2 ms·

People just aren't good at understanding risk. If we do it every day we get numb to it. I actually use cars as a personal risk metric. Most people drive regula

People just aren't good at understanding risk. If we do it every day we get numb to it. I actually use cars as a personal risk metric. Most people drive regularly so it is clearly a risk we 'accept' but we also admit it is risky and require training, inspections, vehicle and road standards, dedicated police/fire/ambulance/etc etc etc. Basically, driving is my cut-line. If I am doing an activity that is statistically as dangerous/near the danger of driving I will consider extra precautions or consider avoiding it all together. If it is less dangerous I generally just accept the default safety included with the activity. If it is more dangerous I seriously consider not doing it.

panick21_ 3y ago
Regular people being familiar with it has an effect, but most people don't actually influence the relevant regulations. Personally, I generally avoid driving whenever possible but I live in a city in Switerland it very easy for me. And of course driving here is safer. The plane manufactures are a small group of companies and a slightly larger group of airlines, but even there, its basically a small group of major airlines. Most safety related things can be regulated federally and regular has the ability to learn from incidents, and then cycle that knowlage into regulation. Each incident is big enough that it contains some learning. With road safety non of that exists. You have countless 'small' accidents, and non directly influence regulations. You then have an agency looking at car safety, but they don't look at safety holistically, they car about the people in the car during an accidents, and not much beyond. There is in theory somebody responsible for designing safe infrastructure, but infrastructure standards evolve very slowly and not primarily because of safety. And lets be real, many of those standards haven't been updated since the 60s. There is basically no feedback cycle that connects road safety and road infrastructure. Then there are other people who are responsible for rules about drinking, seat belts and so on. There are plenty of roads where multiple people died in virtually the same place. But there simply is no feedback mechanism. Luckily 'some' forward thinking regulators in Europe have adopted a more areospace like system. Each accidents has learning, each on creates a number of short term recommendations, and longer term recommendations. The short terms ones are actually done. And the long term recommendation are planned for the next overhaul. Other similar places are identified and potentially also upgraded. And then you also take the learning's from those accidents that directly influences the next edition of the infrastructure standard that are regularly updated.
mlyle 3y ago
You know, progress on road safety in the US isn't as quick as we'd like, but it's been tremendous. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_deaths_per_VMT.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_death... The death rate per mile has been roughly halving each generation.
- jmward01 3y ago
  Yeah! I am -very- glad to see this trend. I am guilty of posting deaths per year when other normalized stats are far better. Thanks for pointing that out.
- browningstreet 3y ago
  But the US traffic death rate is more than double the average rate in other industrialized countries. There’s probably a point at which we can’t improve these rates given the cars we drive and the way we design streets and the lack of alternatives to driving, generally.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    > But the US traffic death rate is more than double the average rate in other industrialized countries. On a population, not a per-mile basis (though it is a bit higher than the average for industrialized countries, it ain't double). Here, the US being big works against us, as does being unnecessarily spread out and driving a lot more "just because".
    - browningstreet 3y ago
      Yeah but 81% of Americans live in urban areas.
      - mlyle 3y ago
        Yes, but even US urban areas tend to be larger, unnecessarily spread out, and involve more driving (all mentioned above).
- 3y ago

panick21_ 3y ago

Regular people being familiar with it has an effect, but most people don't actually influence the relevant regulations. Personally, I generally avoid driving whenever possible but I live in a city in Switerland it very easy for me. And of course driving here is safer. The plane manufactures are a small group of companies and a slightly larger group of airlines, but even there, its basically a small group of major airlines. Most safety related things can be regulated federally and regular has the ability to learn from incidents, and then cycle that knowlage into regulation. Each incident is big enough that it contains some learning. With road safety non of that exists. You have countless 'small' accidents, and non directly influence regulations. You then have an agency looking at car safety, but they don't look at safety holistically, they car about the people in the car during an accidents, and not much beyond. There is in theory somebody responsible for designing safe infrastructure, but infrastructure standards evolve very slowly and not primarily because of safety. And lets be real, many of those standards haven't been updated since the 60s. There is basically no feedback cycle that connects road safety and road infrastructure. Then there are other people who are responsible for rules about drinking, seat belts and so on. There are plenty of roads where multiple people died in virtually the same place. But there simply is no feedback mechanism. Luckily 'some' forward thinking regulators in Europe have adopted a more areospace like system. Each accidents has learning, each on creates a number of short term recommendations, and longer term recommendations. The short terms ones are actually done. And the long term recommendation are planned for the next overhaul. Other similar places are identified and potentially also upgraded. And then you also take the learning's from those accidents that directly influences the next edition of the infrastructure standard that are regularly updated.

mlyle 3y ago

You know, progress on road safety in the US isn't as quick as we'd like, but it's been tremendous. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_deaths_per_VMT.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_death... The death rate per mile has been roughly halving each generation.

jmward01 3y ago
Yeah! I am -very- glad to see this trend. I am guilty of posting deaths per year when other normalized stats are far better. Thanks for pointing that out.
browningstreet 3y ago
But the US traffic death rate is more than double the average rate in other industrialized countries. There’s probably a point at which we can’t improve these rates given the cars we drive and the way we design streets and the lack of alternatives to driving, generally.
- mlyle 3y ago
  > But the US traffic death rate is more than double the average rate in other industrialized countries. On a population, not a per-mile basis (though it is a bit higher than the average for industrialized countries, it ain't double). Here, the US being big works against us, as does being unnecessarily spread out and driving a lot more "just because".
  - browningstreet 3y ago
    Yeah but 81% of Americans live in urban areas.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      Yes, but even US urban areas tend to be larger, unnecessarily spread out, and involve more driving (all mentioned above).
3y ago