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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

#231

Post by profile53 »

WalterBright wrote: post #221
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…

Not wearing a seatbelt is an individual choice, and should not be a crime. P.S. Growing up, my dad had the dealer install seatbelts in the family wagon before he picked it up. We never moved an inch unless everyone was buckled up. Nobody else, and I mean nobody else, had seatbelts in their car at the time. P.P.S. Seatbelts also saved my life.

Not wearing a seatbelt is also a choice to force the healthcare system to support the person for 50 years after they break their neck in a preventable way. The choice is individual but the consequences are societal.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#232

Post by clint »

WalterBright wrote: post #221
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…

Not wearing a seatbelt is an individual choice, and should not be a crime. P.S. Growing up, my dad had the dealer install seatbelts in the family wagon before he picked it up. We never moved an inch unless everyone was buckled up. Nobody else, and I mean nobody else, had seatbelts in their car at the time. P.P.S. Seatbelts also saved my life.

Not wearing a seat belt is dangerous to others when you're catapulted through your windshield at 90mph into traffic. This is not the clear-cut case you want to make it out to be.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#233

Post by sixQuarks »

jfengel wrote: post #9
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.

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.

Every time I bring this up when Tesla bashing is going on here, I get downvoted. The hate for Elon here blinds people to statistics

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#234

Post by KptMarchewa »

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…

The same happened to nuclear energy, despite the fact that coal kills 100x people yearly than total nuclear energy deaths.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#235

Post by LeifCarrotson »

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…

I think that's a little uncharitable: If even a handful of people (regardless of location) are harmed by causes that we don't accept as normal, those are tragedies and we'll broadcast news about that tragedy 24/7 and use enormous institutions to move heaven and earth to eliminate that harm. If thousands of people are harmed by causes that we do accept, that's life as usual. That might be obvious, but it bears some thinking about.

About 19 people in the US have been killed by Takata airbags in the years since 2008, and we've spent $24 billion recalling vehicles for repair, because that's a risk that we don't tolerate.

100 people will die today in cars - probably more than 19 people in the next hour, it's going on rush hour and people will be tired and in a hurry - and it's just another Thursday. Also, close to 19 veterans will commit suicide today. We accept that as normal, and I feel strongly that we shouldn't; consideration of that outcome should enter into the public consciousness as we consider the ethics and justifications of military recruitment and our involvement in conflicts across the globe.

Where the deaths happen doesn't really matter. I think it's more about a human ability to name and blame an antagonist: Takata. 9-11. Firestone. Putin. Covid-19. Katrina. Comparatively, 'car culture', senelescence, social and cultural reintegration, and other issues are diffuse to the point of being pervasive and and human brains have a hard time running the numbers on the risk analysis.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#236

Post by wrycoder »

jvm___ wrote: post #184
colpabar wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is totally off topic, but aside from the numbers being lower, we do the exact same thing with gun deaths.

Which baffles the rest of the world as we see the aggregate number and are dumbfounded that nothing is done.

The question under dispute is what is to be done.

Removing guns from law abiding citizens is preferred by one vocal faction, rather than imprisoning criminals who use them in committing crimes (and who usually don't possess their guns legally).

The other faction says that removing guns from law abiding citizens actually increases crime[0].

[0] https://twitter.com/AnneMarieWTHR/status/1549484122497843200...

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#237

Post by windows2020 »

WesternWind wrote: post #225
kjksf wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tilting at windmills here but: US is not some unique country designed for cars and other countries are not some car-free utopias. Per: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_... US is 7th country on cars / people metric, below New Zealand and just above Poland. Yet this is upteenth time I read that US is "designed" around cars as if dependance on cars was some unique property of US.

You have to look at kilometers driven per person, not just ownership. Americans drive far far more than most other industrialized nations. https://frontiergroup.org/blogs/blog/fg/fact-file-americans-...

America is huge and lots of it isn't densely populated.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#238

Post by Arrath »

WalterBright wrote: post #221
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…

Not wearing a seatbelt is an individual choice, and should not be a crime. P.S. Growing up, my dad had the dealer install seatbelts in the family wagon before he picked it up. We never moved an inch unless everyone was buckled up. Nobody else, and I mean nobody else, had seatbelts in their car at the time. P.P.S. Seatbelts also saved my life.

An individual choice that can endanger others when e.g. you cannonball through your own windshield and hit someone, or cause follow on accidents as people swerve out of your way, etc.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#239

Post by youamericanloo »

well, because we can. I mean, we have some mental buffer to accept the conseuqences.. check deep inside!

I think reacting to amtrak crash makes sense since it moves on rails! how on earth something moving on rails could possibly crashes? doesn't make sense... but cars are different.. if you be honest with yourself you should always wonder how on earth we can get to a point without an accident with cars! think about that.. sorry this is just harsh reality.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#240

Post by Willish42 »

umvi wrote: post #185

I think there's another reason too we "ignore" car crashes: loose coupling with politics. Say a DUI driver kills a random family of 5. Is that going to make national headlines? Probably not. Very little to be gained politically. It doesn't really enrage us because we love and celebrate alcohol too much to be capable of villainizing it like guns. So as a result, it doesn't spread very far on social media. Now say a ra…

I think the car deaths vs. gun deaths asymmetry with representation in media can more reasonably be explained by how "terrifying" that news is to viewers, more likely to get web traffic and broadcast viewers, etc.

Healthcare expenses is a similar political wedge-issue that causes tons of deaths (Medicare for all, etc.) and doesn't get nearly as much media coverage because it's less terrifying.

You can see this even irrespective of how many deaths there are, like when there's a really big fire/explosion/storm that gets news coverage but casualties are zero or very low. Those are more likely to get coverage than a single car crash that killed more people

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