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Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

strongtowns.org

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Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#171

Post by mbostleman »

flaque wrote: post #96

There’s an audio version of the same point here: https://podcast.strongtowns.org/e/the-drip-drip-drip-of-traf... A ”best effort” summary of this article: if thousands of people die in once place, it’s one of the great tragedies in American history. However if thousands of people die in thousands different places, it is ignored and considered a fact of life. When a plane or train crashes, we stop everything and redesi…

COVID must be an exception then as 1000s died in different places but the public was obsessed. Or the media was at least.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#172

Post by kipchak »

ericmay wrote: post #125
egypturnash wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I am on a bike I am definitely not in control of all the people in cars around me, especially the ones who are drunk, are assholes, or are badly-programmed robots who barely know what a “bicycle” is.

Which would be true of any form of transit, including driving or riding a bus or walking down the street. So I’m not following your point here.

You're unfortunately either more vulnerable to other cars, less able to take action to avoid them or some combination of both. A motorcycle for example is nimble enough to attempt to avoid a collision but is more vulnerable if a collision occurs, while a bus might be sturdier/larger but your presence can't avoid a collision at all.

As a group the safest option would be smaller vehicles, but individually each person is better off (in terms of safety during a collision) with something larger.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#173

Post by partdavid »

mywittyname wrote: post #105

"We" don't ignore them. Every major government has a body dedicated entirely to automobile safety. In the USA, this is NHSTA - National Highway Safety & Transportation Administration. They maintain an information system of traffic fatality statistics in the USA, called FARS (fatality analysis reporting system). This system is used to determine new safety devices and standards for vehicles and to test their effectiven…

Yeah, "we" don't ignore them at all. I'm not sure I'm able to articulate all the costs and efforts around road safety, but I'm quite certain it's... real high. Not just the directives of the NHSTA and the effort required to comply with them (crash testing and research, etc.), but most law enforcement activity (and the support laws and codes restricting driving activity), driver education and licensing (on passenger and carrier levels), road maintenance including pervasive safety features like guardrails, breakaway posts, collision barriers, road re-grading, safety signals.

Maybe the reason it could seem to someone like "we" do is exactly because it is so pervasive. It's second nature to get used to all the safety measures that surround us on the road. It's not that we ignore the danger of road accidents or their consequences: it's that the attention we pay to it is so constant it becomes background noise--humans notice novelty, not stuff we're used to.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#174

Post by jiveturkey »

CodeAndCuffs wrote: post #155

I was a cop for several years. I worked hundreds of crashes, and a few fatalities. If cars had a max speed limit of 85 mph, and required the seatbelt to be engaged to work, we'd cut our fatality rate in half. Most nations' DUI laws consider a 0.05 BAC as illegal. In most US states 0.08 is presumed under the influence, 0.06 - 0.079 is considered no presumption either way, and under .06 is considered not under the infl…

Who cares if you kill yourself through your own negligence? There shouldn't be a fine at all for seatbelts. DUI, OTOH, should be treated even more harshly than it is.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#175

Post by thehappypm »

wahern wrote: post #48
TylerE wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is control . While a careful, attentive driver in a well-maintained vehicle certainly isn’t immune, their risk is much lower than someone who drives tired, drunk, or high in a car with bald tires and bad brakes.

> While a careful, attentive driver in a well-maintained vehicle certainly isn’t immune, their risk is much lower than someone who drives tired, drunk, or high in a car with bald tires and bad brakes. You could have just stopped at "control". That's the fundamental dynamic by which we can explain this differential public sentiment--a sense of control or lack thereof, independent of whether that control actually exist…

Yep. We don’t fear things under our control. Do I fear driving my car? No, because I can control my safety (to an extent, anyway). I can drive defensively. I can stay focused. I can avoid dangerous intersections. I wear a seat belt and have a big safe SUV.

Mass shootings are terrifying because there’s no sense of control.

Animals are scary (spiders, snakes) because we can’t control them.

Disease is scary when we can’t control it (cancer); less scary when we can cure it, even something like appendicitis seems tame because most hospitals can get it under control. It’s also why COVID is less scary to the general public, as it gets more under control (via vaccines and treatments and prior infection immunity).

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#176

Post by Aunche »

digdugdirk wrote: post #86
woodruffw wrote: post #2

This is a really excellent read, and neatly summarizes a thought that flashes through the back of my mind whenever someone tells me that public transit is unsafe. If over 100 people died each day on public transit, we'd have banned it by now. But we accept it in our automotive culture, while simultaneously handwringing over every incident that happens on public transit.

I find many of the issues brought up about public transit being unsafe revolve around the people you might encounter on public transit (drug users, homeless, mental illness, etc.) and the waiting around/walking to public transit stops (muggings, thefts, etc.) I've never had any issues myself, but have absolutely been exposed to those issues while taking transit. I've also witnessed those issues increase during/post l…

There are plenty of crazy, dangerous people on the road too. Psychologically, you feel more separated than them, even if they may be statistically be more dangerous.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#177

Post by thehappypm »

ericmay wrote: post #83
wahern wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While a careful, attentive driver in a well-maintained vehicle certainly isn’t immune, their risk is much lower than someone who drives tired, drunk, or high in a car with bald tires and bad brakes. You could have just stopped at "control". That's the fundamental dynamic by which we can explain this differential public sentiment--a sense of control or lack thereof, independent of whether that control actually exist…

If only we could take this further. What’s more in “control” than driving? Walking and riding a bike. That’s ultimate control.

Wow, could not agree less! In a bike you’re at the mercy of the bikers and drivers around you, with laughable safety features to protect you.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#178

Post by throwaway0a5e »

tshaddox wrote: post #66
TylerE wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is control . While a careful, attentive driver in a well-maintained vehicle certainly isn’t immune, their risk is much lower than someone who drives tired, drunk, or high in a car with bald tires and bad brakes.

I'd love to see studies that attempt to control for attributes related to "driver skill" or "driver responsibility" that you could objectively test yourself on, so that you could more accurately predict your own risk and compare it against the risk of alternatives like public transit. It's not really good enough to say "I don't drive drunk, and I'm pretty sure I'm a more skilled driver than average, therefore I can d…

The fact that we rarely if ever see such data sets is a strong data point by itself.

Insurance cost (data is widely available) goes down with age and you can extrapolate from that to safety but it only falls fast initially and the rest is largely a reflection of how driving habits change with age.

Occasionally someone like Tesla or Volvo will trot out some cherry picked data that boils down to "yes the very safe demographics who buy our very safe cars die less than the peasants".

Other than those two there's not much.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#179

Post by panzagl »

epistasis wrote: post #130
mywittyname wrote: post #105

"We" don't ignore them. Every major government has a body dedicated entirely to automobile safety. In the USA, this is NHSTA - National Highway Safety & Transportation Administration. They maintain an information system of traffic fatality statistics in the USA, called FARS (fatality analysis reporting system). This system is used to determine new safety devices and standards for vehicles and to test their effectiven…

I can't agree with your assessment at all. Deaths are rising, yet what changes are happening? And in particular the NHSTA doesn't give a damn about those outside of the car. The very greatest threat to the life of my children is cars. It would be easy, trivial almost, to fix this by legalizing building for houses and businesses that don't allow cars, but are served only by public transit. Yet this very simple, very d…

> It would be easy, trivial almost, to fix this by legalizing building for houses and businesses that don't allow cars, but are served only by public transit.

Is that all? Just move everyone in the country? What do you consider non-trivial?

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#180

Post by partdavid »

epistasis wrote: post #130
mywittyname wrote: post #105

"We" don't ignore them. Every major government has a body dedicated entirely to automobile safety. In the USA, this is NHSTA - National Highway Safety & Transportation Administration. They maintain an information system of traffic fatality statistics in the USA, called FARS (fatality analysis reporting system). This system is used to determine new safety devices and standards for vehicles and to test their effectiven…

I can't agree with your assessment at all. Deaths are rising, yet what changes are happening? And in particular the NHSTA doesn't give a damn about those outside of the car. The very greatest threat to the life of my children is cars. It would be easy, trivial almost, to fix this by legalizing building for houses and businesses that don't allow cars, but are served only by public transit. Yet this very simple, very d…

"Not doing what I think should be done for my particular interest and priorities" isn't the same as "Ignoring." At all.

By all means, continue to advocate, but the idea that "we" ignore car crashes is risible.

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