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

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#331

Post by bendbro » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

ok_dad wrote: post #312

WalterBright wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, the physics are you are going to be thrown into whatever your car hit. Second, I've never, ever heard of a flying body hurting someone else.

My parents were both in vehicle accident reconstruction for just such things and I don’t even know how to count how many times I watched a car accident reconstruction (dummies in crash test vehicles) end in a dummy being thrown in any direction you could imagine. It might not hit a person but it will hit a car in the other lanes and cause accidents. You’re out of your element here, stick to compilers for once.

> It might not hit a person but it will hit a car in the other lanes and cause accidents

A butterfly flaps its wings in China causing ok_dad to speculate wildly about the deadly consequences of car fired human projectiles.

We definitely need to ban butterflies.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#332

Post by jahewson » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #286

lovich wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that’s a bold statement, guess the rest of us are just wrong and there are no externalities associated with not wearing a seat belt

First off, the physics are you are going to be thrown into whatever your car hit. Second, I've never, ever heard of a flying body hurting someone else.

Well, that’s because almost everyone wears a seatbelt.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#333

Post by koheripbal » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #159

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…

A Patrol officer I knew said once "I never unbuckled a dead man"

It's a nice zinger, but obviously false.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#334

Post by PaulsWallet » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #161

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…

IMO there's only really 2 underlying issues people have with public transit: 1. In nearly all of the US (maybe everywhere except parts of NYC?) it is a worse experience than driving (requires planning, takes longer, can't carry more than one or two bags with you). 2. It is déclassé. I think #2 is at least partly a result of #1. Also note that #1 is true even for most cities in the US, because cities in the US are unb…

> 2. It is déclassé.

“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation” – Gustavo Petro

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#335

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

ok_dad wrote: post #312

WalterBright wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, the physics are you are going to be thrown into whatever your car hit. Second, I've never, ever heard of a flying body hurting someone else.

My parents were both in vehicle accident reconstruction for just such things and I don’t even know how to count how many times I watched a car accident reconstruction (dummies in crash test vehicles) end in a dummy being thrown in any direction you could imagine. It might not hit a person but it will hit a car in the other lanes and cause accidents. You’re out of your element here, stick to compilers for once.

Do you know of any such accidents in real life? Do you have any statistics on ejected people causing other accidents?

What about when people were saved because they were flung from a car? Like when the car catches fire, falls off a bridge, goes into the river, goes into another lane to be smacked by a truck?

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#336

Post by anotherrandom » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

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…

Biking is the ideal solution. There is one significant downside, though: the practicality of biking is limited by region and time of year+day. In most places in the Southern portion of the US (regardless of coast), biking any significant distance between the hours of 8am to 9 pm is basically saying "I want heatstroke" for nearly 1/2 of the year

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#337

Post by _yoqn » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #298

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…

there's one exception: some technologies have unusual publicity. a gasoline car fire? not a peep. an electric car fire? the media goes crazy. also nuclear power. Fukushima got a lot of attention, but radiation deaths linked to burning coal are significantly higher but not touched by the media.

How often do gas cars catch on fire randomly (and not under the hood but under the passenger compartment as with EVs) compared with spontaneous electric car fires?

This is reminiscent of the Galaxy Notes that were exploding in people's pockets some years ago.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#338

Post by bendbro » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

jahewson wrote: post #332

WalterBright wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, the physics are you are going to be thrown into whatever your car hit. Second, I've never, ever heard of a flying body hurting someone else.

Well, that’s because almost everyone wears a seatbelt.

Rube Goldberg called and he wants his accident back

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#339

Post by chasd00 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

malauxyeux wrote: post #43

giantg2 wrote: post #7

The engineering side is good to look at. We should also be looking at the education/credentialing side too. Many incidents are drivers making poor choices, not knowing the laws, or not understanding vehicle dynamics. Stricter licensing would be a good way to reduce incidents regardless of the redesigns. Arguably, that would be the fastest and cheapest route to effective change.

We've got strict credentialing here in France for obtaining your first license and we're well below the US in traffic deaths. It may be part of the picture, though I still witness plenty of dangerous/aggressive/stupid driving here. One thing we do have going for us, I believe, is "no permit" cars. These are tiny cars with tiny engines that don't require a permit to drive. Many (most?) drivers with revoked licenses st…

i was in Paris and Southern France for two weeks a little bit a go. As a US driver, the chaos of your mopeds makes driving pretty harrowing haha. Still, i was impressed. In all the driving I did over those two weeks I didn't see a single accident. In the US I would have seen at least two being cleaned up on the highways.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#340

Post by andorov » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

jjcm wrote: post #271

sebazzz wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If cars had a max speed limit of 85 mph, and required the seatbelt to be engaged to work Wait, wearing a seatbelt is not mandatory?

Legally it's required, but I think their point is it should be required by hardware. Right now most new cars just beep at you, but you can still operate them.

You can buy clips that prevent the beeping.

The top result is also a bottle opener... https://www.amazon.com/seat-belt-buckle-alarm-stopper/s?k=se...