6 ms·

The oddest one are road deaths to me at 4x below cancer, apparently taken for granted at any stage of life, but mostly avoidable with some policy changes.

by mxfh 7y ago

dudul 7y ago
You make it sound very trivial to reduce road deaths. Which policy changes do you have in mind?
- techiferous 7y ago
  Moving toward walkable cities (investing more in pedestrian, bike and public transit infrastracture and less in car infrastructure).
- umvi 7y ago
  Crack down harder on DUI. DUI kills more innocents than guns.
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    It’s policed heavily in the UK and there is a fuck tonne of social pressure as well. It’s pretty effective all said and done.
    - ineedasername 7y ago
      It probably helps that mass transit is much more prevalent. In New York state for example, where the population is heavily weighted towards New York City where mass transit is more accessible, the % of traffic fatalities related to alcohol drops to about 5%, not far out of line for all of UK. (Though urban areas like London in the UK might be even lower
  - s1artibartfast 7y ago
    I'm skeptical that harsher DUI penalties are the appropriate solution. Most states already have significant DUI penalties, and think that increasing them is largely a PR move. Drunk drivers are involved in about 20% of fatal accidents, leaving 80% to other causes[1]. About 30% of fatal accidents involve speeding [2]. Perhaps we should consider similar penalties for speeding as for DUI. Drunk drivers do kill more "innocents" than guns, but also keep in mind that very few gun deaths are innocents. 97% of gun deaths are homicide or suicide [3] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812630 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2017-DCA15SS002-BMG-statement-o.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2017-DCA15SS002-B... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/11/18135976/gun-deaths-us-2017-suicide https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/11/18135976/gun-d...
    - petschge 7y ago
      The deterrence effect is a function of both the severity of the punishment and its certainty. And while the punishment for driving drunk is already substantial (maybe even too high), the risk of getting caught is not that large. An effective (but maybe not efficient) crack-down would therefore aim to increase the risk of getting caught and punished.
      - leetcrew 7y ago
        do you have any ideas for cracking down on drunk driving that wouldn't inconvenience and intimidate law-abiding citizens? the only methods I can think of are checkpoints and large-scale surveillance, both of which I would oppose.
        petschge 7y ago
        I don't. Which is why I called a non-efficient solution. A theoretical solution would be to require ignition interlocks on all new vehicles. Not that I am advocating for that. A more realistic solution should focus more on officers observing and punishing bad driving, including all the effects of driving drunk or with cellphone in hand.
        leetcrew 7y ago
        I could certainly support cops focusing more on reckless driving (tailgating, weaving, no-signal lane changes). if a cop sees a driver doing something unsafe with their own two eyes, I have no problem with them making a stop. I bet they would actually end up catching a decent number of drunk drivers this way.
        reshie 7y ago
        they already have breathalyzer starters for cars for repeat offenders.
        frosted-flakes 7y ago
        Checkpoints are very common where I live (they're called RIDE checks, which I suppose is acronym for something). They're more common around public holidays, but can happen at any time. They're not an inconvenience at all, and I'm not opposed to them in any way. It takes 20 seconds to go through them, and all the officer does is ask you if you've had anything to drink or have used any "wacky tobaccy"[1] recently, shine a flashlight into the car to check for open drinks (and presumably, use his nose too), then let you go. But then again, I'm a white male, and certain minorities might have worse experiences. [1] That's a new one that I heard just a few days ago.
- quad_damage 7y ago
  I'd argue that driver's license restrictions should come with more potent psychological screenings than guns, given the weight of mortality their statistics carry. Guns are a majority fractional component of all suicides and homicides, not even the whole of either. And yet all other homicides and suicides (some of which may include misuse of vehicles) put together still represent a lower total hazard than accidental automotive deaths. Vehicular deaths exceed all violent deaths, and yet there's only basic competence screening once, to confer identification, and then bureaucratic renewals periodically every few years, varying by state. What if we treated cars like guns? Would fewer accidents arise? Really, it's about the assessment of good judgement combined with alertness and reaction time. Only market forces and financial penalties serve to modify driver activity, in the form of insurance and fines. Suspension and revocation are only post-hoc remediation, usually associated with near criminal behavior. So, what if we had obstacle courses, to test physical abilities, and psychological exams to probe for personality cues? This would represent gross impingement on the economy and personal freedoms (probably well beyond overturning the second amendment), and economic zoning would have to redraw how we plan residences and design communities. With fewer drivers, and driving only conferred as privilege, more people would probably be pushed into different lifestyles, and suburban concepts of autonomy in America would almost cease to exist. But, with reason, no? Is saving people from themselves (or more accurately, each other) a better path? Only if the drastic changes hold water. We've seen what redrawing a few roadways can do to cities.
- chmod775 7y ago
  There's some things: - Start with educating your drivers properly. As a German the US process of acquiring a driver's license looks like thinly-disguised rubber stamping. - Rethink your roads, signals, and what surrounds them. Use modern techniques that make pedestrians and drivers safer. The above two should get you from about 7.3 road deaths per billion vehicle kilometers to somewhere in the ballpark of Germany (4.2). Maybe even better than that since some of the planning and signals here still suck... Finally you're just driving way too much. This becomes obvious when comparing road deaths per 100k inhabitants: just 4.1 in Germany vs 12.4 in the US. Yup, that's a 200% difference. Public transport anyone? Canada is also doing better on those statistics, but I don't know much about how to acquire Canadian driver's licenses or what their road planning looks like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
amsilprotag 7y ago
The road death category is wrong. What is being reported is "accidents", of which CDC says there were 161,374 out of 2,744,248 deaths in 2016. But even this only gets you 5.88%, under their 7.68% reported in the interactive graph when hovering over 2016. From [0] Total Deaths 2016: 2,744,248 Unintended Injuries 2016: 161,374 From [1], a breakdown of those unintended 161,374 injuries above: Accidental Poisoning and exposure to noxious substances: 58,335 Motor Vehicle: 40,327 Fall: 34,673 Accidental hanging, strangulation, and suffocation: 6,610 Accidental drowning and submersion: 3,786 Accidental exposure to smoke, fire and flames: 2,730 Dividing the 40,327 motor vehicle from the 2,744,248 deaths gets you 1.47%, way less than the 7.68 shown in the interactive chart. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2017/019.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2017/019.pdf page 1 [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_05.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_05.pdf page 34

The oddest one are road deaths to me at 4x below cancer, apparently taken for granted at any stage of life, but mostly avoidable with some policy changes.

by mxfh 7y ago

The oddest one are road deaths to me at 4x below cancer, apparently taken for granted at any stage of life, but mostly avoidable with some policy changes.

dudul 7y ago

You make it sound very trivial to reduce road deaths. Which policy changes do you have in mind?

techiferous 7y ago
Moving toward walkable cities (investing more in pedestrian, bike and public transit infrastracture and less in car infrastructure).
umvi 7y ago
Crack down harder on DUI. DUI kills more innocents than guns.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  It’s policed heavily in the UK and there is a fuck tonne of social pressure as well. It’s pretty effective all said and done.
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    It probably helps that mass transit is much more prevalent. In New York state for example, where the population is heavily weighted towards New York City where mass transit is more accessible, the % of traffic fatalities related to alcohol drops to about 5%, not far out of line for all of UK. (Though urban areas like London in the UK might be even lower
- s1artibartfast 7y ago
  I'm skeptical that harsher DUI penalties are the appropriate solution. Most states already have significant DUI penalties, and think that increasing them is largely a PR move. Drunk drivers are involved in about 20% of fatal accidents, leaving 80% to other causes[1]. About 30% of fatal accidents involve speeding [2]. Perhaps we should consider similar penalties for speeding as for DUI. Drunk drivers do kill more "innocents" than guns, but also keep in mind that very few gun deaths are innocents. 97% of gun deaths are homicide or suicide [3] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812630 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2017-DCA15SS002-BMG-statement-o.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2017-DCA15SS002-B... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/11/18135976/gun-deaths-us-2017-suicide https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/11/18135976/gun-d...
  - petschge 7y ago
    The deterrence effect is a function of both the severity of the punishment and its certainty. And while the punishment for driving drunk is already substantial (maybe even too high), the risk of getting caught is not that large. An effective (but maybe not efficient) crack-down would therefore aim to increase the risk of getting caught and punished.
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      do you have any ideas for cracking down on drunk driving that wouldn't inconvenience and intimidate law-abiding citizens? the only methods I can think of are checkpoints and large-scale surveillance, both of which I would oppose.
      - petschge 7y ago
        I don't. Which is why I called a non-efficient solution. A theoretical solution would be to require ignition interlocks on all new vehicles. Not that I am advocating for that. A more realistic solution should focus more on officers observing and punishing bad driving, including all the effects of driving drunk or with cellphone in hand.
        leetcrew 7y ago
        I could certainly support cops focusing more on reckless driving (tailgating, weaving, no-signal lane changes). if a cop sees a driver doing something unsafe with their own two eyes, I have no problem with them making a stop. I bet they would actually end up catching a decent number of drunk drivers this way.
        reshie 7y ago
        they already have breathalyzer starters for cars for repeat offenders.
      - frosted-flakes 7y ago
        Checkpoints are very common where I live (they're called RIDE checks, which I suppose is acronym for something). They're more common around public holidays, but can happen at any time. They're not an inconvenience at all, and I'm not opposed to them in any way. It takes 20 seconds to go through them, and all the officer does is ask you if you've had anything to drink or have used any "wacky tobaccy"[1] recently, shine a flashlight into the car to check for open drinks (and presumably, use his nose too), then let you go. But then again, I'm a white male, and certain minorities might have worse experiences. [1] That's a new one that I heard just a few days ago.
quad_damage 7y ago
I'd argue that driver's license restrictions should come with more potent psychological screenings than guns, given the weight of mortality their statistics carry. Guns are a majority fractional component of all suicides and homicides, not even the whole of either. And yet all other homicides and suicides (some of which may include misuse of vehicles) put together still represent a lower total hazard than accidental automotive deaths. Vehicular deaths exceed all violent deaths, and yet there's only basic competence screening once, to confer identification, and then bureaucratic renewals periodically every few years, varying by state. What if we treated cars like guns? Would fewer accidents arise? Really, it's about the assessment of good judgement combined with alertness and reaction time. Only market forces and financial penalties serve to modify driver activity, in the form of insurance and fines. Suspension and revocation are only post-hoc remediation, usually associated with near criminal behavior. So, what if we had obstacle courses, to test physical abilities, and psychological exams to probe for personality cues? This would represent gross impingement on the economy and personal freedoms (probably well beyond overturning the second amendment), and economic zoning would have to redraw how we plan residences and design communities. With fewer drivers, and driving only conferred as privilege, more people would probably be pushed into different lifestyles, and suburban concepts of autonomy in America would almost cease to exist. But, with reason, no? Is saving people from themselves (or more accurately, each other) a better path? Only if the drastic changes hold water. We've seen what redrawing a few roadways can do to cities.
chmod775 7y ago
There's some things: - Start with educating your drivers properly. As a German the US process of acquiring a driver's license looks like thinly-disguised rubber stamping. - Rethink your roads, signals, and what surrounds them. Use modern techniques that make pedestrians and drivers safer. The above two should get you from about 7.3 road deaths per billion vehicle kilometers to somewhere in the ballpark of Germany (4.2). Maybe even better than that since some of the planning and signals here still suck... Finally you're just driving way too much. This becomes obvious when comparing road deaths per 100k inhabitants: just 4.1 in Germany vs 12.4 in the US. Yup, that's a 200% difference. Public transport anyone? Canada is also doing better on those statistics, but I don't know much about how to acquire Canadian driver's licenses or what their road planning looks like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

amsilprotag 7y ago

The road death category is wrong. What is being reported is "accidents", of which CDC says there were 161,374 out of 2,744,248 deaths in 2016. But even this only gets you 5.88%, under their 7.68% reported in the interactive graph when hovering over 2016. From [0] Total Deaths 2016: 2,744,248 Unintended Injuries 2016: 161,374 From [1], a breakdown of those unintended 161,374 injuries above: Accidental Poisoning and exposure to noxious substances: 58,335 Motor Vehicle: 40,327 Fall: 34,673 Accidental hanging, strangulation, and suffocation: 6,610 Accidental drowning and submersion: 3,786 Accidental exposure to smoke, fire and flames: 2,730 Dividing the 40,327 motor vehicle from the 2,744,248 deaths gets you 1.47%, way less than the 7.68 shown in the interactive chart. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2017/019.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2017/019.pdf page 1 [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_05.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_05.pdf page 34