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

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#471

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:14 PM UTC

namesbc wrote: post #314

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…

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...

Given how low the actual rate of fatalities is compared to miles driven, you are proposing that we significantly lower the bar for when we think government intervention is the right answer.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#472

Post by mjevans » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:15 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #273

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…

> 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…

Mostly agree, except:

Design of separation can dramatically help. Isolate pedestrians and low-barrier low mass slow motor devices from higher mass, higher speed, vehicles.

Dense cities should have an (or many) isolated vehicles only layer(s), completely separated from pedestrians.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#473

Post by notch656a » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:16 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #469

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.

Who cares? Loads of people. My wife lost a coworker from an auto accident, one that they probably would have survived had they been wearing their seatbelt. She was a single parent to a small child. Losing his mom at such a young age probably made a big difference to him. It probably had significant impact on her mom, who now has a complicated custody battle with an abusive deadbeat dad and massively different life ha…

Won't someone think of the children?

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#474

Post by rascul » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:16 PM UTC

sebazzz wrote: post #242

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…

> If cars had a max speed limit of 85 mph, and required the seatbelt to be engaged to work Wait, wearing a seatbelt is not mandatory?

> Wait, wearing a seatbelt is not mandatory?

Not in New Hampshire.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has published this document I have found with some statistics from 2018. I'm not sure if there's newer stuff published. It might be interesting to look at.

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#475

Post by ArrayBoundCheck » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:16 PM UTC

ladyattis wrote: post #194

It reminds me of how here in the US we often overuse signage and other markings on roads to 'prevent' accidents but roads with less markings that are obvious and direct tend to have less accidents by comparison. I wonder if part of the problem with American roads is the fact we assume people need information they don't need or use. I know that roads here aren't actively calmed by changing the quality of the road (rou…

A couple years ago I saw a video of a guy filming himself talking to a road maintenance worker. In an angry tone he said they didn't have enough pylons and noone can see them when they drive uphill and they're causing accidents. The worker said policy says to use 3 (or 5 or something) pylons. As the worker was saying it you can hear someone slamming on their breaks. The guy turning his camera and catches a guy who swerved into the fence so he wouldn't hit the workers car or anything

The guy filming immediately says (something like) "you see. That's what I said".

The problem is also policy is made for typical situations and people are trained to ignore problems because its a pain in the butt to deal with policy makers

Under using is probably more common but I wouldnt be surprised if some places used too many that people started ignoring it

-Edit- I think it was this. Apparently my memory isn't very good because I forgot all the cuts https://youtu.be/sCEzEVJkO1U?t=20 Actually at 1m 18s guy says "there's 5 cones". Maybe my memory isnt terrible lol

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#476

Post by notatoad » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

chris_va wrote: post #262

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…

To play devil's advocate, we already employ hundreds of thousands of "cities, planners, and civil engineers" continuously to battle these distributed deaths.

that assumes that city planners and civil engineers have a goal of battling these distributed deaths.

it's obviously a biased source, but "the war on cars" podcast has an interesting episode with Jessie Singer where she recounts her interviews with traffic engineers. A municipal traffic engineer's only goal is to shield the jurisdiction they work from from liability. as long as the industry standard best practices are implemented faithfully, you probably can't be sued. any attempt to do something different from the status quo opens you up to liability.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#477

Post by magicalhippo » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:18 PM UTC

notjustanymike wrote: post #107

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #44

My kid sister died in a car accident two weeks ago. Now I find the numbers unfathomable. How can 40,000 families be suffering like this, every year?

Because even 40,000 people is only a lot relatively. It is just 0.012% of the American population and 0.00051% of the world population.

Still, it's an order of magnitude above what we see in Norway for example, around 12 per 100k population vs around 1.8 per 100k population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

https://www.ssb.no/transport-og-reiseliv/landtransport/stati... (car fatalities)

https://www.ssb.no/befolkning/folketall/statistikk/befolknin... (population)

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#478

Post by Nition » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:19 PM UTC

staticautomatic wrote: post #422

ccn0p wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid deaths: Simple solution, lockdown, virtual learning, 6-feet apart, cancel sports and after-school activities, miss graduations, etc. All the mental fallout from this: Too complex, just a way of life. Drip drip drip.

Generally those things are helpful but I think China has pretty well demonstrated that there’s no alternative universe where fully locking everything down eliminates Covid.

It worked for us in New Zealand. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When we tried the same thing a second time it didn't work, but that was due to people not following the rules.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#479

Post by cityofdelusion » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:20 PM UTC

slifin wrote: post #322

Cars are glorified and incredibly ingrained in culture Some people can't even imagine walking anymore and are blind to even how much road furniture and infrastructure they litter everywhere Some of the biggest structures we have are roads created in the last 100 years Absolutely crazy

I think the real issue is that people are just incredibly lazy. My area isn't "walkable", but its what I could call "walkable enough" -- you can get a meal and a hair cut and lots of kids could walk to school. Of course, the sidewalks are empty here. Just an occasional cyclist. Even areas around here that are much more walkable like a grouping of shops, people all seem to prefer driving shop to shop! We're talking like maybe 100 meter walk max. Cars are the default, and if you suggest walking, you get looked at like you're nuts.

These same people don't even like cars or driving. I think they just like a comfy seat and air conditioning.

The car is basically a mobile sofa to the population. Shove them into the crappy cars of the 60s and 70s with no A/C and I think they start walking a bit more.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#480

Post by omgwtfbyobbq » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 10:20 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…

In the several trips my wife and I have taken between East Bay and SoCal, it's been hard to maintain 80+ mph. Between interchanges, construction, slower drivers, trucks passing other trucks, and so on, we're lucky to hit an average of 70mph.

On the flip side, cruising at 60+mph is totally doable, and while it is ~40+ minutes slower in theory, we only need to stop for gas once at lower speeds, which shaves off ~10-20 minutes.

Also, fighting through traffic takes the same regardless, so it's usually better to adjust when we're driving than trying to drive faster.