What Are The Odds Of CNY Motorists Being Killed By Road Debris?

Yesterday's story of the Waterloo woman who was killed when a brick-sized rock flew through her windshield brings to mind the question of how likely is this to happen. Here are the stats:

According to the most recent AAA study, there are around 125 deaths per year and just under 10k injuries per year as a result of flying road debris on American roadways. When compared to over 40k people dying per year and another 2.5 million being injured in all road-related injuries in the U.S. yearly, that's one in every 320 fatal accidents where the cause is road debris and the numbers are gradually increasing year over year nationwide. One in three-hundred is pretty likely odds actually, but for clarification you're more likely to fall to your death (1 in 120) or to be audited by the IRS (1 in 160) than to be hit by road debris.

Drilling down a little further, in the nine/ten county area that is considered CNY, there are around 100 traffic-related deaths per year, which means that one person dies every three years in CNY due to flying road debris.

Be that as it may, if you travel earlier in the morning or later at night and use less-traveled roads you can increase your margins. According to AAA most road-debris related accidents occur on interstates (where speed is a factor) and happen during the midday hours (10a-3p.)