3 ms·

90% of the article is about forward/backward facing child seats. But also the article spells out the the paper it was based on falsely claimed there was a signi

by icc97 9y ago

90% of the article is about forward/backward facing child seats. But also the article spells out the the paper it was based on falsely claimed there was a significant difference between them and was retracted, restudied and agreed to not be statistically significant. Then it goes on to say, that Sweden does use rear-facing seats as though that somehow proves that there is a statistical significance. Seems like the article could have been cut down to these two paragraphs: > Because accidents are inevitable, Swedish regulations aim to make them nonlethal. Roads rely more on roundabouts, less on intersections. Cars are not allowed to turn at all when pedestrians are crossing. There are national camera enforcement policies. Sweden also focuses on pedestrian bridges, and separates cars from bicycles and oncoming traffic. > Far fewer people drive under the influence of alcohol; stricter policing has reduced impaired driving to less than 0.25 percent of tested drivers vs. about 1.5 percent of American drivers. (Sweden also has a more stringent definition of driving under the influence, 0.02 percent vs. 0.08 percent.) The speed limit in areas where cars might come into contact with pedestrians (think all of New York City) is less than 20 m.p.h. Speed bumps and other traffic-calming interventions are common. The average cost of obtaining a driver’s license is the equivalent of more than $1,800.

distances 9y ago
> Because accidents are inevitable, Swedish regulations aim to make them nonlethal. I sometimes wonder how it would be possible to just adopt new laws and regulations wholesale from countries that have aimed to do a thing well, and succeeded. I know countries take ideas from each other, but it always seems to be small things and adapted with local modifications. Laws are obviously not for "move fast and break things" approach, but feels like we could achieve so much more.
- athenot 9y ago
  Yes. But laws must fit within a given culture. Different cultures have different risk appreciation.
- berg01 9y ago
  Kind of related: There's a small Swedish state-owned (soon to be privatized though) consulting company with about 15 people that exists with the sole purpose of exporting this know-how to other countries. It's been relatively successful in selected developing countries. The know-how is typically given away for free, only actual work (training etc) is charged for. http://www.sweroad.se/ http://www.sweroad.se/ They haven't been hugely successful though. I hear there's often way too much national pride and similar factors ("our country is unique because irrelevant factors X, Y and Z") involved. These people have an odd mix of a) satisfaction because they are helping people not get... killed or maimed b) but also an extreme amount of banging your head against the wall kind of moments Anyway, if you want to implement road safety quickly in your country, they are who you should go to.
  - kilotaras 9y ago
    Person from (semi)developing country here (Ukraine). Car is often seen as status symbol due to Soviet baggage. This leads to disregard of some traffic laws that are about "lesser status" pedestrians, e.g. speed limits, sidewalks parking, etc. The trend is slowly changing though with traffic calming measures becoming more common. This leads to a good number of accidents with drivers who can't ignore laws of physics as easily as traffic laws[1][2] though. [1] https://www.facebook.com/comfycity.lviv/videos/vb.666527553506020/924859431006163/?type=2&theater https://www.facebook.com/comfycity.lviv/videos/vb.6665275535... (sorry for FB videos) [2] https://www.facebook.com/comfycity.lviv/videos/vb.666527553506020/925792900912816/?type=2&theater https://www.facebook.com/comfycity.lviv/videos/vb.6665275535...
    - berg01 9y ago
      It should be noted that apart from alcohol aspects, Swedish road safety thinking systematically treats the human behavior as something that can not be changed with training, propaganda etc. The only thing that works is to change the environment to fit the human, and to make the human behave safely.
yoda222 9y ago
> Then it goes on to say, that Sweden does use rear-facing seats as though that somehow proves that there is a statistical significance The studies you are referring to (the retracted and the non conclusive one) are two studies based on past data on real road. They did compare existing numbers and yes, there was no statistical significance due to the reduced sample (according to the article, I didn't check personnaly ;-) ). If the article had stopped there on that part, you would be correct. But there was more. You missed the part about the sled test study (There is a direct link to the study in the article. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217519/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217519/) And that study is statistically significant for all but one type of injury: > The best RF restraints (RF EURO) clearly outperformed the best FF restraints (FF EURO) when comparing injury measures. There were statistically significant differences at all injury measures except chest 3ms clip
- icc97 9y ago
  Yeah, you're quite right. Should have read closer, I had read all the way through as they finished again talking about child seats. In my (rather weak) defence, they have conflicting evidence over child seats, so it still seems incorrect to focus on that one aspect.

by icc97 9y ago

distances 9y ago

> Because accidents are inevitable, Swedish regulations aim to make them nonlethal. I sometimes wonder how it would be possible to just adopt new laws and regulations wholesale from countries that have aimed to do a thing well, and succeeded. I know countries take ideas from each other, but it always seems to be small things and adapted with local modifications. Laws are obviously not for "move fast and break things" approach, but feels like we could achieve so much more.

athenot 9y ago
Yes. But laws must fit within a given culture. Different cultures have different risk appreciation.
berg01 9y ago
Kind of related: There's a small Swedish state-owned (soon to be privatized though) consulting company with about 15 people that exists with the sole purpose of exporting this know-how to other countries. It's been relatively successful in selected developing countries. The know-how is typically given away for free, only actual work (training etc) is charged for. http://www.sweroad.se/ http://www.sweroad.se/ They haven't been hugely successful though. I hear there's often way too much national pride and similar factors ("our country is unique because irrelevant factors X, Y and Z") involved. These people have an odd mix of a) satisfaction because they are helping people not get... killed or maimed b) but also an extreme amount of banging your head against the wall kind of moments Anyway, if you want to implement road safety quickly in your country, they are who you should go to.
- kilotaras 9y ago
  Person from (semi)developing country here (Ukraine). Car is often seen as status symbol due to Soviet baggage. This leads to disregard of some traffic laws that are about "lesser status" pedestrians, e.g. speed limits, sidewalks parking, etc. The trend is slowly changing though with traffic calming measures becoming more common. This leads to a good number of accidents with drivers who can't ignore laws of physics as easily as traffic laws[1][2] though. [1] https://www.facebook.com/comfycity.lviv/videos/vb.666527553506020/924859431006163/?type=2&theater https://www.facebook.com/comfycity.lviv/videos/vb.6665275535... (sorry for FB videos) [2] https://www.facebook.com/comfycity.lviv/videos/vb.666527553506020/925792900912816/?type=2&theater https://www.facebook.com/comfycity.lviv/videos/vb.6665275535...
  - berg01 9y ago
    It should be noted that apart from alcohol aspects, Swedish road safety thinking systematically treats the human behavior as something that can not be changed with training, propaganda etc. The only thing that works is to change the environment to fit the human, and to make the human behave safely.

yoda222 9y ago

> Then it goes on to say, that Sweden does use rear-facing seats as though that somehow proves that there is a statistical significance The studies you are referring to (the retracted and the non conclusive one) are two studies based on past data on real road. They did compare existing numbers and yes, there was no statistical significance due to the reduced sample (according to the article, I didn't check personnaly ;-) ). If the article had stopped there on that part, you would be correct. But there was more. You missed the part about the sled test study (There is a direct link to the study in the article. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217519/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217519/) And that study is statistically significant for all but one type of injury: > The best RF restraints (RF EURO) clearly outperformed the best FF restraints (FF EURO) when comparing injury measures. There were statistically significant differences at all injury measures except chest 3ms clip

icc97 9y ago
Yeah, you're quite right. Should have read closer, I had read all the way through as they finished again talking about child seats. In my (rather weak) defence, they have conflicting evidence over child seats, so it still seems incorrect to focus on that one aspect.