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But that’s life. I have 2 friends that died in a car accident. They were in their mid-20s. A split second accident. If they didn’t drive that night, they probab

But that’s life. I have 2 friends that died in a car accident. They were in their mid-20s. A split second accident. If they didn’t drive that night, they probably would never get as close to death as they did that night. But it happened and all their efforts were erased in a second. It’s not just war that causes that.

skrebbel 5y ago
The difference is not only the scale of things but especially that a war is caused by people, on purpose, too often with the consent of their population. Car accidents are exactly that, accidents.
- ntauthority 5y ago
  Car accidents are caused by people, by a system kept in place on purpose, and most the population is made dependent on them in many countries, in that there is no choice but to make oneself at risk of a car "accident".
  - nkrisc 5y ago
    But the deadly acts in war are meant to be deadly, meant to kill people. Most people aren’t trying to kill others even if they’re essentially forced to drive in a car-centric society. The killing is almost always accidental and unintended.
- lmm 5y ago
  The vast majority of car "accidents" (more properly collisions) are the predictable result of policy choices.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jm__87 5y ago
    What policy change could possibly be made to make people better drivers?
    - JCharante 5y ago
      Take care driving as serious as aviation. Mandatory dash cams to make it easier to assign blame, automatic sensors which alert police when they detect the driver is behaving erratically. Make it easy to report other drivers for bad behavior (sitting on someone else's bumper, brake checking them, cutting them off, jersey lane swapping) which results in mandatory training or points off their license.
      - jm__87 5y ago
        This is the only response I have seen to my question that could maybe change things - specifically having automatic sensors in every vehicle that automatically alert police when you do something dangerous. I think this would be unrealistic to implement, but assuming you could, it would probably help (assuming sensor data could be used as proof of bad driving). As for reporting bad driving, you really need proof of a person's bad driving if you're going to penalize them for it. Having more traffic cameras helps a bit, but people just learn where the cameras are and drive carefully when they know they are being filmed.
    - lmm 5y ago
      Stricter driving tests is the obvious one.
    - dagw 5y ago
      Much stricter requirements for getting (and keeping) your drivers license. Policies focusing on reducing drunk driving (both focusing changing attitudes, increasing the risk of getting caught and increasing the punishments for people caught). More consistent and continuous enforcement of existing driving laws. You can probably do more to get unsafe cars off the roads. There is a lot you can do around designing roads and traffic flows in ways that reduce the risk of accidents.
    - bsanr2 5y ago
- dmos62 5y ago
  You could argue that anything is an accident. Can you stop a war after it starts? Hardly. Can you stop a war before it starts? Hardly. Same as for car accidents. You could be smart and attentive, foster an environment unsupportive of accidents, but in the end we're not conscious enough to exert such control.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  There's a part of me that that thinks there are no accidents. Yes--that whole Freud thing. As I have aged, I do think their are accidents, and life is a gamble. It has always bothered me the rich can afford to take chances, but that's another story. I still think it's best to think you can control your fate with most acccidents though. In high school, and college, I drove without insurance. (California used to require auto insurance, but didn't mandate it at DMV. I honestly couldn't afford it.) I used to think of driving as walking on a cliff's edge. You just don't make a mistake. It did work, but I probally got very lucky too.
- teachingassist 5y ago
  > Car accidents are exactly that, accidents. I disagree. With car design, function and ownership as they are, we (the people) accept that there is an uncommonly high risk of a crash and serious injury to ourselves and to the general public. We only call it an "accident" to abrogate that responsibility. On the point about scale: some wikipedia browsing suggests road traffic deaths currently kill about 10 times as many people as wars, globally.

skrebbel 5y ago

The difference is not only the scale of things but especially that a war is caused by people, on purpose, too often with the consent of their population. Car accidents are exactly that, accidents.

ntauthority 5y ago
Car accidents are caused by people, by a system kept in place on purpose, and most the population is made dependent on them in many countries, in that there is no choice but to make oneself at risk of a car "accident".
- nkrisc 5y ago
  But the deadly acts in war are meant to be deadly, meant to kill people. Most people aren’t trying to kill others even if they’re essentially forced to drive in a car-centric society. The killing is almost always accidental and unintended.
lmm 5y ago
The vast majority of car "accidents" (more properly collisions) are the predictable result of policy choices.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jm__87 5y ago
  What policy change could possibly be made to make people better drivers?
  - JCharante 5y ago
    Take care driving as serious as aviation. Mandatory dash cams to make it easier to assign blame, automatic sensors which alert police when they detect the driver is behaving erratically. Make it easy to report other drivers for bad behavior (sitting on someone else's bumper, brake checking them, cutting them off, jersey lane swapping) which results in mandatory training or points off their license.
    - jm__87 5y ago
      This is the only response I have seen to my question that could maybe change things - specifically having automatic sensors in every vehicle that automatically alert police when you do something dangerous. I think this would be unrealistic to implement, but assuming you could, it would probably help (assuming sensor data could be used as proof of bad driving). As for reporting bad driving, you really need proof of a person's bad driving if you're going to penalize them for it. Having more traffic cameras helps a bit, but people just learn where the cameras are and drive carefully when they know they are being filmed.
  - lmm 5y ago
    Stricter driving tests is the obvious one.
  - dagw 5y ago
    Much stricter requirements for getting (and keeping) your drivers license. Policies focusing on reducing drunk driving (both focusing changing attitudes, increasing the risk of getting caught and increasing the punishments for people caught). More consistent and continuous enforcement of existing driving laws. You can probably do more to get unsafe cars off the roads. There is a lot you can do around designing roads and traffic flows in ways that reduce the risk of accidents.
  - bsanr2 5y ago
dmos62 5y ago
You could argue that anything is an accident. Can you stop a war after it starts? Hardly. Can you stop a war before it starts? Hardly. Same as for car accidents. You could be smart and attentive, foster an environment unsupportive of accidents, but in the end we're not conscious enough to exert such control.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
There's a part of me that that thinks there are no accidents. Yes--that whole Freud thing. As I have aged, I do think their are accidents, and life is a gamble. It has always bothered me the rich can afford to take chances, but that's another story. I still think it's best to think you can control your fate with most acccidents though. In high school, and college, I drove without insurance. (California used to require auto insurance, but didn't mandate it at DMV. I honestly couldn't afford it.) I used to think of driving as walking on a cliff's edge. You just don't make a mistake. It did work, but I probally got very lucky too.
teachingassist 5y ago
> Car accidents are exactly that, accidents. I disagree. With car design, function and ownership as they are, we (the people) accept that there is an uncommonly high risk of a crash and serious injury to ourselves and to the general public. We only call it an "accident" to abrogate that responsibility. On the point about scale: some wikipedia browsing suggests road traffic deaths currently kill about 10 times as many people as wars, globally.