Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019 • Hacker News Board

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#371

Post by xenospn » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

ossworkerrights wrote: post #168

alkonaut wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, having 0.02% blood alcohol limit (I.e. effectively a zero tolerance) is a good and cheap start. Next comes the expensive things: Replace the car fleet with large, safe and modern cars. Build infrastructure like pedestrian walkways etc to have few unprotected people in traffic. Replace crossings with roundabouts and rebuild motorways and other high speed roads to never have oncoming traffic (separating r…

Yeah tolerance is 0% in Romania, and imo the issue is cultural. Overtaking on two lane roads while there is oncoming traffic is pretty common, and so is overtaking in sharp curves with little visibility. There are no mechanisms of reporting such issues to the police, and laws are made such ways that criminals get away with it. A few weeks ago a politician talking on their phone killed two people by entering the wrong…

I'm assuming you can easily pay your way through the legal system in Romania if you have enough cash?

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#372

Post by saberdancer » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 6:30 PM UTC

blattimwind wrote: post #245

yason wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pedestrians do cross the street when it's red for them You have to think what pedestrian lights are for. They exist solely to improve the flow of car traffic. Pedestrian lights are in gross contrast to the rights and benefits of pedestrians. Without lights, pedestrians would always have first priority on a crosswalk. Cars would have to stop for any pedestrian crossing the street. However, drivers (of inefficient but…

> Without lights, pedestrians would always have first priority on a crosswalk. Cars would have to stop for any pedestrian crossing the street. Traffic lights in combination with a pedestrian crossing proper (a zebra crossing) seem to be rather rare, at least in Europe. Thus most crossing points of pedestrian would, in absence of traffic lights, not give them the right of way, because crossing traffic generally does n…

I'm not sure I follow.

Zebra crossing = pedestrian right of way, but the pedestrian should acknowledge the driver. This means that on the zebra crossing pedestrian has right of way, except when there is a pedestrian traffic light.

Not sure that traffic lights with zebra crossings are rare in Europe? Most intersections in cities are like that at least where I visited.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#373

Post by zeroonetwothree » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

AaronM wrote: post #324

audunw wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody complained because why would you want to walk miles to the closest grocery store anyway? I've been guests at a few different suburban neighborhoods in the US. I realize that some of these are so big and remote that it really is too far to walk to anything significant, but those I visited did have grocery stores and such within a walkeable distance, but that's not always the case, and still there's not much i…

In the US it is illegal to ride a bicycle on a sidewalk in most places

In practice though it's almost never enforced.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#374

Post by zeroonetwothree » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 6:33 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #255

blattimwind wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost like it would make sense to have at least legally separate pathways for motorized, less motorized (scooters, e-bikes), bicycles and pedestrians, because they are very different forms of transport.

It makes perfect sense in theory. In the real world though space is limited. We cannot have separate spaces: there isn't enough room - unless you space things out so far that only only car transport makes sense, at which point why bother building paths for the other modes? Which is why suburbs don't have sidewalks: there is no place you can practically go by any mode other than car so why bother creating space for th…

I've lived in different suburbs my whole life and all have had sidewalks. They don't get used as much as in cities obviously, but you still have kids walking to/from school, people walking their dogs, going on runs, etc.

The only places I've seen without sidewalks would be clearly classified as "rural".

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#375

Post by entropicdrifter » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #342

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that rue of all "Americans" (U.S. citizens) or is it just specific kins off places, like some suburbs? I have seen plenty of footage of people walking around large US cities. And what about rural places? Surely theree's nothing stopping people from taking long walks on the countryside if they live out in the boondocks, etc?

I find it's mostly a suburban and rural thing. Though, even large US cities can be quite suburban in their makeup. I found Phoenix to be surprisingly difficult to navigate on foot, for example. There is recreational walking, but it can be odd. I have family members who live in areas without sidewalks, and they do regularly go for pleasure walks, but such outings tend to start with a car ride. Because the nearest plac…

Cities out West in the States tend to be less dense because they were founded by people who generally had horses/wagons already to get there and because they were founded closer in time to the invention of the automobile, so their infrastructure was less solidified by the time it was introduced and thus they've adapted more to cars with a broader sprawl and less vertical buildup. Of course this isn't true of all cities in the Western US, but as a general trend it holds up.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#376

Post by xenospn » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #246

I've been traveling in northern Scandinavia for the past few months. One thing that sticks out is that Norway has very low speed limits. They also have strict enforcement compared to the UK and super high fines. In the northern part of the country you really need it because the weather varies a lot and the highways are basically mountain passes. At the moment around where I am close to Lofoten the roads are pretty mu…

I remember being super frustrated with Norwegian speed limits when I was late for my flight and the taxi driver would not go over 80 on the freeway.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#377

Post by saberdancer » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

TomMarius wrote: post #130

lucideer wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's multiple issues with your anecdote (one of course it being an anecdote, not a statistic); to focus on the main ones: - you're looking at individual efficiency rather than system: in particular the fact that public transport is made less efficient by people driving. You're describing a chicken-egg problem if you want improvements in public transport - you're focused on time as a metric, not accounting for econ…

If I live next to a subway and tram stations (trams have dedicated tracks not shared with car in most places here) and the car is still a better option, it's an issue with the public transport system and people driving do not make it much worse. The subway is not affected at all and yet the number of trains per hour has stayed constant for years.

You are experiencing what it means to live with a good public transport system and spare capacity on the roads. If the roads are not congested, car which doesn't need to make stops is faster, but when the congestion increases then public transport with dedicated tracks/lines wins.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#378

Post by bluGill » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

SECProto wrote: post #288

bluGill wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transit is only faster than cars when they have an "unfair" advantage. I'm guessing (I haven't been there) by London zone 1-2 you means trips where the subway (tube you call it?) gets transit out of the way. Other useful "unfair" advantage are trains - because they cannot stop - preempt traffic, and there are also transit only lanes where cars are not allowed. Anytime transit doesn't get some advantage over tr…

In a city where the availability of land is a major limiting factor, you could argue that cars are the ones getting an "unfair advantage" - 8 square meters of city surface permanently dedicated to moving oneself around is clearly an inequitable use of space.

One of several reasons I put unfair in quotes.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#379

Post by fennecfoxen » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

turk73 wrote: post #365

Mvhsz wrote: post #354

Some contextual data from US cities in 2018 City – City Population (Metro Area Population), City Density per Square Mile, City Traffic Fatalities Oslo [1]: 690,335 (1,588,457), 3,938, 1 Nashville [2][3]: 692,587 (1,930,961), 1,374, 82 Portland [4][5]: 653,115 (2,478,810), 4,911, 34 Milwaukee [6][7]: 592,025 (1,572,245), 6,155, 68 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville,_Tenn…

Need to look at total miles driven, not just population size vs. number of deaths. Doesn't Norway have huge taxes on automobiles which chill ownership? If so, then population is not relevant. If only 10% of people can afford to own cars, then the number of crashes and fatalities will certainly be low. The US standard of living is far higher. Whether that leads to more fatalities or not is anybody's guess. I would pre…

> Need to look at total miles driven, not just population size vs. number of deaths.

If you happen to have traffic, and wish to improve the traffic in isolation, perhaps. More generally, what you need to look at really depends on whether you're trying to measure traffic safety itself, society's general safety and well being (very complex), or something more specific.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#380

Post by danans » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #338

mumblemumble wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm really astonished that Americans don't do it the same way. Americans tend to have strange ideas about walking. If they think about it at all, they tend to think of it as something that's only done in extremis. I've discovered, for example, that, when I travel for work, it's generally useless to ask hotel staff if they can recommend any restaurants "within walking distance" when I'm staying in a suburban area. T…

Is that rue of all "Americans" (U.S. citizens) or is it just specific kins off places, like some suburbs? I have seen plenty of footage of people walking around large US cities. And what about rural places? Surely theree's nothing stopping people from taking long walks on the countryside if they live out in the boondocks, etc?

It's a post ww2 suburban thing.

In the suburbs I grew up in, walking, especially to accomplish practical tasks like grocery shopping, was seen a signal that you were "on welfare" - which was code for poverty.

Meanwhile, people drove to fitness clubs to walking miles on treadmills while slurping energy drinks.