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Comment by methodover | Hacker News Reader

“Given New York’s lax enforcement record, the Freakonomics podcast described running over pedestrians there as “the perfect crime.””

I was driving in Oakland when the car in front of me didn’t slow down for a pedestrian in the crosswalk. The pedestrian disappeared in front of the car. I stopped my car, got out, found the struck young woman trembling and bleeding in the street.

The speed limit was 30 miles per hour. I don’t think the driver was going quite that fast — maybe 20, 25 at most.

The woman driving the car was elderly. It’s tough to gauge her age — pushing late 70s, maybe 80? She said she didn’t notice the girl in the crosswalk.

I was upset. I stayed the entire time, talked with the cops at length, gave a statement. I wanted to see the lady’s license taken away. Or a ticket at least. Or heck, even a talking to about if maybe she’s no longer fit to drive.

The cops let the old lady drive away. No ticket. No talk. I was stunned. Surely if you hit someone with your car at that speed, in fucking crosswalk, you at the very least need to prove to the DMV that you’re safe to drive. Especially if you’re an elderly person. But nope. They said they had no grounds with which to take any action at all.

Still bothers me. I hope that lady hasn’t killed anyone.

View on HN

Wait, what!?

In Europe if you strike a pedestrian on the crosswalk you'll definitely loose your license and be looking at manslaughter charges too while your insurance company will murder you after paying the victim's medical/disability/court bills.

In Europe, if you strike a pedestrian outside a crosswalk, the same might happen to you depending on the jurisdiction. Pedestrians create their own right of way, practically speaking (if not judicially). :-)

Depends on country, but even then I think "limited trust" is the approach expected from drivers.

A relative in France hit a pedestrian outside of a crosswalk, the aged man died after a few days at the hospital.

It was night time, rainy and the victim popped out from the space between two parked cars and ran just in front of the motorbike to quickly cross the road.

There was automatically a trial anyway for manslaughter and my relative was not found guilty of anything. I think it's a good thing to automatically have a trial anyway. The rule here is "the driver must be in full control of its vehicle at anytime". It basically means that if you could have physically avoided a pedestrian (factoring in response and braking times..), you'll be found guilty even if the pedestrian was outside of a crosswalk for instance.

What do you mean by "full control"? The average driver does not have the experience nor the training to maintain full control at all times.

For example, consider a situation where the driver has to correct understeer, or lift-off oversteer, both relatively easy to achieve in cold, wet conditions.

That is exactly what full control means. Your lack of training is no excuse in the eyes of the law.

Well for example, in the U.K, neither understeer nor oversteer is taught when learning to drive. Whose fault is that? The 30 million drivers who have never heard of it or practised it, but have otherwise satisfied the legal requirement to drive; or the legislation that mandates the procedures that must be taken to pass a driving test?

In The Netherlands, you're not taught those things when learning to drive either. What is taught, is that wet and/or especially cold conditions can cause unsafe road conditions that can lead to loss of control over the vehicle. As a reasonable person, you're supposed to know to adapt to this. This isn't specifically mentioned in the law, but it follows from one of the most basic articles of our traffic law that states that it's "forbidden to act in a way that causes or could cause dangerous road conditions or causes or could cause traffic to be hindered"

Sure, that is the same here too.

The unfortunate truth is that people are human and humans make mistakes. You could drive to work on the same back road every day. Except one day it's particularly cold and you don't see the ice patch on the sharp right hand corner you've taken 100s of times before. The rear of the car steps out, but you don't know what to do as you have never encountered this before. You panic, naturally stamping on the brakes and end up off the road in a ditch.

The alternative: drivers must complete separate examinations for front wheel drive and rear driven cars, like how automatic and manual are separate licenses.

As part of that drivers must learn how the drivetrain affects how the car breaks traction both under power and under non-power conditions (i.e. coasting), and the appropriate corrections for both.

Let's come back to our scenario. We can assume the driver is operating a front wheel drive vehicle. Instead of slamming on the brakes, the driver has experience of lift off oversteer from their test. They apply 1/4 turn of opposite lock, then unwind the lock. The driver then applies power to the front wheels to straighten the rear.

Thanks to good training and examination driver has successfully avoided ending up the ditch.

> The unfortunate truth is that people are human and humans make mistakes.

That's true, it's also going to stay true no matter the amount of training. That isn't to say that I'm advocating against more training, but I think the training is prohibitively more expensive (even in a context where driving isn't as much of a necessity as it is here) for a gain that I perceive to be largely negligible unless linked to stricter training and re-certification in general (which is certainly prohibitively expensive).

Honestly, you should never drive as fast to get under- or oversteer in normal traffic. The only exception would be icy road, but then you shouldn't drive more than walking speeds.

So step number 1. is not to drive as fast that you exceed the limits of your full control.

There is no step 2.

I just completed a new driver course in Quebec. They specifically space out the in-car sessions over a whole year to ensure this kind of practice. Yes, my instructor and I went on a highway while it was snowing with bad visibility.

We also get taught to inspect the car before getting in in case (for example) the exhaust pipe is blocked.

More training is needed in most countries.

Perhaps not the best translation. It means that you have to adapt to the conditions and also for instance that driving with one hand because you have a cup of coffee, using your phone or having to manage a naughty pet that jumped to the front seat is not an acceptable excuse

You're never supposed to operate your vehicle outside of your comfort zone where you know you'll be able to react correctly and optimally. If the conditions are sub-optimal and you think you might not be able to handle your car correctly in case of emergency you should drive slower or not drive at all.

I won't pretend that I've always been a perfect driver, quite far from it actually, but I don't think the law should find me excuses. If I drive too fast and find myself unable to avoid a collision I definitely don't expect to get a pass for my reckless driving because it was at night and raining.

Hopefully in the not-so-far future we'll finally get those self-driving cars we were promised and we'll be able to leave all of that to the past.

I agree, but it's largely academic in the real world. People drive to work in bad conditions because they fear if they don't they'll lose their job. People drive in bad conditions because someone they know has fallen ill and they need to get to the hospital.

Most people drive to their limits, or their comfort. Some people do stupid things and drive beyond what is safe, but dependent on where you live this may or may not be in the minority.

What fascinates me is that we are not giving drivers the skills they need to be able to avoid accidents should the worst happen. Instead we say you shouldn't drive at speed X or in condition Y.

My argument is that we should be teaching drivers these skills not only so they can correct their mistakes, because at the end of the day we are all human and make mistakes, but if we also show drivers how easy it is to lose control of a vehicle they may just respect the road a little more than they do already.

>You're never supposed to operate your vehicle outside of your comfort zone where you know you'll be able to react correctly and optimally. If the conditions are sub-optimal and you think you might not be able to handle your car correctly in case of emergency you should drive slower or not drive at all.

This all sounds ok in theory, but as the article makes a great case for, this is totally impossible in America because it's impossible to get around in most places without a car. You can't just not drive when the weather is a little wet, for instance; you'll lose your job, you won't be able to get home, etc.

One big problem is that most people just have no training for bad conditions. How many people even here on HN know what "lift off oversteer" is? Or how to correct for it? I do, but most don't and would wreck. The regular barely-educated driver? Forget about it. Drivers should get far more training than they do. But even then, many people wouldn't be able to master this stuff; they just don't have the aptitude.

In Germany, people have to pay thousands to take driver training that does cover much more than what Americans are required to learn. However, it's not that hard to get around in western Europe without a car if you suck at driving or can't afford car ownership.

Most people think they can handle their car in situations where they absolutely can't.

IMHO, this means the average driver shouldn't be driving in cold, wet conditions.

If you're going to use something that can kill people if mishandled, you take on a lot of responsibilities, one of which is to maintain attention / control.

Same goes for many such objects, really: power tools, guns, industrial machinery, medical equipment, etc.

In India if you strike a pedestrian anywhere, you can yell at him for being a nuisance and be on your way. Pedestrians have 0 value in terms of life in India.

Aren't there some videos of some drivers in China doing reverse to make sure the person they hit is dead to not having to cover medical bills? People can do horrible things once money get involved.

Yes, there are such cases. Though how often this occurs is up for debate:

* https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chinese-drivers-kill-pedes...

There was an article a while back (I can't find) where a US police department joked about the same to save the city money.

There was an article a while back (I can't find) where San Francisco's transit agency (SFMTA) joked about the same to save the city money.

It probably makes sense... a fatality pay out is $2M (using FAA standards). Long term medical care in the US? Easily over that...

This may be true in Western Europe. In Russia, the de facto law is that cars have the right of way, a holdover from Soviet days, when only politicians and top bureaucrats were afforded cars.

Hah, nearly obliterated some teenager that decided to cross in the middle of the street and in front of a large truck. The light was green and my lane completely empty and it was a 55 mph road and I didn't have a need to slowdown. Until she darted out from in front of the truck and nearly died, there was no way to see her early because of the truck AND no way to expect someone would be so retarded on a 55 mph road NOT to use the crosswalks.

It's like the article states - it's actually unusual for a non drunk driver in America to face charges when in any incident with a bicyclist or pedestrian even with a death unless there is a LEO watching or LEO victim. It's a common topic on blogs about cycling in the USA.

What's LEO?

Law Enforcement Officer

Often in more formal writing the phrase "peace officer" is used, at least in part this is because in the US there are so many different types of cop and so many jobs that have some level of cop-like authority that saying cop or police officer is insufficient

Low Earth Orbit.

In parts of Europe, any motor vehicle accident where a pedestrian or cyclist dies is likely to result in a charge of manslaughter for the driver, unless the pedestrian or cyclist was obviously at fault.

Ha. I’ve seen cyclists get hit by cars that aren’t watching before they turn and the cop who saw the whole thing still blames the cyclist just for being hard to see.

I’m certain that the police officers the original commented mentioned actually said that they had no grounds even though it is completely incorrect just because the United States is so heavily built around people driving everywhere (and that public transit is for poor, distasteful people).

Older people losing their cars is often the start of a decline unto death because there’s so little you can do with driving in many neighborhoods (which commonly won’t even have sidewalks) and relatively few people have the resources to hire someone to replace that lost autonomy. I remember when an older driver killed someone by backing over them in the church parking lot near here and so many people framed it in those terms when talking about whether she should lose her license, largely ignoring the person who no longer had to worry about it.

> Older people losing their cars is often the start of a decline unto death

I'm not sure this is just because of the way neighborhoods are set up. It's also a lack of social structures to catch this. The richest country one earth, has Uber, yet can't keep healthcare costs low enough to keep the elderly alive longer.

It’s definitely not just that but losing the ability to travel is a big multiplier since it affects your ability to see other people, eat well, exercise, etc. along with getting medical or legal assistance.

I mean, ability to do those things isn't really endemic to "the ability to travel" is it? More like a function of how your area is setup whether or not you need to travel far to do these things or just leisurely amble over.

> More like a function of how your area is setup

That's the point of the article: currently, large parts of the United States are setup assuming that everyone has their own car and drives to perform each of those functions. For many people, there's a huge hit in convenience and budget if they switch transportation modes — e.g. where I live in DC, many of the suburbs were intentionally designed after Brown v. Board not to support pedestrians or transit users (presumed to be poor and brown), so there are no sidewalks and significant distances to get to anything other than houses even if you do take your chances on foot / bike. Someone who can't drive might find they have a 40+ minute walk to get to a library, pool, shopping center, etc. when you add up all of the street crossings and circuitous routes.

Elderly have medicare. My dad just spent $300 out of pocket for a week in the hospital. Not that big a deal.

> Older people losing their cars is often the start of a decline unto death because there’s so little you can do [without] driving in many neighborhoods.

The solution is to replace their car with a vehicle that's less dangerous for others like an electrically assisted tricycle. That can serve their local transportation needs and won't cause nearly as much damage if they hit someone or something.

Also to invest in things like public transit, sidewalks & protected bike paths for ebikes & trikes, mobility services which will pick you up, etc. Unfortunately we’ve lost our way nationally about funding infrastructure and in many areas the sprawl density is low enough that these are more expensive than, say, much of Europe.

> Also to invest in things like [...] protected bike paths for ebikes & trikes

These lead to significant problems at intersections. It's best to keep vehicles of all types on roads where they obey the same set of rules.

Those lead to problems at poorly-designed intersections. I would prefer the answer be to design them correctly, making sure that some users aren't neglected.

The problem is that putting cyclists moving at 10 to 15 mph (14 to 22 feet per second) at the pedestrian position results in situations where neither the cyclist or the motorist see each other until the last second and that results in a collision. This isn't as much of an issue for pedestrians because they're moving slower 3 to 6 mph (4 to 8 feet per second). Also, pedestrians are able to stop much faster than a cyclist.

Second, these intersections place a much higher burden on cyclists. That is, they have to check for traffic coming from behind to see if they're going to make a right turn and avoid getting hit. They have to watch for traffic coming from the side to make sure they don't get hit. And they have to watch for left turning traffic far to the left to make sure they don't get hit.

If they're riding in the standard road position (center of the lane) instead, then it's much easier to see traffic and it's easier for traffic to see them as they approach an intersection.

> The problem is that putting cyclists moving at 10 to 15 mph (14 to 22 feet per second) at the pedestrian position results in situations where neither the cyclist or the motorist see each other until the last second and that results in a collision

This is why I specified correctly designed: what you're saying is an artifact of a poorly-designed intersection which does not have good visibility or clear traffic flows.

> This is why I specified correctly designed

Even the NACTO (National Association of City Transportation Officials) design guide states:

>> Driveways and minor street crossings are a unique challenge to cycle track design. A review of crossing facilities and design practice has shown that the following guidance may improve safety at crossings of driveways and minor intersections:

>> * If the cycle track is parking protected, parking should be prohibited near the intersection to improve visibility. The desirable no parking area is 30 feet from each side of the crossing. >>

>> * For motor vehicles attempting to cross the cycle track from the side street or driveway, street and sidewalk furnishings and/or other features should accommodate a sight triangle of 20 feet to the cycle track from the minor street crossings and 10 feet from driveway crossing.

The distances quoted should make it evident that, at least in the US, even the guidelines aren't going to lead to "correctly designed" intersections.

They are very apt to be hit and killed by other bad drivers in that slow vehicle.

Replace everyone's cars with electric tricycles then.

And replace all American suburbs and infrastructure, because that is what you are asking.

What you're looking for is a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle

Some retirement communities are specifically designed to handle those, and they work fine in many urban and suburban areas.

That's one reason I hope autonomous vehicles are functional and available soon.

I have hit a pedestrian. Instead of using the nearby crosswalk she walked in between the cars and when she walked in front of me it was too late for me to brake. She flew a couple of meters and landed on the crosswalk. In the police report is was stated that I hit the person on the crosswalk as I couldn't prove otherwise. The woman was taken away in an ambulance due to a broken leg.

I was 16 at the time. Really shaken up about what had happened. But after collecting myself and fixing the dangling headlight I was able to drive home. I got a ticket for not giving way to the pedestrian (€45 I believe) and insurance covered everything regarding the woman. Didn't even get a letter other than one that they would take of everything.

So yes it happens here too (The Netherlands)

It does, mostly because Europe is not a country. In Spain you can't drive until you're 18 and they'll take your license away if you're found to blame, even though not forever.

Here when a pedestrian is in the crosswalk and gets hit and knocked outside the crosswalk, the police blame the pedestrian for crossing outside the crosswalk. It’s like they don’t grok the very obvious physics of a small object being hit by a larger and faster moving one.

How were you driving when you were sixteen?

Because that's when you can get a license in many states.

But not in The Netherlands, which he explicitly stated he was from. The real answer is that he probably wasn't driving a car.

Has it always been that age? We do not know how old the poster is, nor whether or not he had a regular lisence or a permit.

It hasn't been less than 18 since 1934, if not further back. Since last year it's possible to get a provisional license at the age of 17 (no earlier).

Ah, ok. I truly didn't know.

I was driving a 49cc moped that I operated legally with a "bromfietscertificaat".

Everyone should have a dashcam for situations like this.

> I was 16 at the time.

I.e. you weren't driving a car and you were underage.

I'm not saying that the legal system in The Netherlands is unreasonable or anything, but I feel like your case doesn't really represent the kind of case people are thinking of in this thread.

Why you are being downvoted is strange to me as it is a valid point to make. Low velocity hits with a pedestrian and a bike or moped without serious injuries are not something to give heavy fines to or involve the legal system as basic injuries are covered by general insurance and in this case the pedestrian was at least partially at fault. And otherwise the cost to society would be bigger than the medical and administrative. The parties have been helped and punished, don't make it worse than required.

Be aware though that this is not always the case. For instance if you are driving next to a playing field you are expected to watch out and brake for children who can always show up on the road and not doing so has consequences.

So if someone hits someone in a car and they are just minor injuries we should’t involve the legal system? The method of injury ought not matter: car, bike, scooter, whatever — breaking road laws should be enforced and injuries should result in further charges.

There's some major PTSD that happens when you get hit by a multi-ton metal object with a fairly unempathetic operator.

If you ask a person on the street why they don't exchange a quick car ride with riding a bike or walking, they may tell you that they're scared of getting hit by a car - and this is probably before getting hit by a car.

I can't really quantify the emotional stress riding bikes costs me now each, and every time a car almost hits me (which is a regular basis), but it's something I have to now live with. And I friggin' love riding bikes.

They probably weren't easily available when this happened to you, but this story shows why a dashcam is a very good investment.

In most of the US if you lose your ability to drive you lose your ability to be a functional member of society and outside a few cities with good public transit even the poor drive. Europe has good public transit and their regulations increase the cost of driving to the point where mostly only the middle and upper classes do it. Losing your license in Europe is not as big a deal as losing it in the US.

You can't generalise Europe like that. Most people from a working household in the UK (outside of London drive). From supermarket workers to executives. Approximately every rural part of the UK has public transport but it's unsurprising if it is infrequent and doesn't get you to a population centre in time to work.

Of course there's exceptions. That's kind of inherent to all generalizations. I can and did generalize most of Europe like that. The fact of the matter is that a smaller percent of the population drives there for a variety of reasons so losing one's license is less crippling on average.

And in France outside of Paris most people drive. It would be impossible to live in the countryside without a car. Even within larger towns, the big supermarkets are outside of the city center.

It's not like this in the UK unless you're extraordinarily reckless. Especially if you hit a cyclist. Generalising about "Europe" for things that aren't in the remit of the EU isn't great.

I’m not really sure the above comment is an accurate representation of the US. In my City an elderly lady stuck a child at a bus stop and killed her.[1] This lady had the audacity to try and get her license back after they took it but before the trial.

[1]https://www.montlick.com/montlick-blog/auto-accidents/333-el...

Your one example incident involved a stopped school bus and the death of a child back in 2009. That you recall the result as being extraordinary ten years later should reenforce the representation.

How often do you think this happens within 2 miles from your house? This is my example locally.

The GPs comments were implying it wouldn’t happen in Europe without manslaughter charges and the US it they wouldn’t be charged. It can happen in the US with similar charges, vehicular homicide. My comment is valid.

> How often do you think this happens within 2 miles from your house?

How often do I think what happens? I live in Boston. So depending on what you are asking, the answer is probably too damn often, which is the point. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20403831

> My comment is valid.

Oh okay.

The same thing in the United States. The parent comment, while I don’t doubt the truth of the story, it doesn’t represent what actually happens. People that hit a pedestrian in a crosswalk are going to be cited and if there are injuries, potentially charged with a serious crime.

>People that hit a pedestrian in a crosswalk are going to be cited and if there are injuries, potentially charged with a serious crime

Nope, you're wrong, this is largely untrue unless the driver fled the scene or the driver was drunk. "Whoops I didn't see them" is usually a completely valid defense and everyone shrugs and says "Oh well, accidents happen" rather than "slow down, pay attention, and learn to control your car."

http://www.startribune.com/in-crashes-that-kill-pedestrians-...

>The majority of drivers who killed pedestrians between 2010 and 2014 were not charged, according to Star Tribune analysis of metro area crash data. Those who were charged often faced misdemeanors — from speeding to careless driving — with minimal penalties, unless the driver knowingly fled or was intoxicated at the time of the crash.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/11/06/no-charges-for-driver...

>Lenient laws and a culture of tolerance for traffic violence means that unless you were intoxicated when the crash occurred, the official word is most likely “accidents happen.” Even an investigation into a collision that caused life-threatening injuries might be too much to ask in a lot of jurisdictions. Streetsblog recently found that fewer than 1 percent of drivers who kill or injure pedestrians and cyclists in New York City are ticketed for careless driving, much less charged with a crime.

https://www.revealnews.org/article/bay-area-drivers-who-kill...

>Sixty percent of the 238 motorists found to be at fault or suspected of a crime faced no criminal charges during the five-year period, CIR found in its analysis of thousands of pages of police and court records from Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco counties.

You know what, as I think back to that night it’s possible the lady did receive a citation (a ticket) and I didn’t notice it. I was there the whole time, and listened to everything, but it’s possible I missed it. Also, the cops didn’t say they gave a citation when I talked to them, but perhaps they were following a privacy policy or something.

Also the young lady who was struck turned down an ambulance ride and got a ride home from another bystander. Injuries were not apparently life threatening. (I’m also betting the girl didn’t have health insurance.)

This is a story from oakland a city where the citizens do not like the police and protest against them. As a result it is crime ridden and the police are ineffective. At one point, oakland was the murder capital of america and murder was also a non punished crime.

In most parts of the country, I doubt this story would have played out this way

In Russia you are also guaranteed (unless you have friends in power) to spend some years in prison if you hit a pedestrian. Even if the pedestrian was crossing the road at an inappropriate place where you couldn't even see them. But this doesn't help much, Russian drivers still are crazy.

As a pedestrian (or cyclist), you should always give way to cars, even being prepared to jump out of the way when you have the right-of-way. Unless the driver is intoxicated, they get inconvenienced with higher insurance premiums for a little while at worst, while you get stuck with life long injuries and pain at worst.

Which is a reason why cars have to vanish from cities.

Then cities have to radically change. I don't know how people can ever commute from the current urban sprawl to their place of work without them. Cities would need to build massive bus and rail infrastructures at the cost of billions or similar amounts are going to have to be spent to increase densification.

I chose where to live because of a desire to be able to commute easily - the bus is 10 minutes, walking is about 25 - but I paid for it, both literally and figuratively.

They can, and they have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o

I believe you're looking at a city that was historically traveled via footpath - try and apply that to a modern American city.

Simple: they need to bulldoze most everything and start over, building cities the way they are in Europe with high density and public transit lines built in (and under). Add in either closed roads for anything except delivery trucks (you can't deliver goods to the supermarket with a subway), or huge tolls/taxes for personal vehicles to keep people from driving there and causing gridlock and get them out of the suburbs. But in addition you need to have lots of construction of residential units (in high-rises) so that housing costs stay affordable.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, or you think that's actually feasible and simple.

You need to have the political will. There is nothing in the previous comment that is physically impossible.

No, you're right - but to say it's simple is ridiculous. That will take the entire city being willing to be displaced for years - millions of people without homes - what does the political will for that look like?

Well you don't need to do it all at once, and you don't really need to bulldoze every building and road. It would be more realistic to just "upzone" as the other commenter said, and stop accommodating car transport so much and start aggressively redeveloping after adding public transit infrastructure (which would be a lot cheaper and easier if you bulldoze along the routes so you can do cut-and-cover instead of digging tunnels).

While you do that in the core, the outside of the city still grows, and that's all car based - there's no way around a city expanding and not building it for cars, unless you get the bus infrastructure out there before the people show up, which would appear to be a monumental waste when every city in the world's focus seems to be cutting taxes.

The cities in America grow because there's various incentives for them to do so, and nothing really constraining that growth in a way that favors cars.

Don't build new roads to the core, maybe even take out, restrict, or slap huge tolls on the existing roads, and you'll keep people from wanting to commute in by car. Also remove rules requiring parking spaces, and even encourage replacing parking lots with buildings or parks or anything else, to make car driving the most miserable experience it can possibly be

There's lots a government can do to make people stop driving cars so much, and stop moving out to the suburbs. There just isn't political will (in America) to do so.

...no, but it bears remembering that many cities in Europe were effectively bulldozed by two world wars, not to mention centuries of smaller wars.

Just because you can raze entire cities, displace their populations, and embark on "clean slate" urban planning projects doesn't mean you should. That's the civil engineering equivalent of rewriting the entire codebase from scratch.

>That's the civil engineering equivalent of rewriting the entire codebase from scratch.

And yet, "refactoring" is definitely a real thing in software engineering and is not uncommon, for good reason: many times you really do need to throw everything out and start from scratch.

Is there a version control for reality so you can rollback if things go horribly wrong? How many lives are ruined if the refactoring fails. That's an incredibly poor metaphor for actual, physical, events.

Er, you definitely don't need to bulldoze everything. You "just" need to upzone everywhere and build lots of public transit. Upzoning has negative price (since you get more tax income). Public transit is expensive, and building new subway lines is even more expensive, but it could be less expensive if the US could build transit lines as cheaply as they are built in Europe.

It is hard, but it's mostly hard due to a population of motorists who have confused the privileges granted to them by the state with rights.

I've had three jobs where I commuted from 10-30 miles over public transit. All those long commutes were either suburb to suburb or from city to suburb via reverse commute. There’s no need to drive a car if you’re commuting to a fixed location and you live in the burbs or the city.

What were your long commutes? 1-2 hours? Why would people accept that when a car can do that in a quarter the time?

They will if car taxes increase.

And if ridership increases enough, then bus commute times will be reduced a great deal.

People will pay a lot for the convenience - I think of all my coworkers who need to go pick their kids up from school to take them to soccer practice after work - that's really hard to do commuting.

Is it? Robust transit systems are efficient and don't take much more time. If it's substantially longer, maybe we need to look at our work attendance policies to account for the increased transit time? (We already needed to do that anyway, considering how little of the average workday is spent on actual work, and how much less the average labor hour is worth today compared to a few decades ago.) And how old are the kids? Alien as it is to suburbanites, city kids often get around by themselves (often in groups) by the end of elementary school.

The kids need to be picked up in a car partly (largely?) because there's no alternative. Given increased public transit, they may be able to get themselves to soccer practice.

Kids could walk, bike, or use the bus/train if the infrastructure was there.

True. And even with public transit, activities like taking kids to soccer practice / music school requires carrying some equipment along. Not really convenient lugging duffelbags if there is more than one kid.

I'm not sure how much ifrastructure is really needed most places.

Could we just use existing roads, and try to replace every 30 cars on the road with a bus?

That's what I mean - if you assume 100,000 cars on the road, that's 3,000 new buses the city needs, as well as multiples of that more bus drivers.

I think you're drastically underestimating the ratio of benefit to cost for cars in cities. That's a pretty ridiculous thing to say.

That's a great idea!

https://arcosanti.org/project/about-arcosanti/

Actually higher insurance premiums stick around alot longer these days or indefinitely. Costs of everything has gone up.

Even a professional athlete would have difficulty “jump[ing] out of the way” of a vehicle (or anything, for that matter) traveling at 25 miles per hour.

It is unrealistic to expect pedestrians and bicyclists to avoid automobiles by yielding to them.

EDIT: spelling; more spelling

Pedestrian culture in that area is weird. There's a general region which I think centers on Berkeley, but definitely includes Oakland, in which pedestrians have right of way (in some cases legally, in others just culturally/in expectation).

It makes driving pretty stressful because it makes people much less predictable. When I commuted to Berkeley I would often joke/not joke that Berkeley pedestrians were trying to make me kill them with my car.

But a different weird thing is that being a pedestrian in Berkeley turns you into one of those people who is trying to die by car. I was more cautious than average (read: acting like a normal pedestrian somewhere else), and it was annoying and maybe dangerous for everyone else.

That may not seem clear, but it's analogous to someone being "nice" at a 4-way stop and letting everyone else go even if it's your turn. It's not "nice," because it delays and confuses everyone who now has to cautiously navigate a potentially dangerous situation instead of just following a simple procedure.

Similarly, cars stop for people in Berkeley. That's how it goes. If you act like they don't, then you get awkward standoffs between people and cars each not trusting the other to go first, all while traffic piles up behind the cars, and other pedestrians are now interleaving in between the cars in the jam. If you're on foot, you should just step out into road and cross it, after a perfunctory check, otherwise you're gumming up the works.

I don't like it, on either side, but it's not possible to unilaterally do better. You just have to go with it.

Are you talking about outside of crosswalks? Because in all of California the pedestrian has the right of way at any crosswalk and even at unmarked intersections.

Pedestrians have the right of way in our state in general, but in most of the state they still wait until it's safe (i.e. no cars immediately arriving) before they cross. In Berkeley, especially in the two-lane roads immediately surrounding the university, pedestrians often walk out blindly wherever they please in the assumption that cars will stop. Getting through some intersections takes freaking forever because groups of pedestrians simply ignore the signals, causing traffic to snarl.

It may feel super cozy and normal when driving a car around– but the reality is that it's a metal multi-ton piece of heavy machinery. I'm sympathetic to your plight but.. really it _should be stressful._

Especially in a pedestrian-heavy center where walking should be (and thankfully is!) the norm like in Berkeley.

It seems like absolute common sense that as abilities degrade as you age you should have to retest for drivers licenses periodically. Perhaps with greatly increasing periodicity with increasing age. However, any politician who proposed or approved such an idea would be immediately voted out of office, because old people are very reliable voters. So it's not going to happen.

There's no way to pass such a law without it seeming agist - because it would be.

It seems to me, probably naively, that the easiest way around this would be to require yearly tests for everyone. You're driving a huge honking piece of metal at 60+ miles an hour down the street; a yearly verification of your ability to do so doesn't seem excessive.

Cognitive decline happens to everyone the longer they live, if that's ageism then I'm afraid it's also reality. Testing everyone yearly would be prohibitively expensive.

Hopefully, self-driving cars will eventually render these discussions redundant. But that still seems to be decades away at this rate.

> Testing everyone yearly would be prohibitively expensive.

I reiterate that we're driving huge pieces of metal at nearly a hundred miles per hour. Let's stop sacrificing people's lives for the privilege, and start sacrificing time and money.

I propose greater enforcement of existing traffic laws (instead of just speed and DUI); and a heavier hand when it comes to revocation. This would target those who need to be retested the most regardless of age and the burden of doing so can be put on them through fees.

Every society has to make some kind of sacrifice of compromise in usage of resources. Testing everyone yearly is a massive waste of time and resources and money, and won't achieve any benefit, whereas testing old people will.

I don't care if that's "ageist". It's a biological fact that older people suffer from cognitive decline, slowed reaction times, etc.

Is it also "sexist" to claim that only women are able to get pregnant?

And yet we don't let people drive or drink alcohol until a certain, arbitrary age...

I think every two years would work, just like the FAA requires Flight Reviews every two years. For those driving bigger vehicles like commercial trucks, they can have an annual “proficiency check.” If getting a car license were more like getting a pilot license, we’d all be a lot safer.

Then you look for a Bundeswagen rating course after your Rugby car breaks down. (brands are deliberately kept fictional) And you find out Bundeswagen model Z is not a so common type rating, and look for yet another successor of Rugby model B.

Ageist is one of the isms with an annoying literal legal doublespeak worthy double standard - it is only ageist if you are an elder. If you aren't then it is "reasonable assumption of your capability".

It isn't unreasonable but it is clearly a matter of power given the uneven application. Guess who has an interest in not being restricted now or in the future? Those who pass the laws and judge them.

My old (first) croatian driver's license issued back in early 2000s had an expiry date in 2040-something I think, basically until retirement. The new one is only 10 years, so I have to renew it. I only got the new one because it's a plastic card that fits in my wallet (unlike the old booklet).

My license expires after just 6 years I believe, but it can be renewed without retesting or anything, so unfortunately expiry doesn't solve the problem (at least in the US).

I believe mine expires every five years, but the first time I renewed it I did it through the mail. The last time, I only had to retake the eye test (at ten years). And the DMV made me wait a long time, with the eye test at every window clearly visible (and I think the same one, but I could be remembering incorrectly). I can see fine, but it would have been trivial to memorize it. Even if you can't see it while waiting, take a picture on your phone and zoom in. Memorize the lines you can't see. Plus, I'm not sure the employee was even listening to me as I rattled off the letters.

In my old state they had a machine you looked into. I had a harder time with that one, I'm guessing due to my mild astigmatism. But no chance to memorize it, because you don't see it until your face is in the machine; and all the lines were the same size, so you could have gotten any of them.

When my wife renewed her Washington license via mail, her eye test was checking a box on the mail-in form that effectively said, “yeah, my eyes are fine.”

> Perhaps with greatly increasing periodicity with increasing age.

We should do this based on facts, not anecdotes.

This data suggests we should first be concerned with the training and testing of new drivers. https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuri...

According to this, people 60-69 are the best drivers. 70+ are decent across the categories ("All crashes", "Injury crashes" and "Fatal crashes") except those 80+ kill themselves at an exceptional rate (but not passengers or others for some reason).

First time I visited my cousin in Illinois, they took me into Chicago for dinner at a pizza place and then to show me the rest of the city. During dinner, my cousin told me not to slow walk when you cross the street. As soon as the light changes, cars will barrel right into the intersection, so be careful.

Sure enough, I went to cross and my cousin tried to grab my arm and not let me cross. The light was green, but the timer on the crosswalk light was going down from 5. I figured I was good to go.

The light turned green for the cars and I was just about across the street when two cars who clearly had seen me, raced into the intersection. I had to nearly dive to the curb to get to safety and in the process both drivers shouted at me to get the F out of the street.

I turned around petrified and saw my cousin and uncle were laughing hilariously at my introduction to being a pedestrian in Chicago.

I'm sure there are still many cities where cars will (wrongly) always have the right of way; regardless of whether there are people in the crosswalk or not and don't care if someone gets clipped or run over in the process.

It's an impossible case to prosecute, as the woman had no bad intent, probably had a clean record, and the only evidence is eyewitness testimony.

Eyewitnesses suck at trial, and defending the elderly is pretty easy.

There is a wide berth between prosecution and no pentalty whatsoever.

For example, In many states, you can lose a license without being prosecuted. Indiana is one of them.

Alternatively, a prudent measure would be to require the driver to get a medical clearance to drive again. This, in my opinion, would be the wise choice.

That's another issue, as now you'll have police applying selective judgement, mostly in urban areas that impact people's ability to work.

Headline will be "Police target minority driver licenses for minor traffic infractions."

How is it possible that we don't have mandatory driving tests once you reach certain ages, ie 80, 85, 95+? I just heard the other week that my friend's great-great grandma (98 years old) is still driving. If someone that old can still drive safely, good for them, but there should be a mandatory test to check that.

Perhaps because the generation making the laws are baby boomers? (And don’t want to loose their access to their cars?) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/17/generation-soc...

My late mother-in-law's neighbor drove until something over 90, which pretty much nobody thought was a great idea. I don't think the boomers of Pennsylvania did anything to enable this except leave the laws unchanged.

Here's some data to inform:

https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuri...

From this, 60s is peak age range for driving safety.

In the 70s people are still good.

80+ are still pretty good in the "All crashes" and "Injury crashes" categories (a little better than people 25-29, a little worse than people 30-39), but they are really bad in "Fatal crashes" -- even a little worse than 16-17yo.

Digging into the fatalities, the spike in deaths caused by old people are themselves and not passengers or others.

So I guess the motivation for driving tests for old people would be to protect them from themselves and should apply to people 80+.

If we want to protect people from bad drivers generally, we should really want to do something about 16-17yos (just pushing back the driving age might not do it because inexperience is probably a significant factor). Actually something like more monitoring/training/tests for drivers, say, 16-24 would be the best place to start. (Drivers 25-29 are also a problem, but presumably if you improve younger drivers the older age range will take care of itself as the good young drivers age.)

>Police-reported

So the parent established that, in his case, a crash took place but was not recorded by the police. Police are known to give the benefit of the doubt to certain classes of people, leaving incidents that they cause outside of formal records and review. Is this a widespread phenomenon that could skew the data presented in your citation? I think that's worth investigating.

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