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Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

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Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#651

Post by Bolkan »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #615
Bolkan wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When a plane or train crashes, we stop everything and redesign the entire network to prevent this from happening again. They do that because planes and trains are expensive and owned by big corps/government.

I can't speak to the government part, but the cost part can't be right. There have been 20 commercial aviation incidents in the last 20 years in the US of any type and size that included any fatalities by any means. 7 of those included jets, with 1 being a 777, one a 767, and everything else 737 or smaller. A 767 costs about 100 million (list price 200, but the internet says you always get discounts..?) So we'll ridi…

If your car crashes, you'll be the one who'll pay for it, either directly or indirectly through insurance.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#652

Post by Steltek »

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…

> As a fun aside, the fatality rate on the unrestricted German Autobahn is about half the fatality rate across all US highways

Germany has fanatically strict traffic enforcement, licensing rules, and vehicle inspections, compared to the US. You can't point to just the Autobahn without any further context.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#653

Post by jjav »

tifik wrote: post #418
admax88qqq wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something like 80% of fatal crashes involve either alcohol, no seatbelt, or excessive speed This is the crux of the issue on why we as a society ignore car crashes and panic about train/plane crashes. I'd wager it mostly comes down to filtering out things we feel we have control over stressing about those we don't.

Yep I believe that is a pretty well established cognitive bias called Illusion of Control [1]. Going down the rabbit hole of cognitive biases is a fascinating journey, and lot of them are relevant when driving a car. One I found especially interesting is specifically about how improving safety features may not reduce accidents as much as it could, because when people feel safer, they tend to take greater risks [2] [1…

> Yep I believe that is a pretty well established cognitive bias called Illusion of Control

It is not an illusion that the car driver is in control of the car and their decisions.

It is an euphemism to call car crashes "accidents" because the vast majority were not an accident that simply randomly happened, it was an event the driver could have avoided by making better choices (e.g. call that cab instead of driving drunk, etc).

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#654

Post by moistly »

not-so-jerry wrote: post #431
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…

Not sure if you are implying this or not, but how would lowering the BAC limit prevent fatal crashes? Figure 3 in this report shows a somewhat normal distribution around .15 g/dl and the mode being around .17 g/dl: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... This is already ~2x the legal limit.

Google being what it is these days, I’m finding it difficult to track down the study that was performed a decade after British Columbia reduced the BAC limit and instituted severe penalties for DWI offences, so you’ll have to trust me when I say that there was a significant and long-lasting reduction in DWI cases and automobile accident rates.

Our BAC limit is 0.05, except for new drivers, where it is 0.0.

http://www.dui.ca/bc.php

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#655

Post by kamranjon »

bergenty wrote: post #638
hibikir wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be like this though: Other countries pay attention to crashes, especially with fatalities. One of my uncles was a civil engineer working in Spain's government, now retired. All crashes reported to the police would be marked in maps, with an extra layer for fatalities. Then they'd be grouped by the kilometer of road, to look for the sections of road that were the most dangerous. The worst locations…

I don’t know how you’re even comparing American roads to European roads. I spent 3 months in Europe and all I took away from that is how well planned and well thought out American roads are. I just took them for granted.

Just spent 3 months traveling across the United States and then 3 months traveling across Europe and now I’m super curious what part of Europe you visited and what part of the US you are from?

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#656

Post by nootropicat »

bergenty wrote: post #638
hibikir wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be like this though: Other countries pay attention to crashes, especially with fatalities. One of my uncles was a civil engineer working in Spain's government, now retired. All crashes reported to the police would be marked in maps, with an extra layer for fatalities. Then they'd be grouped by the kilometer of road, to look for the sections of road that were the most dangerous. The worst locations…

I don’t know how you’re even comparing American roads to European roads. I spent 3 months in Europe and all I took away from that is how well planned and well thought out American roads are. I just took them for granted.

No post body was provided.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#657

Post by jjav »

6yyyyyy wrote: post #620
MichaelCollins wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refusal to drink and drive is not an illusion. I've been refusing to do that successfully my entire life.

But other drivers can drink, and you can't do anything about that. Are you a good enough driver to save yourself in this situation? https://litter.catbox.moe/ed5an4.webm

> Are you a good enough driver to save yourself in this situation?

> https://litter.catbox.moe/ed5an4.webm

No. Nothing the camera car driver could've done to see or avoid that one.

But surely you realize that's not a very common scenario crash. Watch the endless youtube dashcam videos of crashes, the vast majority are simple scenarios where the driver could've done something smarter than what they did.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#658

Post by magicalhippo »

notch656a wrote: post #518
magicalhippo wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Fatalities are more usefully measured per mile not per person. For instance, in many 3rd world countries the roads are notoriously unsafe but the average person covers few enough miles that their road fatality rate per capital looks better. Note this applies to OP posted above you as well.

I'm assuming you're not suggesting the United States is a 3rd world country...

Based on data from the NCSA[1] for the US and SSB[2] for Norway, I get the following for 2019 (before COVID-19 hit):

USA: 36096 fatalities and 3.262e12 miles[3] driven = 1.1 fatalities per 100 million miles driven.

Norway: 108 fatalities and 45.562e9 km driven = 0.38 fatalities per 100 million miles driven.

Might be I did my math wrong. If not, that's still 3x higher than Norway.

[1]: https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Trends/TrendsGeneral.aspx

[2]: https://www.ssb.no/transport-og-reiseliv/landtransport/stati... (using 2019 data)

[3]: I'm assuming they use Billion to mean long scale (1e12), otherwise I can't get their table to make sense.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#659

Post by pdonis »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #628
pdonis wrote: post #273

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. 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…

>thousands of people die because the government specifically puts them in harm's way You lost me at the part where this was supposed to not be describing every roadway funded in whole or part by state or federal governments, contingent upon following lethal design standards required by the same.

> lethal design standards

What are you referring to?

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#660

Post by throwaway0a5e »

BrianHenryIE wrote: post #328
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.

Graphic car safety ad about seatbelts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epTdI-9V6Jk

That's like the car equivalent of D.A.R.E. It's so farcical it does more harm than good.
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