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Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

collectorsweekly.com

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Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#111

Post by tim333 »

The article says a lot about the politics and legal aspects of car deaths but the way forward is through engineering. With existing technology you can make a big difference by segregating fast traffic from pedestrian areas. Slow the traffic in towns and residential areas by speed bumps, closed streets, 20mph limits and the like and build multilane pedestrian free roads for people to get from A to B.

In the future self driving cars and similar safety systems are the way forward and probably the only practical way to drop the death toll from 30,000 to below 10,000.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#112

Post by vacri »

ryandrake wrote: post #13
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #6

"Murder Machines"? Come on. Not all deaths are murder. We Americans have this idea that nothing bad should ever happen, that we should find a way to prevent it. It's a goal to shoot for, certainly. But calling it murder if you don't reach that goal? No. Can we climb down from the overheated rhetoric? It smells like propaganda.

Also, cars are not killing people. Drivers are. Unless we're talking about self-driving cars that spontaneously turn themselves on, back down the driveway, and mow down pedestrians on their own.

Ugh, when 'cars' is used in this context, it's obvious it means a car and driver together, not the inanimate car.

If you ask someone how they got to the meetup and they say "Bus", do you say "yeah, right, like a bus can drive itself. It was probably a bus driver responsible. Unless we're talking about self-driving buses that can spontaneously turn themselves on (blah blah blah)"?

"I'm going to fly to Berlin next summer" -> "What? Humans can't fly. Don't you mean that a pilot (blah blah blah)"?

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#113

Post by DougWebb »

mikeash wrote: post #106
DougWebb wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and you are at fault That's the tricky phrase. How do you prove fault in a car collision, to the same degree that's required for a charge and conviction of manslaughter or murder? In New Jersey, we have "no-fault" laws for insurance, which basically means that when there is an accident there's no way to prove that either party is more at-fault than the other, so legally neither is at fault. In practice, both parties…

Why would the same logic be applied? Surely a conviction for vehicular manslaughter would be held to the same standard as a conviction for regular manslaughter, which is to say proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

If guilt can't be proven for sufficiently to assess which driver's insurance should pay for the costs of an accident, how can guilt be proven for the much stricter requirements needed for manslaughter? I think this would be especially difficult if the courts are overloaded with all accidents that involve deaths, instead of only the ones where drivers today are being charged with manslaughter and murder. (eg: cases where there appears to be intent to kill, rather than just accidental killings.)

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#114

Post by sokoloff »

saraid216 wrote: post #42
lutorm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your edit is an important point: As far as I am aware, there are no safety standards or ratings for how likely a vehicle is to injure occupants of other vehicles, let alone unprotected pedestrians or bicyclists. If anything, the focus on occupant safety to the exclusion of others has supported the "race to the top" in terms of vehicle mass and size.

Yup. http://www.kidsandcars.org/back-overs.html

Holy crap. That's the most heart-breaking web page I've ever read. I literally had to stop reading after just a couple so that I'd have any chance of sleeping tonight.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#115

Post by dreamdu5t »

moron4hire wrote: post #92
kaliblack wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's your responsibility as a driver to pay full attention and avoid crashes. Isn't that hour 1, day 1 of driver education?

get back to me after you've been driving every day for ten years and we will see what your interpretation of "full attention"means. you can't be 100% vigilante 100% of the time.

Get back to me after you've been cycling around autos every day for 10 years and we will see what your interpretation of "full attention" means.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#116

Post by crazy1van »

grellas wrote: post #64

As the article points out, "auto safety" itself has had a huge push from consumer advocates at least since Ralph Nader highlighted the risks of car design defects in the 1960s. That said, a few points about the law and auto safety: 1. U.S. law is tied to individual responsibility for conduct that is wrongful. As the auto industry developed over the past century, that meant that those who sought to drive by what the l…

"While it is true that high speeds clearly enlarge such risks, it is a bit disingenuous to claim this as a primary concern while simultaneously forcing cars to be made smaller and smaller out of concern for increasing car mileage per gallon and promoting environmental goals. "

Great point. In fact, I think the published collision ratings are based on colliding with a car in the same weight class. That is required because weight is such an overwhelming factor in your survival in an accident.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#117

Post by Zigurd »

WildUtah wrote: post #97
mikeash wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was recently in Beijing, where the supremacy of the automobile over the pedestrian is just about taken to its logical conclusion. The US puts cars on a high footing compared to pedestrians, with pedestrians restricted to crossing roads at certain points, generally better signaling and routes for cars, etc. Yet cars are still required to yield to pedestrians when e.g. turning or at a marked crosswalk. In Beijing, th…

It's ironic. Peking was considered a beautiful city of clean air (except dust storm season) full of bicyclists during the oppressive communist era. Now in the time of industrial crony capitalism, it's famous as the most polluted capital in the world. The streets are dangerous and cars have replaced bikes making the powerful insiders even more oppressive against individuals because now they can kill people with impuni…

Yes! Having seen the "Nixon in China" images of a surging wave of bicycles at every green light at an intersection, I was shocked to see in person how completely cars have taken over, and how badly Beijing drivers treat cyclists, driving within inches of them. The only reason there isn't carnage on every block is that nothing moves faster than 10mph.

Taipei, meanwhile, is overrun with gas scooters. These pollute worse than cars. The mainland Chinese could not allow gas scooters because of their pollution output. Every office in Taipei has racks in the stairwells for hanging up your very necessary rain poncho.

A great irony is that the Chinese have mastered the ability to make cheap electric bikes. Some Chinese use them. Very few Taiwanese, because they can't keep up with gas scooters. But you'll see lots of Chinese electric bikes in New York.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#118

Post by mikeash »

DougWebb wrote: post #113
mikeash wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the same logic be applied? Surely a conviction for vehicular manslaughter would be held to the same standard as a conviction for regular manslaughter, which is to say proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

If guilt can't be proven for sufficiently to assess which driver's insurance should pay for the costs of an accident, how can guilt be proven for the much stricter requirements needed for manslaughter? I think this would be especially difficult if the courts are overloaded with all accidents that involve deaths, instead of only the ones where drivers today are being charged with manslaughter and murder. (eg: cases wh…

There are many cases where guilt can be proven sufficiently, both to assess insurance responsibility and legal culpability.

Just because New Jersey has decided to punt on the whole question doesn't mean it's impossible to answer in all cases. Sure, there will be cases where somebody kills somebody else due to negligence and they get away with it because it can't be proven. People sometimes go free after murdering people with guns and knives because the crime can't be proven too, but that's not a reason to give up on prosecuting all murders.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#119

Post by crazy1van »

_delirium wrote: post #39
kiba wrote: post #7

It's such a shame. The automobile is built as a requirement to live in society rather than something that complement and argumented our lifestyle.

Really depends on where you live, but unfortunately true for much of the U.S. and Canada. Not true in the biggest North American city (NYC), though. Also not true in much of Europe.

"Really depends on where you live, but unfortunately true for much of the U.S. and Canada"

What is unfortunate about this? Americans on average are so rich that most of them can afford a car that allows them to both live where they want and still get to the job they want even if those two places are tens of miles apart and there is no public transportation.

Sounds terrible.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#120

Post by edj »

blahedo wrote: post #81
grellas wrote: post #64

As the article points out, "auto safety" itself has had a huge push from consumer advocates at least since Ralph Nader highlighted the risks of car design defects in the 1960s. That said, a few points about the law and auto safety: 1. U.S. law is tied to individual responsibility for conduct that is wrongful. As the auto industry developed over the past century, that meant that those who sought to drive by what the l…

> I am old enough to remember as a kid how people perceived automobiles in, say, the late 1950s, .... Even dissidents of the time, such as Jack Kerouac, .... Therefore, it did not take a secret plot by General Motors (or whomever) to get people to push widespread auto use. People wanted to.... This whole paragraph is missing the point---the purported "plot" was not a product of the 1950s, but of the 1920s. The eviden…

Exactly. Without a doubt there was a literal conspiracy to undermine urban mass transit during the 1930s and 1940s. Firestone, Phillips, Standard Oil, and GM were all convicted of conspiracy, for Pete's sake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspi...

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