Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#251

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

clint wrote: post #232

WalterBright wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you're catapulted through your windshield, you're going to hit whatever you drove into, not traffic.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#252

Post by Karrot_Kream » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

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...

It's because self-driving cars have alternatives, like automated trains or streetcars, that are safer and less resource intensive. Self-driving cars aren't just competing against human-driven cars. Unless you think cars are the only form of allowed infrastructure.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#253

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

Arrath wrote: post #238

WalterBright wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not going to happen.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#254

Post by chasd00 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

thehappypm wrote: post #175

wahern wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yep. We don’t fear things under our control. Do I fear driving my car? No, because I can control my safety (to an extent, anyway). I can drive defensively. I can stay focused. I can avoid dangerous intersections. I wear a seat belt and have a big safe SUV. Mass shootings are terrifying because there’s no sense of control. Animals are scary (spiders, snakes) because we can’t control them. Disease is scary when we can’…

> We don’t fear things under our control

yeah, this is it. This is why people will drive through a blizzard in the middle of the night but will have a panic attack trying to board an airplane. In their car they feel in control but in an airplane they feel helpless and at completely dependent on the pilot/crew/airplane.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#255

Post by theptip » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

> It is widely recognized that there is an epidemic of suicides among current and former military personnel, especially those who have been on active duty in a combat theater... There were 3,481 combat deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Since 9/11, there have been over 30,000 military suicides. Over 20 soldiers a day take their own lives.

Pet peeve: while I really like the general point of the article, I wish the author had actually provided statistics that support the claim they are making here. 30k suicides sounds like a lot, but what's the base rate in the general population? The numbers provided don't actually tell you whether the rate of military suicides is higher than civilian ones, and that kind of undermines the point. To be concrete I'm looking for something like "the base rate of suicide is X% chance per year, whereas amongst soldiers it's Y% chance per year, suggesting a risk factor of (Y-X)% caused by military service."

A quick search finds some research (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_veteran....) that suggests the rate of suicide among veterans is 1.5x the base rate, which is substantial. Using those numbers suggests that 10k of those suicides quoted above were specifically attributable to military service (and 20k would be "baseline civilian risk of suicide").

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#256

Post by Arrath » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #228

wizofaus wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the fact your own death is always going to impose a cost on society, I'd assume having a seatbelt on as a driver significantly increases your ability to maintain at least some control of a vehicle in a collision, reducing your chance of injuring others (both in and outside said vehicle).

You have a right to be stupid, even if it results in your death. > I'd assume having a seatbelt on as a driver significantly increases your ability to maintain at least some control of a vehicle in a collision Not a chance. The g forces are tremendous, and you're just along for the ride in a collision. In my major accident, I had a lap belt on, but my arms and legs and torso flung about totally out of my control.

In my own accident, despite being slammed against the driver's door by the impact, I was able to keep my foot stabbed onto the brake pedal throughout the event thanks to the belt keeping me more or less in the driver's seat.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#257

Post by kelnos » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

thehappypm wrote: post #175

wahern wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yep. We don’t fear things under our control. Do I fear driving my car? No, because I can control my safety (to an extent, anyway). I can drive defensively. I can stay focused. I can avoid dangerous intersections. I wear a seat belt and have a big safe SUV. Mass shootings are terrifying because there’s no sense of control. Animals are scary (spiders, snakes) because we can’t control them. Disease is scary when we can’…

> No, because I can control my safety (to an extent, anyway).

Part of the problem is that this control is much more of an illusion than most people realize. In any car crash where there's at least two vehicles involved, often one driver is at fault, and the other is (or others are) more or less an innocent bystander, who may have been exercising all the care and attentiveness in the world. That person was certainly not able to control their safety in that situation.

And even when not involved in a crash, I don't think it's reasonable to say that one's safe outcome was caused even mostly due to their control over their vehicle. Much of it can be attributable to luck, traffic conditions, and the imperfect, but often sufficient, control that others were exercising over their vehicles.

But I do agree with you that the perceived threat/seriousness of these various bad things does have a lot to do with the perception of individual control, whether or not individuals actually do have much control over them. I know a surprising number of people who get anxious flying on a plane, but don't think twice about getting in a car, despite there being a higher probability of injury or death from a car trip.

Something I just realized: I feel like passengers in a car are also similarly not that concerned about the possibility of crashes, even though they are not actually in control of the vehicle. My first thought would be that they presumably know and trust the person who is driving, but that doesn't explain why people feel safe in taxis. I guess maybe people do feel less safe in taxis, though.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#258

Post by wizofaus » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #228

wizofaus wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the fact your own death is always going to impose a cost on society, I'd assume having a seatbelt on as a driver significantly increases your ability to maintain at least some control of a vehicle in a collision, reducing your chance of injuring others (both in and outside said vehicle).

You have a right to be stupid, even if it results in your death. > I'd assume having a seatbelt on as a driver significantly increases your ability to maintain at least some control of a vehicle in a collision Not a chance. The g forces are tremendous, and you're just along for the ride in a collision. In my major accident, I had a lap belt on, but my arms and legs and torso flung about totally out of my control.

That would depend on the collision. The worst I've had, the car I was driving was T-boned by another (their fault). If I'd had no seat belt on I somewhat doubt I would've been able to maintain control of the vehicle and it very likely would have hit other cars.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#259

Post by lief79 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #146

notjustanymike wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because even 40,000 people is only a lot relatively. It is just 0.012% of the American population and 0.00051% of the world population.

No even on that scale it is a lot of harm when you consider it as it actually is. As the person you're responding to notes, a preventable death touches many more than just the individual killed. You can argue that this cost is worth bearing, but you can't dismiss it as "just" .01% or whatever. Over a period of years this is almost every family touched by unnecessary death: people growing up without a parent, careers…

Relatedly, that's just the fatalities. There are far more none fatal injuries, some of which are permanently life altering without bringing in the costs of health care in this country.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#260

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 8:54 PM UTC

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…

> The threshold should be fewer accidents and/or fewer fatalities per million miles driven than human drivers.

Those of us who drive defensively strongly disagree with this metric. The "average driver" is extremely skewed towards a relatively small subset of drivers who cause most of the wrecks. Not coincidentally, the same people who can't afford a fancy autonomous car anyway.