Data Update #3

My chart shows the motor vehicle fatalities that occurred yearly on British Columbian highways by motor vehicles and especially accentuates the drop of fatalities from 2010 to 2012.

The information I wasn't able to obtain from my data that I wish I could have would have been more specific motor vehicle user types.  This could include different groups such as motorcycles, trucks, semis, cars, etc. Lumping all motor vehicles into one group is too vague in my opinion and would be better to contrast fluctuations in weight and size depending on the road user type.  Furthermore, this would be interesting and important to know whether laws and regulations in BC affected vehicles with these different attributes differently.  I would also be interested to know if some of the fatalities that occurred did so with the use of alcohol and other mind impairing stimulants.  I could investigate this further with a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to find more specific details to the fatalities in the tickets/fines issued by Police.  Also continue to search for more laws or regulations that could have brought about this decrease in fatalities.

Data Update #2

The most compelling information I found in my data set was the 20% decrease of motor vehicle fatalities between 2010 and 2011. The decrease comes specifically from the road user type "Motor Vehicle Driver" which saw a decrease of 22% in those same years. After the decrease, the fatalities stayed relatively consistent until 2014.

My spreadsheet shows the decrease of these motor vehicle fatalities in total and in the specific motor vehicle type of "Motor Vehicle Driver."  As well as my original data set can be found here.

My relevant news article can be found here.

This article done by the Canada Safety Council explains that in 2010 a program was implemented called Immediate Roadside Prohibition (IRP) Program which was aimed at reducing roadside fatalities. That a year after the program was put into action in BC it won an award for reducing fatalities drastically. This is relevant to my data because my data set contains all the road users that were injured in a collision involving a motor vehicle on a public highway and died anytime within 30 days of the crash from their injuries in British Columbia from 1996 to 2014. As this is a road side assistance program, it is relevant to my data because my fatality data includes this 30 day after the accident period. So this could be used as an example as to why we see a decrease in fatalities in these years. Even though this program doesn't cover all of my data collected. So there is other catalysts to find but this is a good start.