Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
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Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
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Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#2This is a really excellent read, and neatly summarizes a thought that flashes through the back of my mind whenever someone tells me that public transit is unsafe.
If over 100 people died each day on public transit, we'd have banned it by now. But we accept it in our automotive culture, while simultaneously handwringing over every incident that happens on public transit.
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#3The article focuses on trains, but the same thing could be said for autonomous vehicles. When one crashes it is national news because they are so rare. People who say autonomous vehicles won't be viable until the crash rate is zero are setting the bar far too high. The threshold should be fewer accidents and/or fewer fatalities per million miles driven than human drivers. In theory system improvements on the autonomous cars could further reduce those figures, while reducing the accidents involving human factors is very difficult. You can't change people that much. Most of the foreseeable improvements are basically the same ones you would need for autonomous vehicles anyway, like better sensors around the car to detect obstacles.
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#4Human response is never in actual proportion to reality. For example, veterans have a suicide rate lower than farmers, fisherman, construction workers, maintenance workers, and engineers.
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#5This is a really excellent read, and neatly summarizes a thought that flashes through the back of my mind whenever someone tells me that public transit is unsafe. If over 100 people died each day on public transit, we'd have banned it by now. But we accept it in our automotive culture, while simultaneously handwringing over every incident that happens on public transit.
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Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#6This is a really excellent read, and neatly summarizes a thought that flashes through the back of my mind whenever someone tells me that public transit is unsafe. If over 100 people died each day on public transit, we'd have banned it by now. But we accept it in our automotive culture, while simultaneously handwringing over every incident that happens on public transit.
Imagine how angry people would be if at the end of an article about a train crash that killed 4 people the author included an anecdote about how there were 900 train fatalities in the previous year compared to 1.3 million car fatalities.
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#7The engineering side is good to look at. We should also be looking at the education/credentialing side too. Many incidents are drivers making poor choices, not knowing the laws, or not understanding vehicle dynamics. Stricter licensing would be a good way to reduce incidents regardless of the redesigns. Arguably, that would be the fastest and cheapest route to effective change.
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#8I think it's just because car crashes aren't a wedge issue, so they don't politically matter. We certainly don't ignore car crashes on local news, where they make a great space filler.
Amtrak (and train travel in general) certainly is a wedge issue ("Amtrak Joe"), so we fixate on the only thing interesting that ever happens with it (crashes.) We can then discuss the state of it, whether we should shut it down or expand it, whether flying is safer, etc.
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#9This is a really excellent read, and neatly summarizes a thought that flashes through the back of my mind whenever someone tells me that public transit is unsafe. If over 100 people died each day on public transit, we'd have banned it by now. But we accept it in our automotive culture, while simultaneously handwringing over every incident that happens on public transit.
Or self-driving cars. Every incident is Big News, while ignoring the fact that 40,000 people die every year in traffic accidents (and 4.8 million injuries) -- in the US alone.
People are of course famously bad at putting statistics into context.
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#10The article focuses on trains, but the same thing could be said for autonomous vehicles. When one crashes it is national news because they are so rare. People who say autonomous vehicles won't be viable until the crash rate is zero are setting the bar far too high. The threshold should be fewer accidents and/or fewer fatalities per million miles driven than human drivers. In theory system improvements on the autonomo…
"You can't change people that much."
The point of licensing is to restrict the privilege to those who can responsibly and competently preform the task. If they can't conform to that, then they shouldn't be driving. Tougher licensing and enforcement would drastically reduce fatalities. We already see this in many European nations with stricter enforcement and licensing.