Traffic deaths rise in U.S. cities despite billions spent to make streets safer(cbsnews.com)
cbsnews.com
Traffic deaths rise in U.S. cities despite billions spent to make streets safer
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/traffic-deaths-rise-despite-billions-spent-to-make-streets-safer/
23 comments
If the number of cars keeps increasing, so will the number of deaths. If the size of cars…. If the speed of cars….
How about reversing those trends?
How about reversing those trends?
That costs money and requires regulation. Since this is the United States, we know how those two things will be received.
The "Inflation Reduction Act" actually subsidizes bigger cars more than smaller cars. We're digging ourselves into a deeper hole.
The insurance industry could start to more heavily incentivize things based on the dangers, but they don’t. Or not enough.
>How about reversing those trends?
How? Americans clearly want huge SUVs, and want to drive them very, very fast, and act like any effort to restrict these from them are attacks on their "freedoms". They even think it's an attack on their freedom if they have to pay for parking or for driving on a road.
How? Americans clearly want huge SUVs, and want to drive them very, very fast, and act like any effort to restrict these from them are attacks on their "freedoms". They even think it's an attack on their freedom if they have to pay for parking or for driving on a road.
Better road design. Speed humps, trees on the sides of the road, narrower roads, all of which will make drivers slow down simply because of the design of the road itself. No one's speeding on narrow roads, they'd be too likely to hit something.
How do you get people to adopt better road design? American drivers don't want this, and they'll vote against anyone who tries to push it (in most localities, not all).
A lot of people only seem to want huge SUVs because of the safety issues caused by other huge SUVs.
People definitely don’t like the high costs. And I’m not sure how much they love the really big ones, only the smaller.
They’d live the better fuel economy of smaller vehicles. They hated SUVs at first and had to be convinced by years and years of ads and product placement.
Yes some tiny part of the populace will freak out about their rights to 20ft tall SUVs. Let them have them, just put an insane tax on them to cover the horrific externalities.
No one likes new cars pushing $40k. Sitting in an SUV and seeing the hood of the truck next to you is over your head.
Some people didn’t want seatbelts. Or airbags. Or helmets on motorcycles. It’s ok to move forward anyway.
People definitely don’t like the high costs. And I’m not sure how much they love the really big ones, only the smaller.
They’d live the better fuel economy of smaller vehicles. They hated SUVs at first and had to be convinced by years and years of ads and product placement.
Yes some tiny part of the populace will freak out about their rights to 20ft tall SUVs. Let them have them, just put an insane tax on them to cover the horrific externalities.
No one likes new cars pushing $40k. Sitting in an SUV and seeing the hood of the truck next to you is over your head.
Some people didn’t want seatbelts. Or airbags. Or helmets on motorcycles. It’s ok to move forward anyway.
When the implied value of dismounted people is high enough, better design will happen.
Car drivers are forced to drive 20 MPH near schools during school opening and closing times. In tourist districts pedestrian safety and accessibility is favored over being able to drive an SUV 40 MPH down a street. In neighborhoods filled with relatively politically empowered people, roads are never straight to discourage speed, speed bumps are added, stop signs are added, and there can even be focused police traffic enforcement.
If an area has an 8 lane wide stroad with a 45 MPH speed limit then it's implied that the lives of drivers speeding through are valued over those who live in the neighborhood.
Car drivers are forced to drive 20 MPH near schools during school opening and closing times. In tourist districts pedestrian safety and accessibility is favored over being able to drive an SUV 40 MPH down a street. In neighborhoods filled with relatively politically empowered people, roads are never straight to discourage speed, speed bumps are added, stop signs are added, and there can even be focused police traffic enforcement.
If an area has an 8 lane wide stroad with a 45 MPH speed limit then it's implied that the lives of drivers speeding through are valued over those who live in the neighborhood.
So everything really depends on the locality and the local politics. So a few unusual places get designed for better safety, and the vast majority get the opposite. Most efforts at slowing motor vehicles down, or making them more inconvenient, are met with angry voters.
No. I mean yeah, but no. Those things matter, but THIS change was specifically caused by the pandemic. All over America, many drivers became SIGNIFICANTLY less conscientious, for reasons left to the imagination of the reader who is assumed to also have lived through the pandemic. It almost seems like a new cultural norm of less caring about the greater good and more selfishness on the road -- antisocial behavior, in other words.
Both anecdotally and statistically you see this all over the country, just since 2019 -- a very quick change over a very short time. So it seems strange to even think about any other cause, even if in general they are relevant -- those are just much slower acting things than the sudden impact of the pandemic.
We actually had road harms down or at least flattish until then.
Both anecdotally and statistically you see this all over the country, just since 2019 -- a very quick change over a very short time. So it seems strange to even think about any other cause, even if in general they are relevant -- those are just much slower acting things than the sudden impact of the pandemic.
We actually had road harms down or at least flattish until then.
I don’t disagree. But there are lots of easy ways to cut traffic deaths besides trying to turn back behavior changes of the last few years.
Like making cars less deadly. Cutting down the number of trips. Thus my comment.
Like making cars less deadly. Cutting down the number of trips. Thus my comment.
The pandemic was hard on people world wide, probably harder on people outside of America. Only America is seeing this trend.
The pandemic and anti-social behaviour is not the cause. American people are not unique, but the built form of their cities and the type of cars they drive is. That is more likely the cause.
The pandemic and anti-social behaviour is not the cause. American people are not unique, but the built form of their cities and the type of cars they drive is. That is more likely the cause.
Some of the discourse in the U.S. is so weird. It simply pretends the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
The classic Onion headline “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” refers to gun violence specifically but it applies to so much more in the U.S.
I’m not really sure what causes Americans to behave this way.
The classic Onion headline “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” refers to gun violence specifically but it applies to so much more in the U.S.
I’m not really sure what causes Americans to behave this way.
I wonder how much of the increase in fatal accidents is due to the increase in mobile phone use by drivers. The improvements in SS4A do not seem to address this.
imo it's neither car size or speed but the people operating the vehicle.
I'm 50 and have noticed that drivers are more cavalier these days than at any other time in any of the other decades, from the 1970s on up, that I've watched cars, watch people's behavior.
The expectation that you are your work, and you're always busy, seems to have given permission for people to be like,"My life is out of control so I will be too".
Goes hand in hand with the society not being for the care of people but for the care of bank accounts, gripe about the way they were doing capitalism these days. Setting people's wants higher and higher while simultaneously continuing down the path of stratifying society into permanent lower income class.
The expectation that you are your work, and you're always busy, seems to have given permission for people to be like,"My life is out of control so I will be too".
Goes hand in hand with the society not being for the care of people but for the care of bank accounts, gripe about the way they were doing capitalism these days. Setting people's wants higher and higher while simultaneously continuing down the path of stratifying society into permanent lower income class.
Pretty much this is the cause (alongside the steady increase in SUV use). We need the opposite trend and slow traffic to induce a reduction in injuries and deaths.