Here's another one of those telling numerical comparisons we as a culture seem to dote on: About 900 US troops have died in Iraq since.... Here's another one of those telling numerical comparisons we as a culture seem to dote on:

About 900 US troops have died in Iraq since the commencement of that war--and that many people die from cars every week in the US alone!

About 11,000 Iraqi civilians have died to date in that war--and that many civilians die at the hands of their fellows on US roads every three months.

For people of my generation: about 55,000 US soldiers died in the ten years of the Vietnam War--and driving kills almost that many people every single year, year in and year out, in the USA.

I'm referring only to deaths from road wrecks here. This leaves out the estimated one to two million premature deaths from air pollution, which in most of the US comes primarily from cars.

If we can presume that the wounded/killed ratio for driving is about the same as for war--I believe that's three to one--then we are talking about many more who are impaired, often permanently: crippled, paralyzed, blinded, burned, disfigured, traumatized, themselves burdened in their lives, and become a burden, often, to their families and society.

We discuss the horrible social, environmental, and economic cost of driving addiction at length elsewhere in the magazine, but those effects may be even more significant to our civilization than individual deaths.

Something to think about next time you reach for the keys.