771–780 of 1001 posts
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Speed limiters aren’t connected to the brakes, just the throttle.
Well, at least mine is actually connected to the brakes.
See https://etsc.eu/intelligent-speed-assistance-isa/ for list of vehicles.
These are generally totally ignored as well unless they are one of the exceptionally rare Electric Vehicle cars. Then they are all over the news ZOMG TESLA CAUGHT ON FIRE!?!
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I was at a community meeting where they debated removing all such crosses. They were triggering PTSD for people involved in the crashes. Most accidents occur close to home. Imagine a survivor having to drive past such a cross every day. I don't know on which side I land on the issue. For safety, the crosses should probably be placed far ahead of the dangerous corner, not distracting drivers at the precise point they…
One would hope that such crosses instead prompt folks to change such intersections so that they will prompt fewer deaths. Maybe then we can have a rule: if we rebuild the road and we see a drop in deaths, then maybe we can remove the sign with crosses. Better yet, replace the intersection with a bus-only, bicycle-only, or rail as public transit, and then that set of crosses is permanently retired.
Perhaps they could install some sort of blinking warning light on top of the hill and maybe joyriding teenagers would heed that warning, or maybe not. Otherwise I think you'd have to cut through the hill or move the roads completely, either of which there probably isn't much money for.
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…
> In Sweden, we have made a fantastic sustainability journey; in the 70's over 1000 people died in traffic every year, now there are a few hundred, but still far too many.
https://www.saferresearch.com/index.php/news/210-people-were...
And this is with a very large increase in car use. In Sweden in the ‘30s-40s we had 200-300 deaths/year/100k cars. Today it is 5 deaths/year/100k cars. Cars are safer, newer, better road infrastructure, etc.
In the US there where 42k deaths in road accidents in 2020, with 290 M vehicles. So about 15 deaths/year/vehicle. 200% more. [1]
[1] https://www.nsc.org/newsroom/motor-vehicle-deaths-2020-estim...
Going back to the beginning, a long term policy is needed. The question in my mind is if such a thing can be implemented without it getting talked about like some conspiracy against the right wing voter who loves their car?
Here is at least a plan for it.
https://www.nsc.org/road/resources/road-to-zero/call-on-pres...
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> 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…
We know, though, that there are certain patterns and behaviors that contribute to car accidents. For example, we know that speeding was a factor in something like a third of all car deaths. And I’m pretty confident that’s an underestimate, because there are lots of roads where the speed limit almost certainly should be slower and speed would not be indicated in the accident report, even though it was a factor. (I als…
Even a street dead ending in a cul-de-sac and no legal steeet parking is often in excess of 30 feet wide. All that width encourages speeding.
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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…
I think you also failed to control for race and income, including the vast (per capita) oil production (which Norway taxes the shit out of) that is used towards the benefit of the average Norwegian (Norways is all the way up next to the Emirates in per capita oil production). One study in Chicago, found that those with 'low' economic hardship had nearly ONE THIRD the rate of fatalities [0]. Compound that with those who the study classified 'white' like the relatively homogeneous Norwegians, and you get several percentage points of correction as well. In short, there's a decent argument to be made that a Norwegian dropped into America is almost or just as safe on American roads as they would be in Norway. That is, roads likely aren't 3x safer in Norway, in fact they may be just as safe, so long as you are demographically like a Norwegian.
In short I would say it's probably not the Norwegian road laws or road system that are largely to thank, but rather the fact that Norwegians sit under a gold mine of which is rivaled only by places like the Emirates. And that gold mine is a source of the single greatest improvement in traffic fatality rate in demographic fatality rate, low economic hardship. So yeah, just be born over a gold mine with a silver spoon in your mouth like the Norwegians, why are Americans so lazy?
[0] https://www.ghsa.org/sites/default/files/2021-06/An%20Analys...
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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.
More often than not EU designs will put main roads apart from the activity centers, and have shared ways or slower ways inside dense areas. From a car POV it is subobtimal and ill thought out, while from people's point of view it's pretty great in general.
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> Yup. Two times our car got hit the driver ran and left no note. Its fucked because then we pay the $750 deductible. Cops dont even try to find who did it. Really frustrating. If you're complaining about the driver not leaving a note, that implies no one you know was there with your car to witness your crash. How do you expect the cops to even try to find out who did it? Go full CSI?
There must be security camera footage along the street before and after the car's location. It doesn't seem implausible to find the damaged car leaving that wasn't damaged coming. You could also look at the damaged vehicle to figure out the paint of the other car, I'm guessing something would be left behind. You could contact repair shops in the area looking for a match. I don't know - I'm not a cop but there are cer…
Realistically, for a property damage case, you're not going to get ten cops scanning hours of grainy security camera footage (that may not exist) from different angles and running all over town for weeks checking every auto body shop in the city looking for paint matches. Even if they did that, there's a good chance they'd fail (e.g. no video, no legible shot of the plates, culprit doesn't take his care into a shop), so they're not going to try.
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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.
No, I'm pretty sure it makes more sense to measure deaths per capita. If poor urban planning made people's commutes 2x longer, would it suddenly be half as bad for someone to die?