex, and road user status has changed considerably. Among the elderly there has been a substantial increase in motor vehicle death rates. The result of these changes, and of the altered age structure of the population, is that the number of years of life lost to motor vehicle crash injury before age 70 has increased 84 percent between 1940 and 1980.