Deadly Car Crashes Increase By 6% On Tax Day
The old saying that nothing is certain but death and taxes might be more true than originally thought. A new study has found that fatal car crashes increase by 6 percent on the day of the IRS deadline for tax filers.
The study conducted by Canadian researchers examined 30 years worth of data and found that on average there are 13 more deaths on tax day than comparable days in the year.
This year tax day is on April 17 and with 20 percent of all taxpayers waiting until the last minute to have their paper returns postdated it shouldn’t come as a surprise that more nervous drivers on the road as they attempt to get their return post dated in time to avoid IRS penalties. Nearly 141 million individual returns are filed each year which means almost 22 million people are rushing out to send their returns on the final filing day allowed by U.S. tax law.
Dr. Donald A. Redelmeier, an internist and researcher at the University of Toronto tells MSNBC:
“All of a sudden there’s one source of stress that’s onerous, synchronized, repeated and applies to a huge community.”
Redelmeier and his colleague, Christopher B. Yarnell examined U.S. tax and traffic fatality data from 1980 to 2009 to come up with their final numbers.
The study also found that non-death related accidents increase on tax deadline days and property damage also increased on that day.
Of course there’s always a simple way to avoid an accident, file your returns earlier than April 17, 2012 or head out really early in the morning to avoid the rush of nervous tax filers.
