I am a little embarrassed to say I just found out today that this past Sunday was the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.  As a traffic engineer you would think I would be in the know on something like this.   Maybe my head was in the sand but I didn’t see this in the news.  Here is a chart from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report on crashes in 2006.  In the United States, 42,642 people died in traffic crashes in 2006. 
The Department of Defense has confirmed approximately 3,900 Americans have died in Iraq since the beginning of the conflict in 2003.  I will not get into the politics of the war, but our local news has at least one news story per week on the conflict (actually it is closer to daily, but these are just my observations).  A lot more Americans are dieing on our roadways than in Iraq, but it just doesn’t appear to be newsworthy.  I encourage you to observe a moment of silence for those impacted by road safety.