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>>> Norton said installing speeding and red light cameras can also be effective if they work properly. Adding bike lanes can also keep drivers more alert on the road. You know what else works? Making learning how to drive a requirement for getting a drivers license. Other countries that have tried this have had good success.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would COVID/lockdowns have “changed the way people drive?” Any proposed mechanism? Seems more likely you had a lot of shifting around of people’s driving (e.g. city dwellers moving to suburbs)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9342743/ https://www.google.com/search?q=people+driving+more+aggressi...
>>> Norton said installing speeding and red light cameras can also be effective if they work properly. Adding bike lanes can also keep drivers more alert on the road. You know what else works? Making learning how to drive a requirement for getting a drivers license. Other countries that have tried this have had good success.
Where is “learning how to drive” not a requirement?
Article ignores it, but looking at the source data you can see pedestrian deaths were flat, then a large spike in 2020 during Covid, and now we are at a new higher plateau. Cause is not a change in roads, or cars, or more SUVs. Covid/lockdowns changed the way people drive. Less civility, less police enforcement, more chaos. Driving is noticeably worse and more stressful than pre-Covid.
Why would COVID/lockdowns have “changed the way people drive?” Any proposed mechanism? Seems more likely you had a lot of shifting around of people’s driving (e.g. city dwellers moving to suburbs)
There's definitely a lot of people reporting a change in driving attitudes. During covid, people went fucking nuts. There for a while, it was a source of local news articles.
Texting and driving have to be behind some large portion of this increase.
I live in a smaller American city and ride my bike for most trips. I ride conservatively and am constantly watching cars tires or looking into the cabin to get early warning about sudden unsignalled turns or any other odd maneuvers. The amount of people I see just casually browsing Instagram or texting is insane. I grew up in another country where it was illegal to hold a cellphone while driving and it was actually e…
I live in a subdivision full of young families with kids. I'm also a runner, an avid dog walker and someone who walks his kids to and from school every day. As someone out on foot on a daily basis I am constantly blown away by the amount of people speeding on residential streets and not stopping at stop signs. I don't get it! These are clearly people who live in these neighbourhoods yet they don't care enough about t…
Transition to trail running if you can. Ive stopped taking chances with road running because of the insane drivers. Same with biking. Added benefits of being in nature and getting off pavement helps your joints a bit.
A large issue in the US is that local communities have very little control over many of the roads in their communities. In addition to locally controlled roads, there are county roads, state roads, and interstates. As a result, even if a community wants to make their road safer, they have no power to do so. There is a county road in my town. The crosswalks make no sense and the road needs to be narrowed to force traf…
> As a result, even if a community wants to make their road safer, they have no power to do so. Visions of black-clad infrastructure guerillas working at night to install speed bumps on residential roads.
Texting and driving have to be behind some large portion of this increase.
Walking and on their phones, too. In recent years I've seen people step into intersections while on their phone without even looking up. Edit: anyone who disagrees and has downvoted me care to explain why? I wrote the comment from the perspective a pedestrian. I don't even drive! Some cities consider it such problem they've talked about making it illegal to walk around in the street looking at your phone: https://www…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In many areas, it would take a ton of work in the effort of making destinations closer to each other. Huge parking lots, setbacks, wide roads, and detached houses on their own quarter, or even eighth, of an acre lot make it so the choice between walking/bicycling and using a personal car is not much of a choice. Public transportation is also not an option due to how inconvenient it is due to how infrequently it would…
Sure, turning Houston into Madrid would be very hard. But this is one of the most incrementally solvable problems I've ever seen. There are hundreds of low-cost, low-effort ways to start making things better.
Lord help you if you need a variance, and I cannot even imagine what eminent domain on that scale would look like. I do not see how the change would even be possible without tearing buildings down and building new ones closer to each other, and to do it legislatively adds unimaginable legal expenses, I presume.
Edit: Also note the popular local opinion in many places is keeping a place car dependent means the population who cannot afford a car is kept out.
Texting and driving have to be behind some large portion of this increase.