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Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

strongtowns.org

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Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#671

Post by lmm »

nightfly wrote: post #470
KptMarchewa wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same happened to nuclear energy, despite the fact that coal kills 100x people yearly than total nuclear energy deaths.

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.

Less than a third of the area that's been ruined forever by renewable power generation's "business as usual", indeed less than the area flooded by the Three Gorges Dam alone.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#672

Post by kloch »

porknubbins wrote: post #436
naasking wrote: post #304

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. But that makes sense statistically, because those are thousands of ostensibly independent events that don't necessarily have a single common cause, where the massacre of a…

Yes the author seems to state that there are many more traffic deaths than commercial transport deaths as if the point is self evident but I do not see it. From my perspective its a minor miracle that there aren't more traffic deaths. We let any private individual drive up to a 20,000 something pound vehicle with pretty minimal licensing requirements (in most places in the US). The news story is that it mostly goes o…

> drive up to a 20,000 something pound vehicle

Specifically in the US the limit is 26,000 lbs GVWR without a CDL. That is the gross vehicle rating cannot be over 26,000 lbs, even if it actually weighs less when driven.

I've always assumed that exceeding the GVWR is illegal but searches show conflicting results.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#674

Post by cratermoon »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #635
cratermoon wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the opposite of most western countries, where the incentives are to over-report. Ahem. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/22/politics/donald-trump-testing... https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/01/06/desantis-admits-roughl... https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/19/rebekah-jon...

Yes, that's news about Florida and Donald Trump. Now do New York and California. The most populous states were likely over-reporting deaths. By the way, despite the rhetoric, states were getting money from the federal government for reporting a COVID death. There was literally a per-death payment. If that is not an incentive to over-report (despite the usual bloviating from Republicans), I don't know what is.

[citation needed]

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#675

Post by sokoloff »

coding123 wrote: post #447
paulpauper wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like covid. THoussands of deaths daily became background noise

Well, 2 years ago it did not. it was more of an "event". Now that it's something we have decided we can't stop (in the sense that we've done as much as we can without forcing more things - the public has reach a hard limit) it's a lot like car crashes.

We also realized (IMO realized is more accurate than decided) we can’t stop all deaths from influenza.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#676

Post by sokoloff »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #252
bostonpete wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If a train or streetcar isn’t an effective alternative to a human-driven car (as is the case in the overwhelming majority of car trips in the US), how are they an effective alternative to a self-driving car?

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#677

Post by jjav »

epistasis wrote: post #130
mywittyname wrote: post #105

"We" don't ignore them. Every major government has a body dedicated entirely to automobile safety. In the USA, this is NHSTA - National Highway Safety & Transportation Administration. They maintain an information system of traffic fatality statistics in the USA, called FARS (fatality analysis reporting system). This system is used to determine new safety devices and standards for vehicles and to test their effectiven…

I can't agree with your assessment at all. Deaths are rising, yet what changes are happening? And in particular the NHSTA doesn't give a damn about those outside of the car. The very greatest threat to the life of my children is cars. It would be easy, trivial almost, to fix this by legalizing building for houses and businesses that don't allow cars, but are served only by public transit. Yet this very simple, very d…

> Yet this very simple, very desirable concept is illegal in the US except for a few tiny islands.

I don't see how it can be illegal?

HOAs have extreme power and already impose all kinds of overbearing rules on people subject to them. So you could surely get together with a few hundred likeminded people and build a neighborhood where the HOA prohibits cars.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#678

Post by kyleee »

masterj wrote: post #432
mywittyname wrote: post #105

"We" don't ignore them. Every major government has a body dedicated entirely to automobile safety. In the USA, this is NHSTA - National Highway Safety & Transportation Administration. They maintain an information system of traffic fatality statistics in the USA, called FARS (fatality analysis reporting system). This system is used to determine new safety devices and standards for vehicles and to test their effectiven…

Safety regulations for the people inside the vehicles. Next to no regulations to protect those obligated to exist alongside them. Ex: No regulations for how a pedestrian body will react in a crash with an SUV

and very light punishment for killing and or maiming pedestrians / cyclists

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#679

Post by WalterBright »

robotresearcher wrote: post #580
WalterBright wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No it doesn't. The US government doesn't force military vets and retirees to quit smoking and eating donuts. I don't think a single one of the many countries with socialized health care for all does this. They may pay for education and awareness of the risks of smoking, and they may highly tax cigarettes to dissuade you. But they don't force you.

Seatbelt laws and helmet laws.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#680

Post by jjav »

dontcontactme wrote: post #68

Another factor is that people are more afraid of scary things when they feel like they can’t control them. Driving makes people feel like they are in control, which makes drivers underestimate their chances of crashing. This is the same reason that airplane crashes and autonomous vehicle crashes are also huge news events: if people feel like crashes are being caused by something they can’t control, that scares them.

> Driving makes people feel like they are in control

It doesn't just make them "feel like they are in control", the driver is in control of manouvering the car.

I guess you're arguing for the fact that not 100% of crashes are avoidable by the driver? Yes, that's true. But a very large percentage is very much avoidable by the driver and the choices they make.

In contrast to a plane crash where the passengers literally have nothing at all they can do to avoid death.

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