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

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#621

Post by hnov » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:07 AM UTC

omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #480

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This maximum would barely change your time to destination Yes it would. The drive from LA to San Francisco is about 300 miles on Interstate 5. Much of this highway is completely straight, with excellent visibility through an unpopulated desert. When sparsely trafficked (as it is much of the time), it is safe to drive 80+ MPH on I5 for hours at a time. At 80 MPH, this is a 3 hour 45 minute drive. At your proposed 60…

In the several trips my wife and I have taken between East Bay and SoCal, it's been hard to maintain 80+ mph. Between interchanges, construction, slower drivers, trucks passing other trucks, and so on, we're lucky to hit an average of 70mph. On the flip side, cruising at 60+mph is totally doable, and while it is ~40+ minutes slower in theory, we only need to stop for gas once at lower speeds, which shaves off ~10-20…

An average of 70 means you’re doing at least 80+. Maintaining an average of 80 requires going over 100 on that route in my experience.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#622

Post by stefan_ » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:08 AM UTC

wrycoder wrote: post #236

jvm___ wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Hello, the US is the world leader in imprisoning people. It clearly doesn't work very well.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#623

Post by autoexec » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:08 AM UTC

dcsommer wrote: post #594

hibikir wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be like this though: Other countries pay attention to crashes, especially with fatalities. One of my uncles was a civil engineer working in Spain's government, now retired. All crashes reported to the police would be marked in maps, with an extra layer for fatalities. Then they'd be grouped by the kilometer of road, to look for the sections of road that were the most dangerous. The worst locations…

The US has this concept of "black spots" too. However, they are ironically named "safety corridors." We get a nice sign [0] to mark the death zone and then traffic continues unabated. [0] https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2010/04/inflated_traffic...

I had assumed that every city I've ever lived in was doing the rest of the work too, sending out engineers to asses the reasons for the higher than average deaths and making changes like adding stop lights, clearing anything obstructing people's view, or adjusting speed limits. Seems defeatist (or more cynically, exploitative) to just throw up a sign and extract more money from speeders.

I mean, I want to know when I'm on a road that's got problems, so it's useful for that much I guess, but we kind of have that already in form of the roadside memorial (Descansos) trend that crept north from Mexico and Texas, If a road merits a "safety corridor" sign changes should be being made, otherwise you risk an incentive to build dangerous roads or to do nothing more about them in order to make more money on traffic tickets.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#624

Post by pdonis » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:08 AM UTC

jrkatz wrote: post #512

pdonis wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. My summary is different: if thousands of people die because the government specifically puts them in harm's way but doesn't give them the best available protection against…

> lock their car and take them to the police station and let them contact someone from there. But don't force them to pay a fine or go to court if they haven't caused harm. Supposing at least some drunk drivers are aware they are drunk but fully convinced they will not harm anyone, this improves their worst case scenario substantially. Before, losing their license; now, getting even closer to home before calling a ri…

> the common consensus is that certainty of punishment is the primary deterrent against criminal activity.

There is no such thing as "certainty of punishment". There isn't even "certainty of punishment if you get caught", since our society is not a sane society in this respect and lets people who do cause harm, up to and including murder, off the hook for all manner of insane ideological reasons.

That said, I didn't say we shouldn't punish people who actually cause harm. The scenario I was describing was a person who is, for example, driving drunk, but hasn't caused harm, and gets stopped by a cop. Should the cop be able to ticket them? Or just prevent them from driving until they are sober? If they haven't caused harm, I would say the latter.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#625

Post by MichaelCollins » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:09 AM UTC

dcsommer wrote: post #594

hibikir wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be like this though: Other countries pay attention to crashes, especially with fatalities. One of my uncles was a civil engineer working in Spain's government, now retired. All crashes reported to the police would be marked in maps, with an extra layer for fatalities. Then they'd be grouped by the kilometer of road, to look for the sections of road that were the most dangerous. The worst locations…

The US has this concept of "black spots" too. However, they are ironically named "safety corridors." We get a nice sign [0] to mark the death zone and then traffic continues unabated. [0] https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2010/04/inflated_traffic...

We also mark deadly intersections and turns with white crosses, one for each person who's died there. They're worth paying attention to, and I think locals at least learn to be weary of those locations.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#626

Post by pdonis » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:09 AM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #472

pdonis wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. My summary is different: if thousands of people die because the government specifically puts them in harm's way but doesn't give them the best available protection against…

Mostly agree, except: Design of separation can dramatically help. Isolate pedestrians and low-barrier low mass slow motor devices from higher mass, higher speed, vehicles. Dense cities should have an (or many) isolated vehicles only layer(s), completely separated from pedestrians.

I certainly agree that if there are ways to improve the design of the traffic system to make it safer, those things should be done.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#627

Post by moistly » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:09 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #557

colpabar wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an extremely cynical american, my view is that we don't do anything because guns are a big industry in america, and industry controls our government in all the places that matter. But my point was more that we only ever talk about gun violence when a very specific type of gun violence occurs, and pointing out the incidents that constitute the bulk of the aggregate number usually gets you called a racist.

The entire US civilian small arms industry is tiny . The largest publicly traded gun company has a stock market capitalization of about 0.05% of Apple. The entire gun industry has an annual revenue of only $70 billion, which doesn't even register as a significant line item in our $20 trillion GDP. Any political influence the industry has is more to do with cultural factors than with size.

It takes very little money to buy your politicians. Tens of thousands of dollars to sway their opinion, a few hundred thousand to buy it outright. The gun companies own a lot of your politicians.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#628

Post by QuarterReptile » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:13 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #273

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…

> 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. My summary is different: if thousands of people die because the government specifically puts them in harm's way but doesn't give them the best available protection against…

>thousands of people die because the government specifically puts them in harm's way

You lost me at the part where this was supposed to not be describing every roadway funded in whole or part by state or federal governments, contingent upon following lethal design standards required by the same.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#629

Post by oliwarner » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:13 AM 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…

Driving sucks, in some places.

I've been driving for 21 years in the UK. I've been dinked in a car park while I was shopping, 20 years ago. That's it.

Your description sounds like a solid reason to up and move to somewhere with better road safety.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#630

Post by nightfly » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:13 AM UTC

MichaelCollins wrote: post #596

nightfly wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The disasters that happen when nuclear energy fails are amazingly bad though. Even discounting immediate human deaths, 80 square miles around Fukushima and 1,000 square miles around Chernobyl are effectively ruined forever.

> The disasters that happen when nuclear energy fails are amazingly bad though. Even discounting immediate human deaths, Are you sure you're not discounting that figure because it's contrary to your conclusion? Very few people have ever died as the indirect long-term result (let alone by direct immediate result) of nuclear energy accidents, even according the highest estimates from histrionic ideologues like Greenpea…

I'm overall not anti-nuclear or anything. The lasting cultural, ecological, and economic damage from severe nuclear disasters is _pretty_ significant though and we need to do a better job ensuring they don't happen if we wanna restore peoples trust in the idea of nuclear power.