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Is there such a thing as being too safe? Jeff Kaufman writes that buses are much safer than cars, by about a factor of 67 but buses are not very popular and one of the main reasons is that if you look at situations where people who can afford private transit take mass transit instead, speed is the main factor. According to Kauffman, we should look at ways to make buses faster so more people will ride them, even if this means making them somewhat more dangerous. Kauffman presents some ideas, roughly in order from "we should definitely do this" to "this is crazy, but it would probably still reduce deaths overall when you take into account that more people would ride the bus": Suggestions include not to require buses to stop and open their doors at railroad crossings, allow the driver to start while someone is still at the front paying, allow buses to drive 25mph on the shoulder of the highway in traffic jams where the main lanes are averaging below 10mph, and leave (city) bus doors open, allowing people to get on and off any time at their own risk. "If we made buses more dangerous by the same percentage that motorcycles are more dangerous than cars," concludes Kauffman, "they would still be more than twice as safe as cars."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by devlux on Saturday March 19 2016, @01:46PM
Hey for fun you should catch a bus in Latin America sometime!
Standing room only, and the bus DOES NOT STOP EVER! Unless you're in a cross country tour bus with things serious amenities like AC, it will only ever slow down to let you on or off. Otherwise, you're standing there squashed in like a sardine in a can. The bright side is that in most cases in latin america, the bus IS the fastest way to get from point a to point b and also the cheapest. Even faster than airtravel once you factor in delayed flights and getting to the gates*. I rode from Guayaquil to Montanita EC, 3hrs for $3USD a couple years back. It was lots of fun!
*only exception I've found to the airplane rule was LAN http://www.latamairlinesgroup.net/ [latamairlinesgroup.net] always on time and their coach class puts American Airlines first class to shame.