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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

#191

Post by kyleamazza »

jiveturkey wrote: post #174
CodeAndCuffs wrote: post #155

I was a cop for several years. I worked hundreds of crashes, and a few fatalities. If cars had a max speed limit of 85 mph, and required the seatbelt to be engaged to work, we'd cut our fatality rate in half. Most nations' DUI laws consider a 0.05 BAC as illegal. In most US states 0.08 is presumed under the influence, 0.06 - 0.079 is considered no presumption either way, and under .06 is considered not under the infl…

Who cares if you kill yourself through your own negligence? There shouldn't be a fine at all for seatbelts. DUI, OTOH, should be treated even more harshly than it is.

Because your body tumbling around in your car during a crash can kill passengers, or be catapulted onto the street causing another accident/injury from someone trying to avoid it

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#192

Post by googlryas »

bostonpete wrote: post #152
googlryas wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense because, for most of America, we have designed our environment to be heavily dependent on the possibilities cars open up for us. It is not the same with air or train travel. Those are useful, but not necessary for almost all people.

Makes sense, but that still doesn't explain why we ignore tens of thousands of auto deaths per year but talk about one Uber ATG death for 5 years...

My guess is just because self driving cars are new and rare. Once there are millions on the road, we will stop getting reports about each individual accident involving them.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#193

Post by wrycoder »

ccn0p wrote: post #164
rtkwe wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same pattern plays out all over the place. Diffuse deaths are just background noise to life where singular events breakthrough. Happens all the time with gun/heart attack/car/pollution/etc. deaths. The last 2 years of COVID proved that to me pretty definitively.

Covid deaths: Simple solution, lockdown, virtual learning, 6-feet apart, cancel sports and after-school activities, miss graduations, etc. All the mental fallout from this: Too complex, just a way of life. Drip drip drip.

Well, those solutions don't really work because of the contagiousness, so they are going out of favor.

What is needed is effective prophylactics (beyond mRNA vaccines) and effective treatment. But the effort spent on that is, sadly, minimal.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#194

Post by ladyattis »

It reminds me of how here in the US we often overuse signage and other markings on roads to 'prevent' accidents but roads with less markings that are obvious and direct tend to have less accidents by comparison. I wonder if part of the problem with American roads is the fact we assume people need information they don't need or use. I know that roads here aren't actively calmed by changing the quality of the road (roughness, width) and that often people ignore or outright get confused by whatever signage and markings are put up.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#195

Post by [deleted] »

goodpoint wrote: post #120
digdugdirk wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

Try visiting Japan or South Korea or even central Europe.

[deleted]

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#196

Post by goatcode »

greedo wrote: post #183
jiveturkey wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if you kill yourself through your own negligence? There shouldn't be a fine at all for seatbelts. DUI, OTOH, should be treated even more harshly than it is.

Because your death becomes an externality that others have to pay for.

Should we treat all behaviors that are associated with a significantly increased mortality rate the same way, or should we pick and choose depending on the political and social context at the time, like we do with seatbelts?

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#197

Post by chroem- »

multiplegeorges wrote: post #166
chroem- wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you: I don't care for content that's searching for evidence to support a preconcieved position. There is too much dogma and not enough pragmatism in this space. I already get enough of their content on HN to recognize dogma when I see it. Quite frankly, it's a circlejerk where everyone else is wrong unless they follow the ST-scene's ideologically-founded prescriptions, and if you post evidence to the contrar…

> There is too much dogma and not enough pragmatism in this space. And rejecting other viewpoints out of hand isn't dogmatic?

No post body was provided.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#198

Post by bcrosby95 »

googlryas wrote: post #137
flaque wrote: post #96

There’s an audio version of the same point here: https://podcast.strongtowns.org/e/the-drip-drip-drip-of-traf... A ”best effort” summary of this article: if thousands of people die in once place, it’s one of the great tragedies in American history. However if thousands of people die in thousands different places, it is ignored and considered a fact of life. When a plane or train crashes, we stop everything and redesi…

It makes sense because, for most of America, we have designed our environment to be heavily dependent on the possibilities cars open up for us. It is not the same with air or train travel. Those are useful, but not necessary for almost all people.

It doesn't though. We accept unsafe intersection in America that could be made a lot safer. I've also lived in 6 different car dependent places in my life, and all of them are amenable to biking, its just a scary proposition with the current infrastructure.

I think a lot of the deaths are put in the realm of "personal responsibility" - we don't pursue safer options, even for cars, because it's always someone's fault something bad happened, rather than intrinsic to the design of the road.

We create roads where people would feel safe going 65mph down them, then slap a 35-45mph speed limit on it, and call it a day.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#199

Post by jmyeet »

I have a simpler explanation: people collectively are quite willing to let thousands of people they don't know when the alternative is any form of even mild inconvenience to themselves.

Sensible gun regulations like red flag laws for those with mental issues or convictions for domestic violence or even just background checks? Well that might make it slightly more difficult to buy a gun so that's a "no".

More than a million Americans died of Covid, at a peak of over 3,000 a day. For reference, that's basically a 9/11 every day. Mask mandates to reduce transmission rate? Getting vaccinated to hopefully reach herd immunity? Nope.

American corporations routinely outsource activity to other countries that frequently use effective if not actual slave labor or otherwise horrible working conditions? Nope, we're OK with that too.

How easily we trade convenience for the lives of people we don't know says a lot about human nature.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#200

Post by rustybelt »

clairity wrote: post #103
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.

the difference is the illusion of control. you can’t talk yourself past raw statistics that way. you might make a marginal difference in risk, but the bulk of the risk is beyond personal control. even with attentiveness, if you’re 1 of 100 drivers on the road, you’re at best controlling for 1% of that one risk. and i’d argue attentiveness (anti-distractedness) is the most important mass mitigation we could make, but…

Are you arguing that drivers don't have any control over their level of risk on the road? Sure they can't eliminate 100% of risk, but not speeding and not driving drunk absolutely influences a driver's likelihood of being in an accident.
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