5 ms·

George Orwell: .. Accidents happen because on narrow, inadequate roads, full of blind corners and surrounded by dwelling houses, vehicles and pedestrians are m

by netcan 12y ago

George Orwell: .. Accidents happen because on narrow, inadequate roads, full of blind corners and surrounded by dwelling houses, vehicles and pedestrians are moving in all directions at all speeds from three miles an hour to sixty or seventy. If you really want to keep death off the roads, you would have to replan the whole road system in such a way as to make collisions impossible. Think out what this means (it would involve, for example, pulling down and rebuilding the whole of London), and you can see that it is guite beyond the power of any nation at this moment. Short of that you can only take palliative measures, which ultimately boil down to making people more careful. But the only palliative measure that would make a real difference is a drastic reduction in speed. Cut down the speed limit to twelve miles an hour in all built-up areas, and you would cut out the vast majority of accidents. But this, everyone will assure you, is ‘impossible’. Why is it impossible? Well, it would be unbearably irksome. It would mean that every road journey took twice or three times as long as it takes at present. .. http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/eaip_04 http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/eaip_0...

emodendroket 12y ago
I get the point, but that's not entirely true; improvements in car design have also reduced fatalities in ways other than forcing people to slow down.
- netcan 12y ago
  At the time he was writing, cars dominating traffic was relatively new. He was talking about the next year, not the next hundred years. The greater purpose of the article is (IMO) to point out bullshitting, "our unwillingness to face facts and our consequent readiness to make gestures which are known in advance to be useless." People talk about reducing road deaths. One life when it is a specific person is supposedly worth any cost but in practice we agree to a system that strikes a balance between death and convenience. All sorts of things are possible at a cost, but we often BS because we don't want the cost and we also don't want to know that we weren't willing to pay it.
  - navait 12y ago
    Well, we introduced the VSL(Value of a Statistical Life) for a reason. I would quite say that the government openly says saving a life if only worth a certain amount, if you read real policy documents.
  - baddox 12y ago
    Who supposes that one life is worth any cost? Clearly no one even values their own life infinitely. If they did, for every decision they would choose the least risky option.
  - revelation 12y ago
    And your argument is to give the speeders, the drunkards and the plain unsafe, unobservant drivers free reign? As it stands right now? We're not even close to approaching the point where any further safety measures would have to be balanced with some time or convenience metric.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    >in practice we agree to a system that strikes a balance between death and convenience Not necessarily. Being unable to travel also causes deaths. Even if you value lives infinitely higher than convenience itself, you end up in a similar spot.
- mbesto 12y ago
  accidents != fatalities
  - emodendroket 12y ago
    Here's a special version just for you: > I get the point, but that's not entirely true; improvements in car design have also reduced accidents in ways other than forcing people to slow down.
thomasahle 12y ago
Removing cars from the city centers would probably also reduce the rates quite noticeable :)
- saalaa 12y ago
  I don't think city centers are very prone to deadly accidents.. Edit: I'm talking about potential car-less city centers, which are limited to a very small section of most cities. City centers are generally less prone to deadly accidents anyway as shown for example here for the US: http://www.cdc.gov/Features/TeenDrivingDeaths/ http://www.cdc.gov/Features/TeenDrivingDeaths/
  - DanBC 12y ago
    "Most pedestrian deaths occur in urban areas, non-intersection locations, and at night." http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Pedestrian_safety/ http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Pedestrian_safety/
    - mytochar 12y ago
      So, jay-walkers in non-reflective clothing, at night?
      - spdustin 12y ago
        No. Well educated and innocent pedestrians who cross at crosswalks but are clobbered by hurried drivers who don't recognize that they actually need to look out for pedestrians in between gawking at their cell phones and eating an Egg McMuffin.
        mytochar 12y ago
        They said at night. That's not early in the morning when they're eating a McMuffin and too busy to be doing their real job of driving around. This is at night. There's probably an equal number of: * giggling drunkards crossing the street * jaywalkers who think it's the middle of the night and obviously no car would be coming * people who think black is reflective as they walk into the road to cross a street on a dark road * giggling people not paying attention * pedestrians staring at their phones crossing the street without looking And * inattentive drivers * sleepy drivers * drivers looking at their cell phone It's not always the driver's fault, especially in cities where speeds tend to be lower. In some cities, people meandering around inattentively are VERY hard to predict movement of. Please note, I'm not saying that it's never the driver's fault either; but, the whole situation is a give and take for everyone. No cars in city centers except maybe public transit of some description would be pretty great, I think, in general.
DanBC 12y ago
There have been experiments in the UK where all road markings and signs and lights and pavements have been removed. Vehicles and pedestrians are free to move as they wish. These areas tend to be safer for everyone because the uncertainess forces car drivers to slow down and look out. An average speed of 12MPH seems high for central London! > Transport for London's latest figures state that for the first quarter of 2011/2012 the average traffic speed on major London roads for the 12 hours between 7am to 7pm was 19.33 mph and over the same period was 8.98 mph across Central London. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/jun/30/uk.transport http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/jun/30/uk.transport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space http://www.rospa.com/RoadSafety/conferences/congress2006/proceedings/day3/ballie.pdf http://www.rospa.com/RoadSafety/conferences/congress2006/pro...
- click170 12y ago
  This makes me wonder though, do they slow down because the signage that used to be posted has been taken down and they're now unsure of what to do in that area? Many of the "driving problems" I've seen involve drivers in areas where they feel comfortable. Eg, the last bit before home. Part of me wonders if after a period of time, the same behaviours would resurface as people became acclimatized to the lack of signage.
- emodendroket 12y ago
  Well, yes, roundabouts reduce fatalities for the same reason. Unfortunately most people's intuitions about what is safe on the road are out of sync with reality.
ars 12y ago
> But the only palliative measure that would make a real difference is a drastic reduction in speed. Cut down the speed limit to twelve miles an hour in all built-up areas, and you would cut out the vast majority of accidents. That is not actually true. It would reduce injury and death, but it would increase accidents. Every bit of statistics has shown that accidents are correlated to time on the road, not miles and not speed. Half the speed limit, double the time, double the accidents. Injuries are different, those are correlated to speed.
- emodendroket 12y ago
  I think we should probably take "accidents" to mean "accidents leading to serious injury or death" in this context.

by netcan 12y ago

emodendroket 12y ago

I get the point, but that's not entirely true; improvements in car design have also reduced fatalities in ways other than forcing people to slow down.

netcan 12y ago
At the time he was writing, cars dominating traffic was relatively new. He was talking about the next year, not the next hundred years. The greater purpose of the article is (IMO) to point out bullshitting, "our unwillingness to face facts and our consequent readiness to make gestures which are known in advance to be useless." People talk about reducing road deaths. One life when it is a specific person is supposedly worth any cost but in practice we agree to a system that strikes a balance between death and convenience. All sorts of things are possible at a cost, but we often BS because we don't want the cost and we also don't want to know that we weren't willing to pay it.
- navait 12y ago
  Well, we introduced the VSL(Value of a Statistical Life) for a reason. I would quite say that the government openly says saving a life if only worth a certain amount, if you read real policy documents.
- baddox 12y ago
  Who supposes that one life is worth any cost? Clearly no one even values their own life infinitely. If they did, for every decision they would choose the least risky option.
- revelation 12y ago
  And your argument is to give the speeders, the drunkards and the plain unsafe, unobservant drivers free reign? As it stands right now? We're not even close to approaching the point where any further safety measures would have to be balanced with some time or convenience metric.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  >in practice we agree to a system that strikes a balance between death and convenience Not necessarily. Being unable to travel also causes deaths. Even if you value lives infinitely higher than convenience itself, you end up in a similar spot.
mbesto 12y ago
accidents != fatalities
- emodendroket 12y ago
  Here's a special version just for you: > I get the point, but that's not entirely true; improvements in car design have also reduced accidents in ways other than forcing people to slow down.

thomasahle 12y ago

Removing cars from the city centers would probably also reduce the rates quite noticeable :)

saalaa 12y ago
I don't think city centers are very prone to deadly accidents.. Edit: I'm talking about potential car-less city centers, which are limited to a very small section of most cities. City centers are generally less prone to deadly accidents anyway as shown for example here for the US: http://www.cdc.gov/Features/TeenDrivingDeaths/ http://www.cdc.gov/Features/TeenDrivingDeaths/
- DanBC 12y ago
  "Most pedestrian deaths occur in urban areas, non-intersection locations, and at night." http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Pedestrian_safety/ http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Pedestrian_safety/
  - mytochar 12y ago
    So, jay-walkers in non-reflective clothing, at night?
    - spdustin 12y ago
      No. Well educated and innocent pedestrians who cross at crosswalks but are clobbered by hurried drivers who don't recognize that they actually need to look out for pedestrians in between gawking at their cell phones and eating an Egg McMuffin.
      - mytochar 12y ago
        They said at night. That's not early in the morning when they're eating a McMuffin and too busy to be doing their real job of driving around. This is at night. There's probably an equal number of: * giggling drunkards crossing the street * jaywalkers who think it's the middle of the night and obviously no car would be coming * people who think black is reflective as they walk into the road to cross a street on a dark road * giggling people not paying attention * pedestrians staring at their phones crossing the street without looking And * inattentive drivers * sleepy drivers * drivers looking at their cell phone It's not always the driver's fault, especially in cities where speeds tend to be lower. In some cities, people meandering around inattentively are VERY hard to predict movement of. Please note, I'm not saying that it's never the driver's fault either; but, the whole situation is a give and take for everyone. No cars in city centers except maybe public transit of some description would be pretty great, I think, in general.

DanBC 12y ago

There have been experiments in the UK where all road markings and signs and lights and pavements have been removed. Vehicles and pedestrians are free to move as they wish. These areas tend to be safer for everyone because the uncertainess forces car drivers to slow down and look out. An average speed of 12MPH seems high for central London! > Transport for London's latest figures state that for the first quarter of 2011/2012 the average traffic speed on major London roads for the 12 hours between 7am to 7pm was 19.33 mph and over the same period was 8.98 mph across Central London. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/jun/30/uk.transport http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/jun/30/uk.transport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space http://www.rospa.com/RoadSafety/conferences/congress2006/proceedings/day3/ballie.pdf http://www.rospa.com/RoadSafety/conferences/congress2006/pro...

click170 12y ago
This makes me wonder though, do they slow down because the signage that used to be posted has been taken down and they're now unsure of what to do in that area? Many of the "driving problems" I've seen involve drivers in areas where they feel comfortable. Eg, the last bit before home. Part of me wonders if after a period of time, the same behaviours would resurface as people became acclimatized to the lack of signage.
emodendroket 12y ago
Well, yes, roundabouts reduce fatalities for the same reason. Unfortunately most people's intuitions about what is safe on the road are out of sync with reality.

ars 12y ago

> But the only palliative measure that would make a real difference is a drastic reduction in speed. Cut down the speed limit to twelve miles an hour in all built-up areas, and you would cut out the vast majority of accidents. That is not actually true. It would reduce injury and death, but it would increase accidents. Every bit of statistics has shown that accidents are correlated to time on the road, not miles and not speed. Half the speed limit, double the time, double the accidents. Injuries are different, those are correlated to speed.

emodendroket 12y ago
I think we should probably take "accidents" to mean "accidents leading to serious injury or death" in this context.