A more enlightening chart:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
Browsing through this I found:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Accident...
What is up with poisoning in the early 40s?
As I suspected, poisoning most likely includes drug overdose. They have this comment about the 2023 data:
> #1: Poisoning: 100,304 deaths
> Largely due to the opioid epidemic affecting millions of people in the United States
You can see more recent data than 2004 in their interactive charts. It is interesting to see that deaths from road accidents has much reduced for teenagers and young adults, compared to the rest of the population.
One thing that is not being discussed is that cars have become a lot wafer - for both people in the car and for pedestrians they might hit.
Combine that with an obsession to make cars available to anyone, even if they are known dangerous. Look up videos on YouTube of police pursuits in Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Michigan. Those aren't exceptions, they are glimpses into a mass pathology. I believe Madison, Wisconsin was tracking multiple police pursuits per day in recent years. The subjects there frequently and deliberately drive on the wrong side of roads to compel the police to terminate the pursuits.