> Car accidents is top1-top2 death reason in US for people in 20-40 age group [1]
Car crashes where the top 1-2. I am willing to bet most of those involved DUI, and therefore negligence, and shouldn't be classed as "accidents"
#CrashNotAccident.
Car crashes where the top 1-2. I am willing to bet most of those involved DUI, and therefore negligence, and shouldn't be classed as "accidents"
#CrashNotAccident.
The usual counter-argument is that the use of the word "accident" is a statement of intent, and outside of extreme road rage scenarios, nobody intends to cause a crash. However, the creation of an unsafe situation, such as texting while driving, is often absolutely deliberate.
Didn't check your blind spot before making a lane change? That's not an accident, that's negligence.
TBH, I'm not even sure if any crashes could really qualify as an "accident".
Humans are fallible and make unintentional mistakes. It's surprising that humans are as good at driving as we are and that most of us aren't making catastrophic mistakes on a regular basis.
There are some. One that comes to mind is a freak rock falling off a truck in the opposing lane coming through your windshield. Possible negligence on the part of whoever loaded the truck, but for the victim it may as well be a lightning strike on a clear sunny day. Falling trees or things like that could do it too.
However, I think "car crashes aren't accidents" is probably close enough to the truth that it makes sense to use as a mantra in drivers ed (as my drivers ed teacher did.)
Less than that. There have been many studies done about the efficacy of vehicle "safety" inspections on making roads safer and they range from "no effect" to "positive effect about as big as the noise threshold". There was some Danish meta-study I thought I had bookmarked but can't seem to find that spells it all out.
That said, I 200% disagree with the overall opinion of your comment. Typical human behavior is not negligence. Systems should take into account normal, error making, humans and not expect perfect "behave like a computer humans". Behaving normally, even if that means not checking your blind spot as well as you should 1/100 times is not negligence. Furthermore there's only so much situational awareness a person with two eyes facing the same way can have. As another commenter points out you're gonna be in for a near miss at best if the time you're checking your blind spot is the same time traffic in front of you starts coming to an emergency stop.