This technique is Machiavellian in that it appropriates something that is good and true and makes it a part of a larger deception. Of course those lives should count, too, not just the ones on Secretary Carlson's roads. Even in the category of death and injury, there are probably other detrimental side effects of Secretary Carlson's determined policy of converting ordinary highways to freeways. I do not have statistics on this, but a retired police-officer friend of mine has told me that a community which is adjacent to a new freeway typically experiences an increase in robbery after the freeway has been opened, because the freeway provides an excellent escape route. A freeway doesn't help much if one is being chased actively, but usually it's just a question of getting out of the area before the police start investigating.
Freeways probably facilitate the importation of illegal drugs.
The United States has an extensive history which shows how a neighborhood or community is likely to be degraded by the immediate presence of a freeway. In his social-good justifications, Secretary Carlson should also include changes in criminal injury and murder in his assessments of changes in injury and death associated with changes in type of roadway. Secretary Carlson scoffed at the idea that speed reduction contributes to reduction in roadway death and injury, but he is just plain wrong on that point. The role of speed in death and injury was well-established during the period when the national 55 mph speed limit applied. His cavalier attitude about the effects of speed revealed his true personal feelings about safety.