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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, eyeballi

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
      - shkkmo 11y ago
        I noted that a set of statistics was being misused as evidence for the specific claim being made and added a source that supported that claim, abeit less strongly. That was 'uncharitable'? You then 'charitably' missed my point twice, and argued against a strawman. You followed that up by 'charitably' accused me of only arguing semantics rather than responding to any of my actual points.

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
    - shkkmo 11y ago
      I noted that a set of statistics was being misused as evidence for the specific claim being made and added a source that supported that claim, abeit less strongly. That was 'uncharitable'? You then 'charitably' missed my point twice, and argued against a strawman. You followed that up by 'charitably' accused me of only arguing semantics rather than responding to any of my actual points.