The day I accidentally killed a little boy • Hacker News Board

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#651

Post by falsedan » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 11:49 AM UTC

luckroy wrote: post #509

falsedan wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not practical to lower the speed limit for every house that has children. Yes it is. Do you mean, it would make driving more inconvenient, since drivers would have to slow down when they passed?

It's not just inconvenience, although that is part of it. The transportation department would have a huge added burden by needing a way to determine which houses have children, a lot more signage to mark the designated slowdown areas, extra workers to make the adjustments as families move around, a way to update various mapping/GPS systems, etc. The number of passing zones would be drastically reduced. Jake braking w…

I think you're overcomplicating your proposed solution; if it's a hassle to track each family's residence, assume all residences may have families present. Compression braking is a nuisance, so post speed limit & compression breaking restriction signs well in advance of the houses so normal braking can be used.

In the UK, all this is done by putting up street lights. The Highway Code then dictates that the road has a speed limit of 30mph and is residential (no compression braking).

I don't understand your comment about overtaking. Are you thinking of long, straight roads with mostly-evenly distributed houses over a large distance?

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#652

Post by falsedan » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 12:01 PM UTC

24gttghh wrote: post #504

falsedan wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think you'd struggle to find many people who've suffered a concussion from an accident then going on to develop PTSD.

No struggle at all: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/09/26/4950747...

This seems to only be relevant to people already at risk of PSTD (troops). I think it says, having a concussion makes these troops more likely to develop PTSD. But troops are already likely to develop PTSD! This biases the control group.

You're confusing 'increases the likelihood of' with 'causes'. If you could demonstrate that peple who suffer a concussion then develop PTSD when non-concussed members of their group do not develop PTSD, then I'd accept the claim that concussion causes PTSD.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#653

Post by icc97 » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:00 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #605

bryanlarsen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A collision with a horse and wagon might break your leg, but it's highly unlikely to kill you. That's one of the main points of "Vision Zero" that I linked. Any collision at speeds less than 20mph has a very low fatality risk.

This ( https://www.quora.com/Were-carriage-accidents-more-or-less-c... ) had some links and summarizes them as motor vehicles causing 40% more fatalities (in 2014) than horse carriages in 1907-1911. That's in the same ballpark, anyway. You can argue the specifics, but it seems modern recreational horseback riding is fairly dangerous. http://freakonomics.com/2006/08/28/whoa-nellie/

In that freakonimics article it mentions that Matthew Broderick killed a mother and daughter by dangerous driving [0]: http://www.nndb.com/people/785/000022719/

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#654

Post by icc97 » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:04 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #257

chris_7 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://crashnotaccident.com

But unless she intentionally hit the child it was an accident on her part. I'm referring to a specific incident, not crashes in general. I thought that would be abundantly clear from the context. I certainly doubt she foresaw or planned on hitting a child. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accident > 1 a : an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance

A crash isn't intentional either. Meriam Webster has the following definition for crash:

"to fall, land, or hit with destructive force"

To me that is more accurate.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#655

Post by icc97 » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #121

chris_7 wrote: post #75

If someone fires a gun randomly down the street, not aiming at anyone, but happens to hit someone, they'd certainly be arrested. Drive a multi-thousand-pound projectile down the street, kill someone, and it's just an "accident". The default needs to move to charging every driver involved in a fatal crash with manslaughter. Currently the police won't even perform basic investigative work that would make any charge pos…

I have to agree with maxhallinan. These aren't analogous at all. One time I was riding my bike when nearly the exact same thing happened to me as this woman, only instead of a small child the person was an older man. He, looking for traffic the wrong way on a one-way street, mistakenly thought it was safe to run across the road. I was doing the speed limit (60kph) when I hit him, full force, and sent him tumbling dow…

As a cyclist I am always aware that pedestrians might step out into the road. I expect pedestrians to do stupid things, so I don't travel at 60 kph. In town I'd never travel more than 20.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#656

Post by icc97 » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

btrettel wrote: post #397

peatmoss wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often don't think that 5 mph is significant, but it absolutely is. https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/HS809012.ht... Table 2 in that link shows fatalities approximately doubling for each 5 mph increment of speed added. That doesn't even take into account the increased likelihood of hitting someone (increased speed means decreased ability to react and stop). And yes, most (U.S.) roads are designed…

Most drivers do not appreciate how dangerous speeding is, definitely. As a libertarian friend of mine will say, "people automatically drive at safe speeds". (He has a very libertarian thinking style.) This view seems to be believed by the public at large if not stated explicitly, though it is false. To be fair, one needs to consider both absolute and relative speeds. Risk increases monotonically with absolute speed,…

Also keeping distance from the car in front is very important.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#657

Post by naasking » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:26 PM UTC

smitherfield wrote: post #579

caf wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low life expectancies in the past weren't because most people died in their 40s / 50s. They were heavily depressed by infant and child mortality - if you survived to adulthood, you had a reasonable chance of living to a ripe old age.

I'm already adjusting upwards for that; life expectancies didn't reach 50 (in the US) until the 1920's[1], and the posts I'm responding to are talking about the Medieval period or earlier, when life expectancy at birth would've been 30 or so. Some people did live into their 60's or longer but they were very much the exception, even among adults. [1] https://www.seniorliving.org/history/1900-2000-changes-life-...

That's incorrect. The average age of adult death was much higher, around 60 [1], ie. if you lived to 5 years old, you could expect to live another 55 years.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy/

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#658

Post by sctb » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #462

jacquesm wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks to me as if you have missed out on the last 100 years or so of social developments. If you want to go back to an age before cars then that is fine by me but no amount of guilt tripping language is going to make that happen. I cycle where and when I can, I drive when I have to. In fact, I would be highly surprised if you biked more than I do, which - incidentally - got me rather severely injured a while ago.…

It's obvious you kind of think I'm right, by your use of the term "guilt" regarding your use of a car, and the use of "good" regarding riding a bike often. Not everyone is me, that's painfully obvious... but you and I agree at least. The guilt you indicate represents that which is highest and best within you - the desire to protect & preserve human life. Stop fighting it, which includes trying to turn it outward and…

Could you please stop? Your comments in this thread amount to trolling.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#659

Post by icc97 » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:42 PM UTC

gkya wrote: post #271

tlb wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human reaction time to unexpected events is at least 400 mS. Autonomous car reaction time can be as low as 40 mS. You can slow down a lot in those 360 mS (about 6 mph) which can turn a fatal accident into a moderate one. The vast majority of accidents are due to sloppy, aggressive, or distracted driving, which autonomous vehicles will completely eliminate.

I kind of doubt it in this case. If a person darted on to the road from behind an object that obstructs the sensors of an autonomous vehicle, in a distance of about a couple meters, slowing down quickly enough is probably not possible (though IDK much about cars, really). But such a vehicle would be able to steer away in some cases, but then it puts itself and the passengers in danger (i.e. hitting another moving veh…

Perhaps the car sensors would have seen the child moving, he was hidden just before he ran out into the road but he probably wasn't hiding waiting to jump out.

So there's a chance that the cars sensors would spot him. Plus the sensors will be tied to the speed the car is doing so will always attentively watching in the range of where children can come from.

Further to this you can plug this kind of data into an autonomous vehicle and train it to avoid kids.

Humans will probably never have proper driving simulation testing like pilots do because it's too expensive.

So in these extreme events I'm confident that autonomous cars will be better prepared. Perhaps there will still be cases where the child still dies but it will be less.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#660

Post by SomeHacker44 » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

isoprophlex wrote: post #457

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. After becoming a father, and especially as my son has grown to a teen, I have become more and more unable to voluntarily consume media which involves the death of children. Nonetheless, I read this one, because it involves confronting this deep seated fear from a perspective I felt I could relate to.

I have a six months old. I really REALLY dreaded reading this article... but afterwards I've finally realized that for the last half year I've been quite afraid, scared of the fact that this beautiful thing that came into my life can be taken from me at any time by an uncaring cosmos. Powerful stuff. It feels vitally important to confront this fear. But I do feel deeply unsettled.

This is so true: "quite afraid, scared of the fact that this beautiful thing that came into my life can be taken from me at any time by an uncaring cosmos."

That fear doesn't go away, and, as I indicated, it actually got worse over time for me. Not crippling/anxiety or anything like that, but comes out at random times, not to mention all the expected times (e.g., reading news, watching media, etc.).