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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

#991

Post by sumedh »

seer wrote: post #872
thrown_22 wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Assault rifles are for assault and we don’t need more assault. So why have them? Because a few people think it’s cool to own? People who think this should have a grizzly bear run at them at least once. Having seen it from a car I became pro-minigun instantly.

Let's see how a place like Romania manage it - lots of bears in the Carpathian Mountains, _very_ strict gun laws. Friends were traveling to the famous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfăgărășan just for kicks and halfway through they got SMS alerts "Bears in the vicinity" even though they were visiting foreigners. They actually saw the bears on the road itself, but a quickly dispatched van with park rangers arrived…

> the threat of violent uprising has always been such a weird thing to put as a "benefit" having rifles around.

How are things in Ukraine? 20 years ago do you think anyone in Ukraine would have imagined Russia would be bombing their cities?

You never know when a situation changes and you need an armed population.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#992

Post by QuarterReptile »

pdonis wrote: post #659
QuarterReptile wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

In my municipality, it's the VA Urban Construction and Maintenance Program, aided by the ubiquitous MUTCD.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#993

Post by abenga »

troxy1 wrote: post #861
Thlom wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace the T with a roundabout and reduce the speed limit significantly 200 meters before the roundabout.

I think the best/cheapest solution would be some rumble grooves 2-300 meters before the intersection to help alert you to it.

Traffic control devices that "alert" drivers and rely on their choice to slow down are pointless IMO. Better to make it almost impossible to drive at an unsafe speed without ruining your car, removing the choice.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#994

Post by causi »

the_jeremy wrote: post #134
causi wrote: post #4

Human response is never in actual proportion to reality. For example, veterans have a suicide rate lower than farmers, fisherman, construction workers, maintenance workers, and engineers.

I don't think you are correct on engineers. General suicide rate in the US in 2019: 16.8/100k[0]. Suicide rate of veterans in the US in 2019: 31.6/100k[0]. Suicide rate of engineers in the US in 2016: 23.2/100k [1]. [0]: https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/data-sheets/2021/2021-N... [1]: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/84275

I was using these numbers that combined architects and engineers: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-jobs-with-the-highest-ra...

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#995

Post by tim333 »

scoofy wrote: post #646
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?

We don't have to live like this. Don't listen to any of the trolls in this thread that will try to argue that "these deaths are acceptable because driving in cars is great." These tragedies are a result of the choices we've made in developing out transportation infrastructure. Comparable countries, like the UK, France, and Germany have dramatically fewer deaths, because they chose different priorities in developing t…

And France used to be quite bad and has become better which shows it can be done.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#997

Post by ccn0p »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #517
Enginerrrd wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I don't think UV return air would work as well as you think. The real solution is increased ventilation rates. UV bulbs are expensive (and invisible unless you get to poke around a buildings mechanical room.), they need to be replaced typically ~annually (they won't be). If they get dust on them, they don't work as well. Etc. etc. And here's the issue: To actually deal with high concentration infectious aer…

I think opening up windows is the answer, but that would mean accepting either a loss of climate control, or greatly increased energy costs. (I'd prefer the former, in all but the absolute hottest summer days or the deadliest cold.)

The most interesting phenomenon I noticed was how unquestionably loyal many places were to the mask mandates, yet kept all their windows shut even on totally nice days out.

I was in a gym that required everyone to wear a mask (yes, while working out / on a treadmill / etc), but all the large windows were shut, and nobody seemed to care or notice. No staff, no patrons, nobody. So I walked around and opened all the windows. And this wasn't March 2020. This was like end of 2021.

I'm not claiming to be some pandemic savant, nor getting into a mask debate, but what shocked me was the "group psychosis" on masking at the expense of proven and incredibly easy mitigation efforts like opening windows!

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#998

Post by everforward »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #891
watwut wrote: post #798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wants to talk about black on black crime. As opposed to white on white crime which is not talked about as separate issue. Because, most murder by large number are among people who know each other - are friends, family, do business. And those groups tend to have same race.

TIL that people think "black on black crime" has any meaning. I would have thought he wanted to talk about gang violence, which is probably #3 or #4 on the list of gun death causes, behind domestic violence and maybe accidents (with suicides eclipsing both of these).

That's an interesting point, so I did some digging. I'm using 2007 as the reference year, because I can't find any more up-to-date sources on domestic murder.

There were 18,361 total homicides in the US in 2007, 10,129 of which were committed with firearms.

There were 1,975 gang homicides in 2007, or ~10.8% of all homicides [1] I can't find anything contemporaneous, but a 1995 study said that 94%-96% of gang homicides used a firearm. Using the lower number, that would mean 1,857 of those were firearm homicides, or 18.3% of all firearm homicides.

There were 2,340 domestic murders in 2007 [2] (the header says female victims of domestic violence, but that stat is for both genders). [4] says that in 2002 54% of domestic violence homicides were carried out with a firearm, so that would be about 1,264 or ~12.4% of all firearm homicides.

Neither of those numbers is isolated to firearms; I couldn't find any studies specifically scoped to firearms. I also didn't dig very hard into how they get those numbers.

Estimates on accidental deaths put them at ~400 a year. [3]

CDC data for 2007 says there were ~17k suicides with firearms in 2007 (these aren't counted in the homicide numbers above).

Gang violence does seem like it has more firearm homicides than domestic violence, but not by a staggering margin, and it may have flipped since 2007.

1: https://nationalgangcenter.ojp.gov/survey-analysis/measuring... (scroll to the bottom, couldn't get a direct link)

2: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvv.pdf

3: https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40...

4: https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/userfiles/file/Childr...

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#999

Post by everforward »

bendbro wrote: post #300
Arrath wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, you survive 2 tons of steel smashing into you only to die against .1 ton of perfectly aimed flesh. I wonder what the odds of this are? Just kidding, I'm not Wiley E Coyote so I don't waste time worrying over comically unlikely ways to die. I do however spend time worrying about people with comically detached models of physical reality.

It's actually a fairly substantial risk, but from unbuckled passengers in the back slamming into the person in front of them. Studies said about a 20% increase in risk of death to the person in the front.

Re: Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes

#1000

Post by martinmunk »

rob74 wrote: post #874
martinmunk wrote: post #834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been told by driving instructors that the rule of thumb for putting up octagon STOP signs here in Denmark is only when a serious accident has occurred. I can't find a source for it, but they are definitely rarer than most other places, and I feel like they are taken more serious because of it.

Maybe the driving instructor wanted to impress upon you the importance of respecting the STOP sign with this story? Maybe it's true in some cases, but somehow I can't imagine that at an intersection with very bad visibility the traffic planners just say "let's start with only a Give Way sign and see how many accidents happen, if it's too bad we can always replace it with a STOP sign"? It's true however that some coun…

Might be.

But I'd think a Give Way sign should suffice in practice even if the intersection has poor visibility. Only if the intersection proves to cheat drivers in to thinking the visibility is not so bad (and hence drivers won't slow down enough) is a Stop sign needed?

It's the old "if it looks safe but isn't".

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