IT IS nearly 93 years since the epidemic apparently began in its present form. The epidemic is traffic violence. And, while people had been killed or injured in chariot, carriage, wagon, or other traffic before then, today's motorized mayhem is believed to have begun September 13, 1899. First Motor Vehicle Victim That was the day that Henry H. Bliss, a 68-year-old real estate broker, stepped from a streetcar in New York, NY, and was struck by an automobile ( JAMA . 1971;217:1461). He died shortly thereafter—apparently the first of an estimated (by the US Department of Transportation) 2 734 000 persons in the United States who have died of injuries received in traffic since then. Annual medical charges for people hospitalized in the United States because of traffic-related injuries totaled nearly $6.5 billion in 1990, the latest year for which estimates are available, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is