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No one here wants to admit that personal safety is a major factor in avoiding some forms of public transit in many cities in America. This model has the chance

by teqsun 1y ago

No one here wants to admit that personal safety is a major factor in avoiding some forms of public transit in many cities in America. This model has the chance to succeed based on that alone.

mcphage 1y ago
> No one here wants to admit that personal safety is a major factor in avoiding some forms of public transit in many cities in America. Is there any data backing this up? Is it from the same people who think nobody rides the NYC subway for safety reasons, despite there being over 3 million riders per day?
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> personal safety is a major factor in avoiding some forms of public transit in many cities in America Perceived safety and comfort. Buses are safer than cars [1]. The problem is you might have someone who hasn’t managed their BO in a week sitting next to you, and that’s frankly happened enough time to me that I don’t take it in New York or the Bay Area anymore. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5906382/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5906382/
vel0city 1y ago
You're way more likely to die riding in your car than riding public transit. It's not even close. Riding in your car is likely the most dangerous thing you'll do and yet people just act like it's a totally safe thing to do.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Nobody(TM) is worried about the tiny risk of dying. They're worried about the risk of being victim of a crime or other unpleasantry at the hand of someone else, a risk which is small and fairly up to change on transit but damn near zero for most people in their own car and if not nearly zero almost completely up to them and how they conduct themselves.
  - vel0city 1y ago
    People get shot and battered from road rage incidents, I've had friends get put in the hospital because of someone else's road rage. People die from drunk driving and people running red lights. Driving a car isn't a guarantee you won't be a victim of a crime. It actually means you're more likely to die from one. And it's not a tiny risk of being injured by a car. About 2.5 million injuries a year in the US are caused by automobiles. Just look at this chart and tell me how massively unsafe riding the train is. https://www.bts.gov/content/injured-persons-transportation-mode https://www.bts.gov/content/injured-persons-transportation-m...
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      You ignored or misread his comment.
      - vel0city 1y ago
        Not in the slightest. Drunk driving is a crime. It hurts other people more than it hurts the drunks. It has absolutely no bearing on how the victim carried themself. You can just be driving normally and completely following the law and a drunk t-bones you at 70mph through a red light. You can be driving normally and just happen to draw the ire of a road rager and have them shoot you or commit other forms of violence against you. Happens more often than you think. A person on the train is unlikely to have a weapon on them. Every other person on the road is piloting a giant death machine capable of hurting a lot of people in a moment's notice even if by accident. People act like they're all safe in a car but once again it's the thing most likely to cause you serious injury in your life outside of your diet. You're more likely to be the victim of a crime that will seriously hurt, maim, or kill you driving a car than riding the train. Hey, maybe I reduce the odds of getting pickpocketed today by massively increasing the odds of getting killed by a drunk driver. Seems like a excellent trade!
        charcircuit 1y ago
        >People act like they're all safe in a car This was his point. He was talking about the perception people have.
- timewizard 1y ago
  > Riding in your car is likely the most dangerous thing you'll do Not even remotely close. Anytime you elevate your feet more than 6' of the ground you can fall and kill yourself. This is 2x more common than vehicle fatalities and is in the category of "accidental self inflicted injury." The third most common cause of death. Vehicles are like #11. You're more likely to commit suicide than die in a car accident.
  - vel0city 1y ago
    Sorry, I meant to add "in any given day" in that. I'm in my car multiple times a day. I'm probably only 6'+ off the ground once a month or so. And I do agree in any given situation I'm more likely to be seriously injured using a power tool than I am driving, but once again I rarely use those while I'm in a car several times a day.
    - timewizard 1y ago
      > I'm probably only 6'+ off the ground once a month or so Do you never take the stairs? > but once again I rarely use those while I'm in a car several times a day. Which is why your car has a built in safety system and your power drill doesn't. The majority of fatal accidents involve drugs or alcohol. 15% are motorcycles and 15% are pedestrians. We see all miles as "passenger miles" in a vehicle but there are "inebriated passenger miles" and "sober passenger miles" with wildly different expectations between them.
      - vel0city 1y ago
        > Do you never take the stairs? Not daily (often not even weekly), and a lot of the stairs I do take have regular landings. I work from home, live in a one-story home, stores around me are often on the ground floor, etc. I figured your 6' off the ground was mostly focused on things like working on a roof, climbing ladders, being in a bucket lift, being on scaffolds, being near ledges, etc. But yes, stairs do cause a lot of injuries. Nowhere near as many deaths as automobiles though, and usually fewer injuries. So even climbing stairs is less risky than being around automobiles. > The majority of fatal accidents involve drugs or alcohol You don't have to be the drunk one to be the fatality in a collision involving alcohol. Once again, acting like if you do everything right, you'll be fine. Even if you're a perfect driver, you're surrounded by imperfect ones. 15% being pedestrians doesn't mean driving the car is safe, it's still an injury related to a dangerous task of driving a car. But I guess you're of the mindset as long as you aren't the one getting hurt its somehow OK? But in the end, we're still just splitting hairs here. Operating and being around automobiles is a risky thing practically all Americans do without even thinking about the safety of it, and for a lot of people it is the least safe thing they'll do that day. 40,000 people a year die from automobiles and well over a million get injured.
throwaway48476 1y ago
Public transit will never succeed unless this is addressed. Europe is becoming more car centric for this reason too. https://xcancel.com/friatider/status/1922617300445766040 https://xcancel.com/friatider/status/1922617300445766040
mmooss 1y ago
> No one here wants to admit that personal safety is a major factor in avoiding some forms of public transit Several people on this thread have said that; and I've heard it for years. Why do you say nobody wants to talk about it? IME, it's the people least familiar with cities (and public transit) that talk most about how dangerous it is. I understand they are afraid - imaginations about the unknown run wild, including about unknown people (different ethnicities and socio-economic groups); it can be a bit disconcerting at first because most people outside of cities only mix with their own socio-economic group. And there's Fox and the GOP pushing the narrative that cities are dangerous (laughable these days). The reality is, all those people are people like you, and it's a great, positive experience everyday to mix with them. Jane Jacobs said something about it - the sidewalk ballet, I think - where you find and reinforce, every day, that people are generally good and helpful and caring, and that they are people like you, no matter how they dress or what they do. I have had no personal safety problems on public transit. I've heard some loud radios; a couple times someone was smoking on a train, which was annoying. Driving in traffic is definitely annoying, and there's much more personal safety risk too when someone cuts me off or sends a text. Sometimes the people at home are annoying. :)
rangestransform 1y ago
This has the additional advantage of not letting smelly hobos on without paying

by teqsun 1y ago

No one here wants to admit that personal safety is a major factor in avoiding some forms of public transit in many cities in America. This model has the chance to succeed based on that alone.

mcphage 1y ago

> No one here wants to admit that personal safety is a major factor in avoiding some forms of public transit in many cities in America. Is there any data backing this up? Is it from the same people who think nobody rides the NYC subway for safety reasons, despite there being over 3 million riders per day?

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> personal safety is a major factor in avoiding some forms of public transit in many cities in America Perceived safety and comfort. Buses are safer than cars [1]. The problem is you might have someone who hasn’t managed their BO in a week sitting next to you, and that’s frankly happened enough time to me that I don’t take it in New York or the Bay Area anymore. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5906382/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5906382/

vel0city 1y ago

You're way more likely to die riding in your car than riding public transit. It's not even close. Riding in your car is likely the most dangerous thing you'll do and yet people just act like it's a totally safe thing to do.

potato3732842 1y ago
Nobody(TM) is worried about the tiny risk of dying. They're worried about the risk of being victim of a crime or other unpleasantry at the hand of someone else, a risk which is small and fairly up to change on transit but damn near zero for most people in their own car and if not nearly zero almost completely up to them and how they conduct themselves.
- vel0city 1y ago
  People get shot and battered from road rage incidents, I've had friends get put in the hospital because of someone else's road rage. People die from drunk driving and people running red lights. Driving a car isn't a guarantee you won't be a victim of a crime. It actually means you're more likely to die from one. And it's not a tiny risk of being injured by a car. About 2.5 million injuries a year in the US are caused by automobiles. Just look at this chart and tell me how massively unsafe riding the train is. https://www.bts.gov/content/injured-persons-transportation-mode https://www.bts.gov/content/injured-persons-transportation-m...
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    You ignored or misread his comment.
    - vel0city 1y ago
      Not in the slightest. Drunk driving is a crime. It hurts other people more than it hurts the drunks. It has absolutely no bearing on how the victim carried themself. You can just be driving normally and completely following the law and a drunk t-bones you at 70mph through a red light. You can be driving normally and just happen to draw the ire of a road rager and have them shoot you or commit other forms of violence against you. Happens more often than you think. A person on the train is unlikely to have a weapon on them. Every other person on the road is piloting a giant death machine capable of hurting a lot of people in a moment's notice even if by accident. People act like they're all safe in a car but once again it's the thing most likely to cause you serious injury in your life outside of your diet. You're more likely to be the victim of a crime that will seriously hurt, maim, or kill you driving a car than riding the train. Hey, maybe I reduce the odds of getting pickpocketed today by massively increasing the odds of getting killed by a drunk driver. Seems like a excellent trade!
      - charcircuit 1y ago
        >People act like they're all safe in a car This was his point. He was talking about the perception people have.
timewizard 1y ago
> Riding in your car is likely the most dangerous thing you'll do Not even remotely close. Anytime you elevate your feet more than 6' of the ground you can fall and kill yourself. This is 2x more common than vehicle fatalities and is in the category of "accidental self inflicted injury." The third most common cause of death. Vehicles are like #11. You're more likely to commit suicide than die in a car accident.
- vel0city 1y ago
  Sorry, I meant to add "in any given day" in that. I'm in my car multiple times a day. I'm probably only 6'+ off the ground once a month or so. And I do agree in any given situation I'm more likely to be seriously injured using a power tool than I am driving, but once again I rarely use those while I'm in a car several times a day.
  - timewizard 1y ago
    > I'm probably only 6'+ off the ground once a month or so Do you never take the stairs? > but once again I rarely use those while I'm in a car several times a day. Which is why your car has a built in safety system and your power drill doesn't. The majority of fatal accidents involve drugs or alcohol. 15% are motorcycles and 15% are pedestrians. We see all miles as "passenger miles" in a vehicle but there are "inebriated passenger miles" and "sober passenger miles" with wildly different expectations between them.
    - vel0city 1y ago
      > Do you never take the stairs? Not daily (often not even weekly), and a lot of the stairs I do take have regular landings. I work from home, live in a one-story home, stores around me are often on the ground floor, etc. I figured your 6' off the ground was mostly focused on things like working on a roof, climbing ladders, being in a bucket lift, being on scaffolds, being near ledges, etc. But yes, stairs do cause a lot of injuries. Nowhere near as many deaths as automobiles though, and usually fewer injuries. So even climbing stairs is less risky than being around automobiles. > The majority of fatal accidents involve drugs or alcohol You don't have to be the drunk one to be the fatality in a collision involving alcohol. Once again, acting like if you do everything right, you'll be fine. Even if you're a perfect driver, you're surrounded by imperfect ones. 15% being pedestrians doesn't mean driving the car is safe, it's still an injury related to a dangerous task of driving a car. But I guess you're of the mindset as long as you aren't the one getting hurt its somehow OK? But in the end, we're still just splitting hairs here. Operating and being around automobiles is a risky thing practically all Americans do without even thinking about the safety of it, and for a lot of people it is the least safe thing they'll do that day. 40,000 people a year die from automobiles and well over a million get injured.

throwaway48476 1y ago

Public transit will never succeed unless this is addressed. Europe is becoming more car centric for this reason too. https://xcancel.com/friatider/status/1922617300445766040 https://xcancel.com/friatider/status/1922617300445766040

mmooss 1y ago

> No one here wants to admit that personal safety is a major factor in avoiding some forms of public transit Several people on this thread have said that; and I've heard it for years. Why do you say nobody wants to talk about it? IME, it's the people least familiar with cities (and public transit) that talk most about how dangerous it is. I understand they are afraid - imaginations about the unknown run wild, including about unknown people (different ethnicities and socio-economic groups); it can be a bit disconcerting at first because most people outside of cities only mix with their own socio-economic group. And there's Fox and the GOP pushing the narrative that cities are dangerous (laughable these days). The reality is, all those people are people like you, and it's a great, positive experience everyday to mix with them. Jane Jacobs said something about it - the sidewalk ballet, I think - where you find and reinforce, every day, that people are generally good and helpful and caring, and that they are people like you, no matter how they dress or what they do. I have had no personal safety problems on public transit. I've heard some loud radios; a couple times someone was smoking on a train, which was annoying. Driving in traffic is definitely annoying, and there's much more personal safety risk too when someone cuts me off or sends a text. Sometimes the people at home are annoying. :)

rangestransform 1y ago

This has the additional advantage of not letting smelly hobos on without paying