from Hacker News

The Exceptionally American Problem of Rising Roadway Deaths

by IfOnlyYouKnew on 11/27/22, 6:20 PM with 145 comments

  • by newaccount74 on 11/27/22, 8:10 PM

    I think the biggest factor is high fronts on trucks and SUVs that seem to be designed to crush pedestrians, together with increasingly poor visibility.

    We have the same problem in the EU. Pickups are not as popular here, but even small cars are getting SUV styling with pedestrian-killing hoods.

    I had high hopes that Tesla would make sleek and pedestrian-safer cars popular again: the Model X has a pretty low front for an SUV. Unfortunately Tesla threw all that out the window and designed the most effective pedestrian-crushing-device I've ever seen -- I hope the Cybertruck is delayed for a few more years....

  • by browningstreet on 11/27/22, 8:29 PM

    Purely anecdotal: I work from home but one day per week head out during rush hour and drive across town for a gym appointment. I almost never drive between 4p-6p anymore — my usual gym hours are 5am. The rush hour commute is crazy and scary enough that I have considered cancelling it.

    One factor I notice is most drivers have their phone up in front of their faces. And at least during rush hour, the biggest trucks are driving pretty slow and the smaller more random drivers definitely correlate to smart phone obsessed drivers. Lots of sudden moves.

    Further, people on the freeway totally obsessed with their phones are easy to spot: lane drifting and driving speeds that are typically inconsistent with the prevailing speed of the cars around them.

    I drive a Tesla and use auto pilot almost all the time (I don’t have FSD). When you’re going a very consistent speed, the inconsistent behavior of the cars around you feels way more prevalent.

    Another potential factor: left lane highway driving. I drove in a 3rd world country this summer and they were very consistent about driving in the right lane and only passing in the left lane. No one at all drove in the left lane. I think left lane driving in the US leads to more risky maneuvers and road rage responses.

  • by simonsarris on 11/27/22, 10:01 PM

    Truly strange that there's no mention of the Obama admin "reforming" CAFE standards in 2012 so that the larger the vehicle's footprint, the worse fuel standards it needed to be compliant. Every single automaker went the route of making their vehicles larger, that is, compliant. You can no longer buy a new small truck in the US which is very frustrating.

    The timeline for CAFE standards making America's most popular vehicles enormous tracks with the uptick on their graph. Though maybe it's something else. Someone down-thread suggested "meth" but vehicle size seems an awful lot more likely, especially since its motorcyclists and pedestrians that are dying.

  • by simonswords82 on 11/27/22, 9:21 PM

    Whilst the message is quite blunt this subreddit does a good job of highlighting just how much of our world's urban planning and infrastructure is built around cars:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars

    Until I stumbled across this it had not occurred to me how much people (and walking) are placed second to cars and infrastructure. Surely this needs to change going forward.

  • by gcanyon on 11/28/22, 12:14 AM

    Not Just Bikes on YouTube covers road/pedestrian/bike safety extensively. https://www.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes Specific videos:

    Crossing the street should be safer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ByEBjf9ktY

    How to quickly build a cycling city: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI-1YNAmWlk

    Wasting money on car infrastructure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds-v2-qyCc8

    The wrong way to set speed limits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bglWCuCMSWc

    Safe cycling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8F5hXqS-Ac

    "Stroads" are dangerous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM

  • by sheeeep86 on 11/27/22, 7:53 PM

    I would love to see these numbers correlated with the number of large pickups that are driving on the roads. These types of cars offer no pedestrian safety and are more and more common in the US.

  • by Maxburn on 11/27/22, 7:42 PM

    Seems to me that enforcement throughout Covid went down. People noticed and I think drivers are more wild now.

  • by mym1990 on 11/27/22, 9:25 PM

    A lot of American incentives are purely aligned to generating revenue or power through lobbying. I would be hard pressed to imagine that cycling or pedestrian unions have any kind of pull compared to large automakers. I absolutely love cycling through a city that has the infrastructure for it, and opt to walk to anything less than a mile away. I have been hit twice while riding a motorcycle, the first time was nearly fatal. I also drive a truck. So I guess I am the embodiment of all the good and bad of the system :( Definitely cognizant that I drive a danger machine though.

  • by lkrubner on 11/27/22, 8:48 PM

    The chart shows that the uptick begins in 2014, roughly when the meth epidemic became a true epidemic, spreading to every part of the USA, so meth in particular, and drugs in general, are the most likely explanation. So these deaths fit in with the narrative of "rising deaths of despair."

    https://www.sciencenews.org/article/deaths-of-despair-depres...

  • by cscurmudgeon on 11/27/22, 7:52 PM

    There is also a uniquely American trend of not enforcing traffic laws in the name of social justice.

    https://www.denver7.com/news/national/cities-and-states-bann...

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/us/police-traffic-stops.h...

    Over time, things add up.

    A really curious person will ask if the drop in enforcement correlates with rise in deaths. They seem to start at the same time.

  • by muti on 11/27/22, 8:35 PM

  • by marcusverus on 11/28/22, 1:12 AM

    How could you bring yourself to write such an article without referencing the ENORMOUS differences in miles driven per capita? Folks in the US drive at a rate more than 6x that of France, the UK, or Germany. With that in mind the differences cited are neither surprising nor particularly indicative of a uniquely dangerous driving experience.

    https://data.oecd.org/transport/passenger-transport.htm

  • by nickpinkston on 11/28/22, 9:53 PM

    While I'm sure the US probably does have some bad rates. (pedestrian deaths, etc. makes sense we're bad at) I'm unsure this really corrects for the other factors.

    How does this correct for average mileage spent in cars per per country? Seems like mostly a function of population density and wealth?

    ie maybe the US has low pop density and high wealth, so unlike the highlighted Japan/France (who have great public transit / rail), we can't justify it as much but people can still afford to use cars constantly.

    Judging based on traffic aggression, it would seem America is actually on the more chill side compared to what I've driven in across the world.

    I think their recommendations to change urban spaces to make them safer make sense though, so no argument there. More just wondering if maybe our car culture is kind of baked-in to our material conditions.

  • by ergvgdvgrd on 11/28/22, 2:03 AM

    Floyd riots and defund the police. If your DA and politicians won't stand behind you, cops retreat to the donut/coffee shop. Completely logical response.