The study found 1,880 more deaths on the Interstates in those 22 states from 1996 to 1999
Did you notice this doesn't take population into account? It's not "X more deaths per Z number of people," and is therefore not meaninfugl.
Yup. Normally, these studies are done per miles driven, but this was in absolute numbers. However, outside of California, the West is less densely populated than the rest of the country, so I'm not sure how much difference including population would have made. Of course, it would have been nice if they'd included some numbers so that we could decide.
You're correct, it should be miles driven, not by population. And while the west does have lower population density, it also has more miles driven per driver. Arkansas, I know, has the highest average number of miles/driver in the states. Also a few things to note: are these deaths related to alcohol? Are there more miles being driven by tractor-trailers in the western states? And, what about comparative to pre-raising the speed limit? How then did these states compare under the same speed limits? And, most importantly, isn't it the newspapers job to point out all these problems? (i scanned the article, didn't notice anything about these)