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Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

strongtowns.org

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Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#81

Post by roughly »

wahern wrote: post #48
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.

> 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. You could have just stopped at "control". That's the fundamental dynamic by which we can explain this differential public sentiment--a sense of control or lack thereof, independent of whether that control actually exist…

What's interesting here is that it's a very specific, narrow form of control. The driver of the car feels in control, because they're operating the motor vehicle, yet on the macro scale, they're operating a motor vehicle because of a whole host of other decisions outside their control. For most people, they don't have the option to not operate a motor vehicle and still live where they do, work where they do, etc. Likewise, the road construction and design operates a powerful influence on how they drive and how others drive around them, as well as how safely they can navigate to their destination - this too is out of their control. Regulations on the construction and maintenance of vehicles they and others on the road drive are also out of their control, but affect the environment in which the driver operates, and rules around who can drive and under what conditions similarly are not in the driver's control. The driver of the car exhibits control over only the narrowest and most immediate circumstances of their condition, and yet that veneer of control is sufficient for the majority of observers to put the blame nearly entirely on the driver for the outcome of their trip, absolving or ignoring the numerous other systems and decisions made which put them in circumstances in which accidents are alarmingly frequent.

The article covers suicide, and here too the veneer of control at the point of action hides the entire complex environment in which someone dies of suicide - the social, economic, and political landscape that creates the conditions in which a former service member takes their life is not strictly personal, but we insist on treating it as such, because at the point of action, it is indeed the individual who commits the act.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#82

Post by hgomersall »

googlryas wrote: post #75
hgomersall wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, every driver you interact with might be drunk or distracted. In a collision with a drunk in a car, I'd rather be in a bus.

Sure, but you would probably rather be driving a car if your bus driver was suicidal that morning.

How many suicidal bus drivers have we had? I mean ever.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#83

Post by ericmay »

wahern wrote: post #48
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.

> 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. You could have just stopped at "control". That's the fundamental dynamic by which we can explain this differential public sentiment--a sense of control or lack thereof, independent of whether that control actually exist…

If only we could take this further. What’s more in “control” than driving? Walking and riding a bike. That’s ultimate control.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#84

Post by kieselguhr_kid »

dontcontactme wrote: post #68

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.

I want to make clear that I agree completely, but I've been injured in two car crashes in my life. Once, I was a pedestrian and crossing the street in a crosswalk with a signal when an old lady drove into me and then drove off. We had made eye contact while I crossed, but for whatever reason she decided to start driving nonetheless. The other time, I was stopped at a red light and someone arguing with their partner rear ended me. Incidentally, I caused minor injuries to others in a similar crash when I was a teenager. Clearly, there was no element of control to the injured parties in any of those three stories.

It'd be really nice if we could figure out how to convey to people that they don't have any significant control over their safety when driving, so that we can finally start making rational attempts to drive down the number of motorist and pedestrian deaths.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#85

Post by djmips »

pbuzbee wrote: post #54
js2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like a form of the Dunning–Kruger effect where everyone believes they're in control of their fate in a car, but not on public transit. People must think they're exceptional drivers and that they can dodge any accident.

If I've learned anything from watching "Idiots in Cars" videos on Reddit, it's that you can go from "driving normally" to "in an accident" much faster than you think. Most people have very little experience reacting to imminent accidents on the road. Overall that's a good thing, but it certainly seems naive to think that simply being an attentive driver is enough to keep you out of accidents.

It's a good thing, because yes getting injured or killed in a car accident is horrible but it's not a good thing that they don't have any training at all. If driving was something done only in industry there would be proper training and a lot more safety precautions. I think about this every time I walk down this narrow sidewalk in my town that's 4 feet from the roadway. A friend of mine was recently in the crosshairs of a straying van and he was only saved by the luck of a telephone pole intervening.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#86

Post by digdugdirk »

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.

I find many of the issues brought up about public transit being unsafe revolve around the people you might encounter on public transit (drug users, homeless, mental illness, etc.) and the waiting around/walking to public transit stops (muggings, thefts, etc.)

I've never had any issues myself, but have absolutely been exposed to those issues while taking transit. I've also witnessed those issues increase during/post lockdown.

I have no solutions, just pointing out a different angle on the "unsafe" issue mentioned above. I'd love to hear if anyone has any experience or ideas to reduce this perception of a lack of safety.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#87

Post by cianmm »

chroem- wrote: post #50
narush wrote: post #30

I _highly_ recommend consuming more of the content put out by Strong Towns [1]. If I were to summarize their message, it's that in the past 100 years, we've engaged in a large-scale experiment to design our places around cars. This is bad for safety, bad for the economy, and (most importantly!) bad for us people that live in these places! Content and education-wise, they are my favorite non-profit :) If you're lookin…

You can't conduct commerce on a bike. Anti-car policies are also closely coupled with inflated housing prices, since they effectively reduce the available housing supply by requiring employees to commute from within public transit distance of their job.

Anti car policies need to be paired with pro sustainability and livable city policies. You can’t do just one or the other, both need to happen close to simultaneously. We need to strongly discourage car use and encourage sustainable transportation while strongly safeguarding it for those who truly need it, rather than those who just want it.

You can conduct many types of commerce, maybe most types of commerce by bike. You can’t do things like say transporting more than two sofas, or large scale building materials, but if the goal is to reduce car usage as much as possible you’d be surprised how much you can do with a good cargo bike.

With an electric bike most people could easily do a 15km commute within 40 minutes especially where provided safe cycling infrastructure. And with no need to store and transport all of these cars despite them only being used for two hours a day you can use all of that space to build more housing.

People who want to live outside of population centres and thus feel the need to own a car but need to commute into population centres can instead commute to large scale park and ride for public transit. Maybe they can also charge their cars there too, maybe even for free with ownership of a transit pass.

And the best part about strongly discouraging car ownership and usage while strongly encouraging sustainable transport is that it frees up space on the road for busses, emergency services, cyclists, pedestrians, and those who need vehicles for transporting goods or for accessibility reasons.

Finally, consider that housing prices in areas with sustainable transport options might be higher because people want to live where they can safely walk and cycle surrounded by trees and plants. Make that possible for anybody who wants it and we’ll have a cheaper house prices, healthier populations, less climate change, safer societies, and just generally a nicer time.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#88

Post by libraryatnight »

toyg wrote: post #37
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.

You say control, I say guilt . Society loves to attribute systemic problems to individual wickedness, because it empowers the judgemental elements while requiring no actual effort. As you say, careful drivers are not immune. But as long as someone, anyone, involved in the accident can be condemned as sinful (in many cases the sin of being tired from overworking forced on them by societal pressures), it can be explain…

This extends in so many directions. I hear people speak this way about the homeless, the addicted, the laid-off, the sick. Cancer? Begin the list of things the person did, consumed, didn't do that could have caused it (no shortage of headlines to feed the lists). Homeless? Must have acted irresponsibly and made stupid choices. It's sort of hand in hand with the "It can't happen to me" mindset. I remember my wife telling me - during the George Floyd trial - one of her co-workers interrupted when someone referred to him as a man and said "He was a drug addict" like that should end the conversation, like that exempted him from being human, like some of her favorite celebrities weren't drug addicts.

"To the dumb question 'Why me?' the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: 'Why not?'" - Christopher Hitchens, from Mortality.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#89

Post by belorn »

jandrese wrote: post #3

The 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…

We can start by putting the autonomous vehicles to the driver license test to see if they can just pass the lowest standard of driving, ie the quality of a novice driver. If they can't do that without instructor needing to step in then just like the novice they shouldn't be allowed on the roads without a licensed driver to oversee them.

That is the bar that autonomous vehicles need to reach. Crash rate of zero is not required, through if it is higher than the average driver then it might be worth to make the license requirements higher.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#90

Post by smileysteve »

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.

Your details really erase control though;

To stick to the legal ones;

Tired. 40% of Americans report not getting 8 hours of sleep a night. An only partially intersecting group reports they are regularly tired during daily activities. Is a driver's self actualization of tired accurate?

Attentive; bad news, most drivers aren't attentive, hence we're still seeing deaths from texting while driving. Self actualization doesn't exist here either. Add in passengers (children, dogs, friend, partner) - deep thoughts on work, relationships - combined with doing something that is mostly mundane.

Poor Maintenance. Brakes, nails in tires, low air pressure in tires, tires not suited for climate, other cars leaving oils on the roads, poor road maintenance, unexpected or untrained weather, check engine light (25%), potholes impact tie rods and steering, worn shocks, uneven loading. Very few drivers do this or pre-drive check every drive.

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