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Why Buses Need to Be More Dangerous

posted by cmn32480 on Saturday March 19 2016, @11:23AM   
from the get-on-the-bus-gus dept.

HughPickens.com writes:

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."

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Original Submission

• ''the 'shoulder' of a roadway'' ''the 'shoulder' of a roadway'' (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 19 2016, @09:52PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 19 2016, @09:52PM (#320557)

  Where I'm from, the shoulder is the flat but unpaved area between the pavement and the railing|soundwall|ditch|woods|dropoff|rock outcropping.

  If it's between 2 pieces of roadway that have traffic going in opposite directions, it's called the median.

  It's where you pull off to if your vehicle is having problems.
  It's supposed to be for emergencies only.
  If you get up a lot of speed on it and somebody ahead has a conked-out car and wants to pull over, things can get hairy.

  .
  ...and, as for "More Dangerous":
  Frida Kahlo was in a bus accident at age 18. [wikipedia.org]

  a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. In addition, an iron handrail pierced her abdomen and her uterus, compromising her reproductive capacity.
  [...]
  she spent three months recovering in a full body cast. [...] she had relapses of extreme pain for the remainder of her life

  So, "More dangerous"?

  -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  Parent

• Re:''the 'shoulder' of a roadway'' (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday March 20 2016, @01:11AM

  by wonkey_monkey (279) on Sunday March 20 2016, @01:11AM (#320611) Homepage

  So, "More dangerous"?

  Yes, because the plural of "anecdote" is not "data." Especially if you have to go back to 1925 for your anecdote.

  --
  systemd is Roko's Basilisk

  Parent