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The author's goals are noble but the paths they advocate for to get there are based on ignorance at best. The NHTSA doesn't care about pedestrians because Eur

The author's goals are noble but the paths they advocate for to get there are based on ignorance at best. The NHTSA doesn't care about pedestrians because Europe does and by proxy that covers basically everything in the US except trucks. Speeding stats are basically useless given the state of speed limit compliance in the US. Current breathalyzers suck for a variety of reasons though if the OEMs start adding them they might suck less due to incentive alignment. Seat belt interlocks are fine and probably the only politically tractable thing on the list. Wanna make roads safer? Reduce the number of interactions between traffic of differing speeds, reduce the speed differences at which interactions happen and where possible modify these interactions to reduce accident frequency (e.g. roundabouts vs n-way stops). And before a certain group of jerks gets annoying, my definition of traffic is "all road users".

francisofascii 4y ago
No, many of these fatal accidents are because people are driving too fast. The point is if we did actual speed enforcement, the speed demons would not get away with driving like maniacs. But nobody wants actual speed enforcement.
- cupofpython 4y ago
  >many of these fatal accidents are because people are driving too fast because is not a word i agree with in this sentence. If what you say is actual truth then we should reduce the speed limit to 30mph everywhere, including highways, to reduce head-on collision deaths. Because speed is the most important factor right? It cant be how we hand out drivers licenses like candy and blame everything but the driver's decisions and awareness in critical moments. Failure to reduce speed before taking dangerous actions is the issue. Not going fast in general. If you want to enforce top-speed as a means of indirectly controlling the risk of people failing to reduce speed appropriately.. then you need to set the top-speed to the safest speed for all driving activity. It is barbaric that we keep pulling over people going fast on an empty road and pretend that is helping enforce people to stop making blind turns and lane merges at unsafe speeds
- markus92 4y ago
  You could also build the roads in such a way to discourage speeding, e.g. don't make roads with a 20mph speed limit look the exact same as those you can go 50mph on. If you are physically able to go more than twice the speed limit at a road, something's wrong with the road. I can't recall the number of times driving in Texas I asked myself what the speeding limit was, as it could literally be any number. The road itself sure didn't give me any hints regarding what it was. Ways to do this is by making them a bit more narrow, or in residential areas make them a bit more swerving for example. No need for enforcement, just gently encouraging drivers to drive the proper speed.

francisofascii 4y ago

No, many of these fatal accidents are because people are driving too fast. The point is if we did actual speed enforcement, the speed demons would not get away with driving like maniacs. But nobody wants actual speed enforcement.

cupofpython 4y ago
>many of these fatal accidents are because people are driving too fast because is not a word i agree with in this sentence. If what you say is actual truth then we should reduce the speed limit to 30mph everywhere, including highways, to reduce head-on collision deaths. Because speed is the most important factor right? It cant be how we hand out drivers licenses like candy and blame everything but the driver's decisions and awareness in critical moments. Failure to reduce speed before taking dangerous actions is the issue. Not going fast in general. If you want to enforce top-speed as a means of indirectly controlling the risk of people failing to reduce speed appropriately.. then you need to set the top-speed to the safest speed for all driving activity. It is barbaric that we keep pulling over people going fast on an empty road and pretend that is helping enforce people to stop making blind turns and lane merges at unsafe speeds
markus92 4y ago
You could also build the roads in such a way to discourage speeding, e.g. don't make roads with a 20mph speed limit look the exact same as those you can go 50mph on. If you are physically able to go more than twice the speed limit at a road, something's wrong with the road. I can't recall the number of times driving in Texas I asked myself what the speeding limit was, as it could literally be any number. The road itself sure didn't give me any hints regarding what it was. Ways to do this is by making them a bit more narrow, or in residential areas make them a bit more swerving for example. No need for enforcement, just gently encouraging drivers to drive the proper speed.