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The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

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Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#311

Post by Gordonjcp »

flexie wrote: post #307
jamiegreen wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The road deaths surprise me the most , as most American roads are big and straight and most British roads are small and squiggly!

It's counterintuitive, but broad and straight roads are often more dangerous, as they invite faster driving.

Faster *inattentive* driving.

I'm always kind of surprised how terrified Americans visiting the UK are, when they see the kind of speeds people drive at here.

If you're coming here on holiday from the US and you're planning your route using Google Maps, double the time estimate. You won't like the speeds it expects you to drive at.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#312

Post by kergonath »

ben_w wrote: post #298
amrocha wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self driving cars are never coming in a form that would allow you to absolve yourself of responsibility for driving

"Never" is a long time. Given the explanations I've been given for why demonstration videos of general purpose vision-based robots are still often sped up x4 or more (despite Tesla and Spot), I have to assume it's at least a few years away yet, but that's not never.

The human will always be responsible. There is no way the manufacturers are going to accept liability in case their self driving car has an accident.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#313

Post by Gordonjcp »

helaoban wrote: post #256
Swenrekcah wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are getting so big that people can’t drive them. An indescribably sad statistic: In the US, a parent drives over and kills their kid in the driveway every other day [1]. All the guns also cause -a bunch of— some small kids to kill their siblings every year. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna52109

I drive a Ford Focus, my neighbor drives a new F150. Our parking spots are next to each other, this is what is looks like: https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/ford-focus-2022-5-d... I laugh every time I walk to my car because I don't want to cry.

I never understood why people feel like they need something the size of a Ford Transit just to potter to the shops and back.

Fine if that's what you happen to have lying around, but why would you choose something like that? It's totally impractical.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#314

Post by 2b3a51 »

Moissanite wrote: post #286

Anyone in the US (or just anyone really) considering visiting Blackpool to see what is driving this equivalence from our end - don't. Historically, it was a pleasant seaside resort town. The rise of cheap flights combined with a decades long neglect of northern England has meant that all of these Victorian era holiday destinations have fallen to ruin, with Blackpool falling the farthest. Left alone, it would just hav…

The issue is common to other seaside towns in the UK although the figures suggest that Blackpool has a larger concentration of the low cost accommodation you mention.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#315

Post by another_poster »

The US is difficult to compare with other developed countries because it essentially has (1) affluent core regions and (2) poor peripheral regions. The US is essentially bimodal.

The core regions resemble the developed world, with similar levels of education, wealth, and political perspectives.

The peripheral regions are much worse off. Entire states, such as West Virginia, are peripheral. Think low wealth, low life expectancies, and entirely different politics from the rest of the developed world.

If you average values from both regions, you won’t really be characterizing either of them. The value will be too low for everyone in the core, and it will be too high for everyone in the periphery.

So when comparing the US to other countries, you’ll get a much more accurate picture by providing separate summary statistics for the core and periphery.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#316

Post by lordnacho »

0xDEF wrote: post #190

As a Danish person I was chocked by the amount of fat people I saw in the US. I know the non-fat healthy Americans on HN and reddit don't like this being brought up and would rather blame "the system". But even the Danish healthcare system would collapse if we were as fat as you.

Particularly extreme obesity. America is the only country where I see people who can't fit through doors, or people who are so big my entire family could fit in their T-shirt and still have our heads sticking out.

By contrast in the European countries I've lived in, a fat person is just someone who looks pregnant when they're not. Pot belly, chubby arms, but doesn't really have problems walking.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#317

Post by jfk13 »

mattlondon wrote: post #309
zarzavat wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The difference is that in the UK if your kid is sick (article mentions that it is mainly young people dying early) then you can go get your kid seen for free, and not fear about the potential bankruptcy. My personal recent experience with two young kids in the UK in London is that urgent care is very good. So like emergency see-someone-right-now care like sudden fevers, unexplained rashes, injuries etc. You get seen…

Sorry to hear you've had such a negative experience with GPs. That's not at all been my experience. Interactions with our local GP surgeries - both in our former home town and where we live now, and in recent months also with my elderly father's GP as he has needed increasing levels of care - have been excellent.

These generalisations are generally unhelpful!

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#318

Post by throw_pm23 »

another_poster wrote: post #315

The US is difficult to compare with other developed countries because it essentially has (1) affluent core regions and (2) poor peripheral regions. The US is essentially bimodal. The core regions resemble the developed world, with similar levels of education, wealth, and political perspectives. The peripheral regions are much worse off. Entire states, such as West Virginia, are peripheral. Think low wealth, low life…

This is true, but it's more fractal than that. You go to the most affluent, in your words "core" region like San Francisco, and you still find it to be bimodal: high wealth, high education, clean and tidy on one side, and medieval conditions just two streets away. Also, I suspect general health levels are lower even in the affluent parts compared to the rest of the developed world due to wide-spread obesity.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#319

Post by ailun »

kergonath wrote: post #312
ben_w wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Never" is a long time. Given the explanations I've been given for why demonstration videos of general purpose vision-based robots are still often sped up x4 or more (despite Tesla and Spot), I have to assume it's at least a few years away yet, but that's not never.

The human will always be responsible. There is no way the manufacturers are going to accept liability in case their self driving car has an accident.

I remember hearing something different. Seems like Mercedes is moving in that direction.

https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-res...

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#320

Post by throw_pm23 »

dustedcodes wrote: post #281

Obesity. Americans are so obese that they don’t even recognise anymore that they are fat when they are fat. Every time US based tech people come to the UK or Europe for conferences it’s incredibly eye opening what they think is healthy and how they see themselves. Plenty of folks who think they eat and drink healthy and are in a good body condition and all I can see is a big wobbly man with barely any hair on their h…

I was with you until the hair on the head part. Do you know of any established link between balding and other factors? Is it more prevalent on either side of the pond?
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