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Driving while using a phone is illegal in most areas, but still very common, just like speeding -- it clearly isn't being addressed very seriously. And standard

Driving while using a phone is illegal in most areas, but still very common, just like speeding -- it clearly isn't being addressed very seriously. And standards for "drunk driving" vary a lot; sometimes you're allowed two or even three drinks before driving. Another commenter here linked to an excellent NYT article exploring this: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/opinion/america-is-now-an-outlier-on-driving-deaths.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/opinion/america-is-now-an... The US had one of the world's lowest rates of driving deaths in 1990, but since then other countries have pulled ahead significantly. Why is that?

jessriedel 9y ago
I could imagine a million reasons. Maybe the US has a higher natural rate of accidents but deaths have fallen earlier because we implement sophisticated safety tech earlier. But once safety tech reaches diminishing returns, other countries pass us.
- iainmerrick 9y ago
  Maybe the US has a higher natural rate of accidents Natural?? Roads and cars are all human-made! Are you saying the "deaths per road mile travelled" metric is wrong or biased somehow?
  - jessriedel 9y ago
    "Natural" in this context is just shorthand for "at fixed level of safety tech". You can substitute "baseline" if you want.
    - iainmerrick 9y ago
      Why would the US have roughly the same baseline safety as everywhere else in 1990, but be 2x worse today?
      - jessriedel 9y ago
        The idea is that the US leads in safety tech adoption (which I believe is just an empirical fact) but that safety tech is reaching diminishing returns (conjecture), so that as time goes by it's tech lead helps less and less at lowering deaths per accident (relative to other countries), while it's accident rate remains higher. This is really not that important. My point is that there are a million ways to explain the data besides the one you are suggesting.
        iainmerrick 9y ago
        Did you read the article? It picks out specific differences, like the rate of seat belt usage -- higher in other countries than in the US, even though self belts are mandatory just about everywhere. "The US has laxer laws and doesn't enforce them as strictly" is a very simple explanation that fits the data well. It matches what I personally have seen in the US and UK, though of course that's just anecdotal. I'm not sure if the US is ahead of the curve at all in safety tech -- things like ABS and airbags, right? The US is definitely behind the curve in adoption of traffic circles / roundabouts rather than 4-way stops. You're correct that there could be some other reason why the US could have a higher "baseline" rate of traffic accidents; but what could that reason be? Any suggestions? Possibly the US has a higher proportion of young drivers?

jessriedel 9y ago

I could imagine a million reasons. Maybe the US has a higher natural rate of accidents but deaths have fallen earlier because we implement sophisticated safety tech earlier. But once safety tech reaches diminishing returns, other countries pass us.

iainmerrick 9y ago
Maybe the US has a higher natural rate of accidents Natural?? Roads and cars are all human-made! Are you saying the "deaths per road mile travelled" metric is wrong or biased somehow?
- jessriedel 9y ago
  "Natural" in this context is just shorthand for "at fixed level of safety tech". You can substitute "baseline" if you want.
  - iainmerrick 9y ago
    Why would the US have roughly the same baseline safety as everywhere else in 1990, but be 2x worse today?
    - jessriedel 9y ago
      The idea is that the US leads in safety tech adoption (which I believe is just an empirical fact) but that safety tech is reaching diminishing returns (conjecture), so that as time goes by it's tech lead helps less and less at lowering deaths per accident (relative to other countries), while it's accident rate remains higher. This is really not that important. My point is that there are a million ways to explain the data besides the one you are suggesting.
      - iainmerrick 9y ago
        Did you read the article? It picks out specific differences, like the rate of seat belt usage -- higher in other countries than in the US, even though self belts are mandatory just about everywhere. "The US has laxer laws and doesn't enforce them as strictly" is a very simple explanation that fits the data well. It matches what I personally have seen in the US and UK, though of course that's just anecdotal. I'm not sure if the US is ahead of the curve at all in safety tech -- things like ABS and airbags, right? The US is definitely behind the curve in adoption of traffic circles / roundabouts rather than 4-way stops. You're correct that there could be some other reason why the US could have a higher "baseline" rate of traffic accidents; but what could that reason be? Any suggestions? Possibly the US has a higher proportion of young drivers?