For the same reason the obituaries, listing perhaps 5-10 dead people, is nowhere near the front page of the newspaper, while a murder of just 1 or 2 often is.
Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
751–760 of 1001 posts
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#752I 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…
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.
A good seat and shoulder belt can reduce your movement relative to the steering wheel from centrifugal forces during a sudden sharp high speed swerve to avoid an obstacle, which should reduce the chances that you will lose control.
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#753Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not wearing a seat belt is dangerous to others when you're catapulted through your windshield at 90mph into traffic. This is not the clear-cut case you want to make it out to be.
If you're catapulted through your windshield, you're going to hit whatever you drove into, not traffic.
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Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#754Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that they are dramatically higher than in comparable countries. It's very obvious that the US is overwhelmingly worse off in traffic deaths.
Do americans travel more miles than is typical in those countries?
Very mixed ages and completeness of the data in this list [1] but it seems USA is pretty high on death per kilometer (fifth) of those countries that has data on kilometer traveled.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#755Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup. Two times our car got hit the driver ran and left no note. Its fucked because then we pay the $750 deductible. Cops dont even try to find who did it. Really frustrating.
> Yup. Two times our car got hit the driver ran and left no note. Its fucked because then we pay the $750 deductible. Cops dont even try to find who did it. Really frustrating. If you're complaining about the driver not leaving a note, that implies no one you know was there with your car to witness your crash. How do you expect the cops to even try to find out who did it? Go full CSI?
There must be security camera footage along the street before and after the car's location. It doesn't seem implausible to find the damaged car leaving that wasn't damaged coming. You could also look at the damaged vehicle to figure out the paint of the other car, I'm guessing something would be left behind. You could contact repair shops in the area looking for a match.
I don't know - I'm not a cop but there are certainly many possible avenues of investigation if people were willing to try.
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#756Earlier 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…
I don’t know how you’re even comparing American roads to European roads. I spent 3 months in Europe and all I took away from that is how well planned and well thought out American roads are. I just took them for granted.
Do you mean the roads are well planned for car trafic or for pedestrian/bicycle trafic? What I usually hear from visitors in our Swedish town is that it's much safer to bike than in their home town. Areas built after 1970 or so was planned for pedestrian first, car second. This has resulted in very few trafic accidents. You can get almost everywhere outside of the city center without sharing road with cars, only crossing at dedicated bicycle crossings or bridges over/under the road.
The most dangerous situation I can think of would still be where cars cross a bicycle road after doing a left or right turn in a crossing and not checking for trafic on the bicycle road.
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#757Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that they are dramatically higher than in comparable countries. It's very obvious that the US is overwhelmingly worse off in traffic deaths.
Do americans travel more miles than is typical in those countries?
Measure in “trips” not miles. Measuring in miles rewards suburban culture. Highway driving isn’t where deaths happen. They happen most on urban roads.
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#758Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wrong. Most of the non-pharmaceutical interventions were pointless pandemic theater. You can find examples of other countries that took less extreme measures and still had lower death rates.
Name two countries/areas that you want to use as an example in this argument. Otherwise if anyone else gives a counterexample you can easily move goalposts on them.
That's pretty easy. Sweden is the poster child of a rational covid19 response.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_...
Sweden deaths per million: 1834
U.S. deaths per million: 3043
However you can also choose various European countries that avoided masking children and minimized school disruption. France and UK for starters, but also all the Nordic countries. Sweden being quite different from the other Nordic countries, but all of them being consistent in avoiding school disruption or masking children.
Most of Europe does not recommend vaccinating young children either.
France deaths per million: 2242
Denmark deaths per million: 1122
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#759Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> if we hadn't done that stuff, we would have seen even more than the 1M deaths we did experience
How much more? And how would that increase compare to the drug overdoses and other mental health related deaths that lockdowns caused?
What's the control group you're using to make your claim?
Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes
#760Earlier quoted context omitted.
But other drivers can drink, and you can't do anything about that. Are you a good enough driver to save yourself in this situation? https://litter.catbox.moe/ed5an4.webm
> Are you a good enough driver to save yourself in this situation? > https://litter.catbox.moe/ed5an4.webm No. Nothing the camera car driver could've done to see or avoid that one. But surely you realize that's not a very common scenario crash. Watch the endless youtube dashcam videos of crashes, the vast majority are simple scenarios where the driver could've done something smarter than what they did.
According to the statistics, it's far more common in the US, far more common than it could be compared to other developed countries.