Driving fatalities on US presidential election days: a reanalysis

BACKGROUND: Redelmeier and Tibshirani reported a statistical analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2008 indicating that presidential election days are strongly associated (P < 0.001) with an increased risk of driving fatalities (as measured by the number of persons involved in fatal crashes). FINDINGS: We present evidence indicating that the risk of driving fatalities on presidential election days is neither statistically nor substantively unusual. Although we find weakly suggestive evidence that presidential elections may increase the risk of driving fatalities during election hours, any increase appears to be entirely offset by a lowered risk during non-election hours. CONCLUSIONS: We find weaker support for an association between election days and driving fatalities than was previously reported. Our results suggest caution in evaluating policy prescriptions that presuppose that election days pose an unusual risk to the public.