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Dear Editor:
The mayor of Carmel is quoted in an online magazine claiming, “Roundabouts have reduced traffic fatalities by 90% in Carmel. The U.S. average fatality rate per 100,000 people is 14 . . . The average in Carmel is two.”
Two errors are glaringly obvious.
First of all, the reduction would be 85 percent since 2 is not 10 percent of 14, it’s 14.3 percent.
Second, police department data since 1997 show traffic fatalities have, indeed, averaged 2. Thus, the mayor has borrowed and spent $300 million building roundabouts that reduced traffic fatalities by 0 percent.
Each traffic fatality is sad.
A mayor who flunks 5th grade arithmetic is sadder still.
Bill Shaffer
Carmel