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The first graph shows that we have made driving far less dangerous over time. The second graph shows that driving has become far more popular over time, popula

by cbr 11y ago

The first graph shows that we have made driving far less dangerous over time. The second graph shows that driving has become far more popular over time, popular enough to outweigh this effect until the early 70s. The recent improvement in car accident rates is pretty impressive.

shkkmo 11y ago
Yet it is misleading to support the claim of a "war on traffic fatalities" with a graph that measures something else. The first graph show we have made driving far less dangerous per mile. The second graph shows the likelihood that any given person will die due to traffic.
- jdmichal 11y ago
  I would make the reverse argument. Someone driving 100 miles today is far less likely to die doing it than, say, 30 years ago. The odds look about 3:1, eyeballing the chart. That, to me, seems like driving is far less dangerous than it was. The fact that people drive more miles today than before is an entire separate concern. One could even argue that making driving safer has also made it more popular, though I wouldn't bet on it being a large contributing factor.
  - shkkmo 11y ago
    You seem to be missing the point. The graph was posted to show evidence for a 'war on car fatalities' not a 'war on the dangers of driving'. This is akin to announcing a 'war on cancer fatalities' but only caring about improving cancer treatments, not removing carcinogens on the environment.
    - cbr 11y ago
      It's as if we were successfully making cancer less deadly, but at the same time more people were living long enough to get cancer that there were more cancer deaths. We'd still be making the kind of progress we care about in working against cancer fatalities, even though there are more of them. And a suggestion that reduce longevity so that fewer people would die of cancer would be missing the point.
      - shkkmo 11y ago
        Would a suggestion to stop contaminating the ground water and air with carcinogens also miss the point? Obviously, it is a bad idea to maximize the wrong metric. In the case of cancer, just measuring survival rates is a bad metric, but so is measuring cancer deaths per capita. A better metric is to measure the per-capita deaths due to cancer within specific age groups.
    - jdmichal 11y ago
      Here's a gedankenexperiment for you: I instantaneously and permanently disable every car and car manufactory, thereby reducing all traffic fatalities to zero. Did I make driving safer? I'm not missing your point, and cbr's reply makes it obvious that he isn't either. The prevalence of driving is a separate variable from how dangerous it is. Driving is far less dangerous and far more prevalent.
      - shkkmo 11y ago
        Obviously you have completely missed the point. > Here's a gedankenexperiment for you: I instantaneously and permanently disable every car and car manufactory, thereby reducing all traffic fatalities to zero. Did I make driving safer? You certainly would have done an effective job of executing a 'war on car fatalities' which is what the harryh was claiming was demonstrated by the chart he posted. While I agree that driving is safer than it used to be, the chart harryh posted doesn't actually show that. it just shows that driving is safer per mile. Analogous to the point that cbr made: Without changing any of the risks of driving, I could make driving safer per mile by hiring a million drivers to drive 10MPH on a closed track year round. While the above point is rather tongue-in-cheek, I do suspect that a significant part of the drop indicated in harryh's chart is due to changing driving patterns, particularly the increase in freeway driving. I don't think eliminating all driving would be a good way to reduce traffic deaths (because it all of the other consequences that would have). However, if we had spent more effort in trying to reduce unnecessary and high-risk driving we would see a larger reduction in traffic deaths. This includes solutions like walkable cities, adequate public transit, and higher penalties for drivers engaged in risky behavior that cause fatalities. Focusing purely on deaths per mile excludes those types of interventions. Thus you can't use that measure to claim a 'war on car fatalities'.
        jdmichal 11y ago
        So your entire argument is centered around the semantics of "war on car fatalities"? In that case, there's not really anything for me to add, other than that I think you are taking a very uncharitable [0] view of the original post. [0] http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html
- spikels 11y ago
  This a very dishonest argument. Fatalities per km travelled is the standard metric of safety for a good reason. Are you against hospitals too? Deaths in hospitals have skyrocketed since they were invented. You are being a pedantic jerk. Read this: http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html Here are some more reasonable discussions of the issue: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the... http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/02/a-map-of-the-worlds-most-dangerous-countries-for-drivers/283886/ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/02/a-m...
  - shkkmo 11y ago
    > You are being a pedantic jerk "DH0. Name-calling. This is the lowest form of disagreement" > Are you against hospitals too? Deaths in hospitals have skyrocketed since they were invented. "DH1. Ad Hominem." Good job, you've hit the bottom of the disagreement heirarchy. In my mind my responses are all on the level of DH4 and DH5. If I have failed to do that, please provide specific examples because I strive to disagree well and wish to improve. > Here are some more reasonable discussions of the issue: Neither of those are discussions of the issue at hand, which is the number of deaths due to cars. Nowhere, except in replies that attack a strawman argument, was the safety of driving a point of debate. I have even stated elsewhere that I agree that driving has gotten safer (though I do dispute that fatalities per distance is an ideal metric for measuring that since it is also affected by usage patterns in addition to safety). I have made solid, non-pedantic points about the effect of using different metrics and what types of interventions will show up in those metrics. If you are talking about traffic safety (say vs air travel or between countries), fatalities per distance is one of several applicable metrics (fatalities per trip being another). If you are talking about traffic deaths, as a overall source of risk (say vs terrorism) then fatalities per capita is a more correct metric. This is not a pedantic point, this is a very important point that is key to the discussion that you seem to be avoiding.
Retric 11y ago
If we force people to drive more by underfunding public transit then number of miles driven is going to go up due to public policy not personal choices.

by cbr 11y ago

shkkmo 11y ago

Yet it is misleading to support the claim of a "war on traffic fatalities" with a graph that measures something else. The first graph show we have made driving far less dangerous per mile. The second graph shows the likelihood that any given person will die due to traffic.

jdmichal 11y ago
I would make the reverse argument. Someone driving 100 miles today is far less likely to die doing it than, say, 30 years ago. The odds look about 3:1, eyeballing the chart. That, to me, seems like driving is far less dangerous than it was. The fact that people drive more miles today than before is an entire separate concern. One could even argue that making driving safer has also made it more popular, though I wouldn't bet on it being a large contributing factor.
- shkkmo 11y ago
  You seem to be missing the point. The graph was posted to show evidence for a 'war on car fatalities' not a 'war on the dangers of driving'. This is akin to announcing a 'war on cancer fatalities' but only caring about improving cancer treatments, not removing carcinogens on the environment.
  - cbr 11y ago
    It's as if we were successfully making cancer less deadly, but at the same time more people were living long enough to get cancer that there were more cancer deaths. We'd still be making the kind of progress we care about in working against cancer fatalities, even though there are more of them. And a suggestion that reduce longevity so that fewer people would die of cancer would be missing the point.
    - shkkmo 11y ago
      Would a suggestion to stop contaminating the ground water and air with carcinogens also miss the point? Obviously, it is a bad idea to maximize the wrong metric. In the case of cancer, just measuring survival rates is a bad metric, but so is measuring cancer deaths per capita. A better metric is to measure the per-capita deaths due to cancer within specific age groups.
  - jdmichal 11y ago
    Here's a gedankenexperiment for you: I instantaneously and permanently disable every car and car manufactory, thereby reducing all traffic fatalities to zero. Did I make driving safer? I'm not missing your point, and cbr's reply makes it obvious that he isn't either. The prevalence of driving is a separate variable from how dangerous it is. Driving is far less dangerous and far more prevalent.
    - shkkmo 11y ago
      Obviously you have completely missed the point. > Here's a gedankenexperiment for you: I instantaneously and permanently disable every car and car manufactory, thereby reducing all traffic fatalities to zero. Did I make driving safer? You certainly would have done an effective job of executing a 'war on car fatalities' which is what the harryh was claiming was demonstrated by the chart he posted. While I agree that driving is safer than it used to be, the chart harryh posted doesn't actually show that. it just shows that driving is safer per mile. Analogous to the point that cbr made: Without changing any of the risks of driving, I could make driving safer per mile by hiring a million drivers to drive 10MPH on a closed track year round. While the above point is rather tongue-in-cheek, I do suspect that a significant part of the drop indicated in harryh's chart is due to changing driving patterns, particularly the increase in freeway driving. I don't think eliminating all driving would be a good way to reduce traffic deaths (because it all of the other consequences that would have). However, if we had spent more effort in trying to reduce unnecessary and high-risk driving we would see a larger reduction in traffic deaths. This includes solutions like walkable cities, adequate public transit, and higher penalties for drivers engaged in risky behavior that cause fatalities. Focusing purely on deaths per mile excludes those types of interventions. Thus you can't use that measure to claim a 'war on car fatalities'.
      - jdmichal 11y ago
        So your entire argument is centered around the semantics of "war on car fatalities"? In that case, there's not really anything for me to add, other than that I think you are taking a very uncharitable [0] view of the original post. [0] http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html
spikels 11y ago
This a very dishonest argument. Fatalities per km travelled is the standard metric of safety for a good reason. Are you against hospitals too? Deaths in hospitals have skyrocketed since they were invented. You are being a pedantic jerk. Read this: http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html Here are some more reasonable discussions of the issue: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the... http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/02/a-map-of-the-worlds-most-dangerous-countries-for-drivers/283886/ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/02/a-m...
- shkkmo 11y ago
  > You are being a pedantic jerk "DH0. Name-calling. This is the lowest form of disagreement" > Are you against hospitals too? Deaths in hospitals have skyrocketed since they were invented. "DH1. Ad Hominem." Good job, you've hit the bottom of the disagreement heirarchy. In my mind my responses are all on the level of DH4 and DH5. If I have failed to do that, please provide specific examples because I strive to disagree well and wish to improve. > Here are some more reasonable discussions of the issue: Neither of those are discussions of the issue at hand, which is the number of deaths due to cars. Nowhere, except in replies that attack a strawman argument, was the safety of driving a point of debate. I have even stated elsewhere that I agree that driving has gotten safer (though I do dispute that fatalities per distance is an ideal metric for measuring that since it is also affected by usage patterns in addition to safety). I have made solid, non-pedantic points about the effect of using different metrics and what types of interventions will show up in those metrics. If you are talking about traffic safety (say vs air travel or between countries), fatalities per distance is one of several applicable metrics (fatalities per trip being another). If you are talking about traffic deaths, as a overall source of risk (say vs terrorism) then fatalities per capita is a more correct metric. This is not a pedantic point, this is a very important point that is key to the discussion that you seem to be avoiding.

Retric 11y ago

If we force people to drive more by underfunding public transit then number of miles driven is going to go up due to public policy not personal choices.