I saw this today and thought it painted a pretty dramatic and frightening picture of the risks of being young in this country.
The article is very short but the graph really tells the story.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/04/daily-chart-14

I am struck by two things. 1) The extraordinary degree to which our (U.S) young people die by violence such as homicide or accidental shootings., and 2) New Zealand’s extraordinary rate of suicides in that age group (What’s up with that?)

To think about: it is the price for living in a free country.

Compare the political climate between the countries, and there is a tendency from the countries higher on the list to down the list.

Do you all agree to pay this price?

I didn’t follow the link, but I’m guessing that most of the violence occurs in economic exclusion zones.
My new word for ghettos. The new face of slavery.

VYAZMA - 04 December 2012 03:23 AM

I didn’t follow the link, but I’m guessing that most of the violence occurs in economic exclusion zones.
My new word for ghettos. The new face of slavery.

You guessed right, but the article doesn’t go into that.

It’s actually dangerous to be alive at all.

But here, unless you’re a non -  white kid living in a ghetto, there isn’t much to worry about.

If you follow the chart the incidence of traffic deaths stands out more than death by violence. We are mobile society and the VERY first thing a teen wants is a car. Automobiles represent freedom for them, and us once.  More 16 year olds drive in the US than in any another country, and with the driving age beginning then, the accident rate is much higher than in any country. In short, the kids are killing themselves and some of us at an alarming rate. Owning a car is also a status symbol. Add in texting and driving drunk and you have a deadly weapon on every highway in the US. As an example, try driving on the Wash. Beltway about 5 PM. I’ve seen more younger drivers with cell phones than I can count. Of course there are the old farts with newspapers drooped over the wheel attempting to catch a glimpse of the editorial section while caught in the gridlock too. one possible answer would be to raise the driving age but while that may help somewhat, it won’t solve the problem entirely unless carefully monitored by the parents.

As to weapons; this is a gun culture. Just look at the fuss made about Bob Costas reading a statement about the link between handguns and domestic violence. Wayne LaPierre is already using it to scare his members into believing that the mean old government is going to take our hunting rifles away! The NRA will ensure that guns will always be with us. Regulation will help; the mentally ill don’t need an M16, and every gun owner needs to take a safety course. Perpetrators of domestic violence need to lose their weapons until completing a series of counseling sessions. Beyond that nothing much will be done about it now as this issue has been hashed and rehashed for at least the last 50 years.

http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/teen_drivers/teendrivers_factsheet.html

Cap’t Jack

It’s a mystery, isn’t it?

Not for long. Wait till your kids reach driving age. BTW what is the legal driving age in Canada? Same as here?

Cap’t Jac

Thevillageatheist - 04 December 2012 06:22 AM

Not for long. Wait till your kids reach driving age. BTW what is the legal driving age in Canada? Same as here?

Cap’t Jac

I don’t need to wait to solve the mystery, Jack. I have Google, I am curious and not afraid to look at the data. 

Here is a link to some accident related numbers per race and ethnicity between 2002 and 2006. The result? In 2006 there 42,708 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes. 58% were white, 13% Hispanics and 11% black. That’s pretty much what the race ratio of the US was in 2006. But! What they don’t tell you, is what percentage of each race group drives. I tried to look for it, but all I could find was the proportion of young people holding drivers’ licenses in North Carolina. The result?

There is little difference by gender in the proportion of 16 to 24 year-olds holding licenses (75% males, 74% female), but the proportions licensed vary substantially by race and ethnicity: 83% of young Whites, 68% of young Hispanics, 55% of young African Americans, and 52% of young Native Americans.

It actually starts to make more sense once you look at some of the causes of the accidents:

• “Among children, African-Americana had the highest percentage of unrestrained passenger vehicle occupants killed (52%).”
• “Forty-eight percent of American Indians were killed in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes—the highest percentage of any race and ethnicity.”
• “American Indians and Hispanics had the highest percentage of driver fatalities who were alcohol-impaired, at 53 percent and 40 percent, respectively.”

Now, imagine if there were as many Hispanic, black and Indian drivers as there are white drivers.

That’s as far as the accident numbers are concerned. We have discussed violence a zillion times here, so I don’t think we need to do it again.

But maybe it’s worth repeating why the US has much higher violence rates than Europe, so that Tim doesn’t feel so struck:

GdB - 04 December 2012 01:12 AM

To think about: it is the price for living in a free country.

Compare the political climate between the countries, and there is a tendency from the countries higher on the list to down the list.

Do you all agree to pay this price?

When did Australia, The Netherlands, Britain, Norway, Sweden, Japan, Germany,Italy and France become less free than the U.S.?? Their rate of violent deaths is a tiny fraction of ours. I dont see any evidence here for a link between gun ownership and greater freedom in this graph.

George - 04 December 2012 08:24 AM

But maybe it’s worth repeating why the US has much higher violence rates than Europe, so that Tim doesn’t feel so struck:

I’ll assume you are not blaming this on race but rather poverty levels among minorities, and yet there are european countries with significant minority populations and similar poverty levels which have far lower rates of violent deaths.

I’m sure the pundits have all sorts of explanations as to why these numbers are so lopsided but I’m guessing its not as simple as any single explanation presented in this thread so far.

One thing no one has brought up is the war on drugs. While other countries have strong anti-drug laws, they don’t all have a large country right over the border which is relatively lawless and plagued by drug cartels and chronic corruption. I’m not saying this is the cause but just one of many contributing factors.

I don’t know how to explain the motor vehicle accidents. Yes the U.S. is in love with cars but anyone who has every been to Italy with its congestion and large numbers of young people on scooters can’t possibly believe that they are all on public transportation. Japans roads are notoriously congested with cars , and what about Australia? Australia is a country that is not unlike ours in size and reliance on personal transportation is not that much different (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita).  I don’t know the answer but once again there has to be more to this than the number of cars per household. While there does seem to be some correlation between per capita car ownership and vehicular deaths take a look at the numbers for finland and japan. Their car ownership rate is about 75% of what ours is but their traffic accident death rate is about 40% and 25% of ours respectively.

I looked too George after I saw your stats broken down by race and ethnicity but coudn’t find something I coud use as a graph of teens in each group. They’re pretty much lumped together. My point was that teens in general are more likely to be killed in vehicular accidents than adults,  and that more teens are killed annually than with guns as the original chart shows. here’s a more comprehensive site that you may have already come across and chart shows that 48% of teen deaths are linked to automobile accidents.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db37.pdf

Cap’t Jack

George - 04 December 2012 08:24 AM

But maybe it’s worth repeating why the US has much higher violence rates than Europe, so that Tim doesn’t feel so struck:

It is still striking, though not mystifying.

I am mystified, however, at the high rate of suicide in New Zealand.

I don’t know how to explain the motor vehicle accidents. Yes the U.S. is in love with cars but anyone who has every been to Italy with its congestion and large numbers of young people on scooters can’t possibly believe that they are all on public transportation. Japans roads are notoriously congested with cars , and what about Australia? Australia is a country that is not unlike ours in size and reliance on personal transportation is not that much different (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita).  I don’t know the answer but once again there has to be more to this than the number of cars per household. While there does seem to be some correlation between per capita car ownership and vehicular deaths take a look at the numbers for finland and japan. Their car ownership rate is about 75% of what ours is but their traffic accident death rate is about 40% and 25% of ours respectively.

True Mac and I think it’s more than just heavy traffic even though we do average at least cars 2 per family. Also, culture has something to do with it. Alcohol use for instance. And what about traffic patterns in those Medieval cities with their twisted streets and round abouts? How are the streets policed and speed limits to name a few. Plus legal driving ages. In some countries it’s 18. People here drive like they’re competing in a NASCAR race, jockeying for position and lane changing at higher and higher speeds and with no cop around it’s any speed goes. Ex. In Ohio the speed limit in major roads is 55 but if you try it you’ll be honked off the road. No one does the limit and there’s too few cops to patrol the highways. Budget cuts. Do the drivers in the countries respect authority? We generally don’t until caught. Same with gun ownership. THis is still the “wild West”.

Cap’t Jack