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

npr.org

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

#41

Post by madeofpalk »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #25
trilbyglens wrote: post #17

Every country has its own flavor of bad driving. I live in the Czech republic and people here are very aggressive and inconsiderate drivers. However they are not sloppy or inattentive. The roads here are far too complex and busy to even look at a phone for more than a second or two. By contrast, driving in the us is super duper low stress. Roads are super wide and designed to be ultra comfortable for cars and drivers…

Australia I’ve noticed drivers are substantially worse on long weekends in particular, there are higher death rates which are generally speed and alcohol related but even outside of that the drivers just seem more inattentive than normal, maybe it’s people who otherwise don’t drive regularly, I really don’t know.

I think on long weekends in Australia there is just considerably more driving, and for longer distances. My uneducated guess is that "accident per driver" or "accident per hour driven" is probably relatively flat, but there's just so many more people on the roads during long weekends in aus.

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

#42

Post by penjelly »

in canada drivers are usually respectful/good but theres still an attitude that drivers own the road and pedestrians are an afterthought. Theyll pull into intersections blocking the cross walk, or begin a left turn very early or blindly while people are crossing. stuff like that reminds you that the city was built for cars and not pedestrians, and i think thats the systemic thing that should change to prevent deaths

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

#44

Post by dghughes »

Sunrise and sunset are bad times for car crashes especially in cities where streets line up with the sun.

In my town there is one street that in winter with a wet salty road is like a mirror. The sun at a certain time during a certain time of year plus the "salt mirror" makes it practically impossible to see.

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

#45

Post by watwut »

ShadowBanThis01 wrote: post #14

And until states make texting while driving a DUI-level offense, with the same penalties, it's not going to get better. There's no excuse for it. And this superficial, useless article doesn't discuss it at all. Instead, it regurgitates pablum about the same regressive do-nothing "solution" known as "traffic calming." That's just ruining our streets instead of attacking the real problem.

I do not understand this aversion toward creating environment in which people have to or are motivated to drive the good way and preferring ranking up punishments as the only supposed solution for everything.

And making everything punishable as much as possible does not work all that much either. It just make people feel good that someone was punished.

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

#46

Post by polytely »

ALittleLight wrote: post #3

"Pedestrian deaths have been climbing since 2010 because of unsafe infrastructure and the prevalence of SUVs, which tend to be more deadly for pedestrians than smaller cars, according to Martin" The report itself shows there's an increase in pedestrian fatalities in slightly fewer than half of states and the increase comes from deaths at night and not in the daytime. How would an increase in SUVs (which is a national…

might even be people being worse at driving because of post-covid brain fog

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

#47

Post by jansan »

Tade0 wrote: post #40
jansan wrote: post #29

How much does a driver's license cost in the US? What do you have to do in order to get one? Here in Germany, my son has to sit through 14 theory lessons and then pass a theoretical test (with questions out of a pool of 1400 questions). Then he needs 12 mandatory driving lessons (night, highway, country road) and probably 8 more lessons to get him to the rquired level to pass the driving test. This will set me back a…

I'd rather everyone adopt the German system and have public transport as an alternative for those who can't pass the test. Over here, across your eastern border, there's been a huge increase in the number of people on the road and it's becoming increasingly obvious that some people are better off taking the bus/train. Problem is, trains/buses are disappearing, so especially elderly people are either stuck at home or…

Do people in Poland still drive at the very right side so others can overtake even if there is oncomin traffic? I could not believe it when I saw that (maybe twenty years ago).

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

#50

Post by bryanlarsen »

pantulis wrote: post #22
hardware2win wrote: post #12

Offtop: Cars are pretty sad topic It is sad how many good safety and driving easiness features modern cars have, yet majority of people do not have access to them due to price It is also crazy how unreliable cars actually are. 20 years old car means some surprise every 3rd or 4th drive

> It is also crazy how unreliable cars actually are. 20 years old car means some surprise every 3rd or 4th drive Not so sure about that, petrol engines and cars matured a lot in the last decades. I'm driving a 2004 Ford Focus and it is still going strong, with no "surprises", which, granted, I remember having every drive in 1996 with a 1981 Renault 14. I would considering changing this old car for environmental impac…

Yes, I think hardware2win has it backwards. Old vehicles are very reliable, so there are lots of them on the road that are missing safety features like automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection.
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