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Comment by peatmoss | Hacker News Reader

Reducing speed limits and designing roadways to discourage high speeds.

But yeah, I like to measure annual traffic fatalities in 9/11s. Here in the US, we typically do >10 of them per year. We toppled the governments of two countries, created a whole new department of our federal government, and continue to advance prosthetics at a breakneck pace to fix the men and women we send to be disfigured overseas as a response to just one single 9/11.

It’s a question of political will. We’ve become comfortable with the level of death, dismemberment, and disfigurement associated with transportation as we’ve built it in this country.

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>Reducing speed limits and designing roadways to discourage high speeds.

One of these works. One of these handicapps your infrastructure's capacity, reduces safety in certain conditions and has a handful of other negative externalities.

I would wager that were it not for someone following the speed limit the woman in OP's story would not have been cruising along in a line of traffic with her situational awareness diminished by limited visibility and temptation to follow the leader without giving her full attention to driving.

Traffic is safer when segregated by type (e.g. you don't ride a bike on the highway) and/or speed.

You can design roads to reduce speed but just posting a different sign has minimal positive effect so better limiting/controlling interaction between different types/speeds of traffic on roads you already have (e.g. adding sidewalks or bike lanes) works better there.

> You can design roads to reduce speed but just posting a different sign has minimal positive effect so better limiting/controlling interaction between different types/speeds of traffic on roads you already have (e.g. adding sidewalks or bike lanes) works better there.

As a cyclist, my observation is that "share the road" signs are strongly negatively correlated with how well drivers treat cyclists. The signs are a response to bad driving but do little to improve bad driving. In effect they should be considered warnings to cyclists put up by the government to cover their asses, because it's obvious to me that almost no drivers notice them. The presence of the sign means that drivers mistreat cyclists here, and not much else. I try my best to avoid any roads with one of those signs.

Cyclists are as often as not part of the problem where I live. I am both a cyclist and a driver and it influences my behavior in both cases. It is fairly easy to spot cyclists that do not drive (when they are over the age where they could have a driving license) and drivers that never cycle.

Interesting. What distinguishes driving age cyclists who don't drive from those who do?

The ones that do have a much better grip on what your average car driver will most likely do. A simple example: there is a road near my house where cars and bikes simply have to mix because there is no bike path. When I am cycling and I see a car approaching I will keep further right than non driving cyclists because I know the edge of road on the far side is soft and cars are likely to avoid that edge. Another is that I realize that if I can not see the driver of a car in his mirrors he likely will not be able to see me and I will adjust my behavior, even if it is my ´right of way´, such as when continuing straight on the same road as a car but on the right hand side and the car has a turn signal on.

I think the big picture goal of reducing speeds is much more than putting up a different sign. There's a whole movement out there pushing for denser development, reduced car-driven-development, and streets that are truly lower speed, not simply highways rebranded with different signs.

Segregating types & speeds of traffic is still good though, especially dedicated trails for pedestrian and/or bike traffic.

Maybe if all the traffic fatalities occurred on the same day each year it would be a more apt comparison. I bet you'd see some political will power then.

Well, if we’re doing > 10 9/11s per year, and we’ve had 16 years of comparison since 9/11, my back-of-a-napkin reasoning suggests we’re almost half way to a year’s worth of 9/11s.

Another reason the 9/11 comparison is not so great: from a mass-social-psychology POV it was (a) very easy to blame an out-group (terrorists), and (b) the singular nature of the event represented a tremendous opportunity for a huge power-grab by the government. With traffic fatalities (a) we largely have only ourselves to blame, and (b) there is no big power-grab to be found.

Maybe it wasn't a "big" power-grab, but the lives of the rural poor have certainly been made worse by all of our egregious drunk driving laws, and the cops and courts dedicated to their zealous persecution.

You've been downvoted for saying so, but you're right, impaired driving laws has drastically altered rural culture. The center of that culture was the house party, and the only way to get to those is to drive.

But what really killed that culture was the internet. The expression was: "There are only two types of entertainment in a small town: drinking and fucking". Now teenagers just spend all day playing Call of Duty.

At least they're not regularly dying in drunken car accidents like they used to: in my high school we lost well over 1% of our students to it.

Not worse. Better.

I wasn't really talking about "rural house party culture"; I'll take your word on that. b^)

What I mean is, whenever I have to go to the county courthouse (entirely for civil matters!), there is a constant stream of poor men and poor women attempting to stay out of jail so they can keep their jobs, pay the costs for their previous jail stays, keep their licenses so the asshole deputies don't just park outside their place of employment at shift's end, get custody of their children back from the last time they were sent to jail...

No decent purpose is served by the unending cycle of punishment, and drunk driving laws are a cog in that infernal machine. I guess I'm glad that the drunk driving crusaders are too busy feeling superior to notice the plight of those who suffer so that they can feel good. If they did notice all the misery they cause poor families, they'd probably be even happier with themselves.

On the other hand, now that we've had a few terrorist incidents where vehicles were used to plow through groups of pedestrians, there is kind of a perverse intersection of these two issues. Also, there has been a proliferation of bollards in areas where such attacks are considered a risk.

Lastly, your point about the psychology of risk is well taken. I can't remember where I saw (perhaps it was a comedian?) the lament that climate change doesn't have a beard and turban.

yes the usual effect of panic when one plane falls but complete ignorance when thousands die on roads every year, and many more end up crippled for rest of their lives.

as for war efforts, it is a very good business to few. they are few relative to the rest of the country, but their influence on politics is profound, hence the result.

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