4 ms·

While their conclusion is probably correct, I would have liked to seen the number of fatalities normalized by population, miles driven, number of pedestrian inc

by tonmoy 3mo ago

While their conclusion is probably correct, I would have liked to seen the number of fatalities normalized by population, miles driven, number of pedestrian increase, speed limit change etc

MoonWalk 3mo ago
I find any conclusion that doesn't focus on TEXTING to be suspect. By focusing on the wrong things (especially the endless caterwauling about "speeding"), people are letting legislators off the hook for abetting murder. Texting while driving should be a DUI-level offense, with the same penalties. But year after year, they refuse to do anything about it.
- estebank 3mo ago
  What would make non-Americans text less?
  - MoonWalk 3mo ago
    Why non-Americans?
    - estebank 3mo ago
      Because the effects are explicitly called out for US roads and not other locales. https://m.youtube.com/shorts/FDvTWy0LMt4 https://m.youtube.com/shorts/FDvTWy0LMt4
      - MoonWalk 3mo ago
        Not only does that not have anything to do with texting, but it has nothing to do with the roads. That's about giant vehicles hitting people above the waistline. If you hit someone with a tall-ass truck in Portugal, I'm pretty sure he's going to fall over just like he would in the USA.
        estebank 3mo ago
        > Not only does that not have anything to do with texting, but it has nothing to do with the roads. From both the NYT video and their article: > And that increase is unique to the US. Most other wealthy countries haven't seen a similar surge, suggesting that possible culprits, like the raise of smartphones, don't tell the whole story. --- > If you hit someone with a tall-ass truck in Portugal, I'm pretty sure he's going to fall over just like he would in the USA. How popular do you think the tall-ass trucks are in Portugal?
        MoonWalk 3mo ago
        I didn't see that statement in the (door-shaped) video, so I'll take your word for it. > How popular do you think the tall-ass trucks are in Portugal? Not very, which is why I was mystified by your question. Why would we NEED special sanctions for non-Americans? Not addressed (as far as I saw) are the penalties for texting & driving in different countries. In the USA, they're basically nonexistent. But let's say there's no difference, and no difference in the prevalance of this behavior. Texting is still going to be far more deadly behind the wheel of a giant barge. In fact, the vehicle difference serves as a multiplier for the deadly outcomes of it.
trollbridge 3mo ago
This study didn’t nearly enough to disambiguate for widespread phone use while driving, which IMO is the biggest factor. Self driving AI is the answer.
- cucumber3732842 3mo ago
  Would've been trivial to just run the same calculations on 1990s numbers when SUVs first became popular but long before smartphones. I think it speaks volumes that they didn't.
  - trollbridge 3mo ago
    This stuff wouldn’t bother me so much if I didn’t regularly get reports of an acquaintance’s daughter who is now almost brain dead (can’t speak after a serious accident). Phone is 99% likely the culprit. Self driving AI or putting the #%£€ phone down would have prevented it.
  - hamdingers 3mo ago
    1990s SUVs were different vehicles than 2026 SUVs. A 2026 4Runner Hybrid weighs 1500lbs more than a 1996 and is 19 inches longer, 12 inches wider, and 6 inches taller. This is significant.
  - tzs 3mo ago
    SUVs started becoming popular in the 1990s but there is significant lag between becoming popular among new car buyers and becoming a significant fraction of cars on the road. For example SUVs and light trucks rose to 30% of new sales in 1990 but it wasn't until 2003 that they were 30% of vehicles on the road.
- hamdingers 3mo ago
  They have phones in Europe and their numbers are going down.
  - trollbridge 3mo ago
    Yeah, but Americans would not tolerate Euro style driving laws and enforcement. So… we have the technology to fix this problem. Let’s just do it!
californical 3mo ago
Normalizing by miles driven will take you to the wrong conclusions. It underestimates the extra deaths directly caused by the fact that we’ve built exurbs farther and farther away from where people work over the last 20-30 years. So maybe deaths per mile would be similar, but we’ve pushed people further and further so they have to drive more miles, increasing the deaths due to poor design. Building society in a way that we increase deaths due to poor planning, like making driving the only option for the majority of people, gets hidden by statistics like “per mile” or even speed limit changes, which are also more necessary as people need to go further to get to their daily activities, rather than everything being within a short walk or safe bike ride
- hluska 3mo ago
  Not at all. Demonstrating that miles driven increases pedestrian deaths would be tremendously useful.
  - Karrot_Kream 3mo ago
    ? The correlation is trivially demonstrable. You can probably ask an agent to pull the relevant datasets for a state, run a linear regression, and demonstrate this. It's the entire reason traffic crash statistics in the US are normalized per mile.
- drnick1 3mo ago
  > Building society in a way that we increase deaths due to poor planning, like making driving the only option for the majority of people It's not poor planning, it's what Americans want. Americans, by and large, do not want to live in dense neighborhoods or tiny homes like in many parts of Europe. You get that in places like NYC and quality of life in those places is atrocious.
  - __float 3mo ago
    There are millions of people in American cities, and tons of people move from the less dense suburbs to these cities. There are probably even more people who would move if they could, but our cities are expensive (because housing is expensive when you don't build it) and so they stick with the "default". Staying put, getting a car, and finding a way to make it work. You can't conflate "this is what Americans want" and "this is largely the only choice most Americans get".

by tonmoy 3mo ago

While their conclusion is probably correct, I would have liked to seen the number of fatalities normalized by population, miles driven, number of pedestrian increase, speed limit change etc

MoonWalk 3mo ago

I find any conclusion that doesn't focus on TEXTING to be suspect. By focusing on the wrong things (especially the endless caterwauling about "speeding"), people are letting legislators off the hook for abetting murder. Texting while driving should be a DUI-level offense, with the same penalties. But year after year, they refuse to do anything about it.

estebank 3mo ago
What would make non-Americans text less?
- MoonWalk 3mo ago
  Why non-Americans?
  - estebank 3mo ago
    Because the effects are explicitly called out for US roads and not other locales. https://m.youtube.com/shorts/FDvTWy0LMt4 https://m.youtube.com/shorts/FDvTWy0LMt4
    - MoonWalk 3mo ago
      Not only does that not have anything to do with texting, but it has nothing to do with the roads. That's about giant vehicles hitting people above the waistline. If you hit someone with a tall-ass truck in Portugal, I'm pretty sure he's going to fall over just like he would in the USA.
      - estebank 3mo ago
        > Not only does that not have anything to do with texting, but it has nothing to do with the roads. From both the NYT video and their article: > And that increase is unique to the US. Most other wealthy countries haven't seen a similar surge, suggesting that possible culprits, like the raise of smartphones, don't tell the whole story. --- > If you hit someone with a tall-ass truck in Portugal, I'm pretty sure he's going to fall over just like he would in the USA. How popular do you think the tall-ass trucks are in Portugal?
        MoonWalk 3mo ago
        I didn't see that statement in the (door-shaped) video, so I'll take your word for it. > How popular do you think the tall-ass trucks are in Portugal? Not very, which is why I was mystified by your question. Why would we NEED special sanctions for non-Americans? Not addressed (as far as I saw) are the penalties for texting & driving in different countries. In the USA, they're basically nonexistent. But let's say there's no difference, and no difference in the prevalance of this behavior. Texting is still going to be far more deadly behind the wheel of a giant barge. In fact, the vehicle difference serves as a multiplier for the deadly outcomes of it.

trollbridge 3mo ago

This study didn’t nearly enough to disambiguate for widespread phone use while driving, which IMO is the biggest factor. Self driving AI is the answer.

cucumber3732842 3mo ago
Would've been trivial to just run the same calculations on 1990s numbers when SUVs first became popular but long before smartphones. I think it speaks volumes that they didn't.
- trollbridge 3mo ago
  This stuff wouldn’t bother me so much if I didn’t regularly get reports of an acquaintance’s daughter who is now almost brain dead (can’t speak after a serious accident). Phone is 99% likely the culprit. Self driving AI or putting the #%£€ phone down would have prevented it.
- hamdingers 3mo ago
  1990s SUVs were different vehicles than 2026 SUVs. A 2026 4Runner Hybrid weighs 1500lbs more than a 1996 and is 19 inches longer, 12 inches wider, and 6 inches taller. This is significant.
- tzs 3mo ago
  SUVs started becoming popular in the 1990s but there is significant lag between becoming popular among new car buyers and becoming a significant fraction of cars on the road. For example SUVs and light trucks rose to 30% of new sales in 1990 but it wasn't until 2003 that they were 30% of vehicles on the road.
hamdingers 3mo ago
They have phones in Europe and their numbers are going down.
- trollbridge 3mo ago
  Yeah, but Americans would not tolerate Euro style driving laws and enforcement. So… we have the technology to fix this problem. Let’s just do it!

californical 3mo ago

Normalizing by miles driven will take you to the wrong conclusions. It underestimates the extra deaths directly caused by the fact that we’ve built exurbs farther and farther away from where people work over the last 20-30 years. So maybe deaths per mile would be similar, but we’ve pushed people further and further so they have to drive more miles, increasing the deaths due to poor design. Building society in a way that we increase deaths due to poor planning, like making driving the only option for the majority of people, gets hidden by statistics like “per mile” or even speed limit changes, which are also more necessary as people need to go further to get to their daily activities, rather than everything being within a short walk or safe bike ride

hluska 3mo ago
Not at all. Demonstrating that miles driven increases pedestrian deaths would be tremendously useful.
- Karrot_Kream 3mo ago
  ? The correlation is trivially demonstrable. You can probably ask an agent to pull the relevant datasets for a state, run a linear regression, and demonstrate this. It's the entire reason traffic crash statistics in the US are normalized per mile.
drnick1 3mo ago
> Building society in a way that we increase deaths due to poor planning, like making driving the only option for the majority of people It's not poor planning, it's what Americans want. Americans, by and large, do not want to live in dense neighborhoods or tiny homes like in many parts of Europe. You get that in places like NYC and quality of life in those places is atrocious.
- __float 3mo ago
  There are millions of people in American cities, and tons of people move from the less dense suburbs to these cities. There are probably even more people who would move if they could, but our cities are expensive (because housing is expensive when you don't build it) and so they stick with the "default". Staying put, getting a car, and finding a way to make it work. You can't conflate "this is what Americans want" and "this is largely the only choice most Americans get".