Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by malandrew » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 1:22 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #38

tokenadult wrote: post #25

The death rate per miles driven in the United States has fallen dramatically in my lifetime, and I can remember when the annual number of deaths was much higher.[1] That said, the article makes a very interesting claim about attitudes that we should all follow to the end of the article for further discussion here: "There’s an open secret in America: If you want to kill someone, do it with a car. As long as you’re sob…

I don't think the solution to unsafe roads is to throw everyone that is at-fault in an accident in jail. I understand the frustration cyclists have with auto traffic, but we've seen a million times that harsher penalties don't always have the intended outcome. And we have a habit in the US of using prison as the answer for every malady. Instead, I think the answer is better road design, separating cars and cyclists u…

At the very least loss of privilege is warranted. If you are responsible for a motor vehicle accident, you should not be allowed to drive again. This at least provides some permanent hazard to being careless. If you can cause an accident, clean it up because you can afford a good lawyer and be back on the road with business as usual, you're far less likely to be careful.

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

#172

Post by malandrew » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 1:29 PM UTC

kahirsch wrote: post #129

graylights wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That big comfy car that protects you from highway collisions accomplishes that by shifting the impact toward the smaller car. It doesn't increase overall highway safety, just steals it from others in your favor.

Large cars are also safer in single-vehicle collisions, which account for 65% of traffic deaths. There is some adverse effect on occupants of other vehicles, but this is much smaller than the advantage in safety from the large vehicle. It is definitely not true that it "just steals it from others".

Of that 65% that is single vehicle collisions, what causes are responsible for most of those and where do most of those collisions take place? suburbs, rural, city?

I would imagine that the overwhelming majority of single vehicle collisions are in low density suburbs.

I would also imagine that the overwhelming majority of those deaths involved colliding with a stationary, immovable object, such as a tree or traffic pole. In such a case, smaller vehicles will much less kinetic energy, but still as much thought given to their safety designs, should be much safer.

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

#173

Post by freehunter » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 1:35 PM UTC

revelation wrote: post #62

nostromo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the solution to unsafe roads is to throw everyone that is at-fault in an accident in jail. I understand the frustration cyclists have with auto traffic, but we've seen a million times that harsher penalties don't always have the intended outcome. And we have a habit in the US of using prison as the answer for every malady. Instead, I think the answer is better road design, separating cars and cyclists u…

Sure, lets do all of that. But there is plenty of low-hanging fruit. Maximum of 20 mph everywhere you have pedestrians, certainly in any city or city center - the simple reasoning being that higher speed only reduces time to travel some distance linearly , but the forces at work in a potential collision increase quadratically . So this is a complete no-brainer tradeoff that is directly reflected in survival rates for…

I think the premise of the 20mph speed limit is good, but the way car transmissions are geared, doing a sustained slow speed could actually be dangerous as well. Doing 15mph through the parking lot at my office means I'm feathering the throttle quite a bit, and paying close attention to my speedometer and less attention to the things in front of me. I've never driven a car that "wants" to do 15mph or 20mph. I can't just keep the throttle at one position and stay at 20mph, the pedal, the foot controlling it, and the sense of speed related by the brain just aren't designed for fine adjustments.

The point being, I believe that setting low and strict speed limits could be counter productive and could lead to drivers being more distracted and less prepared to stop. If my hunch is right, there would be an increase in car-pedestrian accidents at exactly 20mph, and fewer at 10mph or below due to people being less likely to get their foot on the brake because of the effort required to keep the car moving at 20mph and watching the speedometer.

I've actually hit a pedestrian once. My light turned green as the person stepped into the crosswalk, and I hit them less than a second after I was stopped at 0mph. The pedestrian and the car were both fine with no injuries. Perhaps rather than dropping the city speed limit from the 25mph it already is down to 20mph, we should be focusing on getting pedestrians to cross in locations where cars are naturally going very slowly to begin with. I don't want to shift the blame of an accident from the perpetrator to the victim, but for pedestrian safety, crossing at a light (and following crosswalk signals) is worlds safer because the cars there will already be either stopped or going very slowly.

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

#174

Post by mikeash » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 1:40 PM UTC

saraid216 wrote: post #121

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…

> In Beijing, the idea of yielding to pedestrians when turning doesn't seem to exist. It's odd. I remember when people were bemused by the bicycle city, and yet I also remember when I learned that the way to cross the street in Beijing was never to indicate that you could see a car coming, because then they'd assume you'd stop. Instead, you watch for traffic out of your peripheral vision and keep your eyes forward so…

> I wonder if that's still common wisdom.

Personally, I think that not indicating you can see cars coming and crossing that way would be a good way to get killed. However, I haven't actually tried it. I haven't observed the natives using this tactic either as far as I can tell.

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

#175

Post by mikeash » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 1:44 PM UTC

graylights wrote: post #91

sp332 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like an argument for introducing a separate class of "city car" to the USA. On a highway, I want a big comfy car that can be efficient at 55-65 MPH, and protect me in a collision at those speeds. In a city, I don't really need that.

That big comfy car that protects you from highway collisions accomplishes that by shifting the impact toward the smaller car. It doesn't increase overall highway safety, just steals it from others in your favor.

I don't think that's true. Consider the two extremes.

1. You somehow manage to get a cardboard box up to 70MPH. You strike another fellow pulling the same trick. How badly are the two of you hurt? I believe the chances are excellent that you both die immediately.

2. You somehow manage to get a container ship up to 70MPH. You strike another fellow pulling the same trick. How badly are you hurt? If you're strapped in and not near the front, I believe chances are excellent that you'll both walk (swim) away.

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

#176

Post by freehunter » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 1:44 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #110

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…

In Beijing, the idea of yielding to pedestrians when turning doesn't seem to exist. In parts of the US, too. Travelling across the US, there were a couple of places where as a pedestrian I had the right of way (pedestrian crossing light illuminated) and I actually had to stop crossing otherwise I would walk into the side of the car turning right in front of me, cutting me off. I also noticed wandering around some inn…

Is a lawn legally allowed to block a sidewalk? I know the right-of-way stretches well past the boundaries of the road. I've always walked on the edge of people's lawns when there's no sidewalk, because I'm fairly certain it's legal to do so. If there's no sidewalk, pedestrians walk on your lawn within a few feet of the road, and there's nothing you can do about it.

One thing I would never do is step into the street to walk, regardless of how angry a homeowner might be about it.

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

#177

Post by mikeash » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 1:56 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #10

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.

Until the same attention is placed on traffic deaths as on deaths by other causes, it's hardly "overheated".

Is it not? There are certainly some outliers (e.g. terrorism), but overall, traffic deaths seem to get more attention given its death rate than other causes of death.

For example, annual traffic deaths in the US are about the same as annual deaths from chronic liver disease or suicide. Suicide gets some attention, liver disease very little, while traffic deaths get all sorts of attention, from massive R&D efforts by car makers to seat belt campaigns to heavy police enforcement of safety-related traffic laws.

As another example, heart disease and stroke kill about 20 times as many Americans as traffic accidents, but it's legal for me to eat 6,000 calories of bacon a day while it's illegal for me not to wear my seat belt. (This is not a complaint against seat belt laws. I think they're a fine idea. I'm just pointing out a disparity in legal attention.)

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

#178

Post by mikeash » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 2:05 PM UTC

clienthunter wrote: post #133

> In contrast, traffic fatalities in countries like the United Kingdom, where drivers are uniformly viewed as the greatest danger on streets, are about a third of U.S. rates. Britain here. This is absolutely false. We uniformly view cyclists as the greatest danger on the streets. No joke, ask around. I would suggest the reason for our better stats is down to a) a bloody difficult driving test; b) the thing inside a l…

> a bloody difficult driving test

I think this is key. I'm always amazed at how easy the US "driving test" is. I put it in quotes because it's barely more than a check to see whether or not you're capable of writing your own name. You can pass the practical test without ever exceeding 25MPH.

Worse, you never re-test. I haven't had anyone check my driving in almost two decades. License renewals come in the mail by magic. For all they know, I could have gone blind and senile, but here I am, legal to drive a car. I have to prove my ability to fly a plane every two years to keep doing it legally, but the car is far more dangerous to others when mishandled.

I think we would benefit enormously in the US if we enacted a real driving test that requires actual skill and knowledge, and required re-testing every couple of years. Unfortunately it will never happen. While the American public doesn't really care if their government wastes trillions and invades countries for no reason and spies on everybody and tortures people, try to get between them and their cars and you will see politicians' heads on pikes on the National Mall.

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

#179

Post by _delirium » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 2:28 PM UTC

crazy1van wrote: post #119

_delirium wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I grew up in American suburbia and have lived most of my life there, and I generally found it unfortunate— one reason I left. I don't like driving, but in most of the U.S. it is a practical necessity, whether you like driving or not. It's not that I lived where I wanted to, but that there was simply no way to choose a place to live that wouldn't result in needing a car, because everything was too sprawling. If people who liked driving could choose to drive, and I could choose not to drive, that would be much less objectionable. (There are a few places where I could make such a choice, like Manhattan, but not many.)

So I had to commute daily by car, which sucked. I had to drive to get to work, drive to buy groceries, even drive to go to a coffee shop. Besides just being unpleasant, I also had to spend a bunch of money maintaining a car, which is a fairly expensive proposition, between purchase price, insurance, gas, maintenance & repairs, etc.

Now I walk and/or take the metro, and it's much less stressful. I never have to call a tow truck, either. (Contrary to the local norm, I don't really bike, but I could also do that if I chose.)

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

#180

Post by mikestew » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 4:00 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #88

sukuriant wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely fair. Maybe in some of the cases; but, I've seen people do some really, really, REALLY unwise things as pedestrians that they're lucky someone was paying a huge amount of attention so they weren't hit. The most pressing example in my mind is a woman cross the street in the middle of a rain shower, within 15 yards, probably much less (my mind's eye paints the memory as 'the edge of my car was here…

I'd love to see some numbers on how many deaths are due to bad pedestrian behavior like that. Anecdotally, I've never encountered that sort of thing from a pedestrian while driving, but I've almost been run down several times by drivers not obeying the law while I was legally crossing the street with the right of way. All it would take is crossing the street at the wrong time with a walk signal without checking both…

> Anecdotally, I've never encountered that sort of thing from a pedestrian while driving,

You must not live anywhere near Seattle. Even after fourteen years of dealing with attention-not-paying pedestrians who believe it to be their deity-given right to walk into the street at any moment without even a sideways glance at traffic conditions, I'm still amazed that more of them don't bounce off of car hoods.

> All it would take is crossing the street at the wrong time with a walk signal without checking both ways and splat.

It's called "not assuming the other person is always going to do the right thing". Look both ways? Duh. The same brilliant pedestrians I reference above have been known to occasionally drive a car, of course I look both ways whether I'm on foot, in a car, on a motorcycle, or a bicycle.