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

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#491

Post by vel0city » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:23 PM UTC

cityofdelusion wrote: post #446

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).

Curious, is there actually evidence of this? I've been in a few accidents and I can't think of how a seat belt would maintain control. I feel that anything that would throw you out of the seat is basically uncontrollable. My accidents with any significant force all happened in the blink of an eye.

I've been forced to make swerving maneuvers which would have been difficult to stay in my seat and in control without a seatbelt. I was in a low speed rear end collision which would have definitely jarred me out of my seat and had me lose control after the fact, probably would have caused me to roll into a busy intersection.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#492

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

leroy_masochist wrote: post #484

My theory of why we ignore car crashes as a source of deaths boils down to a basic reality of American politics: old people vote. I'm a volunteer firefighter in a rural town in the Northeast. We handle a fairly large area and go to about 80 motor vehicle accident calls a year, of which about 20-25 require patient extrication and about 5-8 involve one or more fatalities. More of these MVAs involve a non-intoxicated el…

Nationally, close to 30% of all traffic fatalities are caused by drunk driving. About 20% of all fatalities are elderly.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#493

Post by notatoad » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:26 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #471

namesbc wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Given how low the actual rate of fatalities is compared to miles driven, you are proposing that we significantly lower the bar for when we think government intervention is the right answer.

the government already owns the roads and enforces speed limits. speed governors are already required for scooters and e-bikes in many jurisdictions.

requiring cars to have the same limiters as scooters if they want to access the government-owned roads is not a huge change in scope.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#494

Post by gjs278 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:26 PM UTC

AlwaysRock wrote: post #315

Never owned a car of my own until two years ago. Our car has been hit three times in the last two years. Once totaled on the high way (another drivers fault) and twice while parked. Roughly 50K in damages across the two cars and 3 months in the shop doing repairs. We spent 20K on a new car after the old one was totaled and insurance paid out a fraction of what a similar car would cost. We've paid close to 2K in deduc…

No post body was provided.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#495

Post by alex_young » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:26 PM UTC

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #481

alex_young wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China represents 18% of the world's population, yet 0.07% of COVID-19 fatalities. Seems like there is some value in their approach.

Like pretending there are no covid deaths?

Surely they aren't covering up that many deaths right? The US is 4% of the world population, and represents 16% of the fatalities. If China had our rate of fatalities that would indicate that they are hiding 4.3 million deaths somehow.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#496

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:27 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…

A couple thousand people die every day. About 90 from car accidents. What fraction of the rest are preventable? Probably most of them, if we're being honest.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#497

Post by ip26 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:27 PM UTC

leroy_masochist wrote: post #484

My theory of why we ignore car crashes as a source of deaths boils down to a basic reality of American politics: old people vote. I'm a volunteer firefighter in a rural town in the Northeast. We handle a fairly large area and go to about 80 motor vehicle accident calls a year, of which about 20-25 require patient extrication and about 5-8 involve one or more fatalities. More of these MVAs involve a non-intoxicated el…

There’s more to it, elderly who can’t drive wind up stranded & isolated which is a problem in itself. If we look the other way when they slowly become unfit to drive, we aren’t forced to solve those other problems.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#498

Post by rustybelt » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:27 PM UTC

scrumbledober wrote: post #394

rustybelt wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but if half of all accidents involve idiots, not being an idiot is a legitimate way to reduce your risk of being in an accident. Meaning drivers do have some control over their level of risk behind the wheel.

half of all accidents involve an idiot, but there only has to be one idiot in a two car collision.

Reduce risk, not eliminate it. Do idiots and non-idiots have the same risk of getting into an accident?

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#499

Post by drdec » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:28 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.

FYI, one of the recent giant bills that passed in the US requires automakers to implement passive systems which detect impaired drivers.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#500

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:29 PM UTC

wizofaus wrote: post #467

WalterBright wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're hit from the side, you were already traveling forward.

Er, so? If you're hit hard from the side with no seat belt, your whole body is likely to be thrown around and keeping your foot on the brake is going to be far more difficult. Sorry but this does seem like a pointless discussion - if you were somehow able to prove that seatbelts basically never helped drivers avoid causing injuries/deaths to others then I'd agree a $50 fine is probably sufficient. But given what I've…

> if you were somehow able to prove that seatbelts basically never helped drivers avoid causing injuries/deaths to others

I'm not arguing it never happened. I'm suggesting it doesn't happen often enough to be a major factor in seatbelt laws. Laws addressing highly unlikely events often don't take into account other effects.

For example, when seatbelt laws were proposed, many people reported that they were saved from certain death by being thrown from their car. For example, if the car caught fire. Or the car went off a steep embankment. I don't recall any anecdotes about thrown people causing other accidents.