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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

#61

Post by willcipriano »

toyg wrote: post #45
TylerE wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can assure that you don’t drive drunk. You can’t assure your bus driver didn’t pop a few pills before they came on shift.

You also can't be sure a random guy is not going to come from a side street on a red light at 90mph and T-bone you because he was answering a whatsapp and didn't notice the lights. I ride a motorbike. As part of training I was repeatedly told to wear protection not because of my riding skills, but because of everyone else's lack of skills.

Part of riding a motorbike (cycle here) is also driving defensively is it not? I don't assume people are going to stop at a given intersection, I take a look at their current speed and project it forward before determining if it's safe for me to go. If someone is going at a high rate of speed towards a stop sign or red light, I don't pull out just because I have the "right of way" I assume they are going to do something stupid.

Another example: On the highway I get myself into a position where I have plenty of stopping distance for the car in front of me, but also behind me in case I need to stop rapidly myself.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#62

Post by goodpoint »

TylerE wrote: post #15
woodruffw wrote: post #2

This 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.

The difference is control . While a careful, attentive driver in a well-maintained vehicle certainly isn’t immune, their risk is much lower than someone who drives tired, drunk, or high in a car with bald tires and bad brakes.

Where is the control when you get hit by a car as a pedestrian or cyclist or car driver?

This is an excellent example of biased thinking.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#63

Post by BlargMcLarg »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #53
woodruffw wrote: post #2

This 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.

This is a bad way to look at it. We should ask how many more people would die each day without cars. Somehow, this basic analysis is absent in all of the car-hate posts. Not considering pros and cons fairly is a not an honest approach. You can’t claim to be objective by just looking at negatives and proclaiming cars are bad overall. You need to sum up the negatives and positives (assuming an utilitarian view). Otherw…

Because that question is practically impossible to answer. You can't extrapolate current circumstances and draw a conclusion from there. The best you can do is compare with other countries, disregard any non-related-yet-ultimately-significant and draw a fairly weak conclusion from there.

Most of those conclusions would not be in favor of cars, either. Especially not in light of environmental damage.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#64

Post by UncleMeat »

TylerE wrote: post #15
woodruffw wrote: post #2

This 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.

The difference is control . While a careful, attentive driver in a well-maintained vehicle certainly isn’t immune, their risk is much lower than someone who drives tired, drunk, or high in a car with bald tires and bad brakes.

This is true.

But there are two cars in many fatal wrecks. A family friend was killed going to the supermarket by a car running a red light and hitting him in an intersection. A few weeks ago a semitruck slammed into stopped traffic at full speed on 95-S at the Georgia/Florida border. Nothing can be done by a safe driver to prevent that.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#65

Post by djmips »

intrepidhero wrote: post #22
jfengel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not just that people are bad at statistics (we are though). It's also that we place value on individual agency. Getting into a self-driving car (or onto a train) means giving up some of my agency and because of that I have higher expectations of safety from the self-driving car (or train driver) than I would if I had retained that agency. I don't think that's weird or unreasonable. We do need to get better at st…

I completely agree that we put a lot of value into personal agency but I do think it's a bit unreasonable. Agency when driving is only perceived. You could have a heart attack and smash into pedestrians. Your car could fail mechanically. You could be rear ended by a large truck. You could be killed by a drunk or inattentive driver. Your agency can not entirely prevent that. Also you may be in the top percentile in driving but like everything, everyone thinks they are a great driver so you can't take how you feel and generalize it to the population.

I'm not arguing that self driving cars are solved but maybe they aren't quite as bad as people feel. We need proper statistics.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#66

Post by tshaddox »

TylerE wrote: post #15
woodruffw wrote: post #2

This 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.

The difference is control . While a careful, attentive driver in a well-maintained vehicle certainly isn’t immune, their risk is much lower than someone who drives tired, drunk, or high in a car with bald tires and bad brakes.

I'd love to see studies that attempt to control for attributes related to "driver skill" or "driver responsibility" that you could objectively test yourself on, so that you could more accurately predict your own risk and compare it against the risk of alternatives like public transit. It's not really good enough to say "I don't drive drunk, and I'm pretty sure I'm a more skilled driver than average, therefore I can discard all studies on the risks of injury of driving versus public transit."

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#67

Post by indymike »

The answer here is that the convenience of being able to jump in a car, and get to your destination quickly is worth the risk of occasionally being injured or dying on the way to most people. You also have to compare against what came before the car: horses and walking, both of which may have been perilous in comparison with DC Beltway traffic on the way home from work. Ah... never mind - braving the elements and bears might be better than the DC Beltway at rush hour.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#68

Post by dontcontactme »

Another factor is that people are more afraid of scary things when they feel like they can’t control them. Driving makes people feel like they are in control, which makes drivers underestimate their chances of crashing. This is the same reason that airplane crashes and autonomous vehicle crashes are also huge news events: if people feel like crashes are being caused by something they can’t control, that scares them.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#69

Post by ModernMech »

yongjik wrote: post #33
TylerE wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is control . While a careful, attentive driver in a well-maintained vehicle certainly isn’t immune, their risk is much lower than someone who drives tired, drunk, or high in a car with bald tires and bad brakes.

I don't understand. What control do I have over a tired/drunk/high truck driver running a red light into an intersection I'm passing in? I can be actually assured that no drunk driver will smash into my seat in a subway (the chance might not be zero but it's astronomically low). You may say it's not "control" because I didn't personally force all those drunk drivers out of railroads, but then again, I can't force the…

For one, you can choose the routes you take. Accidents aren't evenly distributed across every mile of road. Some roads are are just statistically safer than others. Accidents also aren't evenly distributed across all times of day and weather conditions. By choosing not to drive at those times and in those conditions, you can lower your risk profile.

Moreover, the route you drive most is your commute to work, so you can choose where you live to minimize travel time and intersections. There's one intersection on my way to work, so I guess theoretically what you describe could happen. But the accident statistics for that particular intersection show that practically no accidents have occurred there. Therefore most of the time I spend driving is going to be quite safe compared to the aggregate stats, and that's by choice.

Delivery driver routes are usually optimized for right turns for this reason. My dad was a UPS driver for 30 years and went without an accident the entire time, not even one that wasn't his fault. You'd think statistically he would have gotten into one over the million miles or so he drove on and off the job, but I think that just goes to show that defensive driving and route planning actually works.

No form of travel is absolutely safe. The best you can do is control what you can and hope for the best.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#70

Post by eneumann »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #53
woodruffw wrote: post #2

This 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.

This is a bad way to look at it. We should ask how many more people would die each day without cars. Somehow, this basic analysis is absent in all of the car-hate posts. Not considering pros and cons fairly is a not an honest approach. You can’t claim to be objective by just looking at negatives and proclaiming cars are bad overall. You need to sum up the negatives and positives (assuming an utilitarian view). Otherw…

The car-hate posts can be quite emotional for a number of (valid) reasons, but understand that reducing cars and car trips doesn't happen in a vacuum. No one is arguing to instantly and immediately eliminate every vehicle out there. It's part of a larger process to replace personal vehicles with transit, walk-ability, bike-ability, and generally car-free or car-reduced places where people live.
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