Driving Fatalities on US Presidential Election Days
- Donald A. Redelmeier, MD, MSHSR dar@ices.on.caDepartment of MedicineUniversity of TorontoToronto, Ontario, Canada;
- Robert J. Tibshirani, PhDDepartment of Health Research and PolicyStanford UniversityStanford, California
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
To the Editor: The results of US presidential elections have large effects on public health by their influence on health policy, the economy, and diverse political decisions. We are unaware of studies testing whether the US presidential electoral process itself has a direct effect on public health. We hypothesized that mobilizing approximately 50% to 55% of the population,1 along with US reliance on motor vehicle travel, might result in an increased number of fatal motor vehicle crashes during US presidential elections.
Methods
We analyzed national data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System of fatal crashes in the United States from 1975 to 2006.2 We included all presidential elections since database inception (from Jimmy Carter in 1976 through George W. Bush in 2004) during the hours of polling (defined as 8:00 AM to 7:59 PM local time). For each election, we also identified the same hours on the Tuesdays immediately …
