11 ms·

Why do Americans view zero road deaths as an impossible goal?

38 points by oftenwrong 7y ago

Bostonian 7y ago
Cars represent freedom. I can get in my car and go where I want, when I want -- especially helpful with 3 school-age children. Mass transit is important in cities, but lots of Americans, probably most, live where cars are needed to get around. They rightly view anti-car advocates are people trying to take away their freedom and herd them onto mass transit.
- dkhenry 7y ago
  Of all the things I am concerned about for my 3 school aged children its them getting hit by a car. It makes it so I am afraid to let them go anywhere without me or another adult. It represses freedom in a way no other technology has. The only freedom that has been taken away has been the freedom of people to live car free. Its now required for so many people, and combine that with rising home prices and the associated sprawl and cars are nothing but a prison people have to put themselves in for multiple hours a day.
  - Bostonian 7y ago
    The long term trend in car accident death rates is down, as shown at https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatalit... . Everyone wants to see accidents decrease, but targeting zero deaths sounds like a crusade.
    - dkhenry 7y ago
      In so much as you can't get close to zero without radically changing how we build and live in this country you are correct, but the question is why wouldn't you want to make the changes to target zero deaths ? Not only would you be removing the 11th leading cause of death, you would be significantly improving our environmental footprint and literally saving trillions of dollars in unnecessary infrastructure spending.
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        > ... but the question is why wouldn't you want to make the changes to target zero deaths? Well, if you target "zero" of anything with a large enough N, you end up well past the point of diminishing returns, and avoiding that last death may have a price tag truly outsized relative to the benefit. It may even cause more deaths in other areas. For instance, after 9/11 security at airports was tightened massively ("targeting zero") and this caused a lot more people to drive short distances, which is much riskier than flying, which in turn caused way, way more deaths than all of 9/11. Micro, achieved, macro, failed. Bruce Schneier covers this well in an essay titled "Our Decreasing Tolerance to Risk" [1] With that in mind, I don't believe cars should exist in urban centers, but because they're a livability nightmare rather than due to the very low risk cars pose to my continued existence (you have a 0.01%/year chance of dying in a fatal car accident). [1] https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2013/08/our_decreasing_toler.html https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2013/08/our_decreas...
        AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        > you have a 0.01%/year chance of dying in a fatal car accident Which sounds like very little. But life expectancy is now around 80 years. That means that your lifetime chance of dying in a car accident is 0.8%. That's high enough that, in a country of 330 million people, it adds up to a problem that's worth trying to solve. Look, I mostly agree with you. But the "low risk" argument in your last paragraph isn't as effective as you think.
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        Because zero deaths, while a good thing, is not the only good thing. Are you also going to prohibit smoking? Bad eating habits? Or do only traffic deaths matter to you? Not dying matters. I mean, duh, it really matters. But in the time when you're not dead, it's nice to be able to do some things besides just not dying. Among the things I want to do with my life and my time, walking to work in winter is very low on the list. So is waiting at a tram stop in a blizzard.
  - sfgweilr4f 7y ago
    Freedom always implies balancing risk. If you eliminate all risk you end up in a box where all dangers are kept out. But then you die of something else. Probably boredom due to lack of input. I don't have public transport available. So for freedom in general, take away access to public transport and cars become freedom to move. Even when public transport is available its not when I need it. Or how I need it. I need to move this odd shaped or heavy or inconvenient equipment now. Not in 5 minutes. Not in 15. I won't tolerate your rules on what I put in the car or truck I own either. The time of day is also important. I won't tolerate you saying "please wait 30 minutes" or "we can have a vehicle available tomorrow at 9am". Now. Obligatory notes: - I'm not in favor of more road deaths. - I'm in favor of sensible road speed limits and school zones. - I'm not in favor of speed limits being used as revenue streams. - People need to actually stop tailgating and learn how to drive at appropriate speeds. - I'm not against areas being pedestrian zones with entire streets blocked off. I like to walk as well. - People are bad drivers some of the time or most of the time in many cases. They make mistakes. "No deaths" means an absolute guarantee. Real life has opinions about absolute guarantees: they are usually either strong fact or a temporary fiction that has harsh consequences while its maintained. - I think the "cure" for road deaths using just legislation and too low speed limits will cause societal distortions similar to the madness that prohibition had on general society (the government went so far they actually thought poisoning alcohol was a legitimate measure). - auto-pilot for cars and trucks is worth pursuing. On a related note: you wrote, "It makes it so I am afraid to let them go anywhere without me or another adult." Sounds like helicopter parenting[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent
    - cgrealy 7y ago
      >I need to move this odd shaped or heavy or inconvenient equipment now. Not in 5 minutes. Not in 15. No, you don't. You want to move it now, but in general, you don't need to move it now. > I won't tolerate your rules on what I put in the car or truck I own either. Yes, you will, or you won't drive on publicly funded roads. You are not licenced to transport nuclear waste. You are not licenced to transport explosives. You need the right vehicle to transport an heavy or insecure load. Your freedom to transport whatever you want does not supersede other peoples freedom to drive in a safe environment.
- aqme28 7y ago
  It's funny how opposite we are in this. To me, me cars represent a frustrating burden, whereas walkable spaces, bike lanes, and subway accessibility represent freedom of movement.
  - jakear 7y ago
    Some people have larger distances to cover. I can’t walk to Carrizo Plains on a weekend. Can’t bike there either. No busses, and definitely no trains. If I want to go where I want to go, I need a car to get there.
    - asdff 7y ago
      And for those people, absolutely keep the car. Maybe a moped would do, but the car is fine for low density areas like you describe. But for the millions stuck in rush hour traffic in every major city across the country, maybe there could be a better way to make that one commute to work. NYC has a lot of subways and 60% of the population uses transit, but they are just about all built for moving people to and from their 9-5 job in Manhattan, not traveling laterally across the outer boroughs.
  - asdff 7y ago
    I grew up in the burbs, and it wasn't until I moved into a major city that actually had other options that I realized how much stress goes just into planning to drive. Where am I going to park? How much is it going to cost? Will traffic be bad? The weather? Am I tired? Do I need to buy gas? All you need to do with public transport is open an app, walk to the spot, and have patience. In LA, the bus network is comprehensive, but it does demand patience. So I just bring a book. Much more peaceful than the bloodsport played on the freeways here.
  - ctdonath 7y ago
    Cars are liberating. I can escape from a city on a moment’s notice, travel 1000 miles on a whim in a day (and do), beholden to none. 8000 miles last summer thru remote spectacular regions, as we saw fit, was exhilarating. Transit is stifling, taking me nowhere at inconvenience and cost.
- rwem 7y ago
  Funny that you have this user name, when the article (which you obviously didn't even read) discusses the comparison of Boston and Oslo.
- imgabe 7y ago
  Cars only represent freedom when you live in poorly designed suburbs. When you live in a dense city cars choke the streets and make travel impossible for at least four hours a day. Cars are killing us.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > Cars only represent freedom when you live in poorly designed suburbs. No, cars represent freedom if you live anywhere other than a dense city. Which is most of the usable land area of the planet.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - lassor_feasley 7y ago
      As someone who has lived in cities, suburbs, and rural regions, (and has studied this issue a lot) cars definitely represent dependance to me. If you grew up somewhere rural or suburban, you basically became a parasite to your parents, and were totally dependent on them for all of your transportation until 16 or 17 when you got a license & car. Even then you're probably gonna be a financial burden (and financially dependent) on your parents to purchase you a car if you are lucky. If you grew up in a city (or a Stars Hollow style small town), you likely got to claim that independence at a much younger age. As a US parent who works, you are VERY likely to spend more time on your commute than with your children if you drive. We talk about 'everyone gets a trophy' culture; what many don't realize is everyone gets a trophy because if you are responsible for driving your kid to the pitch for practice, as the parent you'll be damned if your kid isn't a winner (do kids even care about little statues?). Then, when you age, you are once again going to have to go into a phase of dependance on others for your transit much earlier than people who live in walkable communities. This is both because walkers will be healthier and remain physically able longer, and because even if they did not, they could just walk to doctors appointments, grocery stores, and other destinations necessary to their independence. All of these things are, if not unique to the American experience of the past 50 years, at least magnified here... and I have not even gotten into suburban housing policy and the financial impacts on households of car ownership and on governments of road maintenance (spoiler: its not good). I'd give Strong Towns a serious read; I think you might find that Chuck Marohn is better aligned with your worldview than you think.
- mc32 7y ago
  If SAE Level 5 Automation ever arrives, it will make the goal easier and we get to keep our cars. Vision Zero (I don't think) is about getting to zero today. It's a vision which guides us to zero some day in the future and should keep our eyes on the prize so long as it's not zero. It should drive behavior, policy and technology, to achieve that goal. It should not mean you drive roughshod over car owners through autocratic policies to get there by force.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    > Vision Zero (I don't think) is about getting to zero today. It's a vision which guides us to zero some day in the future and should keep our eyes on the prize so long as it's not zero. Sure. However many people die, what can we do today to make it fewer? What's the next step? Let's start working on that.
- topkai22 7y ago
  The article isn’t really about mass transit- is about lowering speed limits. Even though I’m not a huge mass transit fan, I do agree that speed limits are generally too high in the US on surface streets. In my area, very limited amounts of the metro area are more than 3 miles from a limited access freeway. Many of the larger surface streets have 35 or 45 mph speed limits. It’s not insane to drop many of those streets to 20 or 25 mph, although it works be painful.
  - ctdonath 7y ago
    When speed limits are low enough, drivers don't care en masse.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Those larger surface streets should be such that it is safe to drive 35 or 45 MPH on them. Dropping the speed limit to 20 or 25 MPH, not because the road calls for it, but... why? To make driving more inconvenient? Yeah, that's going to result in massive civil disobedience. It's also going to train people to ignore speed limits even when they are actually there for safety. Ironically, that's going to cause... more deaths.
    - topkai22 7y ago
      The streets are safe for car drivers who are following the law, it’s walkers and cyclists that are at risk. As for non compliance, that’s what speed bumps, speed cameras and other traffic calming measures are for. I just drove through multiple US towns in Idaho that declared a 25 mph speed limits unless otherwise posted. They did not seem to have massive compliance issues.
- mulmen 7y ago
  Most (~70%) Americans live in cities. It’s an overwhelmingly urban country. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-w...
  - pdonis 7y ago
    That doesn't give the 70% the right to dictate to the 30% who don't live in cities how they should live. Nor do they need to. There's no reason why different environments can't address whatever problems they see in different ways. We don't need to force everyone to live the way people who live in cities live.
    - ogre_codes 7y ago
      Very very few people advocate for eliminating every single car. Generally discussions about car-free infra are about places where cars have saturated the public infrastructure making it nearly impossible to safely move around any other way. Car free infrastructure is about growth and quality of life in dense urban areas. It doesn't make sense to eliminate cars from rural or even most suburban areas.
      - pdonis 7y ago
        > Car free infrastructure is about growth and quality of life in dense urban areas. Not according to the article. It specifically talks about the Boston suburbs, for example.
        ogre_codes 7y ago
        The article also doesn't talk about eliminating cars, in fact it very specifically has recommendations about how car traffic should be handled.
        pdonis 7y ago
        > The article also doesn't talk about eliminating cars I didn't say it did.
- rco8786 7y ago
  I can walk where I want when I want. I can bike where I want when I want. I can take a train or a bus where I want when I want, I guess with the exception of like the middle of the night. Your argument is kinda bad.
  - jakear 7y ago
    Try going camping in a remote area with those methods. Won’t work. Different people have different transportation needs.
    - asdff 7y ago
      So then you take you car camping. Or just rent one for the weekend. By all means, have a car if you want one. It just doesn't make sense for millions of people traveling the same direction at the same times 10 times a week for 40+ years to do it spaced 25'x10' apart. There just isn't enough room. Not to mention the environmental toll of spending 95% of your gas or any other energy source just to move the 3000lb+ hunk of natural resources you bring with you everywhere you go in life.
    - rco8786 7y ago
      I'm not anti-car, I'm anti the dumb "people trying to take away their freedom" argument.
- nkrisc 7y ago
  Personally I felt most free when I lived in a major city and knew I could hop on a train or a bus and go wherever I wanted without having to worry about where I would park or feeding the meter or filling the tank or... etc.
- ogre_codes 7y ago
  > They rightly view anti-car advocates are people trying to take away their freedom and herd them onto mass transit. Most "Pro Car" advocates dismiss any kind of policy about reducing cars in cities would look like and don't bother learning. Your post is a perfect example of this. Many major cities are at a point where it is literally impossible to grow and retain their existing auto-infrastructure. This is the biggest reason cities like Paris and London adopted hard limits and large fees for driving inside downtown areas. This is also a large part of why larger US cities are looking into encouraging bikes/ scooters and other forms of transportation which don't hog real-estate the way cars do. As a parent, you should also be sympathetic to a return to a world where kids can pedal their bikes to school safely. The current model of schools engineered around massive amounts of car traffic at the beginning and end of the day is insane and massively limits the individual freedom young people used to have. Most people who advocate reducing reliance on cars aren't interested in eliminating cars, only making it safe for other forms of transportation and reclaiming much of the massive amount of public space which is wasted on car infrastructure.
WalterBright 7y ago
Because there are always tradeoffs, and tradeoffs that may actually increase total deaths. That increase would be "acceptable" because they aren't road deaths. Such goals replace reason and judgement with slogans. For example, consider "zero tolerance" laws. They result in convicting kids who carry a one inch Lego toy gun to school, because "my hands are tied" by the legislation. Or the "3 Strikes" laws which send people to jail for life for stealing a handbag. BTW, I support removal of cars from high density pedestrian areas. I wish Seattle would do that.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  How exactly would this particular trade-off increase total deaths? Do you think this is happening in Oslo?
  - mamurphy 7y ago
    > How exactly would this particular trade-off increase total deaths? Do you think this is happening in Oslo? What if I am having a heart attack and the ambulance is on the way? If it gets there within 5 minutes, I can be saved, if not I die. Oh well, no going over 20 mph, I'm dead. I would hope Oslo has a carve out for emergency response, but I don't see one in the article. Much, much, more abstractly, as the article points out, suburbs are much denser in American than in Olso. "If I could work on my lifesaving cancer cure 8hr/day I would cure it in 10 years, but at 7hr/day I only cure it in 12 years. I can only spend so much time at work and commuting. Oh well, no going over 20mph, it takes me years longer." Lots of productivity losses (some of which are undoubtedly going to result in loss of life) if a(not atypical) American 20 mile commute now takes an hour instead of 20 minutes. It would take restructuring of roadways on a massive scale in America to have this policy not result in staggering productivity/time losses. The article admits this ("it's going to require both institutional and far-reaching cultural changes", "It will take decades"). Without massive changes, adopting this policy would, as the article states, "incite riots in no time." I'd welcome taking steps towards transit restructuring. However, there seems to be little political will for even basic incremental steps. That's why zero deaths seems impossible - getting even basic, functioning, public transit is hard in America.
Sindrome 7y ago
I work on the West Side of Los Angeles. People honk at me when I cross the streets and they are in a hurry. In Beverly Hills rich man-children with sports cars speed around with bumper stickers showing they donate to the Beverly Hill PD. Just citing some high-level observations that show some issues.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  Overall, I feel pretty ambiguous about public transit or bikes vs. cars. I see the hypothetical appeal of public transit and bikes, but I think their respective proponents ignore a lot of the convenience of a personal automobile. That said, West LA is a fucking hellscape and the cars are mostly to blame for that.
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    The problem isn't transit as much as layout. Build your cities relatively sanely instead of doing whatever the fuck LA does, and most transportation options end up reasonable. Build it as a sprawling, poorly-utilized asphalt stain on the landscape, and your hands are pretty tied. SF is a pretty mismanaged city in general, but it's telling that complaints about transport are (IME) far less strident than complaints about everything else. There's a floor on how bad your transport experience can be based on the layout of the city: if there as gridlock on every street in San Francisco and all the subways were flooded, I could still easily walk to the equivalent of many, many square miles of a place like LA.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  I moved to the bay from LA when I was 17, having lived in both relatively sense Beverly Hills and a relatively sparse part of the Valley. I instantly couldn't believe how much better quality of life could be when you're not surrounded by a fetish for car travel, no matter the cost. The creepiest part is the Stockholm's Syndrome exhibited by all my friends who couldn't make it out of LA[1]. The logical contortions they had to go through to convince themselves that the downsides of a car-centric city don't exist were laughable (while everyone I know who lived elsewhere would happily admit that upsides to a car-centric city exist, but argue that they weren't worth the tradeoff). (I should note that this comparison is no longer as dramatic, since LA has started making at least certain areas denser and more accessible) [1] I graduated college during a time when the LA economy was sputtering, while SF, NY, London, Seattle, etc were booming, so the only people who stayed in LA were the ones who didn't have much going on.
rwem 7y ago
Why do Americans [anything]? Because in short they are ignorant. Americans lack perspective on virtually all topics. They don't read enough, they don't travel enough, their educations are overwhelmingly technical and occupational at the expense of philosophy and ethics, and their domestic brainwashing apparatus has left them collectively unable to think. Transportation is just like any other topic American's are unqualified to comment upon, like healthcare. They've been indoctrinated by propaganda campaigns to believe and repeat a series of false statements: their cities are too spread out (they aren't); their cities are exceptionally far apart (they aren't); their weather is somehow unprecedented (it isn't); you can't take groceries/children/lumber home on the bike/bus/tram/train (you obviously can). So the answer to the headline's question is the obvious one, the one with the most hard evidence and the one with the broadest explanatory powers. The reason Americans believe these things is because of ignorance.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- imgabe 7y ago
  Europeans plundered and enslaved the world for centuries and now act incredulous that anyone does not have the wealth at their disposal to dole out to their unproductive citizens.
  - tidenly 7y ago
    Are you seriously implying the reason America doesn't have public transport or the other public amenities Europe does is because they don't have the money?
    - imgabe 7y ago
      There is money, yes, but unlike in Europe the people who have money had to work for it.
  - dang 7y ago
    Please do not take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar, regardless of how flamebaity some other comment is. We need fire prevention in depth here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
drewcoo 7y ago
Because about 100 years ago, the auto industry responded to a surge in murder by the new automobiles by forming auto associations and using those to change local laws to outlaw behaviors leading the victims to die. Like the newly-minted term "jay walking." And over several generations that became such a firm part of the status quo that we can't even imagine it some other way. Compare with electricity, a danger that Edison terrified everyone into enshrouding in standard safety features to protect the public. Both were set in place by a popular sentiment driven by industry manipulation. That's why. Next question.
lacker 7y ago
If you can afford them, cars are just better than public transportation. They are faster and it’s much easier to handle children, luggage, or groceries in a car. Uber also solves the parking problem. It would be nice to have zero road deaths, but getting there by renouncing cars is going backwards. Instead, we should have safer cars through better technology.
- Arbalest 7y ago
  Better technology can't patch human issues unless you're able to remove the human. Self driving cars are still not here.
- ajmurmann 7y ago
  "better" isn't the same for everyone. I'd take a public transit system like I've used in Munich, Tokyo or Shanghai over sitting in my personal metal box any day. Especially if we could give all the space taken up by infrastructure for cars back to pedestrians.
userbinator 7y ago
It's like "zero crime" --- you end up with authoritarian dystopia. IMNSHO extremism in all forms is not a good thing, no matter what the cause. There's plenty of sci-fi on that topic. I find it ironic that HN seems to be both very pro-freedom/privacy/right-to-repair, yet also very anti-car. Perhaps two separate demographics.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  Do you feel the same way about zero polio deaths? The transportation issue is fairly complicated, and there does exist a tendency to oversimplify the costs of moving away from the status quo. But many of the reactions on this thread (this one included) are even more free of nuance or an attempt at understanding the situation. There's no question for anyone who's bothered to inform themselves that the US status quo around transportation is far from ideal for most sets of preferences[1]. Vision Zero is a bit of a blunt instrument for calling attention to how bad the status quo is, but it's a lot better than the arguments I'm seeing here. [1] Obviously you can construct a set of preferences that is optimal for a given state, but I'm using reasonable priors here.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Zero polio is a cut/dried thing. We know how much the polio vaccine costs to manufacture, we know the risk of adverse side effect (very low) and we can administer the vaccines alongside your normal check-ups. You're not increasing the risk of death due to something else by decreasing the risk of polio.
- 29083011397778 7y ago
  > I find it ironic that HN seems to be both very pro-freedom/privacy/right-to-repair, yet also very anti-car. Perhaps two separate demographics. I suspect there's less overlap than you assume. Freedom I'm sure we could go back and forth on for hours (money has better uses than gas IMO, but the freedom of a car is undeniable), but privacy for cars is an unmitigated disaster. Government-issued ID is undoubtedly a good requirement for driving, but everything else, from automatic license plate scanners to cars frequently reporting your location (to On-Star or Honda's anti-theft) leaves privacy in a dismal state. Right to Repair is moving the wrong way as cars move from mechanical to digital. Tesla is infamous for this, and moving more people to electric cars seems unlikely to reverse the trend. We're also discussing a subset of people likely sitting at desks far too much. I don't want to sit all day then sit in a car to get home either.
ken 7y ago
This article seems to have tunnel vision on speed as the primary cause -- "Speed is what kills", it claims, and links to another page on their same blog that says: > Speeding — defined as traveling too fast for conditions or in excess of the posted speed limits — contributes to nearly one-third of all roadway fatalities. This proportion has remained largely unchanged for decades. They neglect to mention that, in America, alcohol contributes to about one-third of all roadway fatalities, too. In Norway, it's much rarer, due to stricter limits (.02 BAC!) and harsher penalties. Big complex problems often have multiple contributing factors. Personally, I'd go after alcohol first. IME, nearly everyone on the road speeds, and apparently nearly everyone can do it safely. It's hard to argue that drunk driving can ever be done safely. The best "traffic calming" street designs in the world won't keep your city center safe from drunks.
- quaquaqua1 7y ago
  Harsher penalties? Driving drunk here is going to cost you 4-5k in fees and fines in certain parts of the USA. It's approaching mandatory minimum sentence status here. The people who are the most down and out in our society don't care about the cost of their driving drunk. It doesn't occur to them until after they've been caught. What needs to change is the attitude.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > IME, nearly everyone on the road speeds Virtually all of the speeding I observe is on freeways or divided highways with at least two lanes in each direction and no residences directly on the highway. I rarely if ever see people speeding on residential streets.
ajmurmann 7y ago
It sticks out to me how much more homogenous streets and roads are in the US compared to Europe. All streets have at least two lanes and the speed limits in practice fall within a fairly narrow range. Even in residential neighborhoods the speed limit is usually 25 or 35. On the other hand it doesn't go up much till you are on a freeway. Even streets with a lot of business will still have lots of through traffic. The suburb I live in has its historic downtown cut up by multiple high traffic roads (strongtowns calls them "stroads"). It sucks for cars and it sucks for pedestrians. As the article calls out, many European cities do a better job at separating humans and cars. This only works because there is more diversity in roads and streets. My commute in Germany included an area that literally had a speed limit of "walking speed" a main road that had 70km/h and of course the Autobahn worth 160km/h. These streets and roads were much more clearly differentiated and made a clear trade off between prioritizing pedestrians, playing children and cars. I think some European cities got this inadvertantly, since streets and roads suited for cars had to be fitted on Street the fact. US cities with their grid layout inherently treat the city and its traffic more like a homogenous blob.
austincheney 7y ago
I am statistically more likely to die driving to work than I was serving in Afghanistan during the surge.
pcurve 7y ago
for the past 15 years, they were averaging about 5 deaths / year for population of 650k. Down from 40 deaths in 1970s. If they were as populous as the U.S., it would be 250 deaths per year. There were over 6,000 pedestrian fatalities last year in the U.S. Yes... we could do a lot better.
mrfredward 7y ago
Vending machines kill an average of four Americans per year. Forgive me for thinking we can't make barreling down the highway safer than buying a soda. With 300+ million people, it's not a realistic target until something supercedes driving entirely.
tjansen 7y ago
Truly zero deaths won't be achievable without giving up all forms of transport. Public transport kills pedestrians and bicycle riders, and there are even pedestrians killed by bikes. You can certainly reduce the numbers, but you won't get even close to zero. I wasn't able to find general statistics, only for Cologne/Germany, a city of about 1 million with relatively good public transport. In 2016, 18 people were killed on the roads of Cologne. 6 of them have been killed by a tram. In 2017, 19 were killed, 4 by tram. There are no statistics for pedestrians killed by bikes, but last year there was at least one such case in Cologne.
dang 7y ago
The story was discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21933868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21933868

38 points by oftenwrong 7y ago

Cars represent freedom. I can get in my car and go where I want, when I want -- especially helpful with 3 school-age children. Mass transit is important in cities, but lots of Americans, probably most, live where cars are needed to get around. They rightly view anti-car advocates are people trying to take away their freedom and herd them onto mass transit.

dkhenry 7y ago
Of all the things I am concerned about for my 3 school aged children its them getting hit by a car. It makes it so I am afraid to let them go anywhere without me or another adult. It represses freedom in a way no other technology has. The only freedom that has been taken away has been the freedom of people to live car free. Its now required for so many people, and combine that with rising home prices and the associated sprawl and cars are nothing but a prison people have to put themselves in for multiple hours a day.
- Bostonian 7y ago
  The long term trend in car accident death rates is down, as shown at https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatalit... . Everyone wants to see accidents decrease, but targeting zero deaths sounds like a crusade.
  - dkhenry 7y ago
    In so much as you can't get close to zero without radically changing how we build and live in this country you are correct, but the question is why wouldn't you want to make the changes to target zero deaths ? Not only would you be removing the 11th leading cause of death, you would be significantly improving our environmental footprint and literally saving trillions of dollars in unnecessary infrastructure spending.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      > ... but the question is why wouldn't you want to make the changes to target zero deaths? Well, if you target "zero" of anything with a large enough N, you end up well past the point of diminishing returns, and avoiding that last death may have a price tag truly outsized relative to the benefit. It may even cause more deaths in other areas. For instance, after 9/11 security at airports was tightened massively ("targeting zero") and this caused a lot more people to drive short distances, which is much riskier than flying, which in turn caused way, way more deaths than all of 9/11. Micro, achieved, macro, failed. Bruce Schneier covers this well in an essay titled "Our Decreasing Tolerance to Risk" [1] With that in mind, I don't believe cars should exist in urban centers, but because they're a livability nightmare rather than due to the very low risk cars pose to my continued existence (you have a 0.01%/year chance of dying in a fatal car accident). [1] https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2013/08/our_decreasing_toler.html https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2013/08/our_decreas...
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        > you have a 0.01%/year chance of dying in a fatal car accident Which sounds like very little. But life expectancy is now around 80 years. That means that your lifetime chance of dying in a car accident is 0.8%. That's high enough that, in a country of 330 million people, it adds up to a problem that's worth trying to solve. Look, I mostly agree with you. But the "low risk" argument in your last paragraph isn't as effective as you think.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      Because zero deaths, while a good thing, is not the only good thing. Are you also going to prohibit smoking? Bad eating habits? Or do only traffic deaths matter to you? Not dying matters. I mean, duh, it really matters. But in the time when you're not dead, it's nice to be able to do some things besides just not dying. Among the things I want to do with my life and my time, walking to work in winter is very low on the list. So is waiting at a tram stop in a blizzard.
- sfgweilr4f 7y ago
  Freedom always implies balancing risk. If you eliminate all risk you end up in a box where all dangers are kept out. But then you die of something else. Probably boredom due to lack of input. I don't have public transport available. So for freedom in general, take away access to public transport and cars become freedom to move. Even when public transport is available its not when I need it. Or how I need it. I need to move this odd shaped or heavy or inconvenient equipment now. Not in 5 minutes. Not in 15. I won't tolerate your rules on what I put in the car or truck I own either. The time of day is also important. I won't tolerate you saying "please wait 30 minutes" or "we can have a vehicle available tomorrow at 9am". Now. Obligatory notes: - I'm not in favor of more road deaths. - I'm in favor of sensible road speed limits and school zones. - I'm not in favor of speed limits being used as revenue streams. - People need to actually stop tailgating and learn how to drive at appropriate speeds. - I'm not against areas being pedestrian zones with entire streets blocked off. I like to walk as well. - People are bad drivers some of the time or most of the time in many cases. They make mistakes. "No deaths" means an absolute guarantee. Real life has opinions about absolute guarantees: they are usually either strong fact or a temporary fiction that has harsh consequences while its maintained. - I think the "cure" for road deaths using just legislation and too low speed limits will cause societal distortions similar to the madness that prohibition had on general society (the government went so far they actually thought poisoning alcohol was a legitimate measure). - auto-pilot for cars and trucks is worth pursuing. On a related note: you wrote, "It makes it so I am afraid to let them go anywhere without me or another adult." Sounds like helicopter parenting[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent
  - cgrealy 7y ago
    >I need to move this odd shaped or heavy or inconvenient equipment now. Not in 5 minutes. Not in 15. No, you don't. You want to move it now, but in general, you don't need to move it now. > I won't tolerate your rules on what I put in the car or truck I own either. Yes, you will, or you won't drive on publicly funded roads. You are not licenced to transport nuclear waste. You are not licenced to transport explosives. You need the right vehicle to transport an heavy or insecure load. Your freedom to transport whatever you want does not supersede other peoples freedom to drive in a safe environment.
aqme28 7y ago
It's funny how opposite we are in this. To me, me cars represent a frustrating burden, whereas walkable spaces, bike lanes, and subway accessibility represent freedom of movement.
- jakear 7y ago
  Some people have larger distances to cover. I can’t walk to Carrizo Plains on a weekend. Can’t bike there either. No busses, and definitely no trains. If I want to go where I want to go, I need a car to get there.
  - asdff 7y ago
    And for those people, absolutely keep the car. Maybe a moped would do, but the car is fine for low density areas like you describe. But for the millions stuck in rush hour traffic in every major city across the country, maybe there could be a better way to make that one commute to work. NYC has a lot of subways and 60% of the population uses transit, but they are just about all built for moving people to and from their 9-5 job in Manhattan, not traveling laterally across the outer boroughs.
- asdff 7y ago
  I grew up in the burbs, and it wasn't until I moved into a major city that actually had other options that I realized how much stress goes just into planning to drive. Where am I going to park? How much is it going to cost? Will traffic be bad? The weather? Am I tired? Do I need to buy gas? All you need to do with public transport is open an app, walk to the spot, and have patience. In LA, the bus network is comprehensive, but it does demand patience. So I just bring a book. Much more peaceful than the bloodsport played on the freeways here.
- ctdonath 7y ago
  Cars are liberating. I can escape from a city on a moment’s notice, travel 1000 miles on a whim in a day (and do), beholden to none. 8000 miles last summer thru remote spectacular regions, as we saw fit, was exhilarating. Transit is stifling, taking me nowhere at inconvenience and cost.
rwem 7y ago
Funny that you have this user name, when the article (which you obviously didn't even read) discusses the comparison of Boston and Oslo.
imgabe 7y ago
Cars only represent freedom when you live in poorly designed suburbs. When you live in a dense city cars choke the streets and make travel impossible for at least four hours a day. Cars are killing us.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > Cars only represent freedom when you live in poorly designed suburbs. No, cars represent freedom if you live anywhere other than a dense city. Which is most of the usable land area of the planet.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - lassor_feasley 7y ago
    As someone who has lived in cities, suburbs, and rural regions, (and has studied this issue a lot) cars definitely represent dependance to me. If you grew up somewhere rural or suburban, you basically became a parasite to your parents, and were totally dependent on them for all of your transportation until 16 or 17 when you got a license & car. Even then you're probably gonna be a financial burden (and financially dependent) on your parents to purchase you a car if you are lucky. If you grew up in a city (or a Stars Hollow style small town), you likely got to claim that independence at a much younger age. As a US parent who works, you are VERY likely to spend more time on your commute than with your children if you drive. We talk about 'everyone gets a trophy' culture; what many don't realize is everyone gets a trophy because if you are responsible for driving your kid to the pitch for practice, as the parent you'll be damned if your kid isn't a winner (do kids even care about little statues?). Then, when you age, you are once again going to have to go into a phase of dependance on others for your transit much earlier than people who live in walkable communities. This is both because walkers will be healthier and remain physically able longer, and because even if they did not, they could just walk to doctors appointments, grocery stores, and other destinations necessary to their independence. All of these things are, if not unique to the American experience of the past 50 years, at least magnified here... and I have not even gotten into suburban housing policy and the financial impacts on households of car ownership and on governments of road maintenance (spoiler: its not good). I'd give Strong Towns a serious read; I think you might find that Chuck Marohn is better aligned with your worldview than you think.
mc32 7y ago
If SAE Level 5 Automation ever arrives, it will make the goal easier and we get to keep our cars. Vision Zero (I don't think) is about getting to zero today. It's a vision which guides us to zero some day in the future and should keep our eyes on the prize so long as it's not zero. It should drive behavior, policy and technology, to achieve that goal. It should not mean you drive roughshod over car owners through autocratic policies to get there by force.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  > Vision Zero (I don't think) is about getting to zero today. It's a vision which guides us to zero some day in the future and should keep our eyes on the prize so long as it's not zero. Sure. However many people die, what can we do today to make it fewer? What's the next step? Let's start working on that.
topkai22 7y ago
The article isn’t really about mass transit- is about lowering speed limits. Even though I’m not a huge mass transit fan, I do agree that speed limits are generally too high in the US on surface streets. In my area, very limited amounts of the metro area are more than 3 miles from a limited access freeway. Many of the larger surface streets have 35 or 45 mph speed limits. It’s not insane to drop many of those streets to 20 or 25 mph, although it works be painful.
- ctdonath 7y ago
  When speed limits are low enough, drivers don't care en masse.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Those larger surface streets should be such that it is safe to drive 35 or 45 MPH on them. Dropping the speed limit to 20 or 25 MPH, not because the road calls for it, but... why? To make driving more inconvenient? Yeah, that's going to result in massive civil disobedience. It's also going to train people to ignore speed limits even when they are actually there for safety. Ironically, that's going to cause... more deaths.
  - topkai22 7y ago
    The streets are safe for car drivers who are following the law, it’s walkers and cyclists that are at risk. As for non compliance, that’s what speed bumps, speed cameras and other traffic calming measures are for. I just drove through multiple US towns in Idaho that declared a 25 mph speed limits unless otherwise posted. They did not seem to have massive compliance issues.
mulmen 7y ago
Most (~70%) Americans live in cities. It’s an overwhelmingly urban country. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-w...
- pdonis 7y ago
  That doesn't give the 70% the right to dictate to the 30% who don't live in cities how they should live. Nor do they need to. There's no reason why different environments can't address whatever problems they see in different ways. We don't need to force everyone to live the way people who live in cities live.
  - ogre_codes 7y ago
    Very very few people advocate for eliminating every single car. Generally discussions about car-free infra are about places where cars have saturated the public infrastructure making it nearly impossible to safely move around any other way. Car free infrastructure is about growth and quality of life in dense urban areas. It doesn't make sense to eliminate cars from rural or even most suburban areas.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > Car free infrastructure is about growth and quality of life in dense urban areas. Not according to the article. It specifically talks about the Boston suburbs, for example.
      - ogre_codes 7y ago
        The article also doesn't talk about eliminating cars, in fact it very specifically has recommendations about how car traffic should be handled.
        pdonis 7y ago
        > The article also doesn't talk about eliminating cars I didn't say it did.
rco8786 7y ago
I can walk where I want when I want. I can bike where I want when I want. I can take a train or a bus where I want when I want, I guess with the exception of like the middle of the night. Your argument is kinda bad.
- jakear 7y ago
  Try going camping in a remote area with those methods. Won’t work. Different people have different transportation needs.
  - asdff 7y ago
    So then you take you car camping. Or just rent one for the weekend. By all means, have a car if you want one. It just doesn't make sense for millions of people traveling the same direction at the same times 10 times a week for 40+ years to do it spaced 25'x10' apart. There just isn't enough room. Not to mention the environmental toll of spending 95% of your gas or any other energy source just to move the 3000lb+ hunk of natural resources you bring with you everywhere you go in life.
  - rco8786 7y ago
    I'm not anti-car, I'm anti the dumb "people trying to take away their freedom" argument.
nkrisc 7y ago
Personally I felt most free when I lived in a major city and knew I could hop on a train or a bus and go wherever I wanted without having to worry about where I would park or feeding the meter or filling the tank or... etc.
ogre_codes 7y ago
> They rightly view anti-car advocates are people trying to take away their freedom and herd them onto mass transit. Most "Pro Car" advocates dismiss any kind of policy about reducing cars in cities would look like and don't bother learning. Your post is a perfect example of this. Many major cities are at a point where it is literally impossible to grow and retain their existing auto-infrastructure. This is the biggest reason cities like Paris and London adopted hard limits and large fees for driving inside downtown areas. This is also a large part of why larger US cities are looking into encouraging bikes/ scooters and other forms of transportation which don't hog real-estate the way cars do. As a parent, you should also be sympathetic to a return to a world where kids can pedal their bikes to school safely. The current model of schools engineered around massive amounts of car traffic at the beginning and end of the day is insane and massively limits the individual freedom young people used to have. Most people who advocate reducing reliance on cars aren't interested in eliminating cars, only making it safe for other forms of transportation and reclaiming much of the massive amount of public space which is wasted on car infrastructure.

WalterBright 7y ago

Because there are always tradeoffs, and tradeoffs that may actually increase total deaths. That increase would be "acceptable" because they aren't road deaths. Such goals replace reason and judgement with slogans. For example, consider "zero tolerance" laws. They result in convicting kids who carry a one inch Lego toy gun to school, because "my hands are tied" by the legislation. Or the "3 Strikes" laws which send people to jail for life for stealing a handbag. BTW, I support removal of cars from high density pedestrian areas. I wish Seattle would do that.

CydeWeys 7y ago
How exactly would this particular trade-off increase total deaths? Do you think this is happening in Oslo?
- mamurphy 7y ago
  > How exactly would this particular trade-off increase total deaths? Do you think this is happening in Oslo? What if I am having a heart attack and the ambulance is on the way? If it gets there within 5 minutes, I can be saved, if not I die. Oh well, no going over 20 mph, I'm dead. I would hope Oslo has a carve out for emergency response, but I don't see one in the article. Much, much, more abstractly, as the article points out, suburbs are much denser in American than in Olso. "If I could work on my lifesaving cancer cure 8hr/day I would cure it in 10 years, but at 7hr/day I only cure it in 12 years. I can only spend so much time at work and commuting. Oh well, no going over 20mph, it takes me years longer." Lots of productivity losses (some of which are undoubtedly going to result in loss of life) if a(not atypical) American 20 mile commute now takes an hour instead of 20 minutes. It would take restructuring of roadways on a massive scale in America to have this policy not result in staggering productivity/time losses. The article admits this ("it's going to require both institutional and far-reaching cultural changes", "It will take decades"). Without massive changes, adopting this policy would, as the article states, "incite riots in no time." I'd welcome taking steps towards transit restructuring. However, there seems to be little political will for even basic incremental steps. That's why zero deaths seems impossible - getting even basic, functioning, public transit is hard in America.

Sindrome 7y ago

I work on the West Side of Los Angeles. People honk at me when I cross the streets and they are in a hurry. In Beverly Hills rich man-children with sports cars speed around with bumper stickers showing they donate to the Beverly Hill PD. Just citing some high-level observations that show some issues.

toasterlovin 7y ago
Overall, I feel pretty ambiguous about public transit or bikes vs. cars. I see the hypothetical appeal of public transit and bikes, but I think their respective proponents ignore a lot of the convenience of a personal automobile. That said, West LA is a fucking hellscape and the cars are mostly to blame for that.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  The problem isn't transit as much as layout. Build your cities relatively sanely instead of doing whatever the fuck LA does, and most transportation options end up reasonable. Build it as a sprawling, poorly-utilized asphalt stain on the landscape, and your hands are pretty tied. SF is a pretty mismanaged city in general, but it's telling that complaints about transport are (IME) far less strident than complaints about everything else. There's a floor on how bad your transport experience can be based on the layout of the city: if there as gridlock on every street in San Francisco and all the subways were flooded, I could still easily walk to the equivalent of many, many square miles of a place like LA.
wutbrodo 7y ago
I moved to the bay from LA when I was 17, having lived in both relatively sense Beverly Hills and a relatively sparse part of the Valley. I instantly couldn't believe how much better quality of life could be when you're not surrounded by a fetish for car travel, no matter the cost. The creepiest part is the Stockholm's Syndrome exhibited by all my friends who couldn't make it out of LA[1]. The logical contortions they had to go through to convince themselves that the downsides of a car-centric city don't exist were laughable (while everyone I know who lived elsewhere would happily admit that upsides to a car-centric city exist, but argue that they weren't worth the tradeoff). (I should note that this comparison is no longer as dramatic, since LA has started making at least certain areas denser and more accessible) [1] I graduated college during a time when the LA economy was sputtering, while SF, NY, London, Seattle, etc were booming, so the only people who stayed in LA were the ones who didn't have much going on.

rwem 7y ago

Why do Americans [anything]? Because in short they are ignorant. Americans lack perspective on virtually all topics. They don't read enough, they don't travel enough, their educations are overwhelmingly technical and occupational at the expense of philosophy and ethics, and their domestic brainwashing apparatus has left them collectively unable to think. Transportation is just like any other topic American's are unqualified to comment upon, like healthcare. They've been indoctrinated by propaganda campaigns to believe and repeat a series of false statements: their cities are too spread out (they aren't); their cities are exceptionally far apart (they aren't); their weather is somehow unprecedented (it isn't); you can't take groceries/children/lumber home on the bike/bus/tram/train (you obviously can). So the answer to the headline's question is the obvious one, the one with the most hard evidence and the one with the broadest explanatory powers. The reason Americans believe these things is because of ignorance.

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imgabe 7y ago
Europeans plundered and enslaved the world for centuries and now act incredulous that anyone does not have the wealth at their disposal to dole out to their unproductive citizens.
- tidenly 7y ago
  Are you seriously implying the reason America doesn't have public transport or the other public amenities Europe does is because they don't have the money?
  - imgabe 7y ago
    There is money, yes, but unlike in Europe the people who have money had to work for it.
- dang 7y ago
  Please do not take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar, regardless of how flamebaity some other comment is. We need fire prevention in depth here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

drewcoo 7y ago

Because about 100 years ago, the auto industry responded to a surge in murder by the new automobiles by forming auto associations and using those to change local laws to outlaw behaviors leading the victims to die. Like the newly-minted term "jay walking." And over several generations that became such a firm part of the status quo that we can't even imagine it some other way. Compare with electricity, a danger that Edison terrified everyone into enshrouding in standard safety features to protect the public. Both were set in place by a popular sentiment driven by industry manipulation. That's why. Next question.

lacker 7y ago

If you can afford them, cars are just better than public transportation. They are faster and it’s much easier to handle children, luggage, or groceries in a car. Uber also solves the parking problem. It would be nice to have zero road deaths, but getting there by renouncing cars is going backwards. Instead, we should have safer cars through better technology.

Arbalest 7y ago
Better technology can't patch human issues unless you're able to remove the human. Self driving cars are still not here.
ajmurmann 7y ago
"better" isn't the same for everyone. I'd take a public transit system like I've used in Munich, Tokyo or Shanghai over sitting in my personal metal box any day. Especially if we could give all the space taken up by infrastructure for cars back to pedestrians.

userbinator 7y ago

It's like "zero crime" --- you end up with authoritarian dystopia. IMNSHO extremism in all forms is not a good thing, no matter what the cause. There's plenty of sci-fi on that topic. I find it ironic that HN seems to be both very pro-freedom/privacy/right-to-repair, yet also very anti-car. Perhaps two separate demographics.

wutbrodo 7y ago
Do you feel the same way about zero polio deaths? The transportation issue is fairly complicated, and there does exist a tendency to oversimplify the costs of moving away from the status quo. But many of the reactions on this thread (this one included) are even more free of nuance or an attempt at understanding the situation. There's no question for anyone who's bothered to inform themselves that the US status quo around transportation is far from ideal for most sets of preferences[1]. Vision Zero is a bit of a blunt instrument for calling attention to how bad the status quo is, but it's a lot better than the arguments I'm seeing here. [1] Obviously you can construct a set of preferences that is optimal for a given state, but I'm using reasonable priors here.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Zero polio is a cut/dried thing. We know how much the polio vaccine costs to manufacture, we know the risk of adverse side effect (very low) and we can administer the vaccines alongside your normal check-ups. You're not increasing the risk of death due to something else by decreasing the risk of polio.
29083011397778 7y ago
> I find it ironic that HN seems to be both very pro-freedom/privacy/right-to-repair, yet also very anti-car. Perhaps two separate demographics. I suspect there's less overlap than you assume. Freedom I'm sure we could go back and forth on for hours (money has better uses than gas IMO, but the freedom of a car is undeniable), but privacy for cars is an unmitigated disaster. Government-issued ID is undoubtedly a good requirement for driving, but everything else, from automatic license plate scanners to cars frequently reporting your location (to On-Star or Honda's anti-theft) leaves privacy in a dismal state. Right to Repair is moving the wrong way as cars move from mechanical to digital. Tesla is infamous for this, and moving more people to electric cars seems unlikely to reverse the trend. We're also discussing a subset of people likely sitting at desks far too much. I don't want to sit all day then sit in a car to get home either.

ken 7y ago

This article seems to have tunnel vision on speed as the primary cause -- "Speed is what kills", it claims, and links to another page on their same blog that says: > Speeding — defined as traveling too fast for conditions or in excess of the posted speed limits — contributes to nearly one-third of all roadway fatalities. This proportion has remained largely unchanged for decades. They neglect to mention that, in America, alcohol contributes to about one-third of all roadway fatalities, too. In Norway, it's much rarer, due to stricter limits (.02 BAC!) and harsher penalties. Big complex problems often have multiple contributing factors. Personally, I'd go after alcohol first. IME, nearly everyone on the road speeds, and apparently nearly everyone can do it safely. It's hard to argue that drunk driving can ever be done safely. The best "traffic calming" street designs in the world won't keep your city center safe from drunks.

quaquaqua1 7y ago
Harsher penalties? Driving drunk here is going to cost you 4-5k in fees and fines in certain parts of the USA. It's approaching mandatory minimum sentence status here. The people who are the most down and out in our society don't care about the cost of their driving drunk. It doesn't occur to them until after they've been caught. What needs to change is the attitude.
pdonis 7y ago
> IME, nearly everyone on the road speeds Virtually all of the speeding I observe is on freeways or divided highways with at least two lanes in each direction and no residences directly on the highway. I rarely if ever see people speeding on residential streets.

ajmurmann 7y ago

It sticks out to me how much more homogenous streets and roads are in the US compared to Europe. All streets have at least two lanes and the speed limits in practice fall within a fairly narrow range. Even in residential neighborhoods the speed limit is usually 25 or 35. On the other hand it doesn't go up much till you are on a freeway. Even streets with a lot of business will still have lots of through traffic. The suburb I live in has its historic downtown cut up by multiple high traffic roads (strongtowns calls them "stroads"). It sucks for cars and it sucks for pedestrians. As the article calls out, many European cities do a better job at separating humans and cars. This only works because there is more diversity in roads and streets. My commute in Germany included an area that literally had a speed limit of "walking speed" a main road that had 70km/h and of course the Autobahn worth 160km/h. These streets and roads were much more clearly differentiated and made a clear trade off between prioritizing pedestrians, playing children and cars. I think some European cities got this inadvertantly, since streets and roads suited for cars had to be fitted on Street the fact. US cities with their grid layout inherently treat the city and its traffic more like a homogenous blob.

austincheney 7y ago

I am statistically more likely to die driving to work than I was serving in Afghanistan during the surge.

pcurve 7y ago

for the past 15 years, they were averaging about 5 deaths / year for population of 650k. Down from 40 deaths in 1970s. If they were as populous as the U.S., it would be 250 deaths per year. There were over 6,000 pedestrian fatalities last year in the U.S. Yes... we could do a lot better.

mrfredward 7y ago

Vending machines kill an average of four Americans per year. Forgive me for thinking we can't make barreling down the highway safer than buying a soda. With 300+ million people, it's not a realistic target until something supercedes driving entirely.

tjansen 7y ago

Truly zero deaths won't be achievable without giving up all forms of transport. Public transport kills pedestrians and bicycle riders, and there are even pedestrians killed by bikes. You can certainly reduce the numbers, but you won't get even close to zero. I wasn't able to find general statistics, only for Cologne/Germany, a city of about 1 million with relatively good public transport. In 2016, 18 people were killed on the roads of Cologne. 6 of them have been killed by a tram. In 2017, 19 were killed, 4 by tram. There are no statistics for pedestrians killed by bikes, but last year there was at least one such case in Cologne.

dang 7y ago

The story was discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21933868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21933868