The National Transportation Safety Board reports that “Per mile traveled, African-American males ages 13-19 are twice as likely to die in a motor vehicle crash than [are] males in general.” As a remedy the NTSB doles out the usual bromides about better driver’s education, awareness, etc. To be sure, this is an important statistic. But so much information is missing that it’s hard to see why the issue was even raised. Given the age range cited, some of those males were behind the wheel; others were not. The statistic doesn’t break these males into class and education. Nor does it break them into where they live. It may very well turn out that teenage males driving in heavily congested urban areas—where many African Americans live—are twice as likely to die as their suburban counterparts. Skin color may have nothing to do with it at all.
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