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> we have to decide what we want, just as we did for cars or telephones - we require seat belts and safety standards, and speed limits, but don’t demand that ca
by Tiktaalik 6y ago
> we have to decide what we want, just as we did for cars or telephones - we require seat belts and safety standards, and speed limits, but don’t demand that cars be unable to exceed the speed limit.
off topic but, yikes, what a bad analogy.
Considering the fact that motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children, young people, and unnatural death in general I dunno if one should compare anything positively to our society's decision to embrace the car.
Accepting the insane deaths, dangers and terrible second order effects deriving from car oriented infrastructure and then just shrugging because of convenience has been one of the most misguided policy mistakes of the 20th century.
- dolni 6y agoYou've definitely run with the most negative take on the automobile here. Being able to travel with ease enriches lives in so many ways. It's been an absolute disaster for the environment, and safety is not great, as you say. But I don't think it's as cut and dry as you make it.
- edrxty 6y agoAgreed, if that logic is applied with the same intensity everywhere, the world would be painfully bland. Obviously we've made some mistakes and possibly have gone too far in one direction on that axis, but particularly with regard to personal safety, people need to be willing to draw a line as to what is "good enough". Cars at this point are extremely safe by any reasonable metric, even if the absolute totals feel large.
- Tiktaalik 6y agoI feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Cars are not safe. They're the number one killer. In contrast, how many people are killed by the automobile alternatives of cycling, public transit? Seems that those are safe to me.
- edrxty 6y agoSomething will always be the number one killer. Doesn't mean it isn't safe.
- Tiktaalik 6y agoI can't help but be negative when the numbers don't lie. Cars are a (very convenient) child killer. "safety not great" is an understatement
- darkerside 6y agoIt's hard to agree with you without an effective counterexample. How many lives have been saved, improved, or created by the staggering economic benefits of a car based economy?
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoMy guess is the economy would have grown but just in a different direction. Singapore has similar GDP per capita to the US but about a fifth of the number of cars. Most of Europe is at half the number in the US.
- darkerside 6y agoAnd how much of that growth was on the back of the US consumer economy?
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoThe bulk of Singapore's trade is in Asia, America isn't as economically important as it used to be.
- darkerside 6y agoEmphasis on used to be, as in it used to be and was critically important in bootstrapping that economy.
- Tiktaalik 6y agoIt's not even really that hypothetical. Oslo has gotten down to zero cyclist and pedestrian fatalities in 2019. https://www.bicycling.com/news/a30433288/oslo-vision-zero-goal-2019/ https://www.bicycling.com/news/a30433288/oslo-vision-zero-go...
- throwawayffffas 6y agoThe analogy is not only bad, it's also wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limiter