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The amount of death we accept as a society just for the convenience of automobile travel astounds me. It's been normalised at this point, but surely at some tim

The amount of death we accept as a society just for the convenience of automobile travel astounds me. It's been normalised at this point, but surely at some time there was an outcry -- at least in the Netherlands they managed to make a change before it became entrenched.

cakedoggie 9y ago
It is absolutely ridiculous we allow vehicles traveling at many kms per hour a few meters from our front doors. There is no way if we didn't already have this system, that we would ever implment it now. But somehow most people think it is acceptable. For the chance to get somewhere slightly quicker, or not have to use PT or cycle.
- jack9 9y ago
  The ridiculous part is that we allow humans (~15% of Americans have IQs so low that the US military can't utilize them) to pilot these death machines. I support rushed legislation for as much automation as possible, for travel.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    At the very least, it's ridiculous that we allow humans to do this with only minimal training and infrequent, often nonexistent, ongoing testing. Humans are always fallible no matter how well trained, but there are differences of degree. The way it is in the US right now, it seems like half the drivers can barely manage to keep their car in the lane.
  - Aloha 9y ago
    You don't need to be smart to be a good driver, its a fallacy and kind of insulting.
    - flukus 9y ago
      I don't know if smart is the right word and I very much doubt IQ is the correct measure, but you do need to evaluate dozens of factors quickly and continuously while driving, always paying attention and updating your risk assessment. It's a mentally taxing exercise and many people can't do a remotely good enough job.
    - jack9 9y ago
      How is it a fallacy? There's literally a test you have to pass to get licensed and that's up to the discretion of a mandatory observer. There's more than one observer in most cases via the written proctor, the driving proctor, and the eye exam proctor.
  - cakedoggie 9y ago
    It is ridiculous that we allow ANYONE. No one can maintain the levels of concentration we required for long periods of time, and in difficult conditions. And in the case of this story, with someone running in front of you, there is nothing you can do. But you are still responsible for their death, just so you can save a few minutes of time.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
      > No one can maintain the levels of concentration we required for long periods of time, and in difficult conditions. And yet a significant majority of automotive journeys end safely.
      - cakedoggie 9y ago
        Exactly, 1.2 million dead each year is acceptable then!
    - tomjen3 9y ago
      Counterpoint: out is insane that we don't teach, young children not to run out in front of the car.
  - rhino369 9y ago
    Is there any empirical evidence that automation is better than humans right now?
majormajor 9y ago
To be contrarian, I wonder if anyone's attempted to quantify the number of lives saved by the automotive transportation network. Ambulances seem like the most obvious case, wonder what others are out there.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Not only the lives directly saved as in the ambulance example, but indirectly saved by making better, fresher food available, by removing tons of horse feces from the streets, and generally improving quality of life by fueling a huge amount of economic activity that wouldn't be possible otherwise.
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    My father grew up during the transition from horse to car, and he said people have forgotten about how dangerous horses are - they killed a lot more people (relatively speaking) than cars do. Just cleaning up the daily harvest of dead horses was a major operation in every city.
- sandworm101 9y ago
  Take a look at what the car replaced. Horses were and are wildly dangerous.
  - eadmund 9y ago
    In fact, ISTR that a key part of old stories is folks accidentally trampled by horses. That doesn't say anything about which is worse: horses or cars. I wonder if any study has been done about that. It'd have to be complex, e.g. covering sicknesses from manure, sicknesses from leaded gasoline, sicknesses from pollution &c.
  - arthurbrown 9y ago
    Original roadways were lobbied for and paid by cyclists. There's no chance that humans would go back to carriages as a realistic transport method. Shouldn't we be comparing against electric bicycles and public transport networks? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/15/cyclists-paved-way-for-roads https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/1...
cosmiccartel 9y ago
Theodore Kaczynski (AKA the Unabomber) wrote about this quite a bit. To him, the most insidious aspect of technology is one's inability to opt out. Even if an individual draws a line in the sand and decides they don't want a [dishwasher|car|computer|smartphone|robotic servant], they've only held back the tide for a single generation. It's only a matter of time before their descendants give in. The pull only increases with time. I have my doubts as to whether more concerted efforts, such as those of the Amish, are really effective either.
mikeash 9y ago
I wonder what the death rate was in the horse era. Is this tradeoff something we've made for cars, or is it more general?
- tpeo 9y ago
  Carriages were certainly dangerous, but the death rates from carriage travel wouldn't be immediately comparable to those from car travel since the rise of the latter changed the geometry of cities. In so far as the city became more car-centric, they also became more dangerous to pedestrians. Wider streets and longer stretches of road encourage drivers do go faster than they would otherwise, as in a narrow lane or turning a corner. But these also mean longer crossing and travel times for pedestrians, such that they are more exposed to accidents on average.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    A pedestrian will never spook a car. I think the net positives of making fast (no matter how much that prius hogging the left lane my try to impart otherwise) transportation cheap (in term of dollars, hours, or any other metric) are a massive win for society.
    - tpeo 9y ago
      None of this has nothing to do with what I said.
jseliger 9y ago
Yes. I saw this article in the print edition and sent a letter to the editor: Car crashes figure prominently in "Accidental Killers: The challenge of living after you've caused another's death." Perhaps the best question raised by the article is: Why don't we work harder to build cities and societies that aren't auto-dependent? We have the technology to do so; we just don't deploy it. Every year, about ten times as many people die in car crashes as died on 9/11. Imagine if we had a proportional response.
Aloha 9y ago
Horses were dangerous, would often spook and throw riders - most carriage designs are top-heavy and unstable, I won't even start on bicycles - pretty much anything short of walking is dangerous on some level - even then you still might injure yourself, even severely. Modern Society lives in a fallacy - that we can somehow, someway engineer danger out of life, that we can eliminate all risk of accidental injuries or death and make everything perfectly safe and sanitary - and in some ways we can, at an ever increasing incremental cost to do so - a cost that is often not justifiable in my humble opinion. For example, In 2014 the NHTSA required all new cars to be sold with a backup camera - at an estimated cost of up to 143 dollars a car. In 2016 we sold 17,500,000 cars - if you add 100 dollars to the price of each car sold, you're looking at an extra 1,750,000,000 or 1.75 billion dollars, annually - to save 210 lives - in short 8.3 million dollars per life saved - even if you look at just injuries from accidental backing incidents, there were 15,000 of those in 2014 - you're still looking at 116,000 dollars spent per injury prevented - and this presumes this technology prevents every death, and every injury from accidental backing - Is this a worthy expenditure my gut tells me no (but I might be a cold hearted bastard) - I can just think of better ways to spend 1.75 billion dollars in the public good - an education campaign, and requiring a label, or warning sign to flash in the car would cost far less and probably save about as many lives. Society doesn't think about those things though, we choose the easy, feel-good answer that all lives are valuable - its why for example, we've not even touched on end of life, and when pouring money into someone who may only have 1-2 years left in their natural life - may not make much sense, and I'm not even suggesting I know the answer, I'm just suggesting we start having the conversation instead of taking the easy approach, and immediately passing another law, then patting ourselves on the back for a job well done.
- supergarfield 9y ago
  > 8.3 million dollars per life saved Interestingly, this is very close to what the EPA uses as the cost of a life -- a little above 9.1 million dollars when adjusted for inflation [1]. This seems in line with the math for environmental regulations. [1] https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-valuation#means https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v...
johansch 9y ago
Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... there seems to be a relatively strong correlation between universal health care and lower rates of road traffic deaths. Which I guess makes sense; if the state has to pick up the health care tab for the traffic incidents it is also strongly incentivized to continously work on improving the design of the road traffic system to minimize the number and severity of the incidents. It's a very direct and effective feedback loop. (The US has a 2-3x higher rate of road traffic deaths than e.g. Sweden or the UK, depending if you count per capita or per distance driven.)
tomjen3 9y ago
Many things should be done, but of the figure in the article, most are probably drink drivers and it isn't clear to me what, if anything, we can do about that. You would think people would have gotten the message don't do it by now, but no.

cakedoggie 9y ago

It is absolutely ridiculous we allow vehicles traveling at many kms per hour a few meters from our front doors. There is no way if we didn't already have this system, that we would ever implment it now. But somehow most people think it is acceptable. For the chance to get somewhere slightly quicker, or not have to use PT or cycle.

jack9 9y ago
The ridiculous part is that we allow humans (~15% of Americans have IQs so low that the US military can't utilize them) to pilot these death machines. I support rushed legislation for as much automation as possible, for travel.
- mikeash 9y ago
  At the very least, it's ridiculous that we allow humans to do this with only minimal training and infrequent, often nonexistent, ongoing testing. Humans are always fallible no matter how well trained, but there are differences of degree. The way it is in the US right now, it seems like half the drivers can barely manage to keep their car in the lane.
- Aloha 9y ago
  You don't need to be smart to be a good driver, its a fallacy and kind of insulting.
  - flukus 9y ago
    I don't know if smart is the right word and I very much doubt IQ is the correct measure, but you do need to evaluate dozens of factors quickly and continuously while driving, always paying attention and updating your risk assessment. It's a mentally taxing exercise and many people can't do a remotely good enough job.
  - jack9 9y ago
    How is it a fallacy? There's literally a test you have to pass to get licensed and that's up to the discretion of a mandatory observer. There's more than one observer in most cases via the written proctor, the driving proctor, and the eye exam proctor.
- cakedoggie 9y ago
  It is ridiculous that we allow ANYONE. No one can maintain the levels of concentration we required for long periods of time, and in difficult conditions. And in the case of this story, with someone running in front of you, there is nothing you can do. But you are still responsible for their death, just so you can save a few minutes of time.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    > No one can maintain the levels of concentration we required for long periods of time, and in difficult conditions. And yet a significant majority of automotive journeys end safely.
    - cakedoggie 9y ago
      Exactly, 1.2 million dead each year is acceptable then!
  - tomjen3 9y ago
    Counterpoint: out is insane that we don't teach, young children not to run out in front of the car.
- rhino369 9y ago
  Is there any empirical evidence that automation is better than humans right now?

majormajor 9y ago

To be contrarian, I wonder if anyone's attempted to quantify the number of lives saved by the automotive transportation network. Ambulances seem like the most obvious case, wonder what others are out there.

ams6110 9y ago
Not only the lives directly saved as in the ambulance example, but indirectly saved by making better, fresher food available, by removing tons of horse feces from the streets, and generally improving quality of life by fueling a huge amount of economic activity that wouldn't be possible otherwise.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  My father grew up during the transition from horse to car, and he said people have forgotten about how dangerous horses are - they killed a lot more people (relatively speaking) than cars do. Just cleaning up the daily harvest of dead horses was a major operation in every city.
sandworm101 9y ago
Take a look at what the car replaced. Horses were and are wildly dangerous.
- eadmund 9y ago
  In fact, ISTR that a key part of old stories is folks accidentally trampled by horses. That doesn't say anything about which is worse: horses or cars. I wonder if any study has been done about that. It'd have to be complex, e.g. covering sicknesses from manure, sicknesses from leaded gasoline, sicknesses from pollution &c.
- arthurbrown 9y ago
  Original roadways were lobbied for and paid by cyclists. There's no chance that humans would go back to carriages as a realistic transport method. Shouldn't we be comparing against electric bicycles and public transport networks? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/15/cyclists-paved-way-for-roads https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/1...

cosmiccartel 9y ago

Theodore Kaczynski (AKA the Unabomber) wrote about this quite a bit. To him, the most insidious aspect of technology is one's inability to opt out. Even if an individual draws a line in the sand and decides they don't want a [dishwasher|car|computer|smartphone|robotic servant], they've only held back the tide for a single generation. It's only a matter of time before their descendants give in. The pull only increases with time. I have my doubts as to whether more concerted efforts, such as those of the Amish, are really effective either.

mikeash 9y ago

I wonder what the death rate was in the horse era. Is this tradeoff something we've made for cars, or is it more general?

tpeo 9y ago
Carriages were certainly dangerous, but the death rates from carriage travel wouldn't be immediately comparable to those from car travel since the rise of the latter changed the geometry of cities. In so far as the city became more car-centric, they also became more dangerous to pedestrians. Wider streets and longer stretches of road encourage drivers do go faster than they would otherwise, as in a narrow lane or turning a corner. But these also mean longer crossing and travel times for pedestrians, such that they are more exposed to accidents on average.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  A pedestrian will never spook a car. I think the net positives of making fast (no matter how much that prius hogging the left lane my try to impart otherwise) transportation cheap (in term of dollars, hours, or any other metric) are a massive win for society.
  - tpeo 9y ago
    None of this has nothing to do with what I said.

jseliger 9y ago

Yes. I saw this article in the print edition and sent a letter to the editor: Car crashes figure prominently in "Accidental Killers: The challenge of living after you've caused another's death." Perhaps the best question raised by the article is: Why don't we work harder to build cities and societies that aren't auto-dependent? We have the technology to do so; we just don't deploy it. Every year, about ten times as many people die in car crashes as died on 9/11. Imagine if we had a proportional response.

Aloha 9y ago

Horses were dangerous, would often spook and throw riders - most carriage designs are top-heavy and unstable, I won't even start on bicycles - pretty much anything short of walking is dangerous on some level - even then you still might injure yourself, even severely. Modern Society lives in a fallacy - that we can somehow, someway engineer danger out of life, that we can eliminate all risk of accidental injuries or death and make everything perfectly safe and sanitary - and in some ways we can, at an ever increasing incremental cost to do so - a cost that is often not justifiable in my humble opinion. For example, In 2014 the NHTSA required all new cars to be sold with a backup camera - at an estimated cost of up to 143 dollars a car. In 2016 we sold 17,500,000 cars - if you add 100 dollars to the price of each car sold, you're looking at an extra 1,750,000,000 or 1.75 billion dollars, annually - to save 210 lives - in short 8.3 million dollars per life saved - even if you look at just injuries from accidental backing incidents, there were 15,000 of those in 2014 - you're still looking at 116,000 dollars spent per injury prevented - and this presumes this technology prevents every death, and every injury from accidental backing - Is this a worthy expenditure my gut tells me no (but I might be a cold hearted bastard) - I can just think of better ways to spend 1.75 billion dollars in the public good - an education campaign, and requiring a label, or warning sign to flash in the car would cost far less and probably save about as many lives. Society doesn't think about those things though, we choose the easy, feel-good answer that all lives are valuable - its why for example, we've not even touched on end of life, and when pouring money into someone who may only have 1-2 years left in their natural life - may not make much sense, and I'm not even suggesting I know the answer, I'm just suggesting we start having the conversation instead of taking the easy approach, and immediately passing another law, then patting ourselves on the back for a job well done.

supergarfield 9y ago
> 8.3 million dollars per life saved Interestingly, this is very close to what the EPA uses as the cost of a life -- a little above 9.1 million dollars when adjusted for inflation [1]. This seems in line with the math for environmental regulations. [1] https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-valuation#means https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v...

johansch 9y ago

Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... there seems to be a relatively strong correlation between universal health care and lower rates of road traffic deaths. Which I guess makes sense; if the state has to pick up the health care tab for the traffic incidents it is also strongly incentivized to continously work on improving the design of the road traffic system to minimize the number and severity of the incidents. It's a very direct and effective feedback loop. (The US has a 2-3x higher rate of road traffic deaths than e.g. Sweden or the UK, depending if you count per capita or per distance driven.)

tomjen3 9y ago

Many things should be done, but of the figure in the article, most are probably drink drivers and it isn't clear to me what, if anything, we can do about that. You would think people would have gotten the message don't do it by now, but no.