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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

#71

Post by rahimnathwani »

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 have taken and passed driving tests in the UK (in London) and California (in San Francisco).

Both the theory test and the road test were far easier in California. There were no challenging road situations, and this was in a 'city'. I'm sure in rural areas it's even easier.

Regarding required lessons, in California this differs by age. If you're under a certain age, you need to complete a certain number of lessons before you can take a test. If you're older, you don't.

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

#72

Post by littlestymaar »

robertlagrant wrote: post #9
littlestymaar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would an increase in SUVs (which is a national trend) cause this result? It's going to depend a lot on local pedestrian habits and on the available infrastructures: as a thought experiment say in State A people are never walking in the street, while in State B they are walking a lot, then the national increase in SUV will have no impact on pedestrian death in State A but will have on State B .

Only if this is true. If the increase at night then it's unlikely to be because of SUVs, unless there's correlating evidence that shows it's states where SUVs are driven at night more. If there were evidence found that is linked to nighttime, e.g. because more people are crossing roads at night than before, or wearing less night-visible clothing than before, then that would be the place to start.

> If the increase at night then it's unlikely to be because of SUVs, unless there's correlating evidence that shows it's states where SUVs are driven at night more.

Or if you replace “people walk” by “people walk at night” in my example above…

That is to say, there are many parameters at stake here, and you cannot infer or refute anything from the aggregated data.

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

#74

Post by Symbiote »

jansan wrote: post #47
Tade0 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

There was an official design of road in England when I was a child: three painted lanes. The middle lane could be used for overtaking by traffic going in either direction. I hated when my dad would overtake using this lane. I could see from the way he was concentrating and pushing the car to its limit that it wasn't a comfortable manoeuvre, and it generally seemed rather pointless as we'd soon be stuck behind a line of vehicles that was too long to overtake.

It looks like they've all been removed, even the tiny bits this page says still exist:

https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=S3

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

#75

Post by Tade0 »

jansan wrote: post #47
Tade0 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

That practice fortunately fell out of fashion with the advent of proper infrastructure - instances of this are now rare because other drivers usually don't know what's going on, so they don't move to their right.

Two or more cars overtaking at the same time is still a thing though.

That being said it's still part of local "car body language" that you move to the right if you want someone to pass you. Using your right indicator in turn says "I am going to make a sharp turn to the right now", so you'll have people behind you hitting their breaks if you do it. I occasionally use that to stop people from tailgating me.

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

#76

Post by watwut »

jansan wrote: post #47
Tade0 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

That is mandatory to do outside of the city afaik. Many people keep having in the city too consequently.

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

#77

Post by everdrive »

Articles such as this are not wrong to point out SUVs, but I think they miss two other important issues:

- Increased driver distraction due to smartphones and in-car touch screens.

- Decreased driver visibility due to improved rollover protection. (Ironically, this may largely be the blame of SUVs as well, since passenger cars are much harder to roll over)

I can’t go through a single day without seeing some driver looking down at their phone. I honestly wager I could drive better drunk than some drivers can manage when distracted by their phones.

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

#79

Post by everdrive »

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…

Playing devil’s advocate, since I think the article didn’t really address this very well. I would assume that SUVs can have two issues with regard to pedestrian deaths.

- Worse outcomes when pedestrians are struck. A lower car might “merely” break legs, while an SUV with a higher belt line might strike a head or vital organ and be more lethal. SUVs tend to weigh more as well, which only hurts pedestrians.

- Worse visibility due to higher higher ground clearance, longer hoods, and of course modern rollover protection. I wouldn’t be shocked if you could do a study on pedestrian visibility using a passenger car from 2000, and an SUV from 2023, and found that the SUV had significantly worse visibility of pedestrians.

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

#80

Post by wink »

ticviking wrote: post #63
asimpleusecase wrote: post #57

Not to blame the victims but recently I’ve noticed pedestrians doing a lot of dumb stuff that is not helping. In the past week I’ve had 5 different people crossing multiple lanes of traffic dressed in all dark colours in areas with poor or no street lighting at night. A couple of people I would likely have hit but I caught thier silhouette against car tail lights ahead of me. Do get me stated on people stepping out i…

I was just thinking about this. There was a big push in my city to stop “over policing” things like jaywalking and disorderly conduct. We stopped ticketing people for this and over a few years people have started jaywalking and even just chilling and having conversations in a lane.

Not a good argument, all around the world people are allowed to cross a road and don't usually stay standing there.
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