User:Anguyen7123/sandbox

Current Applications
Even as of 2018, Smeed's Law is still applied in its raw form to get a basis of projected motor deaths to help plan for other utilities that may need to be nearby for safety reasons. Although it may not be the most accurate of formulas, it can still be safely used a general rule of them due to its few number of factors that it actually takes into account.

Studies
Since Smeed’s original interpretation 1960s interpretation of Smeed’s Law for motor vehicle deaths, it has since been interpreted in different way and applied to a number of studies. In 2011, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) applied Smeed’s Law to estimate the number of bird strikes as a function of aircraft departures and bird populations. To test how Smeed’s Law would hold up in this different application, the population was kept small and the number of planes was kept to Utah. This application worked very accurately; the estimated number of bird strikes according to the modified Smeed’s Law was within 11% of the actual value. The study was found to be accurate enough to be used on a larger scale.

Other Research
Since Smeed’s original hypothesis and interpretation of his own equation, more research has been done to try to prove or disprove this theory. In 2007, Volume 1 of the Journal of Society for Transportation and Traffic Studies was published. This study was conducted to analyze motor vehicle fatality rates in many different countries to find whether or not Smeed’s Law is still applicable in modern times. This study used a population of 139 different countries; while Smeed originally sampled 20 of the most developed countries. With a more diversified sample, the modern study is further likely presently credible that is more applicable in current years. This study concluded that Smeed’s Law is still applicable in fatalities in countries with a 0.2 - 0.3 vehicle per person ratio, but countries with a higher ratio, the number of fatalities decreases greatly. This may be that Smeed’s Law does not take into account any cultural differences nor laws that may decrease the number of fatalities.

Other researchers have tried to find a way to describe the trends in countries with a higher vehicle per person ratio. “As traffic increases, attitudes toward risk and road user behavior both change in a way that maintains the levels of risk that individuals collectively are prepared to tolerate”. One of the authors claims that although Smeed’s Law does apply at lower ratios, at higher ratios, a collective psychology is formed where people are more aware of the risk of motor vehicle related deaths and are inherently more careful in their driving. Since the 1940s, when Smeed’s Law was first created, the number of motor vehicles has greatly increased, but so have the number of laws, stricter speed limits, and more car safety factors and features. Education on motor vehicles and safe driving habits are more common, but have no place in Smeed’s Law. High-income countries typically are able to invest in their road infrastructure, maintenance of such infrastructure, traffic safety research and maintenance, vehicle development, and driver education. It would seem that high-income countries would do a lot better in terms of traffic related deaths, but since high-income countries also have a higher number of younger and more inexperienced drivers, this leads to an 8.3% increase in fatalities per 10% increase of young drivers. Exposure at a younger age increases the probability of a traffic related death. Even so, high-income countries commonly have a lower number of traffic related deaths when compared to low-income countries.

John Adams, another researcher, found that Smeed’s Law is not applicable over a wide range of population. He believes that Smeed’s Law “should not be used as a basis for comparing road accident death rates for different countries at different levels of motorization” (Adams, 70). Data is shown how Smeed’s Law becomes less and less applicable over time. Adams suggests that deaths by motor vehicle should instead be the ratio of deaths by motor vehicle and vehicle mileage. This would allows Smeed’s Law to apply in an overall smaller way and average out follow modern trends more closely. This is not a new finding regarding Smeed’s Law. Both modern and older studies seem to find that Smeed’s Law is too outdated and because it only takes such a small number of factors into play, its not very accurate. For example, a study published to Applied Economics in 1999, compares death by foot or bicycle to death by motorized vehicles per capita. In this case, the deaths by foot or bicycle as the chosen mode of transportation is significantly higher than the motorized vehicle transportation. In fact, the results “suggest that motor vehicle use is inversely associated with deaths on the roads across”.

University of Rome