Encouraging people to find a bright side to high gas prices seems like a stretch.
But there it was, in the black-and-white type of a research study: If gas prices remain at $4 a gallon or higher for a year or more, traffic deaths could drop by at least 1,000 per month nationwide.
Michael Morrisey of the University of Alabama-Birmingham and David Grabowski of Harvard Medical School analyzed yearly vehicle deaths and their correlation to gas prices.
What they found is that as gas prices rise, people slow down and drive less. For every 10 percent that gas prices go up, fatalities are reduced 2.3 percent. Even more lives are saved among the 15- to 17-year-olds. For them, higher gas prices brought a 6 percent decline in deaths.
Lower gas prices have the opposite effect. As people drive more and faster, it wipes out the lifesaving gains from laws such as mandatory seat belts, graduated drivers licenses for youth and lower blood alcohol limits.
Amid the expense and inconvenience of high gas prices, we can console ourselves with the fact that one fewer car on the road, or one more car driving more slowly, means fewer one-way trips to the cemetery.
