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U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

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Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#311

Post by jakelazaroff »

jeffbee wrote: post #116
jakelazaroff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I promise you that this is not a result of "less police enforcement".

Why? In San Francisco the number of traffic citations issued has fallen to essentially zero. The cops are on strike and no longer perceive any marginal benefit from doing their jobs. They get paid either way. https://transpomaps.org/san-francisco/ca/sfpd-traffic-enforc...

There are more plausible explanations that have been extensively studied, like cars getting bigger. Where are the data showing a causal relationship between police enforcement of traffic laws over the past three years and increased pedestrian deaths? Do we even have indirect data, e.g. Sun Belt traffic enforcement declining more than in other states?

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#312

Post by jonny_eh »

christophilus wrote: post #224
luxurytent wrote: post #11

I guess pickup trucks fall under the category of SUVs? It's wild how we've lost access to our streets and neighbourhoods for the convenience of mostly suburban vehicle users. Actually not wild, but disgraceful. The majority of roads are too wide and with little options for alternative modes of transport, drivers are growingly frustrated and angry on the road. We continue to make the mistake of thinking the solution i…

I watched a movie (I think from the 50s), and it was amazing to see people ambling casually through the streets, and cars driving slowly and carefully to avoid them as if streets were for people, and cars were the intruder. I'd love to recapture that aspect of the past.

Which movie?

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#313

Post by LarryDarrell »

apexalpha wrote: post #248
LarryDarrell wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been regulating the wrong things when it comes to vehicles. Instead of being obsessed with MPG, we should have been obsessed with weight and size. There's no reason for a sedan to be heavier than 3000 lbs. There's no reason 1/2 ton pickups should be bigger than a 1994 Ford F150. Once a car is light and small(ish) the good MPG will follow. My 1988 Volvo 240 got 30mpg on a recent road trip and that's with it need…

>Once a car is light and small(ish) the good MPG will follow. My 1988 Volvo 240 got 30mpg on a recent road trip and that's with it needing a tune up. Doesn't this work both ways? If you focus on MPG then lighter, smaller variants of the same model will win out over bigger, heavier ones.

To a certain extent, yes. I'm mostly daydreaming about if you magically remade my little Volvo with modern materials and one of those low-displacement turbo engines they put in cars today. It would be 500 pounds lighter with 3 times as much horsepower.

But... that car would be a dud today. It's too simple and lacks features (like power seats).

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#314

Post by smt88 »

sokoloff wrote: post #146
smt88 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a combination of phone use, increasing size/weight of vehicles, and urbanization (more people to hit on the same streets). I suspect CarPlay and Android Auto are incredibly dangerous, but there isn't great data on how they contribute to accidents yet.

I went out of my way to install CarPlay in our old ICE car and think it adds safety, especially with maps in an unfamiliar area. Trying to read the map on a 3” wide screen in a cup holder or clipped to an air vent is way worse than on a 7” screen mounted in an easily viewable area.

But "reading a map" is only one thing you do with CarPlay.

People also use it for music, messaging, finding/changing destinations, voice calls, etc.

The CarPlay UI in particular is so inconsistent and unpredictable that I can never just have a routine. Some Siri commands randomly don't work ("I can't do that while you're driving") when they just worked a few minutes before.

Android Auto is much better, I will say.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#315

Post by twiddling »

ryukafalz wrote: post #182
BorgHunter wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is zoning regulation as a concept really the root cause, though? Houston famously has no zoning code and is fairly lax with land use generally (although it isn't completely the Wild West), and it isn't very dense. It seems like zoning could even be a key part of the solution, being a tool that could be used to mandate that new construction be more dense around mass transit hubs, for instance. There are lots of anti-d…

Houston might not have something specifically called a "zoning code" but it has plenty of the sorts of regulations that lead to sprawl. Take a look at this table of parking requirements for Houston, and keep in mind that a typical parking space takes up 320 square feet: https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/docs_pdfs/par...

Fire department accommodations also shape road size. Being able to turn an engine for instance eliminates a lot of older alley designs in new construction.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#316

Post by nayuki »

kneebonian wrote: post #158
Timon3 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rise in traffic deaths coincides with laws passed that allow drivers to kill pedestrians if they feel threatened by them. Both this, and the charged language used by politicians on this topic, will most likely play part in this increase. Social and political backing for your fear usually doesn't help reduce it.

> with laws passed that allow drivers to kill pedestrians if they feel threatened by them. Can you cite a source on this I've never heard anything like this.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/us/legislation-protects-drive... , https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/22/us/oklahoma-law-drivers-prote...

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#317

Post by conductr »

saiya-jin wrote: post #206
conductr wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The roads were wide open for 2+ years, people got used to driving very fast and not really paying attention to their surroundings because there wasn't much other traffic to start with. People started running red lights because not other traffic to wait on. You could drive recklessly without much risk. Now people are still driving recklessly but have a lot more cars and activity around them. One thing that I've notice…

By definition this should be a very small subset of drivers, since before as you claim 'roads were empty'. If most drivers stayed at home they should not got those bad habits. Very surreal this discussion, very US specific too. Here in Europe, in past 3 years tons of new cycling infrastructure, either wider roads or parts of roads taken from cars and given to cyclists (ie 1 lane instead of 2 lane roads). The goal isn…

The article being discussed is US specific.

Frequency of driving was reduced but when you did drive, the roads were empty. The people who did continue to drive daily was not insignificant (maybe 10-30% of people, guessing IDK) and may be the ones creating the problems. Eg. in heavy traffic if 5% of vehicles are driving reckless, it's bad.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#318

Post by michaelmrose »

i80and wrote: post #107
hermannj314 wrote: post #46

In many states you are required to stop if a pedestrian is crossing the street. What has happened a lot is I will stop to let a pedestrian cross the street at a legal cross walk and the person behind me will assume I am an idiot, honk, and speed around me. My intuition is this is the cause of a significant amount of pedestrian deaths: impatient drivers that assume every stopped car is just an obstacle to zip around.…

This happened to me and it left me with lasting anxiety. I stopped in town at a crosswalk for a pedestrian waiting to cross, and the car a couple seconds behind me went around and tore through the crosswalk. I don't know what the answer is. Drivers make mistakes -- they don't see things, they might be preoccupied, etc. etc. And yeah, all too often they're negligent to the point of malice. But urban landscapes are alm…

It's actually solvable like a lot of things if we have time and willingness to invest in doing so. You put cameras at intersections or accept cryptographically signed unmodified dash cam footage and mail out the notice that the offending driver is a pedestrian for the next period of time starting at 3 days and progressively increasing until they are giving up driving for the next year.

If they drive during suspension the same cameras allow us to send escalating fines calculated based on their annual income in the last 12 months terminating in confiscation of their car.

Most bad drivers will get small escalating fines that aren't ruinous and stop driving like assholes. A tiny minority who are basically a menace to society will end up owing a ruinous amount of money and losing their wheels.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#319

Post by jackmott42 »

LarryDarrell wrote: post #225
luxurytent wrote: post #11

I guess pickup trucks fall under the category of SUVs? It's wild how we've lost access to our streets and neighbourhoods for the convenience of mostly suburban vehicle users. Actually not wild, but disgraceful. The majority of roads are too wide and with little options for alternative modes of transport, drivers are growingly frustrated and angry on the road. We continue to make the mistake of thinking the solution i…

We've been regulating the wrong things when it comes to vehicles. Instead of being obsessed with MPG, we should have been obsessed with weight and size. There's no reason for a sedan to be heavier than 3000 lbs. There's no reason 1/2 ton pickups should be bigger than a 1994 Ford F150. Once a car is light and small(ish) the good MPG will follow. My 1988 Volvo 240 got 30mpg on a recent road trip and that's with it need…

MPG regulation would have had the same effect if there wasn't a loophole to avoid it by making the truck bigger :(

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#320

Post by rationalist »

jacurtis wrote: post #283
LarryDarrell wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been regulating the wrong things when it comes to vehicles. Instead of being obsessed with MPG, we should have been obsessed with weight and size. There's no reason for a sedan to be heavier than 3000 lbs. There's no reason 1/2 ton pickups should be bigger than a 1994 Ford F150. Once a car is light and small(ish) the good MPG will follow. My 1988 Volvo 240 got 30mpg on a recent road trip and that's with it need…

> There's no reason a 1/2 ton pickup should be bigger than a 1994 Ford F150 It is funny that we still call trucks like the F150, Ram 1500, Silverado 1500, etc as 1/2 ton pickups. Even though they are still officially categorized like that by all the manufacturers, Edmunds, Motortrend, KBB, and so on, they are actually essentially 1 ton pickups. Our "light-duty pickups" (which is their official classification) are act…

FWIW, I doubt my neighbors see all the stuff I haul in the bed, or the trailers I pull, when my truck is not parked in my driveway.

I still think people who delete their diesels or lift their trucks, etc are compensating though. I just won't judge a person who has a standard pickup truck.

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