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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: 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.