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There's an Austria paper that looked into the accident cause "speeding" (nicht angepasste Geschwindigkeit) means across the german-speaking countries. The resul

by TomK32 2y ago

There's an Austria paper that looked into the accident cause "speeding" (nicht angepasste Geschwindigkeit) means across the german-speaking countries. The results boiled down to "it depends" on the officer typing in the data as there aren't any reviews or such. There's good data on other accident aspects like the seat-belt-usage you mentioned (and it's shocking how many people die because they are too lazy to use their seat-belt) but those aren't down to subjective judgement on the spot. Good data is needed as a few accident causes do tend to be common in certain road/location conditions and those can be fixed. For example while the total number of accidents on train crossing is low (15~20 fatalities per year) in Austria, all of them are the driver's fault and almost all (except for massive idiot drivers) can be fixed by installing automatic gates on all crossings.

zxexz 2y ago
Installing automatic gates at crossings can fix (almost) 15~20 fatalities a year there? I've seen at least double-digit traffic deaths in my life, 4 of which I've watched happen and can vividly recollect, here in the USA. Installing infrastructure to prevent deaths seems like a no-brainer if you live in a country that supposedly cares. It's apparently not a no-brainer here -- two of the lethal accidents I've witnessed [one involving ripping the door off a car with the help of some kind stangers, to get someone out of a literally flaming wreck] would have been entirely avoided by a simple traffic circle. The most grizzly one I remember could likely (it seems to me; I'm not a traffic...engineer?) have been avoided by not having a low-traffic on-ramp connect directly to a major highway, when there was a clearly-denoted on-ramp a quarter-mile away. Seeing another human with their head 20ft away leaves a bit of an impression on a child.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  How many crossings without automatic gates are there, vs how many fatalities at those crossings, and how many people cross at those crossings at all? When you remember that other important things to spend money on also exist, the math probably works out for leaving many of the rarely used crossings as they are. In America, there are a few hundred thousand crossings and only a few hundred deaths. Most of those deaths are concentrated at a relatively small number of crossings, while most of the crossings have very infrequent traffic across them. It's the same kind of logic that has most train tracks not put behind fences. In populated areas where lots of people roam around, putting a fence up next to the track helps keep people off the track. But in most of the country, the population is too sparse and people being on the track too infrequent for anybody to rationally prioritize putting fence up alongside all the track. Half a billion dollars worth of fence to save maybe a few dozen lives just isn't going to fly when there are schools to fund, old lead water mains to replace, bridges to repair, NASA probes to Uranus, etc etc.
- ifwinterco 2y ago
  I always find it funny when people say "you can't put a price on a human life" because this is exactly what traffic engineers do on a daily basis. I don't know what the exact figure is but there's a number where below that improvements won't be made. It sounds bad but at the end of the day resources aren't unlimited - $1 spent on road safety improvements is $1 that can't go healthcare, law enforcement, schools, military etc. At some point spending millions of dollars to probably save one life isn't worth it
  - anon325652623 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States The value of life in the United States The following estimates have been applied to the value of life. The estimates are either for one year of additional life or for the statistical value of a single life. - $50,000 per year of quality life (the "dialysis standard",[38] which had been a de facto international standard most private and government-run health insurance plans worldwide use to determine whether to cover a new medical procedure)[39] - $129,000 per year of quality life (an update to the "dialysis standard")[40][39] - $7.5 million (Federal Emergency Management Agency, Jul. 2020)[5] - $9.1 million (Environmental Protection Agency, 2010)[41] - $9.2 million (Department of Transportation, 2014)[42] - $9.6 million (Department of Transportation, Aug. 2016)[43] - $12.5 million (Department of Transportation, 2022)[44]
    - dahart 2y ago
      It’s worth pointing out that these numbers don’t exactly represent either of the things that the parent comment talked about. These are the statistical economic effect of people dying on average, but this is not meant to be taken as putting a number on all the value of human life. Note the DOT doesn’t call it the “value of life”, they call it the “value of a statistical life (VSL)” in an attempt to help distinguish between those two different ideas. “This conventional terminology has often provoked misunderstanding on the part of both the public and decision-makers. What is involved is not the valuation of life as such, but the valuation of reductions in risks.” https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2021-03/DOT%20VSL%20Guidance%20-%202021%20Update.pdf https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2021-03/D... Additionally, these numbers do not represent the threshold for whether a given proposal for roads is undertaken. They are used to inform the process, along with other relevant factors. That ‘Guidance’ like just above is interesting reading, they take time to point out that neither the economic data nor the risk data is perfect. (Perhaps that was obvious, but it’s good to know they recognize that fact officially in their analyses.) The VSL for 2023 is 13.2 million, and one might assume based on the recent trend that it’s probably around ~$14M for this year. It’s good for our personal safety the higher their VSL estimate goes, but as parent noted, bad for our taxpayer pocketbooks, so we try to balance those forces. I know government processes can look bureaucratic and strange from the outside, and seem like a big machine we don’t control, but ultimately we do decide as a society how much we’re willing to pay to keep ourselves safe; public sentiment and tax/anti-tax pressures do have a massive influence in what gets done. https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-policy/revised-departmental-guidance-on-valuation-of-a-statistical-life-in-economic-analysis https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-...
- TomK32 2y ago
  Yes, Austria has only a population of 9 million, with 1937 (as per 2015) unsecured railroad crossings with just a sign and no barriers or lights. The number of people being killed in car accidents was close to record lows at 178 last year with 42 of those not using a seat belt. Saving 15~20 lives by upgrading infrastructure is of course a gamble of prioritizing crossings but of course worth it as there's not just those 15~20 people but also their relatives being impacted. We have a lot of rural railroad, something better quarter-mile away is rarely an option.
- systemtest 2y ago
  Having a speed limit on the German Autobahn would save 140 lives a year. It's hard to understand why they still don't have a limit. Countries like Denmark and the UK have much less traffic deaths on their highways. https://etsc.eu/autobahn-speed-limit-would-save-140-lives/ https://etsc.eu/autobahn-speed-limit-would-save-140-lives/
throwaway2037 2y ago
Do you still have railroad crossings without automated gates? If yes, why? Cultural resistance?
- olex 2y ago
  Germany has a lot of them on mostly remote, rarely serviced lines that see only a small number of regional trains per day. Main reason is cost to upgrade weighed against the (relatively) low risk of incidents because of low amount of traffic on both the train route and the crossing road.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- codedokode 2y ago
  Why do you need gates? No sane person will try to cross on the red light.
  - pasc1878 2y ago
    There are a lot of insane drivers.
  - TheCycoONE 2y ago
    I live on the same block as a urban street level crossings that just have lights. People routinely cut through the light. That line just goes to the factories so the trains are going pretty slow, or sometimes stop on the signal. There is a gated crossing a little further down the same street for a thoroughfare and cars routinely race the gate to avoid waiting for the train there too. One could argue all those people are insane, but there are a lot of them.
  - surfingdino 2y ago
    TikTokers will.
    - greenavocado 2y ago
      What is the problem then?
lupusreal 2y ago
There's a thing that happens where people get "" trapped"" by automatic crossing gates. They get their car on the tracks as the gate closes in front and behind them. The gates are very weak so they could drive right through, but some sort of mental block often prevents this and so they stay there with their car on the tracks, sometimes not even thinking to get out of the car. I guess it goes to show that stupid finds a way.
- efrecon 2y ago
  I would believe this is mostly due to panic rather than being stupid. At some point, for many people, your logical brain stops working.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    I think it's a lack of panic that does it. In that moment they're afraid of causing property damage and they aren't thinking about their own imminent demise. Probably because they see the gate before they see the train, and once they start thinking about the gate in front of them they get tunnel vision and struggle to switch focus to the more important thing coming at them from the side.
- dkga 2y ago
  Or maybe a lot of this is intentional, sadly?
- yowzadave 2y ago
  I wonder why the gates aren’t designed so that they only present a barrier on the entry side of the track, and not the exit side of the track?
  - bluGill 2y ago
    They sometimes are but then it is easy to go around them
  - weebull 2y ago
    ...because people then drive onto the wrong side of the road to drive around the barriers. Yes, some people are that dumb.
Aeolun 2y ago
> it's shocking how many people die because they are too lazy to use their seat-belt It’s hard to explain to people they can only ever be in a single accident in which they’re not wearing their seatbelt. Mostly they proclaim it’s fine, because they’re never in any accidents, and they drive safe anyway.

by TomK32 2y ago

zxexz 2y ago

Installing automatic gates at crossings can fix (almost) 15~20 fatalities a year there? I've seen at least double-digit traffic deaths in my life, 4 of which I've watched happen and can vividly recollect, here in the USA. Installing infrastructure to prevent deaths seems like a no-brainer if you live in a country that supposedly cares. It's apparently not a no-brainer here -- two of the lethal accidents I've witnessed [one involving ripping the door off a car with the help of some kind stangers, to get someone out of a literally flaming wreck] would have been entirely avoided by a simple traffic circle. The most grizzly one I remember could likely (it seems to me; I'm not a traffic...engineer?) have been avoided by not having a low-traffic on-ramp connect directly to a major highway, when there was a clearly-denoted on-ramp a quarter-mile away. Seeing another human with their head 20ft away leaves a bit of an impression on a child.

lupusreal 2y ago
How many crossings without automatic gates are there, vs how many fatalities at those crossings, and how many people cross at those crossings at all? When you remember that other important things to spend money on also exist, the math probably works out for leaving many of the rarely used crossings as they are. In America, there are a few hundred thousand crossings and only a few hundred deaths. Most of those deaths are concentrated at a relatively small number of crossings, while most of the crossings have very infrequent traffic across them. It's the same kind of logic that has most train tracks not put behind fences. In populated areas where lots of people roam around, putting a fence up next to the track helps keep people off the track. But in most of the country, the population is too sparse and people being on the track too infrequent for anybody to rationally prioritize putting fence up alongside all the track. Half a billion dollars worth of fence to save maybe a few dozen lives just isn't going to fly when there are schools to fund, old lead water mains to replace, bridges to repair, NASA probes to Uranus, etc etc.
ifwinterco 2y ago
I always find it funny when people say "you can't put a price on a human life" because this is exactly what traffic engineers do on a daily basis. I don't know what the exact figure is but there's a number where below that improvements won't be made. It sounds bad but at the end of the day resources aren't unlimited - $1 spent on road safety improvements is $1 that can't go healthcare, law enforcement, schools, military etc. At some point spending millions of dollars to probably save one life isn't worth it
- anon325652623 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States The value of life in the United States The following estimates have been applied to the value of life. The estimates are either for one year of additional life or for the statistical value of a single life. - $50,000 per year of quality life (the "dialysis standard",[38] which had been a de facto international standard most private and government-run health insurance plans worldwide use to determine whether to cover a new medical procedure)[39] - $129,000 per year of quality life (an update to the "dialysis standard")[40][39] - $7.5 million (Federal Emergency Management Agency, Jul. 2020)[5] - $9.1 million (Environmental Protection Agency, 2010)[41] - $9.2 million (Department of Transportation, 2014)[42] - $9.6 million (Department of Transportation, Aug. 2016)[43] - $12.5 million (Department of Transportation, 2022)[44]
  - dahart 2y ago
    It’s worth pointing out that these numbers don’t exactly represent either of the things that the parent comment talked about. These are the statistical economic effect of people dying on average, but this is not meant to be taken as putting a number on all the value of human life. Note the DOT doesn’t call it the “value of life”, they call it the “value of a statistical life (VSL)” in an attempt to help distinguish between those two different ideas. “This conventional terminology has often provoked misunderstanding on the part of both the public and decision-makers. What is involved is not the valuation of life as such, but the valuation of reductions in risks.” https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2021-03/DOT%20VSL%20Guidance%20-%202021%20Update.pdf https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2021-03/D... Additionally, these numbers do not represent the threshold for whether a given proposal for roads is undertaken. They are used to inform the process, along with other relevant factors. That ‘Guidance’ like just above is interesting reading, they take time to point out that neither the economic data nor the risk data is perfect. (Perhaps that was obvious, but it’s good to know they recognize that fact officially in their analyses.) The VSL for 2023 is 13.2 million, and one might assume based on the recent trend that it’s probably around ~$14M for this year. It’s good for our personal safety the higher their VSL estimate goes, but as parent noted, bad for our taxpayer pocketbooks, so we try to balance those forces. I know government processes can look bureaucratic and strange from the outside, and seem like a big machine we don’t control, but ultimately we do decide as a society how much we’re willing to pay to keep ourselves safe; public sentiment and tax/anti-tax pressures do have a massive influence in what gets done. https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-policy/revised-departmental-guidance-on-valuation-of-a-statistical-life-in-economic-analysis https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-...
TomK32 2y ago
Yes, Austria has only a population of 9 million, with 1937 (as per 2015) unsecured railroad crossings with just a sign and no barriers or lights. The number of people being killed in car accidents was close to record lows at 178 last year with 42 of those not using a seat belt. Saving 15~20 lives by upgrading infrastructure is of course a gamble of prioritizing crossings but of course worth it as there's not just those 15~20 people but also their relatives being impacted. We have a lot of rural railroad, something better quarter-mile away is rarely an option.
systemtest 2y ago
Having a speed limit on the German Autobahn would save 140 lives a year. It's hard to understand why they still don't have a limit. Countries like Denmark and the UK have much less traffic deaths on their highways. https://etsc.eu/autobahn-speed-limit-would-save-140-lives/ https://etsc.eu/autobahn-speed-limit-would-save-140-lives/

throwaway2037 2y ago

Do you still have railroad crossings without automated gates? If yes, why? Cultural resistance?

olex 2y ago
Germany has a lot of them on mostly remote, rarely serviced lines that see only a small number of regional trains per day. Main reason is cost to upgrade weighed against the (relatively) low risk of incidents because of low amount of traffic on both the train route and the crossing road.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
codedokode 2y ago
Why do you need gates? No sane person will try to cross on the red light.
- pasc1878 2y ago
  There are a lot of insane drivers.
- TheCycoONE 2y ago
  I live on the same block as a urban street level crossings that just have lights. People routinely cut through the light. That line just goes to the factories so the trains are going pretty slow, or sometimes stop on the signal. There is a gated crossing a little further down the same street for a thoroughfare and cars routinely race the gate to avoid waiting for the train there too. One could argue all those people are insane, but there are a lot of them.
- surfingdino 2y ago
  TikTokers will.
  - greenavocado 2y ago
    What is the problem then?

lupusreal 2y ago

There's a thing that happens where people get "" trapped"" by automatic crossing gates. They get their car on the tracks as the gate closes in front and behind them. The gates are very weak so they could drive right through, but some sort of mental block often prevents this and so they stay there with their car on the tracks, sometimes not even thinking to get out of the car. I guess it goes to show that stupid finds a way.

efrecon 2y ago
I would believe this is mostly due to panic rather than being stupid. At some point, for many people, your logical brain stops working.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  I think it's a lack of panic that does it. In that moment they're afraid of causing property damage and they aren't thinking about their own imminent demise. Probably because they see the gate before they see the train, and once they start thinking about the gate in front of them they get tunnel vision and struggle to switch focus to the more important thing coming at them from the side.
dkga 2y ago
Or maybe a lot of this is intentional, sadly?
yowzadave 2y ago
I wonder why the gates aren’t designed so that they only present a barrier on the entry side of the track, and not the exit side of the track?
- bluGill 2y ago
  They sometimes are but then it is easy to go around them
- weebull 2y ago
  ...because people then drive onto the wrong side of the road to drive around the barriers. Yes, some people are that dumb.

Aeolun 2y ago

> it's shocking how many people die because they are too lazy to use their seat-belt It’s hard to explain to people they can only ever be in a single accident in which they’re not wearing their seatbelt. Mostly they proclaim it’s fine, because they’re never in any accidents, and they drive safe anyway.