from the what-about-the-road-less-traveled? dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
We all became familiar with the idea of "bending a curve" thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it seems another US curve needs bending: that of US traffic fatalities, which have been up strongly and abnormally over the last couple of years. The low-hanging fruit when it comes to changing that might not be in the car as much as around it.
[...] Thanks in large part to in-car safety tech like airbags, antilock brakes, stability control and, more recently, automatic emergency braking, US traffic fatalities have generally been on a long decline since 1970. The 52,000 such deaths recorded 52 years ago shrank to 36,000 in 2019 even as the US population and vehicle miles driven both increased dramatically. But 2020 and 2021 saw the biggest spike in over 50 years to a total of almost 43,000 per year, turning the roadway fatality clock back to 2002. In short, something's not working as well as it did.
"We need regulations related to vehicle design and street design," says Yonah Freemark, senior research associate at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit think tank focused on urban mobility and equity. "Those two play a really important role in how likely people are to get killed in streets, especially pedestrians (and cyclists) that are struck by cars."
Speed cameras are common in several countries outside the US, often using technology that calculates average speed of a given vehicle based on the time stamps when it passes two or more places on the roadway.
In-vehicle safety technologies that protect occupants have only become more prevalent over the last couple of years, so Freemark looks at pedestrian and cyclist fatalities in collisions with cars as the next key area for improvement. Three-quarters of US auto buyers select a light truck that is typically heavier and larger than the sedan or coupe they may have chosen as their previous purchase, a formula for a more brutal impact with someone outside of the vehicle. In the future, many more electric cars will be sold and their well-known weight problem could exacerbate the seriousness of collisions.
[...] That difference plays out when you compare roadway fatality stats outside the US. "Over the last 20 years or so we've seen quite a divergence between other developed countries, like France," Freemark said of a comparison he's focused on. He noted other countries' taxation schemes that disincentivize the purchase of large, heavy vehicles as well as automatic speeding cameras and the presence of far more traffic circles that still befuddle most US drivers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @03:45PM (30 children)
> "We need regulations related to vehicle design and street design ...
No we don't. We need the cops to rigorously enforce distracted driving laws/regulations that are already on the books, starting with smart phone usage in moving vehicles.
I'm a cyclist and I approved this message!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @03:55PM (6 children)
Much good it will do to (the dead) you, with the last 6y models of cars essentially being smart-phones that incidentally have wheels and can be driven.
(Score: 5, Informative) by NateMich on Monday July 25 2022, @04:49PM (4 children)
No, he's right about this. Any remotely modern car has Bluetooth, but instead I see morons holding their phones up to their faces and wandered all over their lane literally every day.
We already have the laws and the technology to solve this, but we're allowing people to do it anyway.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fraxinus-tree on Monday July 25 2022, @05:18PM (3 children)
You are saying that Bluetooth is a solution for the distracted driving problem? No it is not. We got to the point when the phone alone is not enough distraction, so the car has to distract the driver, too. Less infotainment in the car, PLEASE!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Monday July 25 2022, @07:11PM (2 children)
And block touchscreens when the car is in motion. Provide real physical controls for anything that should be frobbable while driving.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fraxinus-tree on Monday July 25 2022, @08:23PM
Some 10 years ago I fixed my wife's erratic driving by swapping our cars. Absolutely identical cars, except mine didn't have radio / cassette / cd player. 3 cars later the recipe works flawlessly: the radios aren't removed easily anymore, but their fuses are just as easy to find and pull out.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Monday July 25 2022, @09:16PM
Put effin' BUTTONS back into the damn cars!
You reach over to the button and you can feel where it is. The second button from the left does X, the next one does Y. You know that after using the care for a week. Tops. You don't need to take your eyes off the road anymore, you just KNOW what the button does, and you can simply brush your fingers across them and count to the second, then press it. You even get tactile feedback that the button was pressed and you know you pressed the right one.
Touchscreens REQUIRE you to look at them to find the button and also to visually verify that you actually pressed it.
Get rid of the damn touchscreens. They're bad enough on phones, we sure as fuck don't need them in cars!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 25 2022, @09:45PM
Teslas will soon get Steam.
How long before other smart-phones on wheels also get in car gaming and other distractions?
Other drivers that you hit while distracted should be held accountable!
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 5, Informative) by epitaxial on Monday July 25 2022, @04:22PM (9 children)
The cops are essentially doing a work stoppage because they're upset about the public wanting them held accountable for their actions. The police problem stems from warrior training. https://harvardlawreview.org/2015/04/law-enforcements-warrior-problem/ [harvardlawreview.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @05:11PM (1 child)
Warrior training? This US veteran got fired for not being trigger happy enough by US cop standards: https://www.npr.org/2016/12/08/504718239/military-trained-police-may-be-slower-to-shoot-but-that-got-this-vet-fired [npr.org]
US soldiers are not famous for their restraint (in fact more like the opposite). So you're doing it very wrong if your cops are more trigger happy than US soldiers.
(Score: 5, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 25 2022, @10:52PM
https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/8/14/6002211/battlestar-galactica-had-the-perfect-argument-for-keeping-police-and [vox.com]
"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2, Insightful) by HammeredGlass on Monday July 25 2022, @05:54PM (3 children)
Nope, nothing to do with society telling cops not to arrest criminals.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @06:32PM (2 children)
Are you being sarcastic? I hope so, because literally many cops are being told to not stop and ticket people for many driving infractions.
(Score: 2) by HammeredGlass on Monday July 25 2022, @06:41PM (1 child)
I am being sarcastic. Have a great day.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @07:15PM
Thanks for clarifying. You get upmod. Many people get downmodded due to misunderstood sarcasm.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by sjames on Monday July 25 2022, @07:29PM (2 children)
The interesting part is that there are actually a number of jobs that carry a much higher risk of injury or death. The police aren't even in the top 10.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2022, @01:40PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 26 2022, @02:58PM
Hmm, I never actually thought about it. 4 of the 46 US presidents were assassinated. I would say that's a fairly high mortality rate compared to most/all other professions/positions. I mean, if you count the president as a politician, then the mortality rate would be much lower over all politicians.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday July 25 2022, @04:39PM (9 children)
You might be a cyclist but you're an idiot.
- When an SUV barrels goes out of control, it's very likely to cause a lot more damage and fatalities than a small European or Japanese econobox. US:0 / EU:1
- When roads are designed with cycling in mind, particularly segregated cycling lanes or - like the Netherlands - a completely separate cycling network, the cyclists don't get an SUV or an econobox in the face in the first place. US:0 / EU: 2
- Automatic speed traps work - see France, Germany, and most of Europe. No need for cops: the offenders get their fine in the mail. US: 0 / EU: 3
Etc etc.
I suggest you go visit Europe and see what a country with an active government working for its citizenry is like, unlike the US.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 25 2022, @04:58PM (6 children)
I don't think what you propose is a reasonable solution. There are areas where it could work, and separated bicycle/pedestrian right of ways are definitely better where they are possible. Unfortunately, the number of bicyclists is rather small in most of the country, so that would be quite difficult to justify. I don't really have a good solution. Bicycle lanes are a truly lousy approach. I think they cause as many problems as they solve. But separate ways are impossible in most places.
Traffic circles could be a reasonable approach to streamlining traffic flow, but not with any design I've seen. The idea of using them in a compact form is a bad idea. The denser and faster the traffic, the larger they would need to be to make things better. Eventually one would end up with elevated loops that would feed traffic in to them in a central loop, and have traffic exit at the outer edge. It could be done quite well, but a cloverleaf would probably do just as well, and take up less space. (Still, if you had six or more exits, it might make SOME sense.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 25 2022, @07:01PM (2 children)
Sorry, but no, cloverleafs aren't a replacement for roundabouts. Cloverleafs are a good answer for restricted access roads like our interstates. They are a passing good answer for some lesser restricted access highways. Not so much good for much of anything else.
Actually, cloverleafs take up more room than a roundabout with the same traffic capacity.
Neither solution is likely to ever be adopted for suburban and downtown intersections, but roundabouts make a lot more sense.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 25 2022, @08:24PM (1 child)
I didn't say they were a good answer for the typical location in which roundabouts are used, just that they were better than roundabouts.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday July 25 2022, @09:21PM
Roundabouts slow traffic down at intersections - that's a good thing.
(Score: 5, Touché) by sjames on Monday July 25 2022, @07:33PM (2 children)
There may be a chicken and egg problem. Perhaps there WOULD be more cyclists if they didn't have to contend with coal rolling monster trucks.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 25 2022, @08:31PM
That's only partially true. Yeah, when street traffic is such that bicycles are suppressed, it's a chicken and egg problem, but in many suburban areas that used to be fairly bicycle friendly, increasing traffic without a redesign has caused bicycles to become unreasonably dangerous. It's not just a chicken and egg problem, also involved is that the need for cars is sufficiently strong that just about everyone who qualifies for a driver's license feels a need to own their own car, and once they have that, it's a lot easier and safer to use that than to use a bicycle. Even when I was a kid I was an outlier because I didn't WANT to drive. But I was certainly made aware of all the reasons most people did.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 25 2022, @10:57PM
The real problem with cycling around here is: weather.
Cycle to work in the morning and you'll need a shower when you get there. I did that for a time in Houston, showers were just steps from my desk so why not? But.... in the afternoons, you never know when it will be A) sweltering hot or B) torrential thunderstorm downpouring, and occasionally you get the thrill of trying to race through A) to beat B) to your home.
Couple that with the existential threat of a lifetime of paralysis or other gruesome disability handed out by someone(s) paying too little attention whilst navigating their 6000lb land-ship in your vicinity, and.... nope, just not worth deep-breathing the exhaust fumes for all that.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by fraxinus-tree on Monday July 25 2022, @05:22PM
EU imposes some impressive taxes on fuels. A lot of EU people get the message and do much less mileage per capita than US, using smaller, slower and safer cars. US: 0 / EU: 4
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @06:01PM
e-Bicycling to/from is the best part of my day. Seriously people are missing out on (a) no more gym, (b) best parking, (c) the sheer joy of being 10 again. C'mon guys, gotta try it.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday July 26 2022, @08:03AM (2 children)
So you think the US are the only country where people have smartphones?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2022, @05:57PM (1 child)
Of course not, but TFA is specifically about US highway safety--it's in the title!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday July 27 2022, @05:09AM
But the point of the article is the difference to other countries. It is not reasonable to assume that something that is the same in other countries is responsible for the differences to other countries.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @03:51PM (3 children)
Avoid US, they'll shoot you dead or roll coals over you in their small trucks.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ikanreed on Monday July 25 2022, @09:04PM (1 child)
You joke, but cars and guns are the number one and number two cause of death for people under 45 here; it's staggering how many young, healthy people our insane vision of freedom outright kills every year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2022, @12:12AM
LOL, only serious.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday July 26 2022, @01:55PM
Well, duh, if you're going to transport the average American around you'll need a light truck at least.
(This message posted as a means of generating power via the high-frequency oscillation set up from conflicting "Insightful" and "Troll" mods).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Monday July 25 2022, @03:56PM (4 children)
... implement sidewalks. I am shocked when I visit US at how hard it is to get places on foot.
(Score: 5, Touché) by epitaxial on Monday July 25 2022, @04:25PM (3 children)
A bit difficult when one party sees the government providing public services as "commie" nonsense. I pay taxes to every level of government. I want service in return.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @04:50PM (1 child)
Varies greatly by state. Here in New York State (far from NY City) we have sidewalks in most urban & suburban areas. Further out in the rural areas, the state roads usually have a wide (~2+ meter) strip (paved shoulder) for peds & bikes. There is a solid white line that separates this from the car lane.
Not as fancy as parts of Europe where there are whole separate path systems for walk/bike that include over or underpasses so that car traffic and bike traffic are separate at intersections. But perfectly usable, imo. I just rode my bike on some errands, mostly separated from cars.
There is one reason that property owners resist having sidewalks (pavements in UK usage) added to an older street -- the property owners are required to do maintenance including winter shoveling of the sidewalk. This can be very difficult once the big plows come through and bury the sidewalk...but if you don't do it you get fined.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Tuesday July 26 2022, @02:04PM
I used to live in NY state, just north of White Plains, and was shocked at the almost complete absence of sidewalks almost everywhere except town centres. I once had to get maybe 300m down the road from the hotel where I was staying to a place I was working and there was literally no way to get there on foot, I tried walking once and was nearly run down several times with drivers honking at me until I realised that the only way to get there safely was to get a taxi there and back each time. It was seriously the most pedestrian-hostile place I've ever been.
I eventually located a place to live, in a larger town, population 25,000, that had a bus service, but that was by choosing a place specifically because there was a bus route that went through it. One single bus route if I remember correctly. It ran once an hour, and as late as 6 or even 7pm. There were even a few buses that ran on weekends.
The assumption was simply that absolutely everyone drove. There was no provision at all for pedestrians or cyclists, and the people who caught the sole bus that serviced the town were ones too poor to afford a car.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @06:03PM
> I want service in return.
Yes sir. More armored vehicles have been ordered and new weapons are on the way.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Spamalope on Monday July 25 2022, @03:58PM (3 children)
We're not taxing enough... We need more speed camera/red light camera accidents.
Also, dashcams are really cutting into speeding citations because too many drivers can prove the ticket was bogus.
We need a solution that involves our org getting more cash!
Maybe we could add incarceration in private prisons to more traffic laws? That'd be a very US 'solution'.
Also ban dashcams as evidence in traffic court!
(why yes, my dashcam has saved me so. much. money. - and I'm still salty about the time before I had one...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @04:55PM (2 children)
> why yes, my dashcam has saved me so. much. money.
Assuming you are in the USA, what state?
We don't have red light or speed cameras here (upstate NY), except in a few towns that drank the cool-aid (&/or accepted a bribe) from some traffic camera company. Haven't had any need for a dashcam (yet)--but would certainly buy one if I was headed into your state.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 25 2022, @07:14PM (1 child)
Pretty much all of them. I've signed bogus tickets almost every state. The Gulf Coast, eastern seaboard, and the Great Lakes states seem to be the worst, inland states maybe not so bad. Don't ask me why that should be, but it seems to me to be so.
The single best thing that happened in the US, is when the states each eliminated literal speed traps almost everywhere. You're on a 60 mph highway, someone posted a 45 mph sign behind a big weeping willow tree where you can't see it, or the cop hiding behind the tree to chase you down when you blow by him. Today, those little towns are required to post their speed limits according to state standards.
Better yet, is Texas. The eliminated 25 and 35 mph speed limits on major highways altogether. In effect, they told the cities and towns that the speed limit through town will be 45 mph, or higher, build your town appropriately.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday July 25 2022, @08:31PM
In my region many areas / towns built bypass highways to get traffic out of the denser populated areas- only to have businesses slowly start coming in and turning the bypass into a dense traffic situation with lots of turns and traffic lights.
Of course some are "limited-access" highway bypasses that can't possibly have business driveway entrances.
Also there are places with 4-6 lane highways, and parallel side roads for accessing businesses, stores, apartments, etc.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday July 25 2022, @04:51PM
What lots of urban planner types have been advocating for a long time and really should be the norm: If you want to take care of a lot of traffic problems, including accident rates, make it both possible and safe to get to places without driving. Even relatively cheap bus routes can make a big difference if they're frequent enough and have low enough fares, because 1 bus can carry the same number of people as 10-20 cars and take up a lot less room. Or if you move someone who was driving alone onto a bicycle instead, you've just cut the amount of road space they're using by about 80%.
Among other things, a drunk on a bicycle or stumbling onto a bus isn't likely to whoopsie-daisy kill somebody.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @04:56PM
Is this part of the plan for trying to outlaw human driven vehicles?
Why, exactly, is there such a huge push for self-driving vehicles
beyond electronics companies trying to shove more shit into cars?
Did it occur to anyone that the uptick is because post-covid drivers
are acting like dicks because they got away with it when roads were
empty?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HammeredGlass on Monday July 25 2022, @05:11PM
https://www.takimag.com/article/the-racial-reckoning-on-the-roads/ [takimag.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @05:16PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tbuskey on Monday July 25 2022, @05:40PM (10 children)
Streets are for people with some access for cars/trucks. For neighborhoods, shopping, with walking and biking Cars & delivery trucks can go down at a slower speed. Lots of driveways, alleyways and cross traffic. Signs are for people. People don't use cars once they get to these areas. Idealy, they live & park there. Or take a bus, train, subway, bike to get to the area from where they park the car a short distance away or leave the car at home. sidewalks and buildings are close to the pavement. There is only a lane for 1 car in either direction or just 1 way.
Roads are for cars at high speeds. No pedestrians, no bicycles On & off ramps. No lights, stop signs, cross traffic. Signs are for cars at high speeds. If cars go off the road, there clear spaces where they shouldn't be able to hit bikes, pedestians, buildings. Lane directions are separated & have room to pass. Some of these roads can be dangerous for motorcycles.
Stroads have high speeds w/ lots of driveways, parking lot entrance, exits, lights, cross traffic. These are basically roads with all the cross traffic added in. They are designed for cars. If there are considerations for people, they throw in sidewalks & crosswalks. To deal w/ cross traffic, there are lights to stop traffic if they want to make an intersection/exit/entrance safer. Things are spread out too far for buses, subways and trains to be cost effective.
It's often difficult to go from one store parking lot to the next store unless you have a car. There might be a road connecting the lots or you might have to exit the lot & enter the next one. There is probably no sidewalk between lots. And who would want to walk or bicycle here? It's really easy to get hit
As an argument to the "but big shopping areas need big lots".
A mall has a parking lot for the cars, then a street between all the stores w/ no cars. There is road on the outside & around back for trucks to deliver to stores.
Amusement parks will have transport available from the lots to the park and may have transport within the park available.
Of course one-size doesn't fit everything. Eventually, the 5-10 miles stroads connecting to large stores with parking lots will need more expensive traffic lights to safely allow entering/exiting traffic. This will make the traffic wait a long time to get through.
There are towns and housing developments being built with roads on the outside and streets on the inside. You can park all the cars outside, all streets inside are pedestrian only or streets are short, narrow & slow to the store lots and apartments within. Someone living there has a short walk to groceries, restaurants and other things.
We need to design things for people 1st and add cars afterwards.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Monday July 25 2022, @07:52PM (9 children)
When I build software, I write it to match how people actually use it and not how I want them to use it. I love walkable design, but does it make sense for it to be the first design principle when the portion of people with/using vehicles approaches unity?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tekk on Monday July 25 2022, @08:40PM (7 children)
Yes, because cars are dangerous, inefficient, costly, and unsustainable in as many ways as you can think of. The only reason cars approach unity in the US is that almost all of the US for the last 80 years has been intentionally designed to make your life as miserable as possible if you don't have a car.
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Monday July 25 2022, @09:36PM (6 children)
Timely point to point travel with a continental range with the capability to carry several hundred pounds of cargo. Cars are inefficient, until you realize that the alternatives are routinely worse for typical car scenarios.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2022, @02:01AM (5 children)
If I'm going down to the shop for a pint of milk and a loaf of bread, it's pretty fucking inefficient to use a continental range transport with a carrying capacity approaching a ton.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 26 2022, @01:20PM (4 children)
"IF". Last time I used a car, I drove 80 miles, did some shopping including filling up a large cooler I had brought along, and a hair cut. All in five hours. It keeps getting missed here that a lot of people in the US use cars in situations that other transportation from bikes to buses just don't make sense.
(Score: 2) by tekk on Tuesday July 26 2022, @02:04PM (3 children)
How often do you do that, though? There are situations where renting a car or truck can make sense, it just isn't an every day (or even necessarily every month.)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 26 2022, @06:00PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2022, @06:08PM (1 child)
> renting a car or truck can make sense
Logic fail!!!
If he's 80 miles from civilization (defined as stores and at least one barber shop--in this case), there is a snowball's chance in hell that there is a car rental agency any where near his starting point.
He needs his own car, a neighbor to car pool with, or possibly a taxi/uber (at high cost, if they exist out there). Or two days in his schedule to bicycle (if he's very fit).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 27 2022, @01:15AM
I'd totally do that, if I could spare time from my busy bear wrestling schedule.
(Score: 1) by tbuskey on Monday July 25 2022, @10:34PM
Just because most people have X and use X all the time doesn't mean X is the only way to meet their needs.
Not too long ago all cell phones had a physical keyboard and all people could do is talk on them.
Then texting came about and there was an LCD you could read messages so they made an alphabetical keyboard.
Then blackberry expanded the LCD and you could do email on it.
How many phones have real keyboards now?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hartree on Monday July 25 2022, @06:21PM (3 children)
Yes, we've had a couple of years where the deaths per billion miles traveled is up, but if you take a look at the trend over the past 3 decades it's massively less than before air bags, crumple zones and a whole host of other safety requirements.
It also doesn't make any allowance for the strong drop in non-necessary travel. Perhaps on average, those traveling were more in the position of having to travel, thus making weather, tiredness and a lot of other factors less of a disincentive. So, fewer, but more dangerous miles.
This sounds like someone wanting regulation to go in certain directions and adjusting the narrative to support that.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Monday July 25 2022, @07:39PM
Parent poster is correct. Wikipedia has data for Motor vehicle fatality rates here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year [wikipedia.org]
In 1921 the Fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled was 24.09. For 2021, a hundred years later, it stands at 1.33. Even with the 7% and 10% increases in 2020/2021 respectively, it's still lower than every year from 1921-2007.
(Score: 2, Informative) by chr on Monday July 25 2022, @07:51PM
Or maybe they think the United States is getting even more behind compared to countries in western Europe (for deaths related to car traffic [1]).
According to [1], the US rates are 12.4 [2] and 14.2 [3] respectively. Some (rounded) numbers for comparison:
12 14 United States
5 6 - Austria
5 9 - Belgium
3 7 - Denmark
4 6 - Germany
5 8 - France
2 4 - Sweden
3 6 - UK
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate [wikipedia.org]
[2] Deaths per 100 000 inhabitants per year
[3] Deaths per 100 000 motor vehicles per year.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday July 26 2022, @01:19AM
Illegal immigrants are particularly poor drivers, often untrained, often drunk, and always unlicensed. Thanks, Brandon.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 25 2022, @06:32PM (4 children)
Around here, the narrative is that when traffic volume went down during the pandemic, risk taking went up. Fewer people on the roads, but those that are out there are driving more recklessly. Personally, in 2019 my local interstate hops used to run 75-80mph in posted 65mph zones, and that would move with the bulk of traffic. These days, it runs more 75-90mph with more than the occasional outlier well above 90mph, and often a group of 15-20 cars all doing about 90mph in the posted 65mph zone.
I understand Georgia is "cracking down" on speed now, at least that's what they're advertising - never seen it for myself in real-life except as revenue generation in the smaller towns.
I'd be all for a stricter interpretation of the speed limit, if the speed limit somewhat reflected how the roads have been used for the past 50 years... Move the limit up to 80mph on clear sunny days, then enforce that limit exactly. And, above all else, get those troopers some decent rain gear and have them write citations for speeds inappropriate for conditions when conditions warrant them - not fat revenue generators at $200+$12/mph over the limit - simple $50 moving violations that get the message across: yes, you are the asshole for weaving through traffic at 90mph in the rain, kindly quit it.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @07:42PM
> yes, you are the asshole for weaving through traffic at 90mph in the rain, kindly quit it.
That's what the cops do around here...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Monday July 25 2022, @08:00PM (1 child)
There is some element of truth to that. The cannonball run records from the pandemic era are unlikely to be broken in our lifetimes.
Here in Tennessee, I'd wager our incident/fatality numbers have increased in correlation to population increases. We've had significant immigration in our major metros and their adjacent counties beyond anything highway planners could have seen coming.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 25 2022, @09:55PM
We certainly have our share of fresh immigrants around here (from other parts of the states) - about 30,000 new residents annually added to the local population of ~1.3M for the past several years. Even with over 3% population growth since the pandemic began, traffic is less intense than it was in 2019 - more work from home, more flexible schedules, etc.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday July 27 2022, @06:22AM
When I first drove the legal 80mph highways out west, it was paradise. Drivers actually stayed right except to pass. Big trailers either couldn't or didn't want to go that speed. They stayed right at 70 or 75 and you could easily pass them.
Just recently I took such a trip through Nevada and Utah, and it seems like people have gotten used to 80mph limits in the bad way. All the old habits are back now: lane hogging at 78mph in the passing lane. Elephant crawl passes at 80.1 mph when you've got the cruise control on 80. High speed packs. All the stupidity you used to see at 70mph is there at 80 now.
Take away all the limits on those desert straights. Enforce lane discipline, not speed and let God and the NV and UT highway patrols sort it out.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday July 25 2022, @07:34PM (1 child)
Speed limiters. Fatal accidents almost exclusively happen at high speed (pedestrian and cyclist collisions excluded). During lockdown certain people grew accustomed to treating freeways like speedways.
Of course there are those who would circumvent said speed limiters.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @07:51PM
> Fatal accidents almost exclusively happen at high speed (pedestrian and cyclist collisions excluded).
Please do some research before posting--in USA:
https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/speeding [nhtsa.gov]
"In 2020, speeding was a contributing factor in 29% of all traffic fatalities."
https://www.iihs.org/topics/pedestrians-and-bicyclists [iihs.org]
"Pedestrians comprised about 17 percent of crash deaths, and bicyclists made up an additional 2 percent."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Monday July 25 2022, @07:58PM (3 children)
I remember when I could adjust my cabin temp with slide knobs without taking my eyes off the road. My current car (2005 G35) has 8 buttons, some I can push multiple times (fan +/-) to adjust heating/cooling/defrost. After 17 years of driving this car I still have, at 80 MPH, "why isn't cold air coming out of these vents?". At 80 MPH after 17 years this is not what you want to be thinking.
New cars have touch screens. At least with my car I can press a button that's in a unique place. I may not be 100% sure that button is either the solution to my problem, or the cause of my problem, but I know where that button is.
With a touchscreen UI (disclaimer: did I mention I drive a 17 y/o car?) you don't even know what button your hitting without looking at the screen, focusing on the screen, parsing the screen, and figuring out which button to touch.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @08:41PM (1 child)
Yes, touch screen UI's suck away your attention. All the cars in my extended family are pre 2014 and none have touch screen interfaces for the driver.
But going back to the frist piss, many people spend a lot more time fussing with the UI on their smart phones (while driving alone) than they do changing the HVAC settings. And at least part of this distraction is by design--FB and many others have been actively designing software to suck up user attention with micro dopamine hits.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 25 2022, @11:03PM
>micro dopamine hits.
We used to get our dopamine / seratonin hits from the driving experience itself. They've "advanced" the vehicle driving experience so far into numb territory that there's little of that left.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @08:51PM
here's a free idea for an aftermarket product that I'd like to buy--if I ever get stuck with a car that has touch panel controls for basic functions.
It's a small panel that can be rigidly attached to the dashboard in a convenient-to-reach location. It has on it a few distinct mechanical switches/sliders/knobs for basic car functions like heater/AC/fan/recirculate, floor/face/defog, 4-way flashers. Behind it is a microcontroller that reads the switches/sliders and communicates to the car CAN bus to run these functions in parallel with the touch panel.
Any takers?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Monday July 25 2022, @11:31PM (1 child)
[quote]2020 and 2021 saw the biggest spike in over 50 years to a total of almost 43,000 per year[/quote]
2020 was the year it became trendy and cool to kneel or lay down on a freeway or highway.
I can completely understand why rates spiked. I think the solution would be to eliminate criminal charges and give zero liability towards pedestrian collisions while in a roadway.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday July 26 2022, @11:56AM
You can add those deaths and shark attacks together and it's a rounding error less than the error bars on the FARS data.
(Score: 2) by Quicksilver on Tuesday July 26 2022, @03:47PM
What a bunch of alarmist bull. Did anyone look at the data? (Certainly not whoever wrote the title...)
US roads "Became so Dangerous" that they almost reached the 2007 levels of death per miles driven! Oh the horror!!! [insert shocked pikachu face here]
Sorry. Can't work up any level of drama for reporting this stupid.
-
This is what we get from ratings based "newsertainment" instead of services that just report the news.