One painfully apparent aspect of living in the current pandemic is that significant numbers of people don’t really care much if other people die. As long as it’s “other” people. In fact, some don’t seem to care much if it happens to them or those close to them, as long as it’s “God’s Will.”

And that, in a poorly phrased nutshell, is why there haven’t been many Better Burque posts this year. Because writing a blog on unnecessary roadway deaths seems kinda of a waste of time if so few people really care about those deaths.

But after many months now of pandemic inertia based on this perceived apparent insensitivity to human life, your humble blogger has decided that what this town still needs is a good 5-cent cigar blog on roadway safety. In fact, Better Burque will remain absolutely free, if for no other reason than “monetizing” blogs looks overly complicated.

While each and everyone one of us does eventually shuffle off ye olde mortal coil, there just seems to be dumb and less dumb ways to die. Personally, I’ve always put “dying in roadway crash” right near the very top of my “dumb ways to die” list. It’s just so dumb. And unnecessary.

Atop today’s post is a reminder of those daily updates old timers will remember used to be included in every edition of the local newspaper. The one above is from the Albuquerque Journal of June 3rd, 1958, and about halfway through that year things were looking relatively better in terms of people stupidly being killed in roadway crashes.

Newspapers and other media sources don’t post daily updates of roadway crash deaths anymore. And I think that’s a shame, not that daily updates of pandemic-related deaths seem to be having universal impact on human thinking/behavior these days. Still, that daily pandemic data does change some behavior, and has inarguably saved lives. Inarguably.

So why not keep blogging about roadway safety, even if the impact is nowhere near, in anyone’s wildest expectation, that of daily posted pandemic figures, and even if large (Hell, extremely large) percentages of the population don’t care? With that sentiment, admittedly infused with just a trace of “fuck you, unfeeling assholes,” we’re gonna keep showing things like this:

That’s right, it’s our good ‘ol screenshot of the latest preliminary roadway fatality figures from the NMDOT/UNM Traffic Research Unit! And it comes with a tiny bit of good news!

Through November 2020, we’ve had fewer roadway deaths than occurred in either of the past two years. Whoo-hoo! We’ve even had fewer pedestrian fatalities this year so far, barely, from the stratospheric numbers of the past few years.

Still, way too many people are dying in a really dumb way.

So we’ll keep posting such numbers at Better Burque, while continuing to discuss and urge actions that might help lead fewer of us to die in such a dumb way. As always, I’m thinking it would be far more productive if all local media still posted the daily roadway death figures, but, until then, you’re stuck with Better Burque.

And thanks for sticking with us. Here’s looking forward to 2021.