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Blah. I remember when the speed limit was raised from 55 to 65. Politicians paraded all kinds of studies from engineers, PhD's and mothers crying on TV. The

Blah. I remember when the speed limit was raised from 55 to 65. Politicians paraded all kinds of studies from engineers, PhD's and mothers crying on TV. The claim was that blood would run down our streets and highways. The effects of making this change, the "experts" and politicians said, would be cataclysmic. What happened in reality? Nothing of the sort. Actually, some of the opposite. Accident and fatality rates went down. So I call hogwash. Maybe this guy has some sort of bias, financial or political interest in this idea. Maybe it is about hiring a million new union workers across the nation to repaint all of our streets and buy votes for the democratic party in 2016. Maybe it is about giving a few huge corporations juicy contracts to try to buy financial support and votes for republicans. I don't know. My life is about science and data. So, yes, I do value honest studies with solid data and conclusions. I also know that you can't take a sentence or two our of a study and quote it completely out of context to support your case. When put into context the reality of the study could be very different and the conclusions could be really flawed. Ask almost anyone who drove pre-65mph how they feel about the change to 65. I would be surprised if anyone said it got worst. It's a lot more relaxed. You don't have to be constantly focused on the darn speedometer or become a human highway patrol detector. In fact, I think the speed limit ought to be raised to 80mph. People are not suicidal. They'll drive at whatever speed is safe and comfortable for them. On average, today, that seems to be somewhere around 75 to 80mph, except when CHP gets on the road and everything slows down causing traffic backups, etc. If we are really that concerned that blood will run down streets it is a relatively simple technological matter to legislate that no automobile sold in the US can go faster than, say, 70mph. An automatic speed limiting system could also be put into place to limit speeds everywhere in real time. A low power emitter in every traffic signal in the nation could tell cars what the max speed limit might be and the software in the car keeps you from exceeding it. Done deal. If the issue is so serious let's just do that. I'd rather have cops devote their time to chasing bad guys than hiding behind a fence to give dumb traffic tickets to all the mommies taking their kids to school during the first week of class (happens almost every year here).

revelation 12y ago
Blood is running down the streets (just not literally). Traffic deaths are the top killer for kids under 15 in NYC; these aren't even people driving! They are killed by others, and often at speeds that are very, very likely to kill upon basically any collision. If you value science and data, you can tell from a mile what an enormously stupid idea it is to have multi-ton cars roaming cities at even 20mph. Physics tells us it's deadly, everything tells us people are incompetent and unfit to drive, and the statistics bear out the very, very high expected costs. I'd argue it can only be ignorance that would make you look at the tremendous body of evidence, both theorethically and statistically, and conclude > People are not suicidal. They'll drive at whatever speed is safe and comfortable for them.
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  Something's always going to be the leading killer. If gang warfare picked up, would traffic suddenly be safer?
  - revelation 12y ago
    But that's what I'm saying? If the market is happy tomorrow, you might expect Yahoo to pick up some steam, but of course that doesn't make it any more of a viable company. Indeed the relative comparisons are at the heart of the problem. They come so natural to humans. Everybody drives daily, how dangerous can it be? This very poster attests to the fact that he feels perfectly safe in a multi-ton steel vehicle moving at 65 mph, propelled forward by repeated explosions (well, that part is a bit hyperbole). So while society tells you it's perfectly safe and why don't you think about those terrorists thousands of miles away, just looking at the absolute numbers for traffic related mortality tells us that the problem is very freaking huge.
    - thaumasiotes 12y ago
      > the absolute numbers for traffic related mortality tells us that the problem is very freaking huge Certainly not. We keep track of statistics by vehicle-mile for a reason.
lostapathy 12y ago
Did you read the article? It's talking about the effect of wide lanes on urban and suburban streets. You're talking about what happens on open highway. Completely different animals. He acknowledges as much, and that wider highway lanes are safer.
- robomartin 12y ago
  I did (friggin verbose!). My point is that people come out of the woodwork with "the sky is falling" messages all the time. More often than not they are full of crap and the opposite is true. I'm not a kid any more. I am not easily impressed. I've seen too much of this over the years. Particularly around elections. Living in Los Angeles I see people crossing the street ALL THE TIME without even looking for traffic. I mean, they just continue walking off the sidewalk as if cars did not even exist. Having traveled to many parts of the world and all corners of the US this has always been rather perplexing to me. It is somewhat unique to California, I think. To see people with such low apparent common sense is jaw dropping. Anywhere else in the world they'd be flattened in a microsecond. In Amsterdam you'd have 15 bikes pile on top of you. Unbelievable. My point is that there are a ton of factors behind how people get hurt or die on and around roads. Someone else was far more eloquent than I care to be right now about how studies can be total garbage. He or she was far more gentle and politically correct than I am interested in being any more. Crap in Crap Out. Bias in Bias Out. That's what a lot of these studies are. One can scaffold a bunch of bad conclusions and paragraphs from a bunch of crap studies and build a seemingly solid foundation for the conclusion that if we had less men wearing ties the mortality rate while riding bikes in Manhattan would go down. In other words, more crap out. We have far more important things to worry about than to devote billions of dollars to repainting all of our streets. Take that money and use it to lift people out of poverty. Maybe we can do a study that shows how not spending money in bullshit projects supported by a maze of bullshit studies and, instead, using that money to truly support the education and growth of the economically disadvantaged might reduce mortality rates when the clueless cross the streets in Los Angeles? Sorry for the tone. I find that as I get older I am far less tolerant of bullshit the might have tantalized me when I was a twenty-something. It's amazing what a few decades of perspective can reveal to you about people, politics, business and society. Not grumpy, just a realist. I think.
tokenadult 12y ago
Do you have a source for your factual statement about what happened when speed limits were increased? I ask, because you write, "My life is about science and data," and I would have liked to see some links to some science and data in your comment. I was just Googling around with searches on open-ended questions like "effect of speed limit changes," and I found some links to official reports and scientific studies http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/ http://narc.org/uploads/File/Transportation/Library/NCHRP_SpeedLimit.pdf http://narc.org/uploads/File/Transportation/Library/NCHRP_Sp... http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/ref_mats/fhwasa1304/resources/Effect%20of%20Increases%20in%20Speed%20Limit.pdf http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/ref_mats/fhwasa1304/reso... that suggest that raising speed limits increases the rate of road fatalities, at least on highways that are not designed with the features of the Interstate Highway System highways. But perhaps you have found other studies whose methodology you would like to explain here that reach a different conclusion.
- robomartin 12y ago
  Not worth my time. You are right. 65mph is killing people by the thousands. We should go back to 55 on Monday. Please.
  - robomartin 12y ago
    Right, exactly what I said about the HN cargo cult. So, this guy refutes me with a bunch of nonsense links to studies he admits are about "highways that are not designed with the features of the Interstate Highway System highways". Really? Any moron can understand that raising the speed limit on a road not designed to handle it will result in nothing good. I've travelled on the autobahn at 180 miles per hour (under the right conditions, etc.). I have driven the Nurburgring in an overpowered 911. None of our (US) highways are even remotely designed for that. Yet the transition from 55 to 65 or even 80 isn't a problem at all for the vast majority of our roads. So I called the guy for doing exactly what the author of the 12 foot vs. 10 foot lane author is probably doing: Using bullshit or irrelevant papers to try to support a nonsense conclusion. And you cargo cult kids down vote me. Well done. Think.
- 12y ago
vacri 12y ago
People are not suicidal. You don't have to be suicidal to be distractable, tired, or overconfident. Edit: I also like how in the paragraph after you state your love of 'science and data', you promote vague, theoretical, self-reported anecdotal evidence (that isn't even part of a scientific study) as a basis for your argument.
- robomartin 12y ago
  You sound pretty smart (or at least you think you are). If you are so interested in proving me wrong about the shift from 55 to 65 not having resulted in blood running down the streets (which is exactly what was predicted back then) go do the research yourself. I don't think I need a research paper to know that AT WORST it made no difference at all. I was not in diapers when this happened. I had already been driving for a while. So, I went through the transition as and adult. Was exposed to all the "the sky is falling" crap and come out of the other side, years later, realizing these people were all full of it. Had the transition been horrific the media would still be counting the dead every day just like they did for the Iraq war. Don't believe me? Fine. Go figure it out. I don't need to waste my time on something I already know to be true.
  - vacri 12y ago
    My life is about science and data. vs I don't think I need a research paper to know that AT WORST it made no difference at all. Then your life is not about science and data. If it was, you'd know that counterintutive findings happen all the time in science. For example, the Big Bang theory was famously named for the 'ridiculous example' presented by people trying to discredit that theory. Finding counterintuitive results are a major part of why we do scientific studies in the first place. Had the transition been horrific the media would still be counting the dead every day Shall I start counting the logical fallacies you're throwing out (as a 'lives science' guy, no less)? Why does something have to be carnage, sorry, 'blood running down the streets', to be 'worse'? This is how sensantionalist tabloid journalists talk, not reasoned scientists. (or at least you think you are) Ironically, I've had a partial scientific test done which indicates that yes, I am smart, regardless of whether or not I personally think so. Being smart is nice, but it's not everything. I was on track for 140ish - not a genius, but above average. But, given that you 'value science and data', you should probably be made aware of me having done a partial WAIS-R by a properly trained professional. It's not perfect, but it was independently run and it's better than self-reported anecdotal hypothetical 'data'. I don't need to waste my time on something I already know to be true. I'm wasn't trying to convince you one way or the other; I was just trying to remind you that danger isn't just from people being intentionally suicidal in the traffic control world. I'm also calling you on your amazing lack of good scientific process, given you call yourself a 'science and data' person, and that you're trying to convince others. Throwing out a strong, opposing opinion ridiculing the initial point, then countering criticism with "I have nothing to prove!" is just poor form in general, let alone in science.
robomartin 12y ago
I love how HN continues to prove to be a place where only cargo cult mentality is rewarded. Anything outside of that is mercilessly down-voted by the 22 year olds that permeate this mono-cultural society. It's OK, it's just funny. You still have a few years of reality before you actually get out of the cave and stop seeing the world through shadows on the walls, some of which were painted by your professors in college. Tolerance is something most people love to talk about just to sound "right" and fit in. In practice intolerance and prejudice are far more common with people who preach it --and behave otherwise-- than in those who do not but rather choose to simply practice it. Just the way it is. On HN you can't have a viewpoint significantly opposite that of the underlying HN culture. You just can't.
- to3m 12y ago
  Sure you can!
- UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
  HN is generally more pro automobile so your stance is not "controversial" by the ethos here. I believe posts are getting downvoted because they are needlessly attacking. Your logical flaws don't help either.
  - robomartin 12y ago
    Well, let's just say I disagree with you. There are no logical issues with my original comment about how a lot of these "the sky is falling" articles are nonsense supported nonsense often in support of underlying political motives. Can't say that's never happened before. On the attack aspect. Look, HN is characterized by some really dumb back and forth discussions full of senseless nit-picking. I call these "programmer arguments" because it is often impossible to argue with some programmers because they are really good about arguing endlessly about utterly irrelevant minutiae. Like the comments in this thread that got into the idea that there's an argument to be made about drivers being more careful when they see bikers not wearing helmets. And the nonsense back and forth continues. So yeah, I have grown quite intolerant to nonsense over the last five years or so. I've been really busy and have not read HN in a while. I just came back and see a bunch of the same thing and this intolerant cargo cult. HN is at it's best when the discussions are contained to technology, startups, software or hardware development and related topics. There's a lot of expertise and value here when it comes to these topics. The minute HN discussions deviate from that world it all derails. I have this vision -right or wrong- of a bunch of real-life ignorant 22 year olds brainwashed by their college professors desperately trying to play adult with their comments here. I'd be funny if it wasn't so stupid. They have little life experience yet have categorical opinions about everything and are incredibly intolerant of anything outside this cargo cult mentality. Progress isn't made by those who swim with the current. You have to be willing to swim hard against it if you want to change the world, or at least your little corner of it. Going against the flow is not easy, as evidenced here. It would be called bullying in the real world. Or at least bigoted intolerant behavior. Here's the good part: Despite what is said or done here, reality is as it is. And this they will eventually learn the hard way on the street, not here. I remember having a conversation about taxation with a 22 year old engineer who worked for me at one of my companies 15 years ago. He had swallowed-up the liberal coolaid whole. Nothing I could say could convince him he was wrong. Ten years later he called me up one day to thank me for what he learned from me (mostly in terms of engineering). He also mentioned he now understood the issues I used to point out regarding taxation. Why? Because he launched his own business and got the experience of now having to hold that cat by the tail. HN is broken. Keep it to science, tech and startups and all is well. Everything else derails into nonsense kiddie bickering almost instantly.
UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
Even if people are not suicidal, they are incredibly bad at determining what is actually safe vs what they feel is safe. Very famously 93% of American drivers reported themselves above average in driving ability - math tells us that is impossible. How many times have you heard someome say they can drive just fine drunk? You've got people terrified of a hypothetical terrorist attack, yet will think nothing of texting and driving. Yet you can somehow concluded that "if I'm not hearing about it (on the news no less!) it doesn't exist?"
ertdfgcb 12y ago
I read the papers in the OP and the paper someone linked for you (you're the lazy one, not everyone else) and I still agree with the OP. I suspect you didn't read the papers in the OP because you're not talking about the same things the OP is. The raising the speed limit example is completely irrelevant to the OP's point - we should make certain urban roads narrower because that makes them more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists without making them more dangerous. You can bitch all you want but until you start discussing the article in a reasonable way you're going to get downvoted. Perhaps if HN pisses you off so much you should find a different community to participate in?

revelation 12y ago

Blood is running down the streets (just not literally). Traffic deaths are the top killer for kids under 15 in NYC; these aren't even people driving! They are killed by others, and often at speeds that are very, very likely to kill upon basically any collision. If you value science and data, you can tell from a mile what an enormously stupid idea it is to have multi-ton cars roaming cities at even 20mph. Physics tells us it's deadly, everything tells us people are incompetent and unfit to drive, and the statistics bear out the very, very high expected costs. I'd argue it can only be ignorance that would make you look at the tremendous body of evidence, both theorethically and statistically, and conclude > People are not suicidal. They'll drive at whatever speed is safe and comfortable for them.

thaumasiotes 12y ago
Something's always going to be the leading killer. If gang warfare picked up, would traffic suddenly be safer?
- revelation 12y ago
  But that's what I'm saying? If the market is happy tomorrow, you might expect Yahoo to pick up some steam, but of course that doesn't make it any more of a viable company. Indeed the relative comparisons are at the heart of the problem. They come so natural to humans. Everybody drives daily, how dangerous can it be? This very poster attests to the fact that he feels perfectly safe in a multi-ton steel vehicle moving at 65 mph, propelled forward by repeated explosions (well, that part is a bit hyperbole). So while society tells you it's perfectly safe and why don't you think about those terrorists thousands of miles away, just looking at the absolute numbers for traffic related mortality tells us that the problem is very freaking huge.
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    > the absolute numbers for traffic related mortality tells us that the problem is very freaking huge Certainly not. We keep track of statistics by vehicle-mile for a reason.

lostapathy 12y ago

Did you read the article? It's talking about the effect of wide lanes on urban and suburban streets. You're talking about what happens on open highway. Completely different animals. He acknowledges as much, and that wider highway lanes are safer.

robomartin 12y ago
I did (friggin verbose!). My point is that people come out of the woodwork with "the sky is falling" messages all the time. More often than not they are full of crap and the opposite is true. I'm not a kid any more. I am not easily impressed. I've seen too much of this over the years. Particularly around elections. Living in Los Angeles I see people crossing the street ALL THE TIME without even looking for traffic. I mean, they just continue walking off the sidewalk as if cars did not even exist. Having traveled to many parts of the world and all corners of the US this has always been rather perplexing to me. It is somewhat unique to California, I think. To see people with such low apparent common sense is jaw dropping. Anywhere else in the world they'd be flattened in a microsecond. In Amsterdam you'd have 15 bikes pile on top of you. Unbelievable. My point is that there are a ton of factors behind how people get hurt or die on and around roads. Someone else was far more eloquent than I care to be right now about how studies can be total garbage. He or she was far more gentle and politically correct than I am interested in being any more. Crap in Crap Out. Bias in Bias Out. That's what a lot of these studies are. One can scaffold a bunch of bad conclusions and paragraphs from a bunch of crap studies and build a seemingly solid foundation for the conclusion that if we had less men wearing ties the mortality rate while riding bikes in Manhattan would go down. In other words, more crap out. We have far more important things to worry about than to devote billions of dollars to repainting all of our streets. Take that money and use it to lift people out of poverty. Maybe we can do a study that shows how not spending money in bullshit projects supported by a maze of bullshit studies and, instead, using that money to truly support the education and growth of the economically disadvantaged might reduce mortality rates when the clueless cross the streets in Los Angeles? Sorry for the tone. I find that as I get older I am far less tolerant of bullshit the might have tantalized me when I was a twenty-something. It's amazing what a few decades of perspective can reveal to you about people, politics, business and society. Not grumpy, just a realist. I think.

tokenadult 12y ago

Do you have a source for your factual statement about what happened when speed limits were increased? I ask, because you write, "My life is about science and data," and I would have liked to see some links to some science and data in your comment. I was just Googling around with searches on open-ended questions like "effect of speed limit changes," and I found some links to official reports and scientific studies http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/ http://narc.org/uploads/File/Transportation/Library/NCHRP_SpeedLimit.pdf http://narc.org/uploads/File/Transportation/Library/NCHRP_Sp... http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/ref_mats/fhwasa1304/resources/Effect%20of%20Increases%20in%20Speed%20Limit.pdf http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/ref_mats/fhwasa1304/reso... that suggest that raising speed limits increases the rate of road fatalities, at least on highways that are not designed with the features of the Interstate Highway System highways. But perhaps you have found other studies whose methodology you would like to explain here that reach a different conclusion.

robomartin 12y ago
Not worth my time. You are right. 65mph is killing people by the thousands. We should go back to 55 on Monday. Please.
- robomartin 12y ago
  Right, exactly what I said about the HN cargo cult. So, this guy refutes me with a bunch of nonsense links to studies he admits are about "highways that are not designed with the features of the Interstate Highway System highways". Really? Any moron can understand that raising the speed limit on a road not designed to handle it will result in nothing good. I've travelled on the autobahn at 180 miles per hour (under the right conditions, etc.). I have driven the Nurburgring in an overpowered 911. None of our (US) highways are even remotely designed for that. Yet the transition from 55 to 65 or even 80 isn't a problem at all for the vast majority of our roads. So I called the guy for doing exactly what the author of the 12 foot vs. 10 foot lane author is probably doing: Using bullshit or irrelevant papers to try to support a nonsense conclusion. And you cargo cult kids down vote me. Well done. Think.
12y ago

vacri 12y ago

People are not suicidal. You don't have to be suicidal to be distractable, tired, or overconfident. Edit: I also like how in the paragraph after you state your love of 'science and data', you promote vague, theoretical, self-reported anecdotal evidence (that isn't even part of a scientific study) as a basis for your argument.

robomartin 12y ago
You sound pretty smart (or at least you think you are). If you are so interested in proving me wrong about the shift from 55 to 65 not having resulted in blood running down the streets (which is exactly what was predicted back then) go do the research yourself. I don't think I need a research paper to know that AT WORST it made no difference at all. I was not in diapers when this happened. I had already been driving for a while. So, I went through the transition as and adult. Was exposed to all the "the sky is falling" crap and come out of the other side, years later, realizing these people were all full of it. Had the transition been horrific the media would still be counting the dead every day just like they did for the Iraq war. Don't believe me? Fine. Go figure it out. I don't need to waste my time on something I already know to be true.
- vacri 12y ago
  My life is about science and data. vs I don't think I need a research paper to know that AT WORST it made no difference at all. Then your life is not about science and data. If it was, you'd know that counterintutive findings happen all the time in science. For example, the Big Bang theory was famously named for the 'ridiculous example' presented by people trying to discredit that theory. Finding counterintuitive results are a major part of why we do scientific studies in the first place. Had the transition been horrific the media would still be counting the dead every day Shall I start counting the logical fallacies you're throwing out (as a 'lives science' guy, no less)? Why does something have to be carnage, sorry, 'blood running down the streets', to be 'worse'? This is how sensantionalist tabloid journalists talk, not reasoned scientists. (or at least you think you are) Ironically, I've had a partial scientific test done which indicates that yes, I am smart, regardless of whether or not I personally think so. Being smart is nice, but it's not everything. I was on track for 140ish - not a genius, but above average. But, given that you 'value science and data', you should probably be made aware of me having done a partial WAIS-R by a properly trained professional. It's not perfect, but it was independently run and it's better than self-reported anecdotal hypothetical 'data'. I don't need to waste my time on something I already know to be true. I'm wasn't trying to convince you one way or the other; I was just trying to remind you that danger isn't just from people being intentionally suicidal in the traffic control world. I'm also calling you on your amazing lack of good scientific process, given you call yourself a 'science and data' person, and that you're trying to convince others. Throwing out a strong, opposing opinion ridiculing the initial point, then countering criticism with "I have nothing to prove!" is just poor form in general, let alone in science.

robomartin 12y ago

I love how HN continues to prove to be a place where only cargo cult mentality is rewarded. Anything outside of that is mercilessly down-voted by the 22 year olds that permeate this mono-cultural society. It's OK, it's just funny. You still have a few years of reality before you actually get out of the cave and stop seeing the world through shadows on the walls, some of which were painted by your professors in college. Tolerance is something most people love to talk about just to sound "right" and fit in. In practice intolerance and prejudice are far more common with people who preach it --and behave otherwise-- than in those who do not but rather choose to simply practice it. Just the way it is. On HN you can't have a viewpoint significantly opposite that of the underlying HN culture. You just can't.

to3m 12y ago
Sure you can!
UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
HN is generally more pro automobile so your stance is not "controversial" by the ethos here. I believe posts are getting downvoted because they are needlessly attacking. Your logical flaws don't help either.
- robomartin 12y ago
  Well, let's just say I disagree with you. There are no logical issues with my original comment about how a lot of these "the sky is falling" articles are nonsense supported nonsense often in support of underlying political motives. Can't say that's never happened before. On the attack aspect. Look, HN is characterized by some really dumb back and forth discussions full of senseless nit-picking. I call these "programmer arguments" because it is often impossible to argue with some programmers because they are really good about arguing endlessly about utterly irrelevant minutiae. Like the comments in this thread that got into the idea that there's an argument to be made about drivers being more careful when they see bikers not wearing helmets. And the nonsense back and forth continues. So yeah, I have grown quite intolerant to nonsense over the last five years or so. I've been really busy and have not read HN in a while. I just came back and see a bunch of the same thing and this intolerant cargo cult. HN is at it's best when the discussions are contained to technology, startups, software or hardware development and related topics. There's a lot of expertise and value here when it comes to these topics. The minute HN discussions deviate from that world it all derails. I have this vision -right or wrong- of a bunch of real-life ignorant 22 year olds brainwashed by their college professors desperately trying to play adult with their comments here. I'd be funny if it wasn't so stupid. They have little life experience yet have categorical opinions about everything and are incredibly intolerant of anything outside this cargo cult mentality. Progress isn't made by those who swim with the current. You have to be willing to swim hard against it if you want to change the world, or at least your little corner of it. Going against the flow is not easy, as evidenced here. It would be called bullying in the real world. Or at least bigoted intolerant behavior. Here's the good part: Despite what is said or done here, reality is as it is. And this they will eventually learn the hard way on the street, not here. I remember having a conversation about taxation with a 22 year old engineer who worked for me at one of my companies 15 years ago. He had swallowed-up the liberal coolaid whole. Nothing I could say could convince him he was wrong. Ten years later he called me up one day to thank me for what he learned from me (mostly in terms of engineering). He also mentioned he now understood the issues I used to point out regarding taxation. Why? Because he launched his own business and got the experience of now having to hold that cat by the tail. HN is broken. Keep it to science, tech and startups and all is well. Everything else derails into nonsense kiddie bickering almost instantly.

UrMomReadsHN 12y ago

Even if people are not suicidal, they are incredibly bad at determining what is actually safe vs what they feel is safe. Very famously 93% of American drivers reported themselves above average in driving ability - math tells us that is impossible. How many times have you heard someome say they can drive just fine drunk? You've got people terrified of a hypothetical terrorist attack, yet will think nothing of texting and driving. Yet you can somehow concluded that "if I'm not hearing about it (on the news no less!) it doesn't exist?"

ertdfgcb 12y ago

I read the papers in the OP and the paper someone linked for you (you're the lazy one, not everyone else) and I still agree with the OP. I suspect you didn't read the papers in the OP because you're not talking about the same things the OP is. The raising the speed limit example is completely irrelevant to the OP's point - we should make certain urban roads narrower because that makes them more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists without making them more dangerous. You can bitch all you want but until you start discussing the article in a reasonable way you're going to get downvoted. Perhaps if HN pisses you off so much you should find a different community to participate in?