8 ms·

Auto accidents and “isolation and disruption”

49 points by danso 5y ago

PaulHoule 5y ago
It's not impossible that "isolation and disruption" tilting people and that people drive faster with less congestion both contribute to more accidents in the US.
- hirundo 5y ago
  Except that, according to the article, other countries that also had lockdowns had fewer accidents as traffic reduced.
winternett 5y ago
Auto accidents are increasing because of increasing driving-related app distractions. Android auto and many other driving-related apps frequently call for attention and they also introduce frustrations and distractions that should not occur. There is also no really way to properly account for how much these apps distract people because of the ideal that they serve vital functions. Just to enable Android auto and Apple Car play a user has to take their eyes off the road and it's freaking dangerous. Make sure roads are totally clear before crossing, or take the long way around, it's your only hope as distracting ads, engagement driven development, and consumerism take hold of app making.
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  Wouldn't those factors also apply in places other than the US, where the crash rate didn't follow the same pattern?
  - winternett 5y ago
    Absolutely. It's a world-wide epidemic. Even software driven vehicles introduce several new distractions into the process of driving. The accident rate may change in other areas due to lesser driving habits, or better road markings, but the issues of distracted driving are beginning to show and it can't simply be fixed by speed cameras and tickets, it's something that needs to be addressed with mobile phone makers, car makers, and software companies.
    - InitialLastName 5y ago
      Sure, I agree it's a problem, but if it doesn't match the pattern discussed in TFA, it isn't this problem.
- hardtke 5y ago
  Texting and driving is just as dangerous as drunk driving yet the legal penalties are not close. I see people texting while driving all of the time.
  - twofornone 5y ago
    I'd be careful with that equivalence, texting while driving is presumably an intermittent and short lived interruption, when you drive drunk you're impaired for the whole trip.
  - winternett 5y ago
    Entire companies like Uber and DoorDash are built upon drivers being distracted by mobile devices while driving. As dysfunction and advertising proliferates apps more and combined with autonomous and software-driven vehicles, we're all going to be in for a wild ride. (unintentional pun)
- nradov 5y ago
  Android Auto and Apple Carplay start automatically. Those aren't apps you enable while actually driving.
  - winternett 5y ago
    Not in every car. Each user's experience is different. There are times you need to disable the app, and when you first connect a device or new app to it, it presents distracting prompts that many drivers will not stop properly to address. The other apps like a music player (etc..) can also easily provide a lot of distracting cues while working in conjunction with Android Auto and Apple Carplay. For example, I use BlackPlayer for music now (Because Google Play Music was retired suddenly) and it frequently malfunctions, does not play, and my volume control is often at the wrong level, and random play never works correctly... Those seemingly little issues are not too hard to address while walking, but while riding a bicycle or driving, they can cause great harm.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  Of all the in-car distractions I don’t think these are the problem. I’d argue using either of those is much safer because they don’t allow you to do most of the more distracting things.
notacoward 5y ago
It will be easier to isolate the different factors once things get back to something like normal. That would have to include pre-pandemic levels of traffic-law enforcement, especially for speeding (e.g. multiple cars going 90-100mph on I-95 where anything over 75-80mph used to be a reliable way to get a ticket). Then we'll be better able to separate what factors contributed to the temporary "divot" in the accident-rate curve vs. what factors contributed to permanent change. All of the psychological factors, if they have any effect at all, are likely to be in the first bucket. App distractions and higher speed on emptier roads are likely to be in the second.
- noobermin 5y ago
  Why do you need to wait? Why not just compare to pre-2020 levels like the cited authors do?
  - notacoward 5y ago
    Because some of those numbers, and the causes behind them, are likely to persist in the longer term. Many people who can work from home will continue to do so. Many services that used to require a physical visit will continue to be done via online self-service instead. That's the new baseline against which more transient factors need to be compared to get meaningful results, and we won't know what that baseline is until after things re-stabilize.
Apreche 5y ago
Crash, not accident.
- sudden_dystopia 5y ago
  Correct. Accident implies it was not somebody’s fault. Every.Single.Crash. Is someone’s fault. There are no exceptions. It wasn’t the ice or snows fault, it was your fault for going to fast for conditions.
  - hammock 5y ago
    Accident means it was unintended.
    - riffic 5y ago
      check some usage notes on your use of "accident"[0] > Risk management and risk mitigation experts (such as actuaries, systems engineers, and others) generally do not approve of calling motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) "accidents", because they advisedly reserve that term for things not directly caused by human recklessness or negligence. Because it is predictably obvious (and directly causal) that distracted driving (e.g., texting, IMing/DMing, videogaming, or intoxication while driving) produces MVCs, those MVCs are not "accidents". Nonetheless, among the general public, MVCs are quite often called "accidents" rather than "crashes" or "collisions", not only by idiomatic inertia but also because connotatively, it steers clear of broaching the topic of blame assignment, whereas a phrase like "he crashed" connotes blame. There's also a relevant twitter reply concerning intent[1] > On the part of the individual drivers, it was accidental. > > On the part of the city, it was deliberate - they built an unsafe road, they can see the statistics - it's so unsafe that TV news crews come to talk about how dangerous it is - and they don't fix it. (final edit) We know how to fix the roads - there's a large body of evidence showing the "Complete Streets" approach (bollards, lane reductions, et cetera) works. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/accident#Usage_notes https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/accident#Usage_notes [1] https://twitter.com/DragonfrogMog/status/1502316785583808514 https://twitter.com/DragonfrogMog/status/1502316785583808514
sudden_dystopia 5y ago
Too many people don’t actually know the rules of the road or have understanding of even basic driving etiquette. They don’t understand that you shouldn’t tailgate people. They don’t understand that accidents aren’t accidents, they are all caused by someone’s negligence. People just don’t understand how dangerous driving is. I think that this driving ignorance is the root problem, the cause of causes. Need to make driving tests much harder.
- jayd16 5y ago
  Accidents are from complacency not ability to pass a test.
  - mdorazio 5y ago
    I would argue complacency + selfishness + a small amount of ignorance. Some people really do not know that you shouldn’t get in the left lane unless you plan to pass a vehicle or want to drive faster than your current lane. A lot of people know you shouldn’t tailgate or cut people off or smash the accelerator just so you can smash the brakes 10 seconds later when you get to the red light or stopped traffic that was clearly visible, but don’t give a shit because when they’re in control of a car they feel entitled to drive however the hell they want.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Depends on the type of test (book, practical, etc). If someone is complacent, then they likely were complacent when preparing for the test (didn't study, no drivers Ed course, etc). A reasonable test can weed out those complacent people who don't care to know or follow the law/instructions.
    - jayd16 5y ago
      The simple counter example is how many people phone and drive when they were able to abstain during the test.
      - 5y ago
jcims 5y ago
Some breakdown by state from the NHTSA https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813240 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... Anecdotally I've driven in Texas, California, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania over the past 6 months. Southern Florida, Miami in particular, was far and away the worst (again limited sampling and anecodotal) in overall 'quality' of driver. I was nearly hit on several occasions by people making up their own rules. Constantly seeing people just do whatever they felt like (huge exotic and performance car scene down there though). Horns honking almost nonstop. It honestly felt like a good portion of people behind the wheel didn't actually know US driving laws or dgaf. But possibly to the point in the article, congestion was so bad that you didn't achieve the energy levels to kill a person in a modern vehicle. Zero chance I ride a motorcycle or scooter in that area though. I drove a couple thousand miles in Texas from Dallas down through Austin, San Antonio, South Padre Island and back over the course of a couple of weeks. Overall the drivers there were middle of the pack, but the speeds were off the charts. Regular excursions into triple digits just to keep with the flow of traffic. Also drove several thousand miles in and round San Diego over the course of a month. It was kind of a mix of the two, moderate amount of poor decision making but also very high speeds punctuated with traffic accordion stops out of nowhere. More whisps of tire smoke and whiffs of scorched brakes (and, lets face it, weed) on the highway there than anywhere else I drove. Ohio and PA didn't feel out of the ordinary at all. Basically a toned down San Diego, some bad driving and some high speed. But I'm from the midwest so it's probably just acclimatization, statistically all of the above are within spitting distance.
- rectang 5y ago
  A prevailing flow of traffic moving at 80 mph in the San Diego metro is common in the faster lanes of some highways. But triple digits, like you report in Texas, that I haven't seen. There are surely a few drivers zipping around at 90-100+, but they're the dangerous ones who are going outside the prevailing flow of traffic. I suspect that the cops make a priority of pulling over such drivers, although I can only speculate about the likelihood of getting busted.
  - jcims 5y ago
throw0101a 5y ago
Some folks are encouraging the use of the word "collision" or "crash" instead of "accident": > Before the labor movement, factory owners would say "it was an accident" when American workers were injured in unsafe conditions. > Before the movement to combat drunk driving, intoxicated drivers would say "it was an accident" when they crashed their cars. > Planes don’t have accidents. They crash. Cranes don’t have accidents. They collapse. And as a society, we expect answers and solutions. > Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers. They are not accidents. Let’s stop using the word "accident" today. * https://crashnotaccident.com https://crashnotaccident.com * https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9615_11261_63762---,00.html https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9615_11261_63762-... > If you believe these incidents are accidents then they will happen to you. Don’t just change the word; change the mentality from accident to the collision. Doing this will help you make the switch to believing they are preventable. Many people say accidents happen. Sure they do, but these are not accidents and they are preventable when you change the belief and do you best to avoid them while staying focused on the driving environment. * https://safetydriven.ca/resource/accident-or-collision/ https://safetydriven.ca/resource/accident-or-collision/ * https://www.roadpeace.org/get-involved/crash-not-accident/ https://www.roadpeace.org/get-involved/crash-not-accident/
- rectang 5y ago
  I'm just one fool with an opinion on the internet, but FWIW I like "collision" as a substitute for "accident" better than "crash". "Crash" connotes something spectacular and would seem to exclude fender benders, while both "accident" and "collision" would include them.
- tiahura 5y ago
  You’re fighting a losing battle. The issue is the legal / insurance context. For legal purposes the critical distinction is accident or intentional. “Accident” doesn’t necessarily mean act of god, or unpreventable, it just means it wasn’t intentional.
  - riffic 5y ago
    go swing a bat around in a crowd, you can say it was an oopsie if you were to hit someone.
hammock 5y ago
I don't see enough data in either story presented (average speed is higher leading to more fatalities vs. isolation/disruption) to come to a reliable conclusion. It's clear enough that higher speeds lead to crashes being more likely fatal on average, but a key part of the argument is acknowledging that there are much fewer cars on the road - which would tend to reduce the number of crashes. You would have to look at the data to see which factor dominates.
riffic 5y ago
lol, "accidents" are actually results with known causes. edit: Professor Andrew Gelman[0], if you're reading any of these replies, go fix your title (accident is not in vogue these days per AP Stylebook). You also misspelled Chuck Marohn's surname in the copy a couple of times, so this as a whole looks sloppy. [0] https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/authors/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/authors/
giantg2 5y ago
Absolutely no mention of the fact that these countries with lower crash and fatality rates also have much more stringent license testing requirements.
- frenchy 5y ago
  In Canada, our driving tests are reasonably stringent (it's uncommon to pass the first time), but you only have to pass once and the police rarely enforce traffic law. The result is that people are great drivers until they get their license, and then quickly turn into morons and just drive like everyone else. Mandatory retesting might help, though if there's still no enforcement, we'll just get drivers who are good a taking the test, but not driving.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    True, enforcement need to also happen. Retesting every 5 or so years could be good too.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  This effect should also be noticeable across states in the USA. Is it?
jeffbee 5y ago
Something nobody seems to write down is that due to the "essential worker" phenomenon the drivers still on the road are selectively the worse part of the driver population. They have obsolete, unmaintained cars. They are overworked and never sleep. They are younger and less experienced. Yeah all the 50-year-old corporate attorneys are working from home, but the guy who stocks the Safeway overnight as his third job is still out there, speeding on his bald tires.
1970-01-01 5y ago
>>One thing that Marsh and Pareene get into in their article is the difference between what is actually happening—a lack of congestion allowing people to drive too fast and then crashing their cars—and a much different narrative that’s been appearing in the news. >>that our roads are inherently dangerous, and congestion has been a major force in keeping the accident rate down I think this nails the problem. Drivers became dull and unskilled as driving became slower. Split second decisions dwindled, and a minority of drivers lost their split second muscle memory. Now anything beyond mundane stop-and-go traffic causes them to drive beyond their ability. When the roads opened up, they physically couldn't keep the car from crashing into something.
Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
It's not like Europeans haven't also been speeding like crazy. I think one factor is that in Europe cars are generally equipped with brakes, tires and suspension with a much bigger margin of safety for high speed operation. One of the biggest car markets in Europe is the one with a lot of unrestricted Autobahn. And worse yet, many US states don't even have regular technical inspections, so you get away with more deferred maintenance. When you're stuck in 55 mph land, a car can get pretty dilapidated and still mostly hold together, but once you subject it to high speeds and high braking and cornering loads the risk of catastrophic failure skyrockets.
- giantg2 5y ago
  "And worse yet, many US states don't even have regular technical inspections, so you get away with more deferred maintenance." US inspections are generally a joke (compared to Europe). There's not even a statistically significant difference in accidents caused by mechanical issues between states with inspections and those without. The vast majority of accidents are driver error.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    All inspections are a joke. It's a fundamentally poor use of resources. The overwhelming majority of accidents are caused by things people knew were dumb and did anyway. Shaking down everyone with a 10yo+ car to the tune of one random suspension/steering part a year won't change that. Chasing the long tail of equipment failure will do nothing to address the judgement related accidents so even if you magically solved 100% of equipment accidents you've still only affected a tiny fraction of all accidents.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pierrebai 5y ago
I found it weird that the article states things without any single data point, study or proof. They say media got it wrong, they claim the increased death are due to street design without any clue where they got that conclusion from. I'm weary of this, because sometimes people want to push agendas.
bsder 5y ago
Traffic may have been down, but, anecdotally, the pandemic also put a bunch of people on the road who normally wouldn't have been driving themselves, no? Inexperienced drivers are stupidly dangerous. In addition to the "congestion" hypothesis, I would also posit that the lack of traffic deprived people of a lot of cues. Most driving in cities is "station keeping"--maintain your position relative to the cars around you and you can pretty much ignore everything else. If you're one of the few cars on the road, you are responsible for maintaining your speed, maintaining your lane, slowing down ahead of curves, etc. in response to all the environmental cues. And, as the self-driving folks have found out, "station keeping" is WAY easier than controlling your position relative to environmental cues. My anecdata on this is because of my eyesight going bad (getting old sucks--I recommend against it). I live on a street that I regard as a "target rich environment" (lots of pedestrians, bicycles, and motorcycles with a nice mix of Uber/Lyft drivers who are fscking road hazards)--and driving on that street was what drove me to start wearing glasses all the time. I simply cannot miss somebody because my vision is subpar and my brain edits them out, or I will kill them.

49 points by danso 5y ago

It's not impossible that "isolation and disruption" tilting people and that people drive faster with less congestion both contribute to more accidents in the US.

hirundo 5y ago
Except that, according to the article, other countries that also had lockdowns had fewer accidents as traffic reduced.

winternett 5y ago

Auto accidents are increasing because of increasing driving-related app distractions. Android auto and many other driving-related apps frequently call for attention and they also introduce frustrations and distractions that should not occur. There is also no really way to properly account for how much these apps distract people because of the ideal that they serve vital functions. Just to enable Android auto and Apple Car play a user has to take their eyes off the road and it's freaking dangerous. Make sure roads are totally clear before crossing, or take the long way around, it's your only hope as distracting ads, engagement driven development, and consumerism take hold of app making.

InitialLastName 5y ago
Wouldn't those factors also apply in places other than the US, where the crash rate didn't follow the same pattern?
- winternett 5y ago
  Absolutely. It's a world-wide epidemic. Even software driven vehicles introduce several new distractions into the process of driving. The accident rate may change in other areas due to lesser driving habits, or better road markings, but the issues of distracted driving are beginning to show and it can't simply be fixed by speed cameras and tickets, it's something that needs to be addressed with mobile phone makers, car makers, and software companies.
  - InitialLastName 5y ago
    Sure, I agree it's a problem, but if it doesn't match the pattern discussed in TFA, it isn't this problem.
hardtke 5y ago
Texting and driving is just as dangerous as drunk driving yet the legal penalties are not close. I see people texting while driving all of the time.
- twofornone 5y ago
  I'd be careful with that equivalence, texting while driving is presumably an intermittent and short lived interruption, when you drive drunk you're impaired for the whole trip.
- winternett 5y ago
  Entire companies like Uber and DoorDash are built upon drivers being distracted by mobile devices while driving. As dysfunction and advertising proliferates apps more and combined with autonomous and software-driven vehicles, we're all going to be in for a wild ride. (unintentional pun)
nradov 5y ago
Android Auto and Apple Carplay start automatically. Those aren't apps you enable while actually driving.
- winternett 5y ago
  Not in every car. Each user's experience is different. There are times you need to disable the app, and when you first connect a device or new app to it, it presents distracting prompts that many drivers will not stop properly to address. The other apps like a music player (etc..) can also easily provide a lot of distracting cues while working in conjunction with Android Auto and Apple Carplay. For example, I use BlackPlayer for music now (Because Google Play Music was retired suddenly) and it frequently malfunctions, does not play, and my volume control is often at the wrong level, and random play never works correctly... Those seemingly little issues are not too hard to address while walking, but while riding a bicycle or driving, they can cause great harm.
alphabettsy 5y ago
Of all the in-car distractions I don’t think these are the problem. I’d argue using either of those is much safer because they don’t allow you to do most of the more distracting things.

notacoward 5y ago

It will be easier to isolate the different factors once things get back to something like normal. That would have to include pre-pandemic levels of traffic-law enforcement, especially for speeding (e.g. multiple cars going 90-100mph on I-95 where anything over 75-80mph used to be a reliable way to get a ticket). Then we'll be better able to separate what factors contributed to the temporary "divot" in the accident-rate curve vs. what factors contributed to permanent change. All of the psychological factors, if they have any effect at all, are likely to be in the first bucket. App distractions and higher speed on emptier roads are likely to be in the second.

noobermin 5y ago
Why do you need to wait? Why not just compare to pre-2020 levels like the cited authors do?
- notacoward 5y ago
  Because some of those numbers, and the causes behind them, are likely to persist in the longer term. Many people who can work from home will continue to do so. Many services that used to require a physical visit will continue to be done via online self-service instead. That's the new baseline against which more transient factors need to be compared to get meaningful results, and we won't know what that baseline is until after things re-stabilize.

Apreche 5y ago

Crash, not accident.

sudden_dystopia 5y ago
Correct. Accident implies it was not somebody’s fault. Every.Single.Crash. Is someone’s fault. There are no exceptions. It wasn’t the ice or snows fault, it was your fault for going to fast for conditions.
- hammock 5y ago
  Accident means it was unintended.
  - riffic 5y ago
    check some usage notes on your use of "accident"[0] > Risk management and risk mitigation experts (such as actuaries, systems engineers, and others) generally do not approve of calling motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) "accidents", because they advisedly reserve that term for things not directly caused by human recklessness or negligence. Because it is predictably obvious (and directly causal) that distracted driving (e.g., texting, IMing/DMing, videogaming, or intoxication while driving) produces MVCs, those MVCs are not "accidents". Nonetheless, among the general public, MVCs are quite often called "accidents" rather than "crashes" or "collisions", not only by idiomatic inertia but also because connotatively, it steers clear of broaching the topic of blame assignment, whereas a phrase like "he crashed" connotes blame. There's also a relevant twitter reply concerning intent[1] > On the part of the individual drivers, it was accidental. > > On the part of the city, it was deliberate - they built an unsafe road, they can see the statistics - it's so unsafe that TV news crews come to talk about how dangerous it is - and they don't fix it. (final edit) We know how to fix the roads - there's a large body of evidence showing the "Complete Streets" approach (bollards, lane reductions, et cetera) works. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/accident#Usage_notes https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/accident#Usage_notes [1] https://twitter.com/DragonfrogMog/status/1502316785583808514 https://twitter.com/DragonfrogMog/status/1502316785583808514

sudden_dystopia 5y ago

Too many people don’t actually know the rules of the road or have understanding of even basic driving etiquette. They don’t understand that you shouldn’t tailgate people. They don’t understand that accidents aren’t accidents, they are all caused by someone’s negligence. People just don’t understand how dangerous driving is. I think that this driving ignorance is the root problem, the cause of causes. Need to make driving tests much harder.

jayd16 5y ago
Accidents are from complacency not ability to pass a test.
- mdorazio 5y ago
  I would argue complacency + selfishness + a small amount of ignorance. Some people really do not know that you shouldn’t get in the left lane unless you plan to pass a vehicle or want to drive faster than your current lane. A lot of people know you shouldn’t tailgate or cut people off or smash the accelerator just so you can smash the brakes 10 seconds later when you get to the red light or stopped traffic that was clearly visible, but don’t give a shit because when they’re in control of a car they feel entitled to drive however the hell they want.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Depends on the type of test (book, practical, etc). If someone is complacent, then they likely were complacent when preparing for the test (didn't study, no drivers Ed course, etc). A reasonable test can weed out those complacent people who don't care to know or follow the law/instructions.
  - jayd16 5y ago
    The simple counter example is how many people phone and drive when they were able to abstain during the test.
    - 5y ago

jcims 5y ago

Some breakdown by state from the NHTSA https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813240 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... Anecdotally I've driven in Texas, California, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania over the past 6 months. Southern Florida, Miami in particular, was far and away the worst (again limited sampling and anecodotal) in overall 'quality' of driver. I was nearly hit on several occasions by people making up their own rules. Constantly seeing people just do whatever they felt like (huge exotic and performance car scene down there though). Horns honking almost nonstop. It honestly felt like a good portion of people behind the wheel didn't actually know US driving laws or dgaf. But possibly to the point in the article, congestion was so bad that you didn't achieve the energy levels to kill a person in a modern vehicle. Zero chance I ride a motorcycle or scooter in that area though. I drove a couple thousand miles in Texas from Dallas down through Austin, San Antonio, South Padre Island and back over the course of a couple of weeks. Overall the drivers there were middle of the pack, but the speeds were off the charts. Regular excursions into triple digits just to keep with the flow of traffic. Also drove several thousand miles in and round San Diego over the course of a month. It was kind of a mix of the two, moderate amount of poor decision making but also very high speeds punctuated with traffic accordion stops out of nowhere. More whisps of tire smoke and whiffs of scorched brakes (and, lets face it, weed) on the highway there than anywhere else I drove. Ohio and PA didn't feel out of the ordinary at all. Basically a toned down San Diego, some bad driving and some high speed. But I'm from the midwest so it's probably just acclimatization, statistically all of the above are within spitting distance.

rectang 5y ago
A prevailing flow of traffic moving at 80 mph in the San Diego metro is common in the faster lanes of some highways. But triple digits, like you report in Texas, that I haven't seen. There are surely a few drivers zipping around at 90-100+, but they're the dangerous ones who are going outside the prevailing flow of traffic. I suspect that the cops make a priority of pulling over such drivers, although I can only speculate about the likelihood of getting busted.
- jcims 5y ago

throw0101a 5y ago

Some folks are encouraging the use of the word "collision" or "crash" instead of "accident": > Before the labor movement, factory owners would say "it was an accident" when American workers were injured in unsafe conditions. > Before the movement to combat drunk driving, intoxicated drivers would say "it was an accident" when they crashed their cars. > Planes don’t have accidents. They crash. Cranes don’t have accidents. They collapse. And as a society, we expect answers and solutions. > Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers. They are not accidents. Let’s stop using the word "accident" today. * https://crashnotaccident.com https://crashnotaccident.com * https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9615_11261_63762---,00.html https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9615_11261_63762-... > If you believe these incidents are accidents then they will happen to you. Don’t just change the word; change the mentality from accident to the collision. Doing this will help you make the switch to believing they are preventable. Many people say accidents happen. Sure they do, but these are not accidents and they are preventable when you change the belief and do you best to avoid them while staying focused on the driving environment. * https://safetydriven.ca/resource/accident-or-collision/ https://safetydriven.ca/resource/accident-or-collision/ * https://www.roadpeace.org/get-involved/crash-not-accident/ https://www.roadpeace.org/get-involved/crash-not-accident/

rectang 5y ago
I'm just one fool with an opinion on the internet, but FWIW I like "collision" as a substitute for "accident" better than "crash". "Crash" connotes something spectacular and would seem to exclude fender benders, while both "accident" and "collision" would include them.
tiahura 5y ago
You’re fighting a losing battle. The issue is the legal / insurance context. For legal purposes the critical distinction is accident or intentional. “Accident” doesn’t necessarily mean act of god, or unpreventable, it just means it wasn’t intentional.
- riffic 5y ago
  go swing a bat around in a crowd, you can say it was an oopsie if you were to hit someone.

hammock 5y ago

I don't see enough data in either story presented (average speed is higher leading to more fatalities vs. isolation/disruption) to come to a reliable conclusion. It's clear enough that higher speeds lead to crashes being more likely fatal on average, but a key part of the argument is acknowledging that there are much fewer cars on the road - which would tend to reduce the number of crashes. You would have to look at the data to see which factor dominates.

riffic 5y ago

lol, "accidents" are actually results with known causes. edit: Professor Andrew Gelman[0], if you're reading any of these replies, go fix your title (accident is not in vogue these days per AP Stylebook). You also misspelled Chuck Marohn's surname in the copy a couple of times, so this as a whole looks sloppy. [0] https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/authors/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/authors/

giantg2 5y ago

Absolutely no mention of the fact that these countries with lower crash and fatality rates also have much more stringent license testing requirements.

frenchy 5y ago
In Canada, our driving tests are reasonably stringent (it's uncommon to pass the first time), but you only have to pass once and the police rarely enforce traffic law. The result is that people are great drivers until they get their license, and then quickly turn into morons and just drive like everyone else. Mandatory retesting might help, though if there's still no enforcement, we'll just get drivers who are good a taking the test, but not driving.
- giantg2 5y ago
  True, enforcement need to also happen. Retesting every 5 or so years could be good too.
nerdponx 5y ago
This effect should also be noticeable across states in the USA. Is it?

jeffbee 5y ago

Something nobody seems to write down is that due to the "essential worker" phenomenon the drivers still on the road are selectively the worse part of the driver population. They have obsolete, unmaintained cars. They are overworked and never sleep. They are younger and less experienced. Yeah all the 50-year-old corporate attorneys are working from home, but the guy who stocks the Safeway overnight as his third job is still out there, speeding on his bald tires.

1970-01-01 5y ago

>>One thing that Marsh and Pareene get into in their article is the difference between what is actually happening—a lack of congestion allowing people to drive too fast and then crashing their cars—and a much different narrative that’s been appearing in the news. >>that our roads are inherently dangerous, and congestion has been a major force in keeping the accident rate down I think this nails the problem. Drivers became dull and unskilled as driving became slower. Split second decisions dwindled, and a minority of drivers lost their split second muscle memory. Now anything beyond mundane stop-and-go traffic causes them to drive beyond their ability. When the roads opened up, they physically couldn't keep the car from crashing into something.

Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago

It's not like Europeans haven't also been speeding like crazy. I think one factor is that in Europe cars are generally equipped with brakes, tires and suspension with a much bigger margin of safety for high speed operation. One of the biggest car markets in Europe is the one with a lot of unrestricted Autobahn. And worse yet, many US states don't even have regular technical inspections, so you get away with more deferred maintenance. When you're stuck in 55 mph land, a car can get pretty dilapidated and still mostly hold together, but once you subject it to high speeds and high braking and cornering loads the risk of catastrophic failure skyrockets.

giantg2 5y ago
"And worse yet, many US states don't even have regular technical inspections, so you get away with more deferred maintenance." US inspections are generally a joke (compared to Europe). There's not even a statistically significant difference in accidents caused by mechanical issues between states with inspections and those without. The vast majority of accidents are driver error.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  All inspections are a joke. It's a fundamentally poor use of resources. The overwhelming majority of accidents are caused by things people knew were dumb and did anyway. Shaking down everyone with a 10yo+ car to the tune of one random suspension/steering part a year won't change that. Chasing the long tail of equipment failure will do nothing to address the judgement related accidents so even if you magically solved 100% of equipment accidents you've still only affected a tiny fraction of all accidents.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

pierrebai 5y ago

I found it weird that the article states things without any single data point, study or proof. They say media got it wrong, they claim the increased death are due to street design without any clue where they got that conclusion from. I'm weary of this, because sometimes people want to push agendas.

bsder 5y ago

Traffic may have been down, but, anecdotally, the pandemic also put a bunch of people on the road who normally wouldn't have been driving themselves, no? Inexperienced drivers are stupidly dangerous. In addition to the "congestion" hypothesis, I would also posit that the lack of traffic deprived people of a lot of cues. Most driving in cities is "station keeping"--maintain your position relative to the cars around you and you can pretty much ignore everything else. If you're one of the few cars on the road, you are responsible for maintaining your speed, maintaining your lane, slowing down ahead of curves, etc. in response to all the environmental cues. And, as the self-driving folks have found out, "station keeping" is WAY easier than controlling your position relative to environmental cues. My anecdata on this is because of my eyesight going bad (getting old sucks--I recommend against it). I live on a street that I regard as a "target rich environment" (lots of pedestrians, bicycles, and motorcycles with a nice mix of Uber/Lyft drivers who are fscking road hazards)--and driving on that street was what drove me to start wearing glasses all the time. I simply cannot miss somebody because my vision is subpar and my brain edits them out, or I will kill them.