Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The day I accidentally killed a little boy

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 683 posts

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#31

Post by dragonwriter »

Pigo wrote: post #11
bryanlarsen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it" That's BS. Sweden has essentially zero pedestrian fatalities annually, and its overall traffic fatality rate is well under a quarter that of the US. There are two main components: reducing speed limits and spending money on infrastructure. Both of these are anathema in the US, but the refusal to do so is borderline criminal, IMO. http://www.visionzeroinitiative.…

You're talking about a country that is the size of a large state. I really wish there were state initiatives to work on infrastructure that makes sense for their territory and people.

> I really wish there were state initiatives to work on infrastructure that makes sense for their territory and people.

That's, like, a huge part of what state governments do. Well, except perhaps the “makes sense” part, but that's largely do to the same political problems that affect federal governance, not some particular failure of the states.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#32

Post by revelation »

Pigo wrote: post #11
bryanlarsen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it" That's BS. Sweden has essentially zero pedestrian fatalities annually, and its overall traffic fatality rate is well under a quarter that of the US. There are two main components: reducing speed limits and spending money on infrastructure. Both of these are anathema in the US, but the refusal to do so is borderline criminal, IMO. http://www.visionzeroinitiative.…

You're talking about a country that is the size of a large state. I really wish there were state initiatives to work on infrastructure that makes sense for their territory and people.

America has more fatal pedestrian crashes because everyone lives further apart?

That's exactly the mindset. Nobody cares enough to change their routine even an iota, and it makes all these words ring rather hollow.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#33

Post by dsego »

dudul wrote: post #25

"The lead officer came and told me that they were not arresting me - there was no indication that I was negligent or distracted or impaired in any way - but he gave me a little lecture saying, "This child died, that's a terrible thing, you need to make sure that you never do this again."" Was I the only one shocked by this? I mean, a little kid died and she's not arrested at least to conduct an investigation? How did…

What investigation? They measured the tire tracks. Unless there was an eyewitness, there is nothing else to do.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#35

Post by thriftwy »

erik_landerholm wrote: post #30

I have 4 boys under the age of 12. I would say I think about one of them dying (accident, sickness, murder...so many ways it can happen...) multiple times a day. I know that sounds morbid, and it probably is, but my brain does it on its own...not a lot of control over it. Nothing on earth scares me more than the idea of having to go on living without one of them. Having 4 increases my odds that I might have to. It te…

On the other hand, having more of them decreases your odds that you will face losing all of them. Imagine how parents live who had just one child, who died.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#36

Post by JKCalhoun »

JeanMarcS wrote: post #10
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #3

You have to feel terribly sad for everyone involved here. The only place the blame can rest is humanity's desire to mix very fast, solid vehicles with very slow, squishy pedestrians in the same spaces. We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it, but hopefully self-driving cars (and less polluting cars, too) will start to reverse the damage done by the automobile, in the not-too distant future.

That’s my hope. Yesterday a 12 year old kid on a bike was hit by a car where I live. It was dark, and I don’t have the exact details. The kid was coming from behind a parked car, it was 7pm so night, so I guess it’s the same kind of story that happened (beside the fact that a lot of people here are really bad drivers). I’m so looking forward the time when human will stop driving by themselves. Of course there will be…

> Let’s hope technology will finally prevent that.

Funny, because it's technology that caused the death in the first place. Maybe consider how to get rid of the car?

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#37

Post by dudul »

dsego wrote: post #33
dudul wrote: post #25

"The lead officer came and told me that they were not arresting me - there was no indication that I was negligent or distracted or impaired in any way - but he gave me a little lecture saying, "This child died, that's a terrible thing, you need to make sure that you never do this again."" Was I the only one shocked by this? I mean, a little kid died and she's not arrested at least to conduct an investigation? How did…

What investigation? They measured the tire tracks. Unless there was an eyewitness, there is nothing else to do.

I guess. I'm just baffled picturing the scene. This young woman just killed a little boy and the cop is basically saying "ok, well, he's dead, just be careful next time. Ok, have a safe trip home, bye".

You're right, without witnesses what can you do? But I would imagine a procedure a little more involved when somebody kills a child.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#38

Post by seanmcdirmid »

tedchs wrote: post #22
francisofascii wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. It is interesting to read the early history of the automobile in the U.S. Many of the pedestrian deaths in the early days were children. Speed governor laws were proposed but ultimately rejected. Motordom won the day. Now it is built into our society that people have to be super vigilant whenever we walk outside. Kids have to always be careful and limited to where they can play. It is sad how much of our freed…

Well, people had to be careful before the automobile too, you know. People could by killed by horses or wagons. The introduction of the automobile didn't make it suddenly unsafe to be in the street.

Horses had a habit of not trampling people if they could avoid it, regardless of the driver’s own intent. They were in many ways like self driving cars.

These things (safety) aren’t binary. Just because it wasn’t absolutely false before doesn’t mean it was much more true after.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#39

Post by DarronWyke »

weavie wrote: post #17
bitexploder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just back of the envelope math here, but I think it will cost the US a significant amount more dollars per fatality reduction. We have a huge number more cars and a very different culture and driving mindset. One relative small country with a pretty singular culture and a much, much smaller amount of roads is just going to have an easier time addressing the issue. It is still worth pursuing, but the scale of…

Could you expound on how the culture and mindset is different? I can imagine what it would be, but don't want to just jump to stereotypes..

Not the OP, but my take on it would be that every State is different from each other, and even within the State there's differences. Take a look at where I live, Texas. Dallas will be different than Austin which will be different than Houston. Any metropolitan area, even within the same borders, will have different culture and mindset than another. Compare that to another State and the divide only widens.

Most countries are fairly homogenous, which lends itself to a singular-ish mindset and culture. The US is not really one country, it's a melting pot (remember that word from social studies?) of many different cultures and ideas. That's one of the big reasons why we can't really be compared to any other country on many topics. Every locale is different, in many cases fundamentally, and that's part of the point of the Federal-State system we have.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#40

Post by nxc18 »

gambiting wrote: post #18
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #3

You have to feel terribly sad for everyone involved here. The only place the blame can rest is humanity's desire to mix very fast, solid vehicles with very slow, squishy pedestrians in the same spaces. We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it, but hopefully self-driving cars (and less polluting cars, too) will start to reverse the damage done by the automobile, in the not-too distant future.

I'm hoping that pedestrian collisions will be reduced to nearly zero thanks to the rise of autonomous braking(don't they have to be installed in every new car by 2020?), long before anything reassembling self-driving cars is available. My own car has already given me a solid scare when a toy ball rolled onto the road from in between the parked cars and my car has stopped before I could even react - surely enough, the…

What kind of car do you have?

I got a new Toyota Corolla (lease, fortunately) with autonomous braking, but it seems to be a “slow down by 5mph pre-collision” sort of system rather than an “avoid the collision” sort of system. Seeing the Subaru system in action gives me faith, but you pay the premium.

Post reply on HN