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

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#401

Post by SilverBirch » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:45 PM UTC

namesbc wrote: post #314

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…

Cars should have a regulator installed by the manufacturer to limit speed to 20mph on roads with people, and to 60mph on grade separated highways. This maximum would barely change your time to destination, but it would save thousands of lives per year. - 20mph: 90% survival rate - 30mph: 60% survival rate - 40mph: 20% survival rate https://www.betterstreetschicago.org/blog/chicago-speed-came...

Well done, you've specified a superset of self driiving without delivering any economic benefit. Oh, and every road in Europe is now a hazard because you've designed new cars with absurdly low speed limits.

But no I'm sure your baselesss opinion on speeds is best.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#402

Post by ansible » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

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.

And if we hadn't done that stuff, we would have seen even more than the 1M deaths we did experience. Things could have gotten significantly worse as the hospitals filled up and space was not available for Covid patients and all the other people with heart attacks and other medical conditions.

Even as it is, the medical staff have been overworked and extremely stressed. They've been quitting the medical field in very high numbers:

https://morningconsult.com/2021/10/04/health-care-workers-se...

Yes, because of the lockdown, we have paid a high price, but don't just dismiss the higher price we would have paid if no mitigations had been attempted.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#403

Post by wizofaus » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #383

Arrath wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's no doubt that the belt played a role in reducing your injuries.

But you'd then argue being able to keep your foot on the brake doesn't help your chances of avoiding causing injury/death to others?

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#404

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

profile53 wrote: post #231

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 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.

One of the things I don't like about free health care is it comes with the notion that the government should force you to do things to reduce those costs.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#405

Post by unsupp0rted » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:46 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"

They unbuckled plenty of people who'll never walk/turn their heads/poop normally without chronic pain again though.

Cutting fatalities by 50% is a good start, but the other 50% aren't walking away from car accidents trouble-free, with or without seatbelts in play.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#406

Post by officeplant » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #303

jjcm wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We never pushed for it politically because it wouldn't change anything but it would piss people off. You can simply buckle the seatbelt with nobody in the seat, then sit down, and the requirement is defeated. On the other hand, a mandatory breathalyzer for ignition would be useful to prevent a lone driver from driving drunk. We already have them for people with DUIs, so we should make them mandatory for all cars.

Had a friend dumb enough to drive drunk a few times and get multiple DUI's resulting in a breathalyzer in his hopped up WRX. I will never forget the pure frustration of him dealing with stalling out a manual car and having to grab the breathalyzer while also trying to get started again. I wish he would have had to deal with that for years instead of 6 months, but at least he cleaned up his act.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#407

Post by asveikau » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:47 PM UTC

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #303

jjcm wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We never pushed for it politically because it wouldn't change anything but it would piss people off. You can simply buckle the seatbelt with nobody in the seat, then sit down, and the requirement is defeated. On the other hand, a mandatory breathalyzer for ignition would be useful to prevent a lone driver from driving drunk. We already have them for people with DUIs, so we should make them mandatory for all cars.

My understanding is that many people drive above the legal limit for DUIs and do not get caught. DUI prosecution is somewhat the story of selective enforcement.

What would piss people off is coming into contact with the fact that they're driving illegally. I think many drivers are unaware of being above legal limits and would probably be angry when confronted with it.

I guess playing devil's advocate... There's probably some odd scenario where driving above the limit for an emergency circumstance could be justifiable. So perhaps the car should not be disabled in this way.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#408

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:47 PM UTC

jahewson wrote: post #364

WalterBright wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It’s a that like asking for all the data on how many people spread polio? Zero! Aha, thus proving the vaccine does nothing!

Um, there are lots of polio statistics.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#409

Post by belorn » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:47 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #98

belorn wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This doesn't seem like a very high bar to pass. Around here a drivers test involves a short stint on a low speed closed course with a few intersections and then a parallel parking test. Our current self driving systems should have no trouble with that once they are informed what you expect.

I guess every country has their own set of expectations and rules for what qualify for operating a car in a safe manner.

Where I live the practical part of the driver exam is 30m of driving in mixed environment, usually involving a number of environments (based on what the driver inspector can find that day). Those involve city driving, country driving and on-off to the highway, with a number of events such as driving in areas where there are pedestrians/cyclists/children, crossing railway, lane changes, roundabouts, passing construction work, and so on. Just like with a driver instructor the car has double controls, but if the inspector has to take control of the car to prevent an accident then its an automatic fail and the person has to retake the test at a later date. Minor failures can be accepted, through the basic concept is that a person who can't drive around for 30 minutes without causing an accident shouldn't be on the road.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#410

Post by masterj » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:48 PM UTC

dwighttk wrote: post #169

woodruffw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I also won't claim that driving is dangerous, in the abstract: human beings take all kinds of risks, lots of them for fun, and I'm not interested in restricting others' behavior on that basis . It's merely thought provoking: every HN thread on transit will have the same half-dozen comments about violence and danger on public transit, when the reality is that two orders of magnitude more deaths occur each year o…

>the reality is that two orders of magnitude more deaths occur each year on our highways. What is the throughput of highways vs public transit? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was two orders of magnitude greater person hours on roads in non public transit.

> What is the throughput of highways vs public transit?

Regardless of what the US does, throughput is much higher on public transit than it is on highways. You can fit so many more people on buses and trains than in automobiles.

For the actual numbers, compare deaths-per-passenger-mile in-city and deaths-per-passenger-mile between cities (highways vs buses, trains, etc), and you will see huge difference in fatality rate.