361–370 of 1001 posts
We don't ignore them - we just accept that risk Data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Statistics 0.00000003% chance of dying if you drive a kilometer to the yoga studio. Want to make it less risky personally? Drive less, or drive a safer car. https://www.iihs.org/ratings/top-safety-picks
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.
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My parents were both in vehicle accident reconstruction for just such things and I don’t even know how to count how many times I watched a car accident reconstruction (dummies in crash test vehicles) end in a dummy being thrown in any direction you could imagine. It might not hit a person but it will hit a car in the other lanes and cause accidents. You’re out of your element here, stick to compilers for once.
Do you know of any such accidents in real life? Do you have any statistics on ejected people causing other accidents? What about when people were saved because they were flung from a car? Like when the car catches fire, falls off a bridge, goes into the river, goes into another lane to be smacked by a truck?
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Be that as it may, that wasn't the point I was replying to.
Is not missiling into another person a form of externality?
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…
To play devil's advocate, we already employ hundreds of thousands of "cities, planners, and civil engineers" continuously to battle these distributed deaths.
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…
> 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. My summary is different: if thousands of people die because the government specifically puts them in harm's way but doesn't give them the best available protection against…
Never owned a car of my own until two years ago. Our car has been hit three times in the last two years. Once totaled on the high way (another drivers fault) and twice while parked. Roughly 50K in damages across the two cars and 3 months in the shop doing repairs. We spent 20K on a new car after the old one was totaled and insurance paid out a fraction of what a similar car would cost. We've paid close to 2K in deduc…
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You have a right to be stupid, even if it results in your death. > I'd assume having a seatbelt on as a driver significantly increases your ability to maintain at least some control of a vehicle in a collision Not a chance. The g forces are tremendous, and you're just along for the ride in a collision. In my major accident, I had a lap belt on, but my arms and legs and torso flung about totally out of my control.
Seatbelts don't magically stop major accidents from happening. But they definitely keep minor accidents from turning into major accidents. They don't keep you in control after you slam into something head on or flip the car. They keep you in control after you clip a deer, or hit a rock, or someone rear-ends you, or you swerve hard to avoid something, and that can be the difference between a good story and killing you…
If you've got enough side forces to pull you out of your seat, you've lost control anyway.
BTW, race car drivers know to take their hands off the wheel just before impact, as the front wheels hit they can jerk the steering wheel hard enough to break your arms.
It's true that if you're going to do performance driving, tightly belting yourself in will enable you to feel the car better, and enable you to concentrate on driving rather than trying to stay seated. But hitting something is a whole 'nuther story. If you haven't been hit hard in a car (I have), you're not in control. Belt or not. You're just along for the ride.
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You have a right to be stupid, even if it results in your death. > I'd assume having a seatbelt on as a driver significantly increases your ability to maintain at least some control of a vehicle in a collision Not a chance. The g forces are tremendous, and you're just along for the ride in a collision. In my major accident, I had a lap belt on, but my arms and legs and torso flung about totally out of my control.
> You have a right to be stupid, even if it results in your death. Do you? I’ve not seen hide nor hair of that right defined anywhere.