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Someone will correct me if I'm wrong but from what I've heard I think the way Europe "solved" this problem is by 1. Making it more difficult to get a driver's l

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong but from what I've heard I think the way Europe "solved" this problem is by 1. Making it more difficult to get a driver's license 2. Making it more expensive to drive (compare car prices and gas prices across the Atlantic). Maybe a chicken and egg problem but here 1. The wealthy don't seem to prefer public transit preferring to drive. 2. Nobody cares about the poor people. And thus there is no meaningful investment in public transit in a lot of the country. This means the road of good intentions with 1. Raising the cost of ownership of cars 2. Raising the bar for driving license hurts the poor the most. Tl;Dr need more public transit to make driving safer

Someone 9y ago
Making it more difficult to get a driver's license probably is part of the answer, but if it helps, what's wrong with that? Requiring engineers to have an education also decreased the number of fatalities from collapsing buildings. As to making it more expensive to drive, I don't see how that would affect fatalities per mile driven. Or do you have evidence that those driving cheaper cars are more likely to be involved in accidents? But yes, "nobody cares about the poor people" probably is somewhat part of the answer. In quite a few countries in Western Europe, the government seems to care more for its poor than the USA government does for its poor.
sgc 9y ago
I am not sure the price of driving is a major factor. In Italy, when they introduced the point system instead of just fines for traffic violations, the number of fatalities fell dramatically overnight. I do think it is interesting that many countries with lower fatalities are not known for driving slow. A major part of driving safety is simply attention. I can only guess, but it seems like responsibility (points), training/culture of attentiveness, and quality, well planned roads can work together to provide better results than the sum of their parts. The US has the first, has abdicated the second to a culture of inattentive slow and "safe" (I personally hypothesize this stems from the use of automatics), and its roads are not at the same level of repair as many countries with better results on the list.

Someone 9y ago

Making it more difficult to get a driver's license probably is part of the answer, but if it helps, what's wrong with that? Requiring engineers to have an education also decreased the number of fatalities from collapsing buildings. As to making it more expensive to drive, I don't see how that would affect fatalities per mile driven. Or do you have evidence that those driving cheaper cars are more likely to be involved in accidents? But yes, "nobody cares about the poor people" probably is somewhat part of the answer. In quite a few countries in Western Europe, the government seems to care more for its poor than the USA government does for its poor.

sgc 9y ago

I am not sure the price of driving is a major factor. In Italy, when they introduced the point system instead of just fines for traffic violations, the number of fatalities fell dramatically overnight. I do think it is interesting that many countries with lower fatalities are not known for driving slow. A major part of driving safety is simply attention. I can only guess, but it seems like responsibility (points), training/culture of attentiveness, and quality, well planned roads can work together to provide better results than the sum of their parts. The US has the first, has abdicated the second to a culture of inattentive slow and "safe" (I personally hypothesize this stems from the use of automatics), and its roads are not at the same level of repair as many countries with better results on the list.