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> and most crucially, unsafe This is more or less a completely imagined issue. The most dangerous form of transportation is personal vehicles, and its not even
by const_cast 1y ago
> and most crucially, unsafe
This is more or less a completely imagined issue. The most dangerous form of transportation is personal vehicles, and its not even close.
For example, on the NY subway you have a 100x greater chance of dying by driving instead of taking the subway. 100x.
If you look at the risk of injury it's not any better.
The thing is that feeling unsafe and actually being unsafe are two different things. Cars feel safe because you're isolated, you have walls between you and everyone else. Public transit feels unsafe because you can directly see other people and there's nothing stopping them from just walking up to you.
Like, for your point on drugs, on a subway you can literally see the people on drugs, which makes you feel unsafe. In a car, you don't know who is on drugs, so you feel more safe. But, you're not. People are still on drugs, but now, they're also operating a deadly weapon.
- johnfn 1y ago> This is more or less a completely imagined issue. The most dangerous form of transportation is personal vehicles, and its not even close. Sure, you can make that argument. I can even agree with you. But you're not going to convince my girlfriend, or most women for that matter, that they're "actually more safe" in a car than BART. Especially if she has to dodge people yelling or cat-calling her to get on the station. You or I can be totally fine with that. But I can't find it within me to fault her for not being OK with that, and wanting to call an Uber instead.
- const_cast 1y agoI already included this in my post - feeling unsafe is a different thing. I don't know how to solve people feeling unsafe, because it's a combination of human's irrational risk management and real-world limitations. If you remove walls and sound barriers, i.e. you go public for transportation, I'm not sure there's any way around the "feeling unsafe" problem.
- DennisP 1y agoMaybe the right framing here isn't safety, but how pleasant or unpleasant the experience is.
- xdennis 1y ago> This is more or less a completely imagined issue. The most dangerous form of transportation is personal vehicles, and its not even close. I think GP was referring to lack of safety due to crime, not accidents. My (European) understanding of US public transport is that you get stabbed or shot at every station. (Full disclosure, everything I know about US public transport comes from "Death Wish" (1974).)
- queenkjuul 1y agoIt's still safer than driving when you account for crime on public transit, which is itself a largely overblown problem. I understand women feeling uncomfortable (am woman, have been harassed on trains) but I've had one time I've ever felt truly unsafe on public transit in many years of riding, I'm not going to let that stop me.
- queenkjuul 1y agoI realize i should add: it's basically impossible to drive on an expressway in Chicago without some jackass putting your life in danger cutting you off at the last second or weaving in and out of traffic with inches of clearance. It is genuinely far more dangerous, and far more scary, than riding a CTA bus alone at night.
- const_cast 1y agoI included injuries in my comment. Yes, you are more likely to be injured by vehicles, too, and again - it's not even close. Do people get stabbed? Yes. But what happens way more often is car accidents resulting in injuries.
- natmaka 1y ago> on the NY subway you have a 100x greater chance of dying by driving instead of taking the subway Is this comparisons solely based upon deaths by (car passenger * distance traveled in NY streets) to deaths by (passenger * distance traveled in the NY subway)? The total amount of car passengers victims of accidents happening on highways, for example, seems not pertinent to me.