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Comment by markus92 | Hacker News Reader

The article is mentioning tons of technological measures you can take in the car, but a far more effective way to go about this is infrastructure. As someone from Europe, driving in the US is shockingly dangerous at times. High-speed unprotected left turns at higher speeds are so commonplace, lack of merge lanes on 45mph roads isn't that great either.

Something like Vision Zero and making the roads a bit more forgiving can also go a long way in reducing traffic deaths. No need for new tech in new cars.

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Also, higher cars with huge grills, lower visibility, and thick A pillars have more capacity to severely injure and kill.

Solution is super simple though. Increase gas tax so that it costs $20 per gallon.

The high cars have the other downside of minimizing visibility around intersections when parked at corners. Pedestrians can't see cars coming and the cars can't see pedestrians coming. Usually the cars also can't see bikes coming down the road either.

I wish parking on busy corners would not be allowed at all

That is allowed in the US?

Usually not like right on the corner, parking aside if there is more than one lane a truck in to your left can easily block sight lines when trying to take a right turn or trying to pull out of a parking space.

it is a responsibility of localities. some places do have rules against it, but it isnt universal

for example, NYC:

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2015/02/27/the-new-york-city-par...

https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/motorist/parking-regulati...

see "t-intersections"

I think the "punish all car drivers" thing will ultimately catch on. It seems to be becomming the popular opinion.

I think that's sad and damaging though. I suspect the people that are stacking up the big miles (using lots of gas) are people that can't afford to live in town and are trying to work their way up: trades/self-employed, delivery drivers, hire car drivers i.e. your junior nurse, handyman, school teacher or uber driver.

And most of them will never even be involved in a serious accident.

That some people are unacceptably poorer than others is unrelated to problems caused by excessively cheap gas.

The former problem is fixed via wealth transfers from rich to poor.

One of the things I love in Mexico is the "topes", they're like sleeping policemen, but lot bigger, and you basically have to slow down unless you want to mess up your suspension. I think some of them are implemented by local communities as well, which is pretty cool.

I don't like the disrupting the flow of traffic idea. Accidents happen in places where the flow is disrupted. E.g. junctions, give ways, reasons to stop.

It's like making a knife blunt to make it safer, in reality it makes it way more dangerous

The point isn't necessarily to reduce accidents it's to reduce serious injuries and deaths. Slowing down is safer if there is an accident.

That said I'm not convinced things like this do increase accidents. The knife analogy is suspect but potentially accurate for that very reason. This is a common saying, but my first career was as a professional cook and that common saying is a running joke and source of constant mockery in professional kitchens. People who work around knives know that sharp knives are much more dangerous than dull ones. They're valued for other reasons, not safety.

Well I don't have stats for the US, but in the UK speeding isn't the main problem. Represents about 7.5% of our accidents. Most of our accidents are right of way violations and those are no running joke. So reducing interactions between drivers and maintaining flow is key.

It's hard to have a serious accident when you're going under 10 miles an hour. And I also disagree that blunt knives are more dangerous. One might give their child a plastic knife which is totally blunt, but not a super sharp machete.

I disagree, it's sadly easy. You can be involved in a serious accident while stationary (broken down on the side of the road). This is an extreme example of how a lot of accidents occur when mixing speeds (being rear ended at lights etc.). It's that mix that road calming measure often create.

A plastic knife is barely a knife at all, it's almost completely useless and so is a 10mph road.

The solution to road safety can't be to drive at jogging pace. Roads are still a transport infrastructure and for practical reasons, speed has to remain an evaluation metric (a good road is both safe and fast). There's plenty of examples of safe and performant roads. We wouldn't want to make the 50 mile commute to the shops or work over the course of several days.

That's why there needs to be a sharp distinction between streets, which are for people and which should be limited to 10mph, and roads, which are for cars and should be physically separated from pedestrians.

Fellow European here. Most shocking for me is the overall road "quality". Way too many potholes. I have the impression when the US builds streets, they pour asphalt over a stretch of dirt and call it a highway.

Even just 4 way stops. Staggering the exits, oblique angles, or roundabouts would be far safer than trusting that every driver pays attention to every red light.

Accidents due to drivers running red lights or stop signs are way down on the list of causes of serious accidents in the US, behind speeding, drunk driving, distracted driving, reckless driving, and weather on most lists I've seen of accident causes.

Interesting. I remember seeing 1/3 of fatalities involved a signalised intersection, although in fairness I can't find an international comparison.

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