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Comment by turk73 | Hacker News Reader

Need to look at total miles driven, not just population size vs. number of deaths.

Doesn't Norway have huge taxes on automobiles which chill ownership? If so, then population is not relevant. If only 10% of people can afford to own cars, then the number of crashes and fatalities will certainly be low.

The US standard of living is far higher. Whether that leads to more fatalities or not is anybody's guess. I would prefer the idea that we don't bother teaching people to drive very well or that people don't value developing their own good driving skills.

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The US standard of living is lower than the Norwegian. In terms of GDP per capita, Norway is almost 25 percent richer.

In reality, though there is a lot more equality in Norway where much of the population shares in the wealth. Having traveled extensively in both countries, I can tell you that the standard of living for regular people in Norway is far higher than that of regular Americans.

https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

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> Need to look at total miles driven, not just population size vs. number of deaths.

No, you don't, the point is that a similar amount of people can exist in a city without killing each other with cars.

> US standard of living is far higher.

Than Norway? The country with 25% higher GDP per capita than the US, a 33h average work week, and an infant mortality rate of a first world country? Nah

Norway also produces nearly 10x as much oil per capita as the US. Everybody seems to forget that when pointing out how nice the place is.

That would be a feature, usually countries relying on primary production have large wealth disparities.

Is that an environment argument? Or an argumenbt that the money somehow doesn't count or helps ensure a good living standard?

That oil money does help living standards. Especially since a big state ownership plus big Nordic welfare state ensures it ends up helping pretty much everyone.

Environmental, for sure. They may not be burning all that oil themselves, but it would not get burned at all if they did not pull it out of the ground.

Usually producing a lot of oil is correlated with poor economic outcomes, not good ones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

Unlike most other petrostates, Norway has had the sense not to get high on their own supply - higher fuel taxes than their neighbors, stashing the oil revenues in a permanent fund, and taxing the heck out of their high salaries to pay for government spending.

When the oil runs out, they’ll still have their (currently) 1 Trillion dollar permanent fund to cushion the blow.

> Need to look at total miles driven, not just population size vs. number of deaths.

If you happen to have traffic, and wish to improve the traffic in isolation, perhaps. More generally, what you need to look at really depends on whether you're trying to measure traffic safety itself, society's general safety and well being (very complex), or something more specific.

Why are you assuming that more driving means a higher standard of living? That’s a very provincial and suburban perspective to have. I’d rather be able to walk and take the subway places than have to drive everywhere.

Indeed, his own argument implies the opposite in that only people that can afford a car in the first place can benefit from this higher standard of living. Most people not needing a car is a far higher goal for a country to attain.

I guess you haven't been to Norway! And you might say "well it ain't fair they drive less miles". Maybe that is the point.

> The US standard of living is far higher.

Then if the us put a huge tax on cars, it would save lives too! Maybe we don’t need to drive as much. Maybe when we feel like a burger across town, we skip it instead of driving.

Speed limits are incredibly low. I drove across Norway this summer and never saw a speed limit higher than 50mph.

that seems a little low. imagine living in wyoming and never being allowed to drive above 50 mph.

imo, american speed limits should be much lower in the city and significantly higher on limited access highways. 25 in the city often feels downright dangerous; I'll often go slower if I don't think I'll be creating an even more dangerous hazard. on the other hand, 65 feels like crawling on a straight, wide highway.

To those that aren't sure: 50mph is around 80kph.

And yeah, that's gonna be a pretty standard speed limit, though some with 90-100kph are out there. Unless you meant 50kph... and in that case, it is low.

Highway speeds are 90-110km/h (55-70mph). General speed limits are 80km/h and 50km/h (50/30mph) depending on pop. density.

Speeds are often reduced if the road is sub par or if there have been accidents on that bit of road.

Yes. The limits are low, but definitivly not _incredibly_ low.

What highway? I was pretty surprised to not be on a proper motorway, it was all 2-lane highways. IIRC it was max 80km, with plenty of 70km and lower limits.

I drove Oslo Airport -> Flåm -> Bergen -> Oslo Airport. Looks like E16 / 7 / 52 were the roads involved, 968km loop.

Which mean you went the scenic route, crossed the mountain, hit the fjords, etc. The leg after Voss on Flåm->Bergen won the price of "the worst road in Norway"[1].

The motorways are mostly on the south-eastern part of Norway, where it's reasonably flat. There aren't that many of them, building infrastructure here is really hard.

[1]: https://www.nrk.no/hordaland/e16-bergen-voss-kara-til-_noreg...

Us foreigners could be forgiven for thinking the route between the two largest cities would have the busiest/most built up motorways :) I think the route via Flåm could certainly be considered "the scenic route", but my trip back was the most direct route per Google Maps.

I don't disagree that it's very difficult to build infrastructure! Every road must follow the contours of a fjord, or go over or through a mountain. I was very lucky to be able to drive the world's longest tunnel; I had read about it but honestly forgot about it until I made a left turn into a mountain and was perplexed as to how I could get to where I was going by driving into it.

Also need to look at travel times. Norway has low speed limits and makes driving an inconvenience in the pursuit of perfect safety records. But it takes away from being able to get where you want quickly (cities with road infrastructure that is not over-subscribed are way faster to get around than walking/biking/public transit) and on your own terms (no waiting times, room for people/cargo, etc.). The tradeoffs for a better safety record, as well as the lurking variables, are not being considered in this conversation.

Driving isn't as convenient in the cities - Trondheim, at least, is very walkable. There is a tunnel under the city for quicker driving, though, and it sure is faster than the bus or walking of you are going across town. It is going to be faster in electric cars since they can use different traffic routes.

The speed limits are low, but you get used to that.

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Best source I can find, suggests that travel times in Oslo are decent by world standards, and falls about where you would expect a US city of that size and density to be. It's conveniently right next to Portland, which was listed by the grandparent comment as a comparable.

The density required to have walking/biking/transit be realistic and efficient options makes over-subscribed roads a certainty unless you actively restrict automobile traffic. Private cars as the primary means of transportation works brilliantly in low to mid density areas, but fails utterly in high density ones.

There is no one size fits all solution for all cities. In my opinion it seems quite clear that there should be a negative correlation between density and private automobile usage in order to optimize safety and efficiency for all.

Not true. Cars are extremely space inefficient. The only way to have road infrastructure that is not oversubscribed is to have both low population and population density. But low density means having to travel much further distances to access basic amenities. It is not faster or more convenient to drive 10 miles to the grocery store than walk 2 blocks, even if driving 10 miles is a lot quicker out in the sticks.

Imagine thinking that making things more convenient for drivers is worth a lot more dead people!

At some level it is. If you think that any amount of risk is too great, then everyone should just stay in their home. But that's obviously impractical.

Well, if you can live like they do in Oslo and have 1 death. That seems worth it.

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