Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#451

Post by vel0city » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:06 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #311

Arrath wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you hit a giant wall, sure. In the other case, a violent roll over accident will happily eject you from a side window and off on a happy trajectory towards whatever might be in that direction. Forward through the windshield is hardly the only way to be ejected.

You're going to fall out in the direction you (and the car) are travelling/rolling.

You're going to be thrown out in some additive vector of where you were going and where the other car influenced your car to go, depending on what other impacts you're getting pre-ejection. That can easily be into another car, into other traffic, etc.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#452

Post by gringoDan » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:06 PM UTC

If cars were invented today, they would be illegal.

We give 16-year-olds minimal training, then entrust them with the control of a 3,000 lb. weapon for the rest of their lives. You can be an awful driver, but even if you get into multiple accidents, your license will rarely be taken away.

If cars had not been invented, we would have designed 20th century cities around people, rather than the automobile. We'd have a robust public transportation network that would all but eliminate the need for cars, at least in cities and suburbs (see Japan).

Between the death toll and the alienation from living in places designed for cars, I'm not sure if the car has been a net positive for society.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#453

Post by meowtimemania » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

AlwaysRock wrote: post #315

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…

Where do you live? Driving should be safer, but being involved in that many accidents in only 2 years seems really unlucky

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#454

Post by bdefore » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

briffle wrote: post #358

colpabar wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is totally off topic, but aside from the numbers being lower, we do the exact same thing with gun deaths.

I have a few friends that think the stats I show them are a complete lie and fabrication, but the truth is: more people from pistols than 'assault rifles'. In fact, in the US, more people die from knives than rifles. (not just the 'assualt ones' Heck more people per year in the US die of 'hands, fists, and feet'. [0] But guess what is always in the news, and talked about by politicians on both sides, until their cons…

Neither the post you respond to nor anyone I've spoken with make claim that assault rifles represent a significant portion of gun deaths. That politicians gravitate to 'banning assault rifles' is lazy governance. Much tighter regulation of all guns would be making a difference.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#455

Post by throwaway6734 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

porknubbins wrote: post #436

naasking wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. But that makes sense statistically, because those are thousands of ostensibly independent events that don't necessarily have a single common cause, where the massacre of a…

Yes the author seems to state that there are many more traffic deaths than commercial transport deaths as if the point is self evident but I do not see it. From my perspective its a minor miracle that there aren't more traffic deaths. We let any private individual drive up to a 20,000 something pound vehicle with pretty minimal licensing requirements (in most places in the US). The news story is that it mostly goes o…

my personal theory is that people's overconfidence in their ability as drivers and underestimating the risk of driving ends up making the process much safer than if people were more grounded in reality

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#456

Post by jiggawatts » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:09 PM UTC

KptMarchewa wrote: post #234

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…

The same happened to nuclear energy, despite the fact that coal kills 100x people yearly than total nuclear energy deaths.

Try 10,000 times more and you’d be closer, but that’s probably still an underestimate.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#457

Post by nostromo » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:09 PM UTC

kfarr wrote: post #395

hintymad wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if occasionally you need to accelerate to a higher speed to avoid an accident?

What if that were a fecetious argument proposing a situation that does not happen in real life that people bring up when speed governors are discussed?

It happens all the time. People regularly speed up when passing to limit time in oncoming traffic lanes.

Limiting speed in such a scenario could reasonably lead to a fatal accident.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#458

Post by powerhour » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:10 PM UTC

fumeux_fume wrote: post #202

jiveturkey wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Believe it or not, cleaning dead bodies off the road everyday has a cost.

A cost borne by others, in fact.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#459

Post by cityofdelusion » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:10 PM UTC

Arrath wrote: post #238

WalterBright wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wearing a seatbelt is an individual choice, and should not be a crime. P.S. Growing up, my dad had the dealer install seatbelts in the family wagon before he picked it up. We never moved an inch unless everyone was buckled up. Nobody else, and I mean nobody else, had seatbelts in their car at the time. P.P.S. Seatbelts also saved my life.

An individual choice that can endanger others when e.g. you cannonball through your own windshield and hit someone, or cause follow on accidents as people swerve out of your way, etc.

This seems so incredibly unlikely that it is going to need some kind of citation. Deer hitting cars is a drop in the bucket in terms of human mortality and must be several orders of magnitude more common than flying unbuckled humans.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#460

Post by cobaltoxide » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:11 PM UTC

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #382

namesbc wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars should have a regulator installed by the manufacturer to limit speed to 20mph on roads with people, and to 60mph on grade separated highways. This maximum would barely change your time to destination, but it would save thousands of lives per year. - 20mph: 90% survival rate - 30mph: 60% survival rate - 40mph: 20% survival rate https://www.betterstreetschicago.org/blog/chicago-speed-came...

>This maximum would barely change your time to destination Yes it would. The drive from LA to San Francisco is about 300 miles on Interstate 5. Much of this highway is completely straight, with excellent visibility through an unpopulated desert. When sparsely trafficked (as it is much of the time), it is safe to drive 80+ MPH on I5 for hours at a time. At 80 MPH, this is a 3 hour 45 minute drive. At your proposed 60…

> How many lives do you think would be saved by capping speeds to 60 MPH on I5?

The speed limit was in fact 65 MPH until 1995.