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FWIW: a single car crash killing 21 people would still be newsworthy in America. And I think if you math it out with something per capita equivalent, this would
by wk_end 9mo ago
FWIW: a single car crash killing 21 people would still be newsworthy in America. And I think if you math it out with something per capita equivalent, this would actually be an exceptionally bad day/incident for the US.
But of course you're not wrong, trains are vastly safer than private cars. If anyone uses this as evidence against having a proper rail system, they're ignorant.
But - until someone does that, there's no reason to make this about the US or cars vs. trains. It's borderline offensive to reflexively politicize this before anyone else had; it almost feels like you're intentionally trying to sow conflict, here.
- rubenflamshep 9mo ago~107 people die per day from car accidents in the USA [0]. 0. Per 2024 stats from the NHTSA (https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-estimates-39345-traffic-fatalities-2024#:~:text=NHTSA%20Estimates%2039%2C345%20Traffic%20Fatalities%20in%202024&text=The%20U.S.%20Department%20of%20Transportation's,people%20died%20in%20traffic%20crashes https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-estimates-39345-t...)
- wk_end 9mo agoRight, so, mathing it out, the US has a population of around 340 million but Spain has a population of around 49 million. 340/49 is roughly 7, so the per capita equivalent in the US would be a single incident killing 21*7=147 people. So that'd be one incident killing 1.5x the average number of people usually killed across the rest of the country combined. Like I said, a pretty bad day.
- deaux 9mo agoA completely unremarkable day, more like it. Given stochasticity there's bound to be at least a dozen days per year with 50% more than the average, especially since car deaths depend a lot on weekday, holidays, weather and so on - much moreso than train deaths. No one would look up from it, wouldn't make the news.
- wk_end 9mo agoYou're assuming it was the only incident in America that day, rather than an exceptional outlier stacked on top of the usual day in America. Yes, a single car crash killing 150 people would make the news. It would be among the worst, if not the single worst, car accident of all time [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-vehicle_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-vehicle_collision
- deaux 9mo ago> And I think if you math it out with something per capita equivalent, this would actually be an exceptionally bad day/incident for the US. This is now how I interpreted "bad day", think it would be clearer to remove "day" if that's what you meant. Of course you're right in that it would be awful as a car accident, they simply don't happen that many as a time. Which is why our monkey brain's lack of emotional response to "many small cuts" vs "one big cut" incorrectly causes the belief that cars and e.g. coal/gas are much safer than they are.
- Dylan16807 9mo ago> "many small cuts" vs "one big cut" incorrectly causes the belief that cars and e.g. coal/gas are much safer than they are Did anyone say that? This conversation was mostly about newsworthiness.
- pfdietz 9mo agohttps://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-statistics/ https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-stat... In Europe, trains are 28 times safer than cars (fatalities per passenger-km).
- anthk 9mo agoI was born in the mid-late 80's, and I remember the 90's being an era where everyone knew in the remotest tiny village about youngsters dying in-road (usually because of being drunk). Dark ages. You would find car related fatalities for granted every Summer in the news.
- angra_mainyu 9mo agoThe discourse here is more of a criticism of Puentes, who is a very controversial minister overseeing this.