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Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

strongtowns.org

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Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#51

Post by [deleted] »

jfengel wrote: post #9
woodruffw wrote: post #2

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.

Or self-driving cars. Every incident is Big News, while ignoring the fact that 40,000 people die every year in traffic accidents (and 4.8 million injuries) -- in the US alone. People are of course famously bad at putting statistics into context.

[deleted]

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#52

Post by TylerE »

black_puppydog wrote: post #42
TylerE wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is control . While a careful, attentive driver in a well-maintained vehicle certainly isn’t immune, their risk is much lower than someone who drives tired, drunk, or high in a car with bald tires and bad brakes.

So how do the pedestrians that make up a sizeable part of road deaths control the situation then?

By doing things like not walking in the middle of the street at night in a poorly lit area wearing dark clothes. Has happened several times times in my town recently.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#53

Post by cscurmudgeon »

woodruffw wrote: post #2

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.

This is a bad way to look at it.

We should ask how many more people would die each day without cars.

Somehow, this basic analysis is absent in all of the car-hate posts.

Not considering pros and cons fairly is a not an honest approach.

You can’t claim to be objective by just looking at negatives and proclaiming cars are bad overall. You need to sum up the negatives and positives (assuming an utilitarian view).

Otherwise, just accept all car hate is based on subjective emotions.

It is not like car users are cackling evil Captain Planet villains. Most of us are not rich enough to live near work and schools.

That brings me to a related issue car haters miss: Bike-friendly cities should be designed for everyone, not just for wealthy white cyclists

https://theconversation.com/amp/bike-friendly-cities-should-...

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#54

Post by pbuzbee »

js2 wrote: post #11
woodruffw wrote: post #2

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.

It's like a form of the Dunning–Kruger effect where everyone believes they're in control of their fate in a car, but not on public transit. People must think they're exceptional drivers and that they can dodge any accident.

If I've learned anything from watching "Idiots in Cars" videos on Reddit, it's that you can go from "driving normally" to "in an accident" much faster than you think. Most people have very little experience reacting to imminent accidents on the road. Overall that's a good thing, but it certainly seems naive to think that simply being an attentive driver is enough to keep you out of accidents.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#55

Post by djmips »

TylerE wrote: post #15
woodruffw wrote: post #2

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.

The difference is control . While a careful, attentive driver in a well-maintained vehicle certainly isn’t immune, their risk is much lower than someone who drives tired, drunk, or high in a car with bald tires and bad brakes.

Not to derail but the lack of control of self driving cars could be one reason there is a big reaction when someone dies as a result of an accident.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#56

Post by Spooky23 »

intrepidhero wrote: post #12

This article presents one facet of automobile risk that is interesting. Essentially there is no governing body tasked to analyze and mitigates these risks to the same degree as with public transport. Rather, general consensus (maybe not majority but still some level of consensus) must be reached before safety measures begin to see widespread adoption in a very distributed system. > For auto crashes, we’re talking abo…

It does, but as Strong Towns is wont to do, they do so in a way that aligns with their agenda in a borderline disingenuous way.

Every traffic fatality is documented and investigated by a trained police officer. The techniques are trained, data collection is standardized, and transportation planners have access to the information and use it to guide engineering processes.

Does the NTSB investigate car accidents? Mostly no, but they have the authority to investigate bus accidents and other livery vehicles like limousines. And the USDOT/FHA extensively regulates motor carriers with a scientific approach that removes bad operators. That’s because of the law and resource limits - but that doesn’t mean society closes its eyes and ignores everything.

For all of the vague critique of transportation departments, they are evolving and improving safety on the roads imo. There’s no question that the roads I drive on today are safer by any measure than the roads I was driven on as a child in the 80s.

Strong Towns is like the EFF. They have a compelling message, but slather enough bullshit to undermine it.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#57

Post by tristor »

The primary reason why I ignore car crashes is because I ensure that I do the following things, all of which greatly reduce my risk factor compared to the average:

1. I always drive attentively with both hands on the steering wheel.

2. I completed on-track driving instruction in a race car, multiple times, and also took training in evasive driving maneuvers.

3. I constantly maintain situational awareness of what's going on around and with my vehicle.

4. All of my vehicles are relatively new (less than 10 years old) and impeccably maintained, and provided with the highest quality tires available replaced on a regular cadence based on service life.

5. I do not drive when I am overly tired, after having consumed any alcoholic substance, or in adverse weather conditions. In any of these situations, I either do not travel or I find an alternate way to travel that doesn't incur the risks of driving.

A simple example of #5 is that I was on a road-trip headed North in the US, and we had a late-Spring snowstorm happen around mid-day. I had originally planned to get a further 150 miles down the road before stopping for the night, but I instead immediately pulled off and booked a hotel room, and left again the following morning after the roads had cleared and traffic had let up. Could I have made it? Almost certainly. Was my vehicle equipped for the weather? Yes, absolutely. Was it worth the risk? Not at all. A hotel room was $120 for the night, which was cheap insurance against possibly dying on vacation.

If I get onto a public bus, or into a ride share, or a taxi, I can't guarantee any of the above. The driver might have personal issues causing them to have stayed up late the night before, and then they had a few martinis to help them sleep, and started the morning with heavy coffee drinking, constantly checking on the status of their personal issues on their phone while they're driving. The bus due to it being a public service may be maintained at the margins of acceptable standards with tires and other consumable maintenance items being used to the full extent of their service life, rather than being replaced preventatively. We've all seen the "gators" on public roads of tire treads ripped off of truck and bus tires that were retreaded rather than replaced, or shredded rubber from large tire blowouts. The bus could be 17 years old with a spotty history and frame damage. All of these things are out of my control. But I can control myself, my driving, my vehicle, and ensure I always leave enough spare tire capability to evasively maneuver.

I'm nearing 40 years old and I've avoided HUNDREDS of accidents that could have happened due to other drivers. I have never once in my entire life been in an accident where I was at fault. In fact, I've been in multiple accidents, all of which involved my vehicle being entirely stopped and stationary and being rear-ended by an inattentive driver, sometimes with me not even being in the car when it happened. As long as I am actively moving down the roadway, I consider my risk to be massively below the national average, because I am a better driver than nearly anyone else I've ever met and I drive better quality vehicles that are maintained better than nearly any other vehicle on the public roads. It's as simple as that.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#58

Post by sytelus »

My favorite: Number of people die from cancer each year is same as number of people died in World War II each year. How much resources did we allocated to each? As former chimps, our ability grasp probability and statistics is astonishingly limited.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#59

Post by nonrandomstring »

woodruffw wrote: post #2

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.

Yes, a very well written piece with good points and reasoning. It isn't just that the long tail of casualties falls below some threshold of attention. Large specialist organisations capable of industrial warfare or building industrial society cannot deal with human effects on an industrial scale. We tried it in the Northfield experiment [1] (mass psychotherapy for war trauma).

[1] https://psychology.fandom.com/wiki/Northfield_experiments

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#60

Post by belorn »

jfengel wrote: post #9
woodruffw wrote: post #2

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.

Or self-driving cars. Every incident is Big News, while ignoring the fact that 40,000 people die every year in traffic accidents (and 4.8 million injuries) -- in the US alone. People are of course famously bad at putting statistics into context.

It wasn't that long ago that a driver instructor illustrated in a video how often they needed to correct the self-driving car in order to drive legal. It was multiple corrections per minute in a busy city.

In term of statistics, the error rates of human drivers are still lower than current self-driving technology. This is why the only certified fully self-driving mode is limited in Germany to operate at speed of less than 30 km/h, only on highways with congestion, and then outside any construction zones.

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