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To me the comment spoke to our criminal lack of intelligent road design. It’s well known through multiple studies that road design impacts how fast people drive

To me the comment spoke to our criminal lack of intelligent road design. It’s well known through multiple studies that road design impacts how fast people drive far more than posted speed limit signs. If we actually cared about road safety, we would design roads to be more safe and not just design a road that is comfortable to drive 60mph on and put up a 25mph speed limit. When you want slower speeds you need to make lanes more narrow. Add obstacles along the side of the road so it doesn’t feel so open. Add medians as areas where pedestrians have a refuge when daring to cross a place designed for vehicles. Add chicanes and bollards to force speed compliance in especially dangerous areas. There seems to be almost none of this happening in most places in the US that I have visited.

thefaux 2y ago
We also could largely solve this problem with technological enforcement but people really hate that. If we made both the financial penalties for speeding and the probability of being caught sufficiently high, we could practically eliminate it overnight.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > We also could largely solve this problem with technological enforcement but people really hate that. The challenge in giving powerful entities direct control over our actions is they: directly control our actions, ceaselessly seek to control other actions, will be as unaccountable as they can be, will not ever allow control to flow in the other direction.
  - FactKnower69 2y ago
    This type of whining about slippery slope hypotheticals is ubiquitous in these discussions, but it's not very compelling up against the current reality of 40,000 unimaginably violent early deaths every single year in the US alone
    - lazide 2y ago
      Still tiny compared to heart disease!
      - oblio 2y ago
        Most of those are avoidable plus the rate of long term disabilities is about 10x the death rate (so 400 000) and of minor injuries is 10x that (so 4 million) plus... we can do both. There is plenty of money for safer road infra, DRIVERS JUST DON'T WANT IT because killing a stranger matters less than 5 fewer minutes spent commuting per day.
        lazide 2y ago
        The same situation is true of heart disease, albeit the risk is generally killing themselves vs a random stranger. People just run out of shits to give at some point, and do what is easy.
        oblio 2y ago
        Agreed, especially when the opposition is formed out of several major industries in the country (car manufacturers, adjacent companies, road developers, big box stores, etc.).
        lazide 2y ago
        I'm not sure it rises to 'opposition' per-se. For instance, I don't think anyone is sitting there cackling about how they're killing anyone due to them being obese fat asses, and figuring out how to make it worse. It's really macro-economic and social inertia. Those sedentary folks have also convinced themselves they LIKE IT, and there is room (and real economic incentives) in the US trending in those directions. Like low property prices in the 'burbs, cheap gas (by global and economic standards), etc.
    - Supermancho 2y ago
      > it's not very compelling up against the current reality of 40,000 unimaginably violent early deaths every single year in the US alone I disagree. The economy depends on the rivers of money that flow through the roads. Roads dispense communication, goods, labor, et al, over the vast area that is the USA. 40k deaths, distributed across the US, is a good deal. On the other hand, I had great expectations for companies that wanted to provide a solution that's safer for a profit (robocars). A handful of people died during the development, and it's rejected outright by large portions of the population. So here we are.
- alexpetralia 2y ago
  In my one trip to China so far, this is exactly what I observed!
  - Gigachad 2y ago
    It's the same in Australia. Speeding is quite uncommon and you'll be very quickly caught out.
- brailsafe 2y ago
  Indeed, just because a problem could theoretically be addressed (I think solved is a reach) by technology, doesn't mean it's a sensible choice. Much like how putting a sign that says "pull" on a door that's designed to be pushed is analogous to what most places in NA do, which is to threaten people who use the road in the way it's designed.
- Karrot_Kream 2y ago
  The reason this isn't solved is because traffic deaths are considered to be a "cost of doing business". Most pedestrian traffic in the US is in cities and due to the way funding formulas and political representation works in the US, suburban and rural areas have more political power than urban areas which care more about traffic throughput than pedestrian safety, so the issue never gets fixed. The only places in the US making headway have large urbanized areas and even they are struggling.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    Rural areas don’t have much political power either. A lot of rural America is actually unincorporated which means they don’t have a municipal level government, and instead are ruled by the county[^†]. In my experience the outsized political power is across gegraphic areas and instead is divided between classes, with the rich having almost all political power. A rich neighborhood in San Francisco hold much more political power than an improvised suburb in Fresno. Instead the reason I believe for pedestrian traffic being considered the "cost of doing business" among the political classes, is the good old hatred of the poor. Pedastrian casualties are extremely rare among the rich, as the rich usually drive almost everywhere, and if they walk, they do so in an area which they have lobbied to make safe for pedestrians. The rich don’t care if the poor die. †: As an immigrant, this feels like a major democratic oversight, one of many USA should fix if it wants to consider it self a democracy by 21st century standards.
    - ufocia 2y ago
      Let me understand this. Are you suggesting adding yet another inefficient layer of government in sparsely populated areas? BTW, in at least some states there are intermediate subdivisions of government, e.g. townships and districts, which take care of the roads even in rural areas.
      - runarberg 2y ago
        You are responding to my footnote, but ok. Yes. This is what most—all?—other democracies do. More realistically though, municipality level governments include surrounding rural areas. In areas with small towns and large areas of rural farmlands, the farmers and town residents have equal representation, but the farmers obviously have a bigger political influence (hopefully the municipality governments have enough representatives though that the townfolks have at least a couple of representatives). In reality unincorporated America also includes heavily urbanized areas (more often than not poorer than the surrounding areas). Here in Seattle this includes Skyway and White Center. But even if aside from those it is pretty unacceptable that all local planning for the community of e.g. Fairwood, or even Hobart don’t have any say in their municipality level organization, instead relying on the same county council as Seattle for their local affairs (a council with only 9 representatives for a total of 2.2 million constituents).
- roughly 2y ago
  1) build a society that requires a car to get around 2) exclusively sell cars with ludicrous acceleration and top speed 3) set legal speed limit at 1/6th the top speed of most vehicles 4) enforce strict financial penalties for operating one’s obligatory high-powered vehicle at more than 1/6th its maximum speed. I’m strongly anti-car - I think we fucked up a whole lot designing society the way we did, but at this point, actual strict enforcement of speed limits with financial penalties is just robbery. If you want fewer people to die in car accidents, build a world that doesn’t obligate everyone to drive, or build a world where the vehicles for sale aren’t all SUVs with 0-60 times that would embarrass a Ferrari from 40 years ago, but don’t just start fining people when they use the vehicle you made them buy to do the thing it was made to do.
  - xpe 2y ago
    Please be realistic about what interventions are available given the current US system. Redesign our entire road system? Sounds great, but how are we going do it? Think about the policy changes and thousands or more of political wranglings across every populous jurisdiction in the United States. Even if we get it done over the next 20 to 120 years, what are we going do in the meanwhile?
    - com 2y ago
      Like a lot of things, start with reviewing what works elsewhere, start some pilots, and what works do bigger and bigger rollouts. Like, use data. If marketers and TikTok can trick us so easily using these techniques we can do the same in socio-technical settings too. Like most things, “architectural” systems solutions will work better than point behavioural interventions, but it’s always going to be a mix. Bike safety in The Netherlands was a multigenerational effort ranging from creating standards around roads intersections, bike paths and pavements and slowly remediating old ones while building new ones. That’s only a tiny part of a society-wide effort to improve quality- and length-of-life measures, but like the US Interstate highway system, has had measurable results in terms of economic and social outcomes. Some actions taken today will have individual results tomorrow. Some in 30 years. Better get started, right?
  - 2y ago

thefaux 2y ago

We also could largely solve this problem with technological enforcement but people really hate that. If we made both the financial penalties for speeding and the probability of being caught sufficiently high, we could practically eliminate it overnight.

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> We also could largely solve this problem with technological enforcement but people really hate that. The challenge in giving powerful entities direct control over our actions is they: directly control our actions, ceaselessly seek to control other actions, will be as unaccountable as they can be, will not ever allow control to flow in the other direction.
- FactKnower69 2y ago
  This type of whining about slippery slope hypotheticals is ubiquitous in these discussions, but it's not very compelling up against the current reality of 40,000 unimaginably violent early deaths every single year in the US alone
  - lazide 2y ago
    Still tiny compared to heart disease!
    - oblio 2y ago
      Most of those are avoidable plus the rate of long term disabilities is about 10x the death rate (so 400 000) and of minor injuries is 10x that (so 4 million) plus... we can do both. There is plenty of money for safer road infra, DRIVERS JUST DON'T WANT IT because killing a stranger matters less than 5 fewer minutes spent commuting per day.
      - lazide 2y ago
        The same situation is true of heart disease, albeit the risk is generally killing themselves vs a random stranger. People just run out of shits to give at some point, and do what is easy.
        oblio 2y ago
        Agreed, especially when the opposition is formed out of several major industries in the country (car manufacturers, adjacent companies, road developers, big box stores, etc.).
        lazide 2y ago
        I'm not sure it rises to 'opposition' per-se. For instance, I don't think anyone is sitting there cackling about how they're killing anyone due to them being obese fat asses, and figuring out how to make it worse. It's really macro-economic and social inertia. Those sedentary folks have also convinced themselves they LIKE IT, and there is room (and real economic incentives) in the US trending in those directions. Like low property prices in the 'burbs, cheap gas (by global and economic standards), etc.
  - Supermancho 2y ago
    > it's not very compelling up against the current reality of 40,000 unimaginably violent early deaths every single year in the US alone I disagree. The economy depends on the rivers of money that flow through the roads. Roads dispense communication, goods, labor, et al, over the vast area that is the USA. 40k deaths, distributed across the US, is a good deal. On the other hand, I had great expectations for companies that wanted to provide a solution that's safer for a profit (robocars). A handful of people died during the development, and it's rejected outright by large portions of the population. So here we are.
alexpetralia 2y ago
In my one trip to China so far, this is exactly what I observed!
- Gigachad 2y ago
  It's the same in Australia. Speeding is quite uncommon and you'll be very quickly caught out.
brailsafe 2y ago
Indeed, just because a problem could theoretically be addressed (I think solved is a reach) by technology, doesn't mean it's a sensible choice. Much like how putting a sign that says "pull" on a door that's designed to be pushed is analogous to what most places in NA do, which is to threaten people who use the road in the way it's designed.
Karrot_Kream 2y ago
The reason this isn't solved is because traffic deaths are considered to be a "cost of doing business". Most pedestrian traffic in the US is in cities and due to the way funding formulas and political representation works in the US, suburban and rural areas have more political power than urban areas which care more about traffic throughput than pedestrian safety, so the issue never gets fixed. The only places in the US making headway have large urbanized areas and even they are struggling.
- runarberg 2y ago
  Rural areas don’t have much political power either. A lot of rural America is actually unincorporated which means they don’t have a municipal level government, and instead are ruled by the county[^†]. In my experience the outsized political power is across gegraphic areas and instead is divided between classes, with the rich having almost all political power. A rich neighborhood in San Francisco hold much more political power than an improvised suburb in Fresno. Instead the reason I believe for pedestrian traffic being considered the "cost of doing business" among the political classes, is the good old hatred of the poor. Pedastrian casualties are extremely rare among the rich, as the rich usually drive almost everywhere, and if they walk, they do so in an area which they have lobbied to make safe for pedestrians. The rich don’t care if the poor die. †: As an immigrant, this feels like a major democratic oversight, one of many USA should fix if it wants to consider it self a democracy by 21st century standards.
  - ufocia 2y ago
    Let me understand this. Are you suggesting adding yet another inefficient layer of government in sparsely populated areas? BTW, in at least some states there are intermediate subdivisions of government, e.g. townships and districts, which take care of the roads even in rural areas.
    - runarberg 2y ago
      You are responding to my footnote, but ok. Yes. This is what most—all?—other democracies do. More realistically though, municipality level governments include surrounding rural areas. In areas with small towns and large areas of rural farmlands, the farmers and town residents have equal representation, but the farmers obviously have a bigger political influence (hopefully the municipality governments have enough representatives though that the townfolks have at least a couple of representatives). In reality unincorporated America also includes heavily urbanized areas (more often than not poorer than the surrounding areas). Here in Seattle this includes Skyway and White Center. But even if aside from those it is pretty unacceptable that all local planning for the community of e.g. Fairwood, or even Hobart don’t have any say in their municipality level organization, instead relying on the same county council as Seattle for their local affairs (a council with only 9 representatives for a total of 2.2 million constituents).
roughly 2y ago
1) build a society that requires a car to get around 2) exclusively sell cars with ludicrous acceleration and top speed 3) set legal speed limit at 1/6th the top speed of most vehicles 4) enforce strict financial penalties for operating one’s obligatory high-powered vehicle at more than 1/6th its maximum speed. I’m strongly anti-car - I think we fucked up a whole lot designing society the way we did, but at this point, actual strict enforcement of speed limits with financial penalties is just robbery. If you want fewer people to die in car accidents, build a world that doesn’t obligate everyone to drive, or build a world where the vehicles for sale aren’t all SUVs with 0-60 times that would embarrass a Ferrari from 40 years ago, but don’t just start fining people when they use the vehicle you made them buy to do the thing it was made to do.
- xpe 2y ago
  Please be realistic about what interventions are available given the current US system. Redesign our entire road system? Sounds great, but how are we going do it? Think about the policy changes and thousands or more of political wranglings across every populous jurisdiction in the United States. Even if we get it done over the next 20 to 120 years, what are we going do in the meanwhile?
  - com 2y ago
    Like a lot of things, start with reviewing what works elsewhere, start some pilots, and what works do bigger and bigger rollouts. Like, use data. If marketers and TikTok can trick us so easily using these techniques we can do the same in socio-technical settings too. Like most things, “architectural” systems solutions will work better than point behavioural interventions, but it’s always going to be a mix. Bike safety in The Netherlands was a multigenerational effort ranging from creating standards around roads intersections, bike paths and pavements and slowly remediating old ones while building new ones. That’s only a tiny part of a society-wide effort to improve quality- and length-of-life measures, but like the US Interstate highway system, has had measurable results in terms of economic and social outcomes. Some actions taken today will have individual results tomorrow. Some in 30 years. Better get started, right?
- 2y ago