Saving lives is not exactly what I think of when I’m emptying my wallet to fill my gas tank. But after reading a new report released by the University of Michigan that linked high gas prices to a drastic decrease in people who got killed by motor vehicles, I realized it should be. A lot more people are alive today because of rising gas prices, this study suggests. Of the countless downers to high gas prices, this report comes as refreshing news that might relieve mental pain at the pump.

In a way it presents quite the ethical dilemma. If gas is cheap you can drive wherever you’d like really fast, but you put more lives at risk, including yours. OR you can be forced to buy really expensive gas and drive slower and less frequently, thus indirectly saving lives. If you could choose, which would you prefer? Remember, we’re talking about thousands of lives here. And that’s not counting all the carbon dioxide we’ve spared the environment.

It’s been shown in the past that high fuel prices lead to fewer traffic deaths. But the recent report from the U. of M. found that not only are people driving less, but driving patterns are shifting altogether.

The biggest decline in accidents was seen this spring. In March, motor vehicle deaths fell by 22 percent and in April by 18 percent. That’s a lot of lives saved.

But March gas sales only decreased about 3 percent and estimated miles driven fell roughly 4 percent, which is obviously way less than the percentage of lives saved. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Why did deaths decrease so much when relatively, gas sales decreased so little?

The spike in gas prices and a drop in miles driven don’t fully explain the plummeting number of traffic-related fatalities, according to Michael Sivak, research professor and head of the Human Factors Division at the U-M Transportation Research Institute.

According to Sivak:

“Should the March and April trends continue, the 2008 annual fatalities would drop to under 40,000 for the first time since 1961.”

Sivak says there are three possible reasons why the recent decrease in motor vehicle fatalities surpasses the decrease in miles driven and gas sales:

  • Driving conditions have made people far less likely to take rural roads where they are more prone to accidents vs. urban roads (-4 percent vs. -2.6 percent).

  • High gas prices hit lower income people the hardest, which means teenagers and elderly drivers — who have higher crash rates — will be off the roads.[This is kind of a double sided finding. Too bad that along with the poor old people and broke teenagers there are a lot of people who really need to drive but can't afford it.]
  • People may be driving slower to save gas. The slower you drive, higher rate of fuel economy. It’s possible that traffic safety benefits increase at a greater rate than fuel economy the slower you drive.