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Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

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Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#731

Post by gernb »

rootusrootus wrote: post #684
bee_rider wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expected to see better performance from the bus, but it is surprisingly poor: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint Haven't dug into their sources, but I assume this is because buses often run with low utilization. Anyway the answer is trains, the answer is always trains in public transit.

Trains are a tough sell, at least in the western US. So much wide open space, trains are slow, high speed trains too expensive to justify given the sparse population. I remember once doing the math and finding that there are many times when our local light rail is less efficient than just putting four people in a sedan. When the train is full, though, it's unbeatable. EVs throw another wrench into that math since the…

The sparse population argument seems kind of BS

Switzerland has a low population and is covered in trains

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32180236

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#732

Post by gernb »

cafard wrote: post #559
unsupp0rted wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People shouldn't really drive 300 miles in individual private vehicles. Apart from the chance of accidentally killing oneself or others, it's hugely inefficient. If we changed an interstate full of cars to high speed trains (or hyperloop or whatever) which depart every half hour, it'd be safer, cheaper, cleaner... you name it.

From San Francisco to Los Angeles, sure. From San Francisco to any one of the many small towns within 300 miles, well, that's a lot of track to lay.

not really. The population of the bay area is on par with the entire population of the country of Switzerland yet they manage to have tons of trains in a much larger area

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32180236

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#733

Post by noasaservice »

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...

And the liberal response is to decrease the speed for a road that was previously 45mph, down to 30mph. Of course, the road is perfectly straight, downhill, has a center turn lane, and a multiuse pathway to the side. There's absolutely no reason for 30mph, other than for enhanced revenue generation aka cop theft..

Basically the city I lived in is going anti-car, which would be cool... if it weren't for ALSO de-prioritizing bicycling, busses, and sidewalks. Basically, it's anti-car and laggard to non-caring about alternate choices.

note: i am a leftist. Cars need reduced, significantly. But that also means converting roads to trails, making friendlier bicycling/walking areas, better and free public transit. Basically it'd be improving society at all levels upward - from a pollution, transit, AND poverty position. Which, in the case of the US neoliberal "you will suffer", well, won't really happen except in actual leftist enclaves.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#734

Post by sooheon »

WalterBright wrote: post #423
scrumbledober wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it shows what happens when you don't have a strong military and try to invade a neighbor...

Since my point wasn't obvious, let me explain. Ukraine had a very weak military. If it was stronger, Putin would never have invaded.

Strength is multidimensional. Power projection and defense entail different capabilities. It's not like a "strong military" is something you order online, it takes an economic and demographic base which Ukraine couldn't support. Maybe a better argument is that they shouldn't have denuclearized -- for defense you don't need a military, you just need MAD.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#735

Post by xputer »

jjav wrote: post #677
epistasis wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh boy you are in for a treat. Google parking minimums and single family zoning. And watch some videos from this channel: https://youtu.be/bnKIVX968PQ

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#736

Post by maerF0x0 »

As more people do a thing, and do it more, it's natural consequences happen more. Funny how that happens? Using my eyes to approximate the changes from this graph[1]

* Death rate per mile driven is down like 95% or nonetheless drastically since 1925.

* Current deaths per year is less than 1975, despite driving like 50% more miles

Now, safety likely could be much greater if people gave the same care to driving as in the past. Two phenomenon are likely happening :

1. Driving is more familiar, so its approached with less care, and

2. People have become accustomed to the safety technologies aiding them such that they increase the riskiness of their behavior to match their base risk tolerance. Eg: as brakes get better people drive faster and closer. As cruise radar gets better people use their phones more and rely on it braking.

Alas, this may fall to the same issue with greenhouse gasses / climate change -- Technological change is simply not fast enough for the goals of society, and a net reduction must occur. We cannot make our economy green enough soon enough such that we must simply reduce our consumption, and it seems our safety standards cannot keep up with increasing consumption

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#737

Post by tzs »

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…

Are you talking about pedestrian deaths when you mention car risk for your children?

If so, good news. Those have been going down. Since 1975 pedestrian deaths of under 13 year olds have steadily declined by more than an order of magnitude. For 13-19 year olds the decline hasn't been as big, but is still over a factor of 3 [1].

[1] https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes...

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#738

Post by xputer »

partdavid wrote: post #173
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…

Yeah, "we" don't ignore them at all . I'm not sure I'm able to articulate all the costs and efforts around road safety, but I'm quite certain it's... real high. Not just the directives of the NHSTA and the effort required to comply with them (crash testing and research, etc.), but most law enforcement activity (and the support laws and codes restricting driving activity), driver education and licensing (on passenger…

Watch some videos from this channel and you'll be able to see how the US definitely does not do enough in terms of creating safe road infrastructure for all:

https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM

https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54

https://youtu.be/oHlpmxLTxpw

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#739

Post by [deleted] »

partdavid wrote: post #173
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…

Yeah, "we" don't ignore them at all . I'm not sure I'm able to articulate all the costs and efforts around road safety, but I'm quite certain it's... real high. Not just the directives of the NHSTA and the effort required to comply with them (crash testing and research, etc.), but most law enforcement activity (and the support laws and codes restricting driving activity), driver education and licensing (on passenger…

[deleted]
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