
Why are cars killing more pedestrians? - blue_devil
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/03/collision-course-pedestrian-deaths-rising-driverless-cars
======
gerbilly
Texting while driving, that's why.

From here I sit on the porch, I can see that about 2/3 of drivers text while
driving.

I'm convinced that no amount of campaigning, punishment, or scare tactics will
suffice to stop it.

It is just how driving is done nowadays, and everyone feels they can do it
safely (but they can't).

There's no going back so if you're on a bike, or a pedestrian, watch out!

Driving is sacred in our societies. Whenever a driver kills a pedestrian or a
cyclist in my town, there aren't even any charges laid 99% of the time.

Personally I think smartphones have been a net loss to society, for this and
many other reasons.

~~~
crazygringo
According to the article, your theory is simple yet wrong:

> Here is what the frustrated safety experts will tell you: Americans are
> _driving more than ever_ , more than residents of any other country. More of
> them than ever are living in cities and out in urban sprawl; a growing
> number of pedestrian fatalities occur on the _fringes of cities_ , where
> high-volume, high-speed roads exist in close proximity to the places where
> people live, work, and shop. _Speed limits have increased_ across the
> country over the past 20 years, despite robust evidence that even slight
> increases in speed dramatically increase the likelihood of killing
> pedestrians (car passengers, too – but the increase is not as steep, thanks
> to improvements in the design of car frames, airbags and seatbelts).
> American road engineers tend to assume people will speed, and so _design
> roads to accommodate speeding_ ; this, in turn, facilitates more speeding,
> which soon enough makes higher speed limits feel reasonable. And more
> Americans than ever are zipping around in _SUVs and pickup trucks_ , which,
> thanks to their height, weight and shape are _between two and three times
> more likely to kill people they hit_. [emphasis added]

From other statistics I've seen, the massive increase in SUV's is mentioned as
the single largest factor.

Indeed, the article directly refutes your theory:

> Ask a room full of safety experts about smartphones and you will get a mix
> of resignation, bemusement and contempt. “I tend not to buy the smartphone
> distraction stuff,” says Garrick, echoing nearly identical comments from
> just about everyone I talked to. “To me, it reads as shoving aside actually
> dealing with the relevant issues.” What particularly bothers him, he says,
> is _how poorly thought out the distraction discourse tends to be. In the UK,
> Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Austria and Iceland, for example,
> pedestrian deaths occur at a per capita rate roughly half of America’s, or
> lower. Are we really to believe that the citizens of these countries are 50%
> less susceptible than Americans to distraction, by their phones or anything
> else?_ ... “All this talk about pedestrian distraction, driver distraction?
> It’s such a distraction,” says Ben Welle of the World Resource Institute for
> Sustainable Cities. “It puts all the responsibility on individuals, and none
> on the environment they operate in.” [emphasis added]

~~~
caconym_
> From other statistics I've seen, the massive increase in SUV's is mentioned
> as the single largest factor.

I've been saying for years that driving a large SUV or truck without a
legitimate need for its capabilities is an antisocial act, for precisely this
reason and also the fact that, all other things being equal, a vehicle (and
its occupants) colliding with another vehicle will fare worse the larger that
other vehicle is. Whether my own assumptions were right or wrong, I'm glad
we're finally starting to talk about this. For a long time, it seemed to be a
huge blind spot in existing analyses of injurious/fatal road accidents.

It makes me absolutely livid when I walk past a shiny new lifted pickup with
an empty bed and my head is just about level with the front of the hood. How
have we grown to accept these things driving around on public roads with no
higher bar to entry than that required to drive a Geo Metro?

~~~
lawnchair_larry
This seems like a strange reaction. Why would it make a difference if the bed
is empty?

~~~
caconym_
Well, I don't want to say trucks shouldn't be allowed on public roads at all.
That would exclude working vehicles that serve crucial roles in our society.

The condition of a truck's bed, i.e. is it dusty and marked up by loads
carried, is it full of gear, etc., serves as a proxy for whether the operator
of the vehicle has been or is currently making use of the capabilities it
offers beyond e.g. a compact hatchback. If they are _not,_ I see that as a
signal that they belong to the category of truck owners who own them for
vanity and/or personal expression reasons rather than because they need the
carrying capacity. This sort of ownership is, I believe (as I said) an
antisocial act.

This signal is not perfect, but as I keep it to myself in every case I don't
feel that I'm harming anybody by making these judgments, and if someone could
demonstrate to me that e.g. the majority of F-series truck (the most popular
"car" in America, last I checked) owners _need_ that capacity, as in they use
it on a regular basis to the extent that a smaller vehicle would not suffice,
I'd be happy to change my thinking.

~~~
mandelbrotwurst
There definitely are truck owners like that, but I think there are a lot of
truck owners who don't use them for their job, but extensively for work on and
around their home and for recreation (or for activities which are both
productive and recreational, like fishing and hunting), and that many of these
folks like to take care of their trucks and try to keep them looking clean.

~~~
caconym_
For most people, it's far from a given that those activities require the sort
of vehicle I'm talking about.

Regardless, all this fixation on my "empty bed" comment is totally missing the
point. We should look at the data, at how many human lives are lost each year
because of the proliferation of these vehicles, and on that basis we should
decide whether further regulation and/or transit engineering is needed to
protect the public. People are, evidently, _dying_ because of said
proliferation, and that's just totally unacceptable to me.

Maybe I just don't understand the mindset that I should be able to do whatever
I want, for my own vanity/amusement/whatever, at any cost to my fellow humans
up to and including the loss of their lives.

------
maxaf
Cars don’t kill pedestrians; drivers kill pedestrians. This is a case of
lopsided stakes: pedestrians have everything to lose in case of car-on-ped
collision, while drivers will merely have their day’s schedule derailed. The
fundamental problem here is that drivers simply don’t care, and fail to
operate their vehicles with due compassion towards vulnerable road users. An
attentive driver who accelerates modestly and takes the time to become sure of
his surroundings will not collide with anything: pedestrian, cyclist, another
vehicle, or street furniture.

I believe strongly in robust mechanisms for keeping drivers responsible.
Unfortunately, at least where I live, the justice system is completely
impotent and unwilling to punish drivers for causing serious bodily harm or
death. A system of heavy fines or imprisonment targeted at drivers would have
resolved the inattention issue quicker than a typical driver can make a three-
point turn. A year’s worth of income, or one year of imprisonment, for any
car-on-ped collision would do the trick.

~~~
mc32
In many cases it’s the driver’s fault due to inattention or recklessness,
other-times the ped is taking liberties with their safety (on phone, not
looking, running to beat traffic). So, while drivers do have the
responsibility to look out for pedestrians there are cases where there is
nothing they can do about a particular circumstance.

~~~
maxaf
Drivers are the ones subject to licensing and insurance requirements. Drivers
are the ones operating heavy machinery. Drivers are thus the responsible
party, even when pedestrians are clearly not looking out for their own safety.
There’s never any downside to being the bigger person and watching out for the
well being of fellow humans, even those who should really know better.

------
Fricken
Almost daily HN covers some aspect of why everybody driving around in their
own personal automobile is stupid. Cars kills and main people. Cars release
particulate matter that's bad for our lungs. Cars promote sedentarism, that
bad for our physical health. Car rubber washed off roads releases
microplastics into the ocean. Cars are noisy, they cause congestion, and make
our cities stressful, hostile and dysfunctional. Cars promote inequality. Cars
and their associated sprawl cost us insane amounts of money. Cars are
destroying the planet.

There are reams of research to back this stuff up. There were massive reams of
research to back it up 40 years ago. There are demonstrably better ways to do
this. Why are we so fucking stupid?

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
Because cars are often the fastest and most convenient, and sometimes only
practical, way to get from A to B.

Even in places with excellent public transport, there will be trips where cars
are necessary, either because that specific public transit connection is
atrocious (e.g. 10 minutes by car turn into 40+ minutes public transit), or
you need to transport more than you can carry.

I don't own a car, and I suffer from their effects, but I do recognize their
usefulness.

~~~
shantly
Car infrastructure (parking lots, streets) and buffers to make being around
car infrastructure less horrible (useless "green space" buffers which can be
much wider than the road itself, medians, front lawns so you're set back from
the road, et c.) are a big part of why it's so hard to get anywhere without a
car.

I was skeptical but I've run the numbers and sure enough, once you also factor
in the time I spend working to pay for my car & gas I'd save quite a bit of
time commuting by bike if my city could be squished closer together by
removing most of the car-only stuff (gotta still have a few arteries for goods
and for when you need to travel further, but you could cut out like 90%,
easy—parking lots are _so_ big, out in the 'burbs). IOW widespread private car
ownership actually makes my life worse than if they were outlawed,
effectively, and I'm _not_ in the city core.

[EDIT] and my family buys cheapish cars and we make way over the median
household income for our city—the math's _way_ worse for most people here than
it is for me.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
I'm not talking about the US suburbs, I'm talking about a highly walkable
European city with excellent public transit. Once you get a bit further out,
you will still find (combinations of) places where public transit connections
just don't work well enough.

------
tonyedgecombe
> And more Americans than ever are zipping around in SUVs and pickup trucks,
> which, thanks to their height, weight and shape are between two and three
> times more likely to kill people they hit.

It’s not such a mystery then.

~~~
willis936
An interesting side effect of the new safety regulations for cars is that
their weight has increased. A base VW golf weighs 3,000 pounds and has huge
blindspots where the roll-over-ready columns are. The safety regulations only
maximize safety for drivers in the event of an accident. They do nothing to
minimize the chance of accidents or the deadlines of accidents to pedestrians.
Science lagged legislation.

~~~
ahartmetz
It's probably both fashion and crash safety, but car design really has gone
astray with the heavy-handed "aggressive" styling and tiny windows everywhere.
Where's the elegance?

~~~
Pxtl
Rear windows have shrank to almost nothing with the rise of backup cameras,
but backup cameras are probably one of the few inventions that actually
increase pedestrian safety over driving safety.

------
mjw1007
For good reasons, parents thoroughly indoctrinate small children with the idea
that it's their job to keep out of the way of cars; if they step into the road
they're being Very Naughty Indeed, and cars are an uncaring force of nature
that can't be expected to slow or keep out of the way.

It's a shame there isn't an equally strong indoctrination campaign in the
other direction when those same children become old enough to drive, to say
that it's their job not to hit people under any circumstances.

~~~
muzika
As a parent of 4 I am shocked to see some kids run into the road without
looking out for cars first. More parents should “indoctrinate” their kids
about safety. You can’t control other people’s/driver’s actions, but you can
teach your kids about basic safety.

~~~
mjw1007
Absolutely you can.

My worry is that once this idea has been thoroughly instilled in children's
heads when they're small, it's still there when they're older and in charge of
dangerous machinery, so somewhere deep down they believe that avoiding death-
by-car is naturally the pedestrian's job.

I don't suggest this is a reason not to put the idea there in the first place,
rather that we should work as hard as possible to get to a situation where
once they're driving they behave as if they believe the responsibility is all
theirs.

------
Scapeghost
Somewhat related, and infuriating, news that this reminded me of:

US Diplomat's wife flees the UK and hides behind diplomatic immunity after
killing 19 year old in a head on collision:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ddm5ia/us_diplom...](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ddm5ia/us_diplomats_wife_flees_the_uk_and_hides_behind/)

~~~
Lio
Yep like something out of Succession she was driving on the wrong side of the
road, left the kid where he was to die and then fled the country with the US
Embassy's help.

[https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/harry-dunn-death-us-
di...](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/harry-dunn-death-us-diplomats-
wife-urged-to-return-to-uk-by-mother-of-teenager-killed-in-
crash-a4255121.html)

Harry Dunn's mother will be flying to the US to try to appeal for justice for
him.

~~~
Scapeghost
If the murderer doesn't get some kind of punishment, this is tyranny through
and through.

They can literally kill civilians in proverbial broad daylight and just get a
free flight home at taxpayer expense?

------
abakker
I agree that texting while driving is a key part of it, no doubt.

But, I’d propose another one, too. New aerodynamic designs locate the A
pillars in a place in most cars that eliminates huge swaths of my peripheral
vision. Backup cameras also make up for increasingly awful side vision and
rear vision.

I drive an 1990s land cruiser a few weeks ago and the visibility was amazing.
You didn’t need cameras because the hood was low, the windshield was flat and
upright and the side windows weren’t tinted black. Old land rovers and pickups
were the same.

~~~
gomijacogeo
Agreed! A-pillars have gotten extremely thick over the last 10 or so years to
accommodate airbags and the increased rake angle of the windshield brings the
pillar much closer to the eye. In my vehicles (2008 & 2018), the left pillar
blocks the destination of a left turn (intersections or twisty mountain roads)
and the right pillar at intersections block traffic and pedestrians from the
right. I bob and weave to try and compensate, but it's definitely more work.

------
meerita
I am quiet driver. I have horror stories every single day with pedestrians who
cross the street in the wrong spots, giving you 0 secs to react. I cannot tell
how many guys could I be killed them because they've crossed the street
texting and using headphones. Pedestrians go really in distracted mode, that's
why when I approach some areas, I go really paranoid and try to foresee
anything.

~~~
algaeontoast
It's even worse when you're on a bike and this happens. The number of times
I've yelled at people who open doors or just meander into the bike lane and
hit them or nearly hit them because they had headphones in is one too many...

~~~
meerita
I don't use a bike, but I comute on my escooter and it's insane the amount of
people who uses the bike lane for whatever reason is. It's so insane. I had 3
accidents in the last 3 months made by pedestrians and 1 motorcycle woman who
did it everything wrong.

~~~
algaeontoast
YES! The number of times I was almost hit by gas motor-scooters in the lane
during traffic (while commuting with an electric scooter) was insane. I was
mostly surprised by how slow most people ride their bikes. A meager 17mph even
downhill on a dinky electric scooter is faster than most people ride their
bikes, joggers also like to run in the bike lane at times...

------
balfirevic
There was an interesting comment on this topic by gok two days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153030](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153030)

It cites a study [0] claiming almost all of additional pedestrian deaths
happen at night, while daytime fatalities haven't increased much.

[0] -
[https://www.ghsa.org/sites/default/files/2019-02/FINAL_Pedes...](https://www.ghsa.org/sites/default/files/2019-02/FINAL_Pedestrians19.pdf)

------
Aloha
I think that vehicle designs have evolved in a couple ways over the last 15
years in negative ways:

1\. More Vertical space on the front of the vehicle - making it harder to see
pedestrians right in front of you, this is particularly the case for large
trucks and SUV's.

2\. Reduced greenhouses in modern cars (all the windows are smaller, meaning
its harder to see anything around you)

3\. Vehicles in general are taller, higher and wider in the front and rear.

There are also other human factors in play, like more distracted driving from
smart phones, and more complex infotainment systems in the vehicle.

------
chiph
> The post-crash investigation indicated that she had probably been watching
> the singing contest The Voice on her phone.

It's not just the drivers that are being distracted by their phones -
pedestrians are as well. Every time I drive downtown, I'm having to make
allowances for people with a total lack of situational awareness because
they're walking around heads-down.

I'm not singling out the pedestrians - the drivers are equally at fault. Like
the guy in the GL450 on I-85 last night who couldn't stay in his lane at 70mph
because he was checking his phone.

~~~
okasaki
>I'm not singling out the pedestrians - the drivers are equally at fault.

Distracted walking isn't a crime, so surely it's not equal.

~~~
hodgesrm
It is if somebody gets killed. Recently a guy wearing headphones and listening
(apparently) to his cell phone walked across the street against the light and
directly in front of my car. He was completely oblivious that there was a
light and didn't even hear me slam on the brakes to avoid hitting him.

------
makecheck
Pedestrians are very distracted (texting/phone/music) and drivers are very
distracted (texting/phone/music). I’m actually amazed that I see people walk
right into the street while looking at their phones _the entire time_ , with
either misplaced trust in their surroundings or dangerous obliviousness.

Worse, drivers “seem” a lot angrier in recent years, and much more impatient.
They’re likely to just go through, crosswalks be damned, missing people by a
hair.

------
rossdavidh
So, it's an important problem, but the first thing I thought was, "are people
walking more or less than they did 20 years ago?" Certainly where I live,
there are more cyclists than there were 20 years ago, and while I could
believe that pedestrianism does not necessarily go up or down in tandem with
cycling, I cannot believe it has stayed exactly the same. Do we walk to places
more than 20 years ago (perhaps because more people are unable to afford a
car, as wealth inequality grows)? Or do we walk less, such that the increase
in pedestrian deaths is even worse than this article suggests, indicating a
downward spiral in which people walk less because it seems too dangerous,
which makes drivers less aware that there are pedestrians to look out for,
which makes people walk even less? This article doesn't say. It seems a pretty
fundamental point to be leaving out of a discussion of pedestrian death rates.
They don't even mention whether these rates represent an increase in per
capita deaths, or just reflect population increases. Without turning
pedestrian death rates into per-person-per-mile-walked kind of rates, I don't
see how you can draw many conclusions at all.

~~~
blue_devil
I believe these calculations are not as relevant for policy because
practically you care that people keep dying from being hit by cars. Say, 10
people dead are 10 people dead.

They are not less important when they account for 1% vs. 0.0001% of walking
people, per mile/km or whatever, are they?

~~~
rossdavidh
Sure, but the rate is what helps to figure out why the change. If the rate of
pedestrian death per mile walked is actually going down, but they are walking
lots more, then you want to keep doing whatever you're doing, to keep the rate
going down. If the rate per mile walked is going up, you need to consider some
sort of about face, changing what you have been doing before.

------
sfRattan
Design of cars can be as much a safety issue as design of roads. The Honda
Civic I drive will auto-play whatever audio my phone was last playing when it
syncs via Bluetooth. It does so inconsistently, and somewhere between 30
seconds and 2 minutes after successfully syncing.

Talk about a sudden and needless distraction. What engineer thought this was a
good idea?

I've taken to using a 5mm cord to connect my phone to the car speakers so _I
can control what plays and when it plays_. Thankfully my phone still has a 5mm
jack.

Trying to anticipate what the user wants is obnoxious, but it becomes
dangerous when the computer doing so is installed in a heavy metal box with an
engine and the ability to move fast.

~~~
analog31
Put the phone in airplane mode.

~~~
sfRattan
I usually turn the Bluetooth off when I'm done with it. The problem is when I
occasionally forget, just like any human eventually will.

If I need to remember to hit a switch on one computer to prevent another
computer from unpredictably blasting audio whenever I use the second computer,
that's a design and safety failure.

------
carapace
As a thought experiment, imagine that you could design a city from the ground
up and try to invent a transportation network that doesn't have pedestrians
and cars next to each other.

\- - - -

I imagine you could have five separate interconnected networks:

    
    
        1 Pedestrians
        2 bicycles
        3 personal cars
        4 trucks and buses
        5 light rail and inter-urban trains
    

Add in e.g. Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language (like "Country City
Fingers), and I think you would really have something.

------
zenogais
Cars aren't killing people though, it's the drivers of those cars. Such an odd
headline.

Better title: "Why are drivers killing more pedestrians?"

~~~
licebmi__at__
>Better title: "Why are drivers killing more pedestrians?"

I disagree. That title lacks information and might lead to some people to
think drivers are beating the pedestrians to death or maybe they're more prone
to gun violence against pedestrians.

Maybe, a better title could be: "Why are drivers who are currently driving a
car, pedestrians currently walking on the street, by running them over with
said car"

------
Pxtl
Normally I'm the first to blame suburban sprawl for unsafe roads - an
environment where you have to drive everywhere all the time breeds
complacency...

however,

The fact that we're talking about decidedly non-suburban Europe, and that 2010
is identified as the local minimum, pretty strongly implies that the rise of
smartphones and other touchscreen-based devices is the culprit.

------
yardie
I don’t drive but I was referred this app by a friend called OnMyWay [0]. The
premise is they pay you to drive and put the phone down.

[0] [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/onmyway-drive-safe-get-
paid/id...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/onmyway-drive-safe-get-
paid/id1436132657)

------
sgarman
I'm really disappointed to see all the one word or low effort answers here. It
looks like most people didn't bother to read the article and are instead just
trying to post their anecdotal responses to the title. Perhaps it's the title
as a question which causes such poor responses.

------
0xDEEPFAC
Visibility, visibility, visibility.

All new cars, trucks, etc. are tall with very narrow windows for better
collision safety. Not to mention American's latest obsession with hideous
"cross-overs." As a result, its much harder to see in front of you and the
extra clearance means you actually suck someone underneath the car instead of
over.

Also, is it just me or are cars just plain ugly these days (yuck)

[https://www.motortrend.com/cars/land-rover/range-rover-
evoqu...](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/land-rover/range-rover-
evoque/2017/2017-range-rover-evoque-convertible-first-test-review/)

[https://www.diariomotor.com/2010/05/09/el-morris-mini-
minor-...](https://www.diariomotor.com/2010/05/09/el-morris-mini-minor-
original-frente-al-mini-countryman-david-y-goliat/)

~~~
SkyPuncher
> As a result, its much harder to see in front of you and the extra clearance
> means you actually suck someone underneath the car instead of over.

I drive a crossover and I'm not sure where you get this idea from - let alone
it being the issue. In can see much better out of my crossover than my sedan
because I have a higher seating position and a smaller engine bay to look
over. Height would really only be an issue in a parking lot if a child was
hiding in front of a car.

~~~
0xDEEPFAC
Not in a close radius to the hood. Think about the extreme example of a
semitruck which undoubtedly can see far far ahead, but imagine now that you
are taking a right turn at a light.

I would disagree that its limited to children as a quick look right and then
left might mean that much less of the person is visible and could possibly not
catch your eye as you drive forward.

[https://imgur.com/gallery/PUfmP](https://imgur.com/gallery/PUfmP)

disclaimer: I was almost hit on a green walk light on 6th av in NYC by a cross
over speeding on a left turn... I had to jump

~~~
SkyPuncher
> Not in a close radius to the hood.

How many accident actually stem from this. Even your own disclaimer has
nothing to do with hood radius. That car that almost hit you was well out of
"hood range" when he started to turn.

Likely, it was either a failure to check the corner or you where in his
A-pillar blindspot. Every single car in the world has an A-pillar blindspot.
In my experience, the A-pillar blindspot is worse on smaller cars because it's
closer to the driver and blocks more of his/her vision.

~~~
0xDEEPFAC
Agreed, its not just crossovers that are difficult to see out of but all new
cars - one of the issues is that SUVs have the ground clearance to run someone
over much easier.

Also, children are important too and if one gets in front of you pulling up on
a driveway using a modern SUV could be a recipe for disaster.

[https://www.wardsauto.com/news-analysis/new-pillars-
enhance-...](https://www.wardsauto.com/news-analysis/new-pillars-enhance-
safety-impede-visibility)

------
Razengan
This must be the fourth or fifth article/discussion against cars that I've
seen on HN in the last couple days, and the second on the front page right
now. Is someone trying to push something here?

~~~
Lio
Cars are very dangerous things. They are used to kill an awful lot of people
every day without much comment at all.

I've read a lot of articles about agressive or dangerously incompetant drivers
in the UK, I have never once seen someone given a lifetime driving ban.

Drivers no mater if they were serving a temporary ban, were uninsured, on
drugs, on the pavement (sidewalk) or reading their phones they always get the
chance to get their licence back once they've paid a small fine or
occationally got out of prison.

That goes for repeat offenders too.

Maybe startups using technology to provide alternatives such as electric
bikes, scooters, self-driving cars would have some value to society.

~~~
Razengan
> _Cars are very dangerous things. They are used to kill an awful lot of
> people every day without much comment at all._

I'm not saying it's a topic that should not be talked about. I'm against the
proliferation of cars and all else that comes with them as well.

The frequency of a single topic being repeatedly posted, however, should be
viewed with healthy skepticism.

------
known
In US car accidents killed more people than all wars combined

~~~
Razengan
Not just accidents, "road rage" (which seems to be a largely US phenomenon)
leads to murders or grievous violence too.

~~~
pagnol
The other day I discovered a book which discusses the use of motorized
vehicles as weapons at length: [https://www.amazon.com/Driven-Kill-Vehicles-
as-Weapons/dp/08...](https://www.amazon.com/Driven-Kill-Vehicles-as-
Weapons/dp/0888644876)

As someone who does a lot of cycling, I'm used to road rage directed at me in
the form of punishment passes mostly.

------
nullc
And then, of course, there is Google Maps and Waze turning pedestrian lined
residential access roads into high speed major arterials...

------
holri
70 people are killed EVERY DAY in Europe in traffic accidents. I wonder why
this extremely unsafe technology is not forbidden.

------
undersuit
Our current vehicle are great for many things and the improvements to them
have increased safety and reduced deaths of occupants, blah blah blah.

Let's regulate these death machines to roads where they can be death machines,
like highways, in the city you switch to driving an open air buggy whose seat
belt is there to help you not slide out of a slippery plastic seat.

------
jshaqaw
Am easy start here in NYC - demand that serial driving offenders lose their
licenses and face serious penalties if they violate than ban. If you
systematically run red lights in this city you should face consequences. Until
that happens a subset of awful people who don’t care will be deadly threats.

------
MichaelMoser123
i wonder if it helps that cars make less of a noise in an urban environment
these days (especially electric/dual ones)

~~~
alistairSH
Probably not much impact yet because there are so few EVs relative to ICEs.
But, I've almost stepped in front of a few Teslas that "snuck up" on me in
parking lots (typical US open parking lot with no pedestrian access - you just
walk through a sea of cars and hope they're all paying attention).

------
fidla
Texting

------
mellosouls
Conjecture: the obsession with "safety" cams has led to a massive decrease in
road policing by officers and a corresponding decline in the correction of
poor and unsafe driving.

------
hotz
I'm surprised that hardly anyone mentions pedestrians that cross roads without
a care in the world. Pedestrians wearing earphones or just not paying
attention. Easy to blame vehicles but there are multiple factors.

~~~
elygre
The article is literally littered with thoughts on that.

------
throwawaysea
Good grief. Another tired, lengthy article attacking cars. Sorry but cars
provide a lot of benefits, and are well worth the trade-offs in deaths. If you
want to avoid deaths entirely, stay in your house. And even that might not
keep you fully safe. But vehicle-related deaths are not even in the top 10
causes of unnatural death in the US, and making such a big deal out of it
without considering the positives is absurd.

Cars are fast, and in areas that are not ultra high-density, they save time
relative to ANY alternative (walking, biking, buses, trains) and therefore
drastically improve your quality of life. They don't require you to wait on
someone else's schedule, especially given the often inconsistent timing of
buses. They don't require you to risk sitting down on dirty seats (6-year-old
girl stabbed by uncapped needle on bus:
[https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/08/girl-6-injected-needle-
hidden...](https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/08/girl-6-injected-needle-hidden-two-
bus-seats-9873386/)). They don't require you to expose yourself to violence
(40 to 60 teens rob BART train: [https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-
takeover-robbery-5...](https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-
robbery-50-to-60-teens-swarm-11094745.php)). They let you travel all over the
land, including away from cities, and therefore give you a greater degree of
freedom than the reach of fixed rails or transit systems that are limited to
cities.

Yes cars can cause deaths. So do a lot of other things. But the rate of
vehicle-caused injuries/deaths has been dropping sharply since the 80s (see
CDC data). It will continue to drop as backup cameras, lane departure
prevention, collision detection, collision avoidance, and other assistance
features become ubiquitous or required. Nothing is ever perfect, and this is
the fundamental reason why efforts like Vision Zero are flawed. "Zero deaths"
is not the goal, and generally any such absolute goal is unrealistic.

We get massive benefits from fast, private point-to-point transport. Let's not
forget that and work to retain those benefits, instead of damaging the
benefits of vehicles with low speed limits and other 'road diet' suggestions.

------
colechristensen
Answers to the title question:

* Transition away from physical controls to touchscreen controls in new cars

* American's love affair with the automatic transmission

* Car-unfriendly "progressive" movements and the return of population towards city centers

It seems like people have very little actual interest in making things better
but only interest in blaming something they have a built-in bias against or
promoting a technology they find interesting.

The article completely failed to mention manual transmissions in America and
the rest of the world while wondering loudly why it is so different here and
the prevalence of touch-screens not just on phones in cars. Automatics are
much more popular in the US and having a manual transmission forces you to pay
much more attention to driving and simply occupies both hands more often
especially inside cities.

One thing emphasized way too little is the responsibility of the pedestrian
for not getting hit – the feeling of entitlement to right of way leading to
people just not paying attention to cars or expecting behavior instead of
watching for it.

I grew up around farm machinery often with little visibility and it teaches
you to pay attention to what is going on around you a lot more. Not just in a
way of being ready to react because there are circumstances where reacting is
impossible, but in knowing what movements a machine is capable of and what the
operator intends to do as well as if the operator knows you are there at all.

This is one of the primary reasons I think robot cars will go absolutely
nowhere. It is impossible to come up with a theory of mind for a robotic car.
As a pedestrian all you usually need to know the intentions of a driver (or
vice versa) are an instant of eye contact. We are evolved to use tiny signals
to decide intent and many people are barely aware of this. That kind of
information just can't be reliably exchanged with a machine.

And people just aren't expecting the kinds of things which will happen when
people start to believe robots with super fast reaction times will do anything
not to hit pedestrians. Pedestrians will start running into the street without
a care (or as a cheap thrill)

The article missed a lot and spent too much time on the wrong topics.

~~~
GordonS
> American's love affair with the automatic transmission

I don't agree with your point here. I switched to auto boxes around 10 years
ago, and (if anything) they free me up a bit to be more aware of my
surroundings, because I don't have to spend any of my attention on using a
clutch and gear stick.

Fully agree about touchscreen controls though - if controls are physical and
tactile, I can easily use them without diverting my eyes from the road.

