
Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps - kanamekun
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/business/tech-distractions-blamed-for-rise-in-traffic-fatalities.html
======
apsec112
Headline: "Blame Apps"

Evidence given in the article:

\- "Safety experts say" that it's true. The experts are not named or quoted.
No evidence or reasoning is given to support the claim.

\- Highway fatalities are up this year. However, they're still significantly
down from 2007, when the iPhone was first introduced. Mobile has been booming
for almost a decade - if we should "blame apps", why hasn't it been a concern
before now?

\- One driver who caused a fatal accident was using Snapchat shortly before
the crash. This driver was also going at 115 mph. It goes without saying,
therefore, that Snapchat is to blame, not speeding or general recklessness.

\- "Insurance companies are convinced", according to one Robert Gordon. Gordon
is actually named and quoted. However, the quote again doesn't provide
evidence or reasoning.

Maybe it is actually true. I don't know. However, the evidence given is
nowhere near strong enough to be convincing. There's also the issue that
newspapers are direct competitors with the apps they're railing against (for
ad dollars), and have been losing badly: [http://charman-anderson.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/09/newsp...](http://charman-anderson.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/09/newspaperadsdecline2.jpg).

~~~
ramblenode
I'm not sure if I've become more cognizant of bad journalism over time or
simply hold journalism to a higher standard with the rise of publicly
available data sets which could be used for real insight into questions like
this. Whichever one, I am infrequently satisfied with the level of evidence
that supports an article's conclusion. I would love to see a truly data-driven
news publication that made quantifying uncertainty a priority over creating a
digestible narrative for people who'd rather the author does the thinking for
them.

~~~
brchr
Well said, and I share this intuition and desire 100%. I’ve been working on
building a platform for data-driven journalism at
[https://numer.al](https://numer.al) \-- It’s a prototype that turns public
APIs into live D3 charts. (Working on embedding those into articles so that
they stay up to date, link back to show their provenance, etc.) I think
there’s a lot that can be done to bring journalism into the 21st century. If
you’re interested in the things we’re working on, feel free to drop me a line:
brian@numer.al.

~~~
Cpoll
This is pretty neat! My only complaint is that you haven't labelled the axes.
You can estimate the Y-axis pretty well based on the listed number, but the
X-axis is a mystery until you click the graph. Even two date labels at either
end would be welcome.

------
niftich
Apps are a plausible contributor. But I also noticed that some new cars ship
with infotainment systems that consist solely of a (bad) touchscreen; as new
cars slowly replace old ones, the number of cars with actual physical buttons
for the music player or radio is dwindling. This is awful because the lack of
physical buttons prevents the tactile feedback needed to operate the device
without having to look at it.

Luckily, some manufacturers go the other route and put music controls as
paddles on the steering wheel, which is amazingly useful.

Also, the widespread 'safety feature' of cars refusing to pair bluetooth while
in motion may actually defeat the point. If one forgets to pair in the
beginning, they may just keep using the phone when the need arises -- when a
notification arrives, the phone rings, or they remember they want to stream
some music.

~~~
m3rc
I can't stand touchscreen systems. Instead of a single physical switch to turn
AC on or off it's two latency laden taps. Part of it's menu design but I can't
help but feel like it's always gonna happen with touchscreen centric designs.

~~~
jobu
It's unbelievable how far behind the technology curve most car companies are.

We recently test drove a used 2015 Suburban with a touchscreen console. The
MSRP for it in 2015 was almost 90k, and the touchscreen was laggy,
unresponsive, and terrible resolution. 20 years ago I worked on a touchscreen
point of sale system that was better than that shit.

~~~
debaserab2
Consumer electronics are designed to fail in 3-5 years. Cars aren't. If my
2012 Honda Accord started failing this year, I'd be really upset. If my 2012
iPad mini started failing this year... well, I wouldn't be surprised given
it's age.

I don't want my car's firmware failing or even slow when my ABS system needs
to kick in because of an icy road. We must hold automobiles to a higher degree
of quality and consistency than consumer electronics and I don't believe these
things are on par at all, nor should they be held to the same standard.

~~~
flukus
You think the features of car touchscreens will still be relevant in 5 years?
The point them in because it adds planned obsolescence.

~~~
gambiting
I really don't think it's planned obsolescence - it's just that automotive
entertainment systems are subject to the same amount of testing as everything
else in the car, which means your average media system is 5 years behind. I
have a 2005 Land Rover Discovery 3 with a touch screen, and at 11 years old,
it still works the same as on the day I bought it. That's what you want.
Software and hardware which continues working fine for more than a decade.

On the other end of the scale we have Tesla, which clearly does very little
testing of their media systems, and pushes updates over the air, so things get
broken or changed with every update. But "hey, it's not a big deal, we'll just
push another update in a month!" \- that's absolutely not acceptable with
cars.

For example: [https://medium.com/@michaelmeier_90534/tesla-model-s-is-
grea...](https://medium.com/@michaelmeier_90534/tesla-model-s-is-great-
except-1638f3f4d96f#.jzkq6mr8u)

I would be absolutely furious if my car did this. I would rather have a shitty
system that stays shitty for the lifetime of the car, than have a good system
that gets broken through an over-the-air update.

~~~
flukus
I agree the tesla system is pretty bad, but software needs to be updatable.
How many exploits do you think your 2005 land rover has?

~~~
Thimothy
Does it really matter if the vehicle is not connected to the Internet in any
way?

I mean, if an attacker has physical access to the insides of your car, all
bets are off and is now his vehicle.

~~~
m3rc
The issue is that an attacker could gain access to the inside of your car only
briefly, but leave a device that continues carrying out the exploit

~~~
gambiting
And do what exactly? make the car crash? If you want to do that just cut a
break fluid line, don't even need to open the car for that.

I mean, I take your general point, but I'm almost certain that 99.9% of people
breaking into cars do it to steal them, not to install a virus that will track
your location or make your car crash. Both of those can be achieved trivially
without even opening the car.

------
bigethan
As a cyclist in SF, Uber/Lyft drivers are the most dangerous thing going.
They're driving by staring at their phone's map for directions and
pickup/dropoff. Once they stop, they stare at their phone for the next ride.
Very little situational awareness.

It'd be nice if there was some sort of way for them to indicate they drive
erratically. Perhaps by painting their cars all yellow or something...

~~~
edgyswingset
My one and only experience using Uber was with a driver who had no clue where
anything was, clearly wasn't from around the place, and from what I could tell
violated two traffic laws.

So what do I do, give him a bad rating? No, because this person probably
needed the money, and a rating under 4.5 gets you shitcanned in an already
rigged system.

Quite the revolution indeed.

~~~
wvenable
Isn't that the point of the rating system? I don't want to be killed by my
next Uber ride because you feel bad rating them appropriately.

I've never had a bad Uber experience but I have had some downright frightening
cab rides and I'd love to be able to rate that.

~~~
edgyswingset
Yes, except it's not really a fair system. A 4.5/5.0, to me, is an excellent
score. That's an A- if it were a grade on a math test. Yet in Uber, a 4.5
means you get your driving privileges revoked. How does that make sense? It
isn't a system in which I can fairly and accurately vote someone's work.

~~~
hueving
Continuing the test analogy, I don't want to eat at a restaurant that got
rated a B by the health department. There are many cases where not being good
enough to get an A- means you aren't good enough to do it professionally. This
is no different.

~~~
flukus
It depends on what the score represents. If a 4.4 means you take a wrong turn
here and there then I don't mind. If it means they constantly speed but other
users don't care then I do mind.

------
bbarn
I'm of the belief that while phones have contributed, it's just not hard
enough to drive anymore. Try driving a manual shift, non power steering
vehicle some time and using your phone. That's the world the roads were built
for, not this ultra easy, power assisted, auto-speed control, auto-lane
control world where you don't even feel the speed difference between 60 and
90.

I used to hear people say they couldn't drive without the radio because they
"needed the distraction". I never got that. Isn't driving supposed to be the
only thing you're doing while driving?

All the hands free apps in the world can't solve split focus. Even a
bluetooth, voice activated system requires you to commit brain cycles to the
conversation that's coming through that will take away from your ability to
drive.

We sit and argue about how bad context switching is, how important it is in
our careers as developers to focus on what we're doing, then we build apps and
devices that are competing to be the best attention stealing devices they can
be.

~~~
niftich
In all fairness, the 65-70 mph posted on most rural interstates is usually an
uneventfully featureless speed, on uneventful, featureless roads. Meanwhile
the urban grandfathered interstates are like NASCAR with a concrete wall to
one side, and ruthless traffic inches to your side. And even sometimes on a
suburban parkway signed for 45, with four lanes going the same way, you fear
for your life as SUVs heading home from work weave around you to get two cars
ahead.

There is a wide variance in driving difficulty throughout the day, even on the
same stretch of road, and varying with the amount and nature of traffic, the
sun in your eyes, wind, the weather. And as you say, driver assist and safety
systems like widespread adaptive cruise control, electronic stability control,
blind spot warning, emergency brake assist, and curtain airbags encourage a
style of driving that's 'not truly defensive' at best, oblivious at worst.
Because why not go the speed limit if cars are so safe and they've got your
back?

This isn't misplaced nostalgia for the days when driving was more dangerous,
but I do believe as cars get safer, situational awareness worsens and riskier
behaviors are less likely to result in serious accidents -- so some drivers
continue to take more risks.

~~~
athenot
> 65-70 mph posted on most rural interstates is usually an uneventfully
> featureless speed, on uneventful, featureless roads

This is true. 95% of the time, it would be just as safe to be cruising at 90
mph. But for those other 5% where there's an unexpected tire in the middle of
the road, a deer, a driver who swerved into your lane or any other danger... a
few extra milliseconds to react and respond is what makes the difference
between a close call and severe damage.

This means driving is condemned to be a mostly boring activity, and in our
present age where boredom is to be avoided at all costs, it becomes a magnet
for distractions.

One solution is to drive a vehicle that requires more immersion: a stick shift
car, a convertible, a jeep, a motorcycle, etc. These are vehicles which let
you _feel_ the road.

~~~
sjg007
People drive way too fast and don't leave enough buffer.

~~~
nommm-nommm
The buffer thing amazes me, I know people who drive 70 MPH leaving a 5 foot
buffer between the and the car in front of them. I have a close my eyes
sometimes it makes me so nervous. And it's rude to comment on other people's
driving...

------
yk
What does a journalist think when he writes something like "biggest spike in
traffic death in 50 years"? The NYT even has a nice plot, that clearly shows
that there are two, perhaps three significant, spikes in traffic death, and
overall traffic death were reduced to a third of the late seventies. I mean I
just eyeball the plot, but to me it seems the story is that there is a plateau
since ~2010.

~~~
squeaky-clean
> After steady declines over the last four decades, highway fatalities last
> year recorded the largest annual percentage increase in 50 years.

So I guess the title makes sense, but I think it's extremely misleading.

~~~
pwg
It is - and it is a title that is misleadingly designed to be "click bait".

------
et-al
As an aside, sometimes I wonder about how much more efficient we are today due
to smartphones. Places where we've lost time:

\- at the stoplight, the driver in front of you is too busy looking down to
notice the light has changed

\- in the bathroom, people check social media on the toilet

\- on the sidewalk, folks walk slower because they're pre-occupied with
texting

\- meeting up with friends, it's more acceptable to be late because one can
always send a last minute update, "I'll be there in 10 minutes!" (read: just
got on lyft)

\- even talking with people present: "Sorry, could you please repeat that? I
was just responding to an email."

I know of digital detoxes (gag), but the inevitable seems to be this
distracted-presence as our new reality (until we go full virtual-reality).

~~~
nilved
If those people weren't reading news or playing games on the toilet, they
would be reading shampoo bottles. In periods of downtime people need something
to do and smartphones can make that time more effective (when not used to look
at cats.)

~~~
c22
But when you're done with the toilet it's easy to put down the shampoo bottle.
It's easier still to sit there for another ten minutes on a page like tumblr
or Facebook which endlessly scrolls.

------
the_mitsuhiko
The UK, Germany and Austria have banned the use of phones in cars entirely
with a whitelist of permitted uses (like passively using it for navigation). I
am pretty sure that is something that is happening all over Europe now.

~~~
chad_oliver
New Zealand too. If you want to make calls while driving, you have to have a
hands-free system. It baffles my mind that there are countries in which people
can legally interact with their phone while driving.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I'm surprised people are allowed to use their phones at all; there is a study
showing talking on a hands free causes the same attention impairment level as
someone under the influence of alcohol.

~~~
JauntyHatAngle
We should also ban people talking to their passengers.

~~~
Glide
I remember there were recommendations for new teen drivers to not have
passengers.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Not only recommendations but actual laws banning teen drivers from having some
number of passengers under 21 or some such.

------
grandalf
Not necessarily just apps, how about IOS: The worst for me is the delay in
rendering the bar that occupies the top of the screen when navigation is in
use or when tethering is in use. I often look at the screen, then tap, but in
between those events the bar appears and receives my click.

It's nearly always inconvenient to get the phone back to the intended screen.

It seems that the delayed appearance of the bar is an intentional UI 'feature'
because in all cases the state is known prior to waking the phone.

~~~
ajmurmann
Yeah there is nothing more annoying than looking at where Waze wants me to
make the next crazy turn and the directions are blocked by a notification. I
take my eyes off the rainy, busy road to ensure I am turning into the right
street and instead see that I received recruiter spam.

------
UnoriginalGuy
Incredibly misleading title/premise.

Should be titled: "Traffic deaths slightly spike, but remain lower than 2008
or any other year after 1956."

It has increased slightly since 2011, but less than 10%. What we might be
seeing is that vehicle deaths has plateaued. We kept seeing decreases because
technology kept being introduced (e.g. seat belts, air bags, ABS brakes,
crumple zones, partial overlap resistance, safety cages, better safety
testing, etc). That kind of slowed at the end of the 2000s and is now picking
up again (e.g. automatic braking, lane keep assist, blind spot warning, cross
traffic alert, backup cameras, full automation, etc).

The whole article is trying to manufacture a story out of statistical noise.
We'd need more data (more years) to even start to speculate on an actual
increase in deaths.

------
perseusprime11
I've seen so many drivers either texting or using their phones while driving
and not paying attention to traffic signals, stop signs, and pedestrian
crossings. I wish there was a way to stop smartphones from displaying
notifications and other things that distract users.

------
Animats
We need automatic driving so people can remain connected. Volvo has the right
vision. See their commercial.[1]

(\Volvo is about to be the first with production automatic driving. Next year,
Volvo will put 100 self-driving cars on the road with real customers driving.
They'll only self-drive on certain roads in Gothenburg at first. The user is
not required to watch the road, and if anything goes wrong, Volvo accepts full
responsibility. Tesla talks big, but Volvo gets it and has it.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDB6fFflTVA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDB6fFflTVA)

~~~
ams6110
_if anything goes wrong, Volvo accepts full responsibility_

Nice comfort I'm sure as you lie in your casket.

~~~
maxerickson
There's an old saying "Put your money where your mouth is".

I think the idea of mentioning it is that it is a comfort as you hand control
of the car over to the automated system.

~~~
hvidgaard
If only Volvo wasn't as expensive, or boring to drive.

~~~
scott_karana
Expensive compared to Tesla?!

~~~
hvidgaard
Compared to other manufactures. We have 150% tax beyond 25% VAT, to make
matters worse, there is hardly any tax on micro cars, so price differences are
exacerbated greatly.

For the price of an estate Volvo, one can buy no less than 6 micro cars.

~~~
scott_karana
I know it's a "premium" brand, but we're talking about self-driving cars here.
What other alternatives _are_ there?

Only expensive ones ;)

~~~
hvidgaard
For self driving, not many atm, and Tesla is more expensive. But right now, I
not going to use self driving abilities as a parameter for buying the car.
Maybe if it could handle most of my commute for me, but it cannot.

------
rebootthesystem
I drive three to four hours a day in Los Angeles a few times a week, mostly on
the 405. The number of people I see looking down or down an to the right at
their phones is staggering.

Now I can call it from afar because there's a commonality to the lack of speed
control and lane keeping. They meander left-right on the lane, don't maintain
speed and break abruptly as they look at traffic and have to re-synchronize
with it.

So, yeah, I don't know if I'd blame apps in particular but the advent of
"smart" phones is definitely having an impact on our highways and, from what I
see often enough, it isn't positive.

------
finid
Blame apps?

No, that's secondary. Blame smartphones.

Perhaps that too is secondary. Blame humans.

~~~
Cyph0n
Smartphones, and mobile phones in general, make drivers less attentive to
external events while driving. It was fine before that, so I don't see why you
think we should be blaming humans?

~~~
aswanson
Because it wasn't fine before that. Most drivers take irrational risks, drive
with zero margin, and are generally fucking stupid behind the wheel. The other
half are even worse. Seriously, there needs to be far more restrictions and
punitive damages to bad drivers. With all the media attention on terrorism,
there are 10 times as many deaths in the US _every year_ due to stupid drivers
as there were on 9-11.

~~~
Cyph0n
I agree completely, but the human factor will only be removed once we have
fully autonomous vehicles. Until then, we need humans to operate vehicles;
this is the base case.

Now, do smartphones make humans worse at driving, or does their use while
driving still result in the base case? My argument is that smartphone use does
in fact significantly worsen a human's ability to drive properly. As a result,
I believe that, for the time being, we need to somehow tackle the issue of
smartphone use while operating a vehicle.

~~~
aswanson
Agreed.

------
S_A_P
With cars being built to safety standards that make cars from even 1-2decades
ago seem like tin cans, - spike in traffic deaths as I see it is likely due
to: 1) distracted driving/apps 2) increase in prescription pill usage/drunk
driving. I don't think it's #2 at all.

I don't need statistics to tell me that I am on of few drivers that puts my
telephone in my pocket/center console so that I don't look at it. I will cop
to hands free telephone talking and I admit it makes me a worse driver, but at
least I have my eyes on the road. Bad journalism or not this is a real,
infuriating, DANGEROUS, and completely preventable problem. I also can't
believe how many people don't want to hear that they are doing something that
makes them much more dangerous and much more likely to have an accident. I
guess people just don't "feel" like it's wrong if they're sober. I am hoping
that autonous cars are cheap and safe before my 9 year old starts driving.
People don't seem capable in general of choosing either texting or driving and
not both.

------
emodendroket
Every time I ride a taxi or something I'm stunned by how many drivers I see
futzing around with their phones. I don't find it hard to believe.

> When distracted driving entered the national consciousness a decade ago, the
> problem was mainly people who made calls or sent texts from their
> cellphones. The solution then was to introduce new technologies to keep
> drivers’ hands on the wheel.

Which by the way don't help

------
pasta
I'm not sure if it's apps alone. At least in The Netherlands I'm seeing
multiple reasons for this (we are also seeing a spike in accidents):

* Cars are too easy to drive. Drivers have no clue about speed and danger. This is especially true for trucks. You can steer tons with your finger, but you have no idea about the real powers going on.

* Individualization: The 'fuck you' way of driving.

* Social media.

~~~
Someone
In the Netherlands, a possible cause also is cyclists using mobile phones in
traffic. Bicycles apparently are too easy to drive with all that nice
infrastructure.

------
cmdrfred
This appears to be a false premise, traffic deaths per miles driven shows a
rather steady decline according to wikipedia.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)

------
hurbledr
This article neglected to mention the apps most often used while driving, map
apps.

~~~
megablast
I bet facebook would be number one.

------
pash
The author neglected to mention that miles driven in the United States
increased by a record 107.5 billion last year, up 3.5% [0]. Even at 2014's
all-time low death rate of 1.08 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled
[1], that increase in driving would lead us to expect 1,161 more deaths on the
roads. There were actually 2,417 (7.4%) more deaths in 2015 than in 2014, so
the increase in driving accounts for "only" 48% of the increase in deaths.

What accounts for the rest? More notable than the increase in deaths is that
the death _rate_ increased from 1.08 per 100 million VMT to 1.12 (3.7%), only
the second year-on-year increase in the death rate in the past two decades.
The only other increase in the death rate occurred between 2011 and 2012, and
the biggest _decreases_ in the death rate over the past two decades occurred
in 2007–8 and 2008–9.

What was happening in those years? First the Great Recession, then an economic
recovery. The years of the Great Recession were saw the steepest declines in
miles driven in decades, and the last several years of economic recovery have
seen the sharpest increases in driving (to an all-time high last year). The
recession years were also the only years vehicle registrations fell in recent
decades, and the number of licensed drivers flatlined for the first time since
the previous recession in the early 2000s; licenses and registrations ticked
up again during the recovery years, and were up strongly in 2014 [2].

So we saw the death rate fall as the recession hit and people drove less,
fewer people got licensed to drive, and fewer vehicles were on the road. Then
during the recovery we saw the only increases in the death rate in decades, as
people started driving more and more new drivers got licensed and hit the
roads.

Here's a hypothesis: the death rate fell sharply during the recession because
(a) fewer cars were on the road, making roads safer, and especially because
(b) the cohort of drivers changed, shifting older, more experienced, and more
cautious as fewer young people (who were hit hardest by the economic downtown,
and who have the highest rate of death by car) could afford to drive. Then
during the recovery those changes reversed and people began to die on the
roads at a higher rate.

Corollary: this article about apps causing driving deaths is mostly
journalistic nonsense.

0\.
[http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/travel_monitoring/...](http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/travel_monitoring/15dectvt/)

1\. [http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx](http://www-
fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx)

2\.
[https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2014/d...](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2014/dv1c.cfm)

------
vermontdevil
No mention of lower gas prices which means more driving ?

I'll be curious to see if this had a bigger impact than apps.

------
Scoundreller
The article fails to provide any statistics to show that apps are the cause.
It just publishes a few case reports where apps were involved in an accident,
and notes an uptick in traffic fatalities.

I think apps have reduced my chance of causing a traffic death:

My cognitive load for driving is much less than it used to be.

I no longer need to scan my environment for street signs, store signs or exit
signs. I never need to look at a physical map/notes. If I miss a turn/exit,
I'll recover. I don't have to suddenly shift lanes because I'll be in the
correct lane a kilometer or two before the actual exit. Confusing signs
telling me which lane to use are a non-issue.

I'll also drive fewer kilometers because of optimized routing. Sometimes it's
more, but that's because I'll be diverting around congestion. I can also wait
out the traffic and know exactly when to leave at a time that has fewer cars
on the road.

Music streaming apps mean I don't have to fumble through radio stations, or
clunky physical media.

~~~
embiggen
Polar Opposite of other parent:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12964329](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12964329)

Both purport situational awareness" to have vastly different consequences and
effects.

~~~
Scoundreller
In my locale, possibly for legal/insurance reasons, Uber drivers far too often
keep their phones very low, and out of sight from other vehicles. Therefore,
they have to keep looking far down.

For Uber drivers, the app is like a slot machine: you have to keep
checking/interacting with it, lest you miss your next fare. With a navapp in a
personal car, if it says I need to take no action for the next 1/10/100km, I
know I can focus on the vehicles around me instead of signs for roughly that
time.

------
tdkl
I think someone wants to sell some more hands free solutions before the
holiday season, so lets use some bogus "evidence" to make choices easier.

Oh look, it just may happen that some tech companies are offering some that
aren't selling well !

------
maartendb
You'll probably can't prevent this. That's why cars should be self-driving
asap and common safety features like autonomous emergency braking, lane assist
have to be mandatory in the meantime.

------
lettergram
I don't know why this is bothering me...

But does anyone know why the title wasn't: " _largest_ spike in..." As opposed
to "biggest spike in..."?

~~~
Hondor
What's the difference? Biggest sounds more familiar to me. Maybe local
cultures differ? For that matter, why would you ever need the word "large"?
Doesn't "big" always have the same meaning?

------
london888
I wonder if mobile phones have been responsible for more deaths or more lives
saved over the past 10 years, and how you could attempt to calculate it.

~~~
rubidium
Sounds like a good PhD project.

------
dmalvarado
If one believes the premise, this is a situation where better voice control
could literally save lives, as well as my sanity.

"Text John"

"I'm sorry, I can't do that right now"

...

------
roflchoppa
[http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/5979/we-need-an-nra-type-
lob...](http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/5979/we-need-an-nra-type-lobby-for-
human-driving)

Ill admit, I have not read it yet, I'm reading an ecology paper currently, but
I will read it tonight.

~~~
atomical
Weird. I thought you were currently writing this comment.

~~~
roflchoppa
u following me?!

------
painted
what about the increasingly number of auto-vehicles? how about the increase in
the speeds people travel at? how about the materials the cars are made
nowadays compared to 50 years ago?

~~~
nommm-nommm
The materials cars are made of today vs 50 years ago are much safer.

------
gog
This link takes me to the login page.

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_audakel
Other side of the coin is that law makers who have held up self driving cars
and govt not funding enough grants is to blame

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itaysk
Expected to see a nice big chart showing the spike. was disappointed so didn't
read the article :\

