4 ms·

Yes because of the driver itself is behaviorally different between the bus and the car. The bus drivers are profesionals who drive no higher than the speed limi

by asdff 4y ago

Yes because of the driver itself is behaviorally different between the bus and the car. The bus drivers are profesionals who drive no higher than the speed limit, they heed all traffic laws, they generally keep to the right or otherwise drive predictably, and some times they even have dedicated bus lanes. Your average car driver is not all of those things at once, if they were there would be a lot fewer people going 5 or 15 over the speed limit and driving drunk.

josephcsible 4y ago
Those are a lot of reasons to think it's plausible that it might still be true after the adjustment. Is there actual data that shows it is true, though? Also, I've seen buses break traffic laws before, so don't pretend they never do.
- asdff 4y ago
  The data does show this, look at figure 1 here at the top of the article: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/12/19/heres-how-much-safer-transit-is-compared-to-driving/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/12/19/heres-how-much-safer-...
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    According to that figure, while transit buses are safer for "Users (passengers and employees in a vehicle)" than passenger cars and light trucks are, they're more dangerous for "Others (e.g., pedestrians and passengers in other vehicles)". And isn't that exactly the same thing going on with big vs. small cars? Buses are bigger than cars and SUVs, so they're safer for their own occupants at the expense of everyone else. (Note that the figure measures fatalities per passenger-mile, not per mile, so the advantage that fewer buses would be needed than cars to move the same number of people has already been factored in.)
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      The USA has very pedestrian hostile laws/infrastructure and buses definitionally stop and start where there are a lot of pedestrians (and many of them will be crossing the road in a rush because they saw a bus). That data could be representitive of buses being big and heavy or it could be representitive of them sharing space with pedestrians. Compare the same dataset for busses on a grade separated RBT with well paid/trained drivers and platform doors and you get a very different story.
      - josephcsible 4y ago
        > or it could be representitive of them sharing space with pedestrians. But there's nowhere that buses share space with pedestrians and cars don't, so that can't account for why buses are more dangerous than cars.

by asdff 4y ago

josephcsible 4y ago

Those are a lot of reasons to think it's plausible that it might still be true after the adjustment. Is there actual data that shows it is true, though? Also, I've seen buses break traffic laws before, so don't pretend they never do.

asdff 4y ago
The data does show this, look at figure 1 here at the top of the article: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/12/19/heres-how-much-safer-transit-is-compared-to-driving/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/12/19/heres-how-much-safer-...
- josephcsible 4y ago
  According to that figure, while transit buses are safer for "Users (passengers and employees in a vehicle)" than passenger cars and light trucks are, they're more dangerous for "Others (e.g., pedestrians and passengers in other vehicles)". And isn't that exactly the same thing going on with big vs. small cars? Buses are bigger than cars and SUVs, so they're safer for their own occupants at the expense of everyone else. (Note that the figure measures fatalities per passenger-mile, not per mile, so the advantage that fewer buses would be needed than cars to move the same number of people has already been factored in.)
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    The USA has very pedestrian hostile laws/infrastructure and buses definitionally stop and start where there are a lot of pedestrians (and many of them will be crossing the road in a rush because they saw a bus). That data could be representitive of buses being big and heavy or it could be representitive of them sharing space with pedestrians. Compare the same dataset for busses on a grade separated RBT with well paid/trained drivers and platform doors and you get a very different story.
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      > or it could be representitive of them sharing space with pedestrians. But there's nowhere that buses share space with pedestrians and cars don't, so that can't account for why buses are more dangerous than cars.