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> Second, I think most American drivers are reckless. > I have a solution, but most Americans don't like it. I'm fairly certain that poor driving isn't lim

> Second, I think most American drivers are reckless. > I have a solution, but most Americans don't like it. I'm fairly certain that poor driving isn't limited to Americans. Why call out them, specifically? > An average level of patience, skill and focus is simply > insufficient to safely operate a car. You have research to back this up? What's considered "average"? What's considered "safe"? > Require an expensive and hard to obtain license for driving (akin to a > pilot's license, since cars are statistically more dangerous than planes > anyway), and drastically increase public transportation to accommodate the > increase in non-drivers. Making something more expensive makes it more exclusive, but only to people who have money. Making it hard to obtain doesn't ensure that unsafe driver's won't get one, just that they'll go through more trouble to get it. If you remove drivers from the system, you also remove a source of revenue for the city in violation fees -- speeding tickets, moving violations, parking meters and tickets, etc. So your plan is to decrease revenue while drastically increasing the amount and quality of public transportation? My city can't even operate a municipal bus service properly, and that's at current revenue levels.

roel_v 15y ago
"I'm fairly certain that poor driving isn't limited to Americans. Why call out them, specifically?" Maybe the writer is American and is writing for an American audience, and was just using 'Americans' as a synonym for 'the general population'. "You have research to back this up? What's considered "average"? What's considered "safe"?" Well, the amount of traffic accidents is evidence enough, isn't it?
- generalk 15y ago
  Maybe the writer is American, maybe he isn't, but it sounded to me as if he was specifically calling out Americans. Maybe I'm wrong. > Well, the amount of traffic accidents is evidence enough, > isn't it? What amount? Evidence of what? The original post I responded to claimed that in order to decrease the number of traffic accidents, we need to license fewer people to drive, because the average person can't operate a vehicle safely. But licensing fewer people != licensing only people who will always drive a vehicle 100% safely. The set of accidents includes accidents caused by factors other than lack of training or lack of attention. Poor weather conditions, drunk drivers, falling asleep at the wheel; these aren't things that licensing fewer people to drive will solve, not to mention that simply refusing to issue a license doesn't ensure that the person won't drive. It's an overly simplistic solution presented in a superior tone that does not solve the stated problem.
viraptor 15y ago
> My city can't even operate a municipal bus service properly, and that's at current revenue levels. If enough people switch to public transport, they're going to have to pay for it / fund it.
DanielStraight 15y ago
I called out Americans specifically because the author of the post dealt specifically with Americans. As for backing up the claim that average driving isn't safe: average driving is, by definition, how people in general drive. How people in general drive causes something like 30k fatal accidents a year. For comparison, there were zero U.S. airline fatalities in 2010. I've pulled stats before (I can dig for them if you want) that show that public ground transportation has something like a tenth the deaths of personal cars. The amount of needless deaths in the U.S. can probably be reduced by about 27k a year by improving transport safety. I think that's worth trying for. (I will agree that it is possible that all or most traffic accidents are caused by a small fraction of drivers, which would basically nullify my point about average drivers, but I have never seen any reports to this effect.) Removing drivers removes a source of revenue but charging more for a license adds one. Public transportation also adds a source of revenue at the same time as it adds costs (ideally the system would eventually break even). I'm not saying I've run the numbers. The point is just that public transportation isn't just a money sink. It's also a source.
freehunter 15y ago
>If you remove drivers from the system, you also remove a source of revenue for the city in violation fees -- speeding tickets, moving violations, parking meters and tickets, etc. Fines are as legitimate of a revenue source as lawsuits are. I'd rather not have our government be Righthaven. The idea of "we need more money, so start giving out more tickets than you normally would" is not a good solution.

roel_v 15y ago

"I'm fairly certain that poor driving isn't limited to Americans. Why call out them, specifically?" Maybe the writer is American and is writing for an American audience, and was just using 'Americans' as a synonym for 'the general population'. "You have research to back this up? What's considered "average"? What's considered "safe"?" Well, the amount of traffic accidents is evidence enough, isn't it?

generalk 15y ago
Maybe the writer is American, maybe he isn't, but it sounded to me as if he was specifically calling out Americans. Maybe I'm wrong. > Well, the amount of traffic accidents is evidence enough, > isn't it? What amount? Evidence of what? The original post I responded to claimed that in order to decrease the number of traffic accidents, we need to license fewer people to drive, because the average person can't operate a vehicle safely. But licensing fewer people != licensing only people who will always drive a vehicle 100% safely. The set of accidents includes accidents caused by factors other than lack of training or lack of attention. Poor weather conditions, drunk drivers, falling asleep at the wheel; these aren't things that licensing fewer people to drive will solve, not to mention that simply refusing to issue a license doesn't ensure that the person won't drive. It's an overly simplistic solution presented in a superior tone that does not solve the stated problem.

viraptor 15y ago

> My city can't even operate a municipal bus service properly, and that's at current revenue levels. If enough people switch to public transport, they're going to have to pay for it / fund it.

DanielStraight 15y ago

I called out Americans specifically because the author of the post dealt specifically with Americans. As for backing up the claim that average driving isn't safe: average driving is, by definition, how people in general drive. How people in general drive causes something like 30k fatal accidents a year. For comparison, there were zero U.S. airline fatalities in 2010. I've pulled stats before (I can dig for them if you want) that show that public ground transportation has something like a tenth the deaths of personal cars. The amount of needless deaths in the U.S. can probably be reduced by about 27k a year by improving transport safety. I think that's worth trying for. (I will agree that it is possible that all or most traffic accidents are caused by a small fraction of drivers, which would basically nullify my point about average drivers, but I have never seen any reports to this effect.) Removing drivers removes a source of revenue but charging more for a license adds one. Public transportation also adds a source of revenue at the same time as it adds costs (ideally the system would eventually break even). I'm not saying I've run the numbers. The point is just that public transportation isn't just a money sink. It's also a source.

freehunter 15y ago

>If you remove drivers from the system, you also remove a source of revenue for the city in violation fees -- speeding tickets, moving violations, parking meters and tickets, etc. Fines are as legitimate of a revenue source as lawsuits are. I'd rather not have our government be Righthaven. The idea of "we need more money, so start giving out more tickets than you normally would" is not a good solution.