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Comment by eptcyka | Hacker News Reader

Do you drive on the roads in the UK? I don't think legislation will fix the culture of not caring enough to recognize speed limit signs. People are constantly distracted or just stupid. Regardless of whether the speed limit is 20 or 30, they all choose to drive at 25. In fact, next to no-one is actually following the 20mph speed limit in most cases. Motorway driving isn't any better, you either do well below 70 or well above it. There's people leaving 100m stretches between them and the next car when there's congestion. Road markings are taken to be mere suggestions. And the road markings themselves are rubbish - how am I supposed to know which lane must I take if the only signs instructing me of that are under the cars in front of me?

I wholeheartedly agree that phones shouldn't be used during driving, but to drive safer and more efficiently, the country needs a change in driving culture.

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The UK has amongst the safest roads in the world, however you choose to measure it.

There is always room for improvement, but to suggest the UK has a poor driving safety culture is demonstrably false.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

It's true the UK has "safer" streets than other countries, but that doesn't mean it's great.

2.9 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year... That means that if everyone lived in a medium sized town of 100,000 people, each town would have nearly 3 of its inhabitants killed on the roads per year. Over a period of , say, 10 years, you 're fairly likely to know or be related to one of them. It's still pretty terrible, even if other places on this planet have even much worse.

You are correct although this is more a case of other countries being worse rather than us being particularly well-behaved.

I think it varies by area. In suburban parts of West London I can guarantee on any day I walk along roads near my house that I will observe unsafe driving - it usually doesn't result in an accident but it's a numbers game and eventually will cause damage that's fully avoidable.

What I find especially odd recently are the cases of people being reckless with their own cars suffering as a result - I get that whilst driving a company vehicle, certain types of people will turn a blind eye with it, but the number of cases of people scraping their own car's bumpers as they fly over speed bumps is definitely on the rise. I'm not suggesting they willfully set out to scrape them, but it's obvious to a bystander this will happen given the way they drive and don't break in time. It's as if they haven't the forethought to connect their behaviour and the outcome.

It's really hard to compare these. Netherlands has 4.7 per 1 billion vehicle-km, UK 3.9. I'd guess this is because population density (more crossings) and a way more cyclist in Netherlands. Cycling is safer in Netherlands than in UK. (I have cycled quite a bit in both places)

Oh, it's safe, but what's the point of using a car if you'll reach your destination slower than if you were to use public transportation? I'm not arguing that it's too safe, but I'm arguing that it's as safe coincidentally, and the driving culture still has lots of room for improvement.

The number of deaths is indeed low.

How's the number of traffic-related injuries?

I completely agree. Alas, enforcement is minimal and the worst offenders seem, correctly, to believe there is virtually no chance of being caught.

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