Numbers and journalists. They never mix. Why? Arithmetic is hard.

Oregon's traffic deaths were up by 6 percent, not 70 percent, for the first six months of this year compared with 2015. As of last Wednesday, it's 7 percent year-to-date. Look. It. Up.

Oregon's traffic deaths were up by an alarming 54 percent, not 70 percent, for the first six months of 2016 compared with 2014 (141 to 217). You got that wrong, too. So did The Associated Press. So did the Wall Street Journal. Incompetency loves company.

Also, two of the safest years in terms of traffic deaths on Oregon's roads have come since the ban on cell-phone use. In fact, the 313 fatalities in 2013 were the fewest in 70 years -- since the gas-rationing days of WWII -- with more than three times the population than in 1943.

Where were those headlines? Those editorials?

Distracted driving is a very serious problem. Distracted reporting -- for which there is also no excuse -- doesn't help.