Car crashes, the leading cause of death among young people in Cascadia, are the topic of a global survey by the World Health Organization. It’s astonishing how little attention motor vehicles get as a public health problem. They kill as many people worldwide as malaria. Among young people, they’re not far behind AIDS as a cause of death. As on many indicators, the Pacific Northwest appears to do a little better than average for North America on traffic safety, but it does much worse than many European countries.