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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

#891

Post by pclmulqdq »

watwut wrote: post #798
pclmulqdq wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which bulk of the aggregate number? The number 1 cause of gun deaths in the US is suicides.

He wants to talk about black on black crime. As opposed to white on white crime which is not talked about as separate issue. Because, most murder by large number are among people who know each other - are friends, family, do business. And those groups tend to have same race.

TIL that people think "black on black crime" has any meaning. I would have thought he wanted to talk about gang violence, which is probably #3 or #4 on the list of gun death causes, behind domestic violence and maybe accidents (with suicides eclipsing both of these).

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#892

Post by epistasis »

kortilla wrote: post #840
epistasis wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly any actual that would result in fewer deaths is so far outside the Overton window. Claiming that there are ineffective government agencies that pay attention to a few tiny aspects of safety but ignore the vast majority of them-better city designs-, is not a thug except window dressing to enable the neglect of these deaths. You might find it risible to suggest that we are ignoring car deaths, but given the rise…

Have you heard of backup cameras? They are now mandatory on cars and significantly reduce the frequency of hitting pedestrians. This negates both your point about anything reducing deaths being outside of the Overton window and your point about pedestrians not being considered.

Backup cameras are not going to save any significant amount of lives. What fraction of our car deaths are from backing up? Sure, it sounds like a good idea, and is a good idea, but it will not make the slightest dent in the death and carnage.

There is one place that has solved this, Oslo: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/10/16/best-practices-how-os...

Lots of other cities in the US adopted "Vision Zero" policies after seeing how Osls was drastically reducing death. But US cities refuse to make any of the changes that are actually successful at reducing death.

Because what needs to change isn't just the design of the car, what really needs to happen is a change in the design of the road.

We must start designing cities with the assumption that drivers will make mistakes, as all people always do. The design of roads and intersections must minimize the change for a deadly mistake.

And perhaps, and here's the part that's really outside the Overton window, Pepe who want to travel by non-car means should have just as much access and safety as those inside cars. We force everyone in the US to get around by car if they are going to be the median participant in society. What if we had a world where the median person, with a job, was not expected to drive?

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#893

Post by pif »

namesbc wrote: post #314
CodeAndCuffs wrote: post #155

I 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…

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...

Sorry, but no. Cars are meant to move people around, not for strolling.

Every road and every situation have a reasonable limit, which is often higher than what you posted.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#894

Post by epistasis »

afiori wrote: post #802
epistasis wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of the deaths in the US result in a recall? How many recalls would it take to stop the deaths? I would argue that every single car death is proof of a defect worthy of recalling that car, but Im not sure if the recall could replace the car with a piece of equipment that would have prevented the death.

To be fair most deaths are the fault the the street design that prioritize driver comfort over everything else

Exactly. We focus on the wrong thing, the design of the car, instead of actual effective policy: allow people to get around without being exposed to car traffic. And when there is car traffic, greatly reducing the possibility for interaction.

However, this is quite difficult when nearly all planning in the US puts its top priority as maximum traffic capacity and speed.

If there's a dangerous intersection that needs to be fixed, but that fix reduces car speeds, traffic engineers will demand that they need to see a certain amount of death or injury before they will act. They won't phrase it that way, buts it's equivalent. As long as the intersection fits the numbers that are in a book somewhere it's A-OK until the book has been proven wrong, which it is again and again, as shown in our traffic deaths.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#895

Post by base698 »

tzs wrote: post #737
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…

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...

Thanks Nintendo and Instagram!

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#896

Post by jhaile »

sebazzz wrote: post #242
CodeAndCuffs wrote: post #155

I 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…

> If cars had a max speed limit of 85 mph, and required the seatbelt to be engaged to work Wait, wearing a seatbelt is not mandatory?

It's mandatory but the car will still operate without it buckled. Many newer cars will beep at you if it isn't buckled, but older cars don't.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#897

Post by juve1996 »

bergenty wrote: post #638
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…

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.

Drive in Pittsburgh and try again

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#898

Post by benou »

thrown_22 wrote: post #612
vineyardmike wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The banning of assault rifles is because it’s easy and doesn’t detract from peoples lives at all. Assault rifles are for assault and we don’t need more assault. So why have them? Because a few people think it’s cool to own? Pistols and other Guns aren’t very effective at stopping deaths, but they’re perceived to be good defense, so banning them en mass is less palatable. NYC banned pistols once because it was often t…

>Assault rifles are for assault and we don’t need more assault. So why have them? Because a few people think it’s cool to own? People who think this should have a grizzly bear run at them at least once. Having seen it from a car I became pro-minigun instantly.

I love hiking into remote areas, including "bear country". I have seen black bears and grizzly bears while hiking.

You do not need assault rifles, this sounds silly and over the top. You just need to be aware of your surroundings, follow the rules and have a bear spray : https://www.nps.gov/subjects/bears/safety.htm

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#899

Post by juve1996 »

vineyardmike wrote: post #531
throwaway6734 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my personal theory is that people's overconfidence in their ability as drivers and underestimating the risk of driving ends up making the process much safer than if people were more grounded in reality

Or everyone’s overconfidence and underestimation means there’s no appetite for people to accept regulation and change. because I’m not the problem and I’m in control, I shouldn’t expect change . Meanwhile when you fly, you know you’re at the hands of someone else, and you want to control them as much as possible.

You don't even have to use a plane as an example.

Be a passenger in a car with a driver you're unfamiliar with. Lots of people struggle with that and way overestimate the speeds the driver is going at.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#900

Post by juve1996 »

scoofy wrote: post #637
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…

>those are thousands of ostensibly independent events that don't necessarily have a single common cause This is obviously incorrect reasoning for the United States. If countries around the world had statistically similar collision rates, then you would have a point, but this isn't some sort of power law or random distribution. The fact that our fatality rate are so significantly higher than other developed countries,…

Is it possible the US just has more bigger vehicles? Speed is obviously a huge part, but adding all that extra mass of many super-size me trucks and SUVs with poor visibility seems like it would factor in.
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