Traffic deaths are up in the United States but vehicles also harm lots of animals each year:

But roadkill is also a culprit in our planet’s current mass die-​off. Every year American cars hit more than 1 million large animals, such as deer, elk, and moose, and as many as 340 million birds; across the continent, roadkill may claim the lives of billions of pollinating insects. The ranks of the victims include many endangered species: One 2008 congressional report found that traffic existentially threatens at least 21 critters in the U.S., including the Houston toad and the Hawaiian goose. If the last-ever California tiger salamander shuffles off this mortal coil, the odds are decent that it will happen on rain-​slick blacktop one damp spring night.

Driving is an ingrained and often unconscious part of American society and culture.

But, it has costs. It is expensive. Driving pollutes. It is part of sprawl. And it is dangerous to life, whether other drivers or pedestrians or animals.

There may innovative solutions. See the construction of bridges or overpasses over roads and highways that enable wildlife to cross roads without danger.

Yet, the danger to animals appears to be a cost Americans are willing to bear for what driving brings. Whether it continues this way remains to be seen.