I think this is part of why the parent poster used the term "psychological safety". The thing about driving is that you are individually in control, you can choose how you drive and that greatly affects the safety of driving. While public transport may be statistically safer, for some people the lack of control increases the feeling of lack of safety. I am one of those people actually. I've been driving for more than 20 years, I've had several accidents, all of which occurred while my vehicle was fully stopped and I was rear-ended by someone not paying attention, some while my car was parked and I wasn't even in it. I've had zero injuries from driving, and I have an impeccably maintained fleet of vehicles and have extensive driving training (I hold a competition racing license, have driven many different types of vehicles, and have done executive protection/pursuit driving training). I feel significantly safer in a vehicle I own, maintain, and control (including my reactions to others) than I do being exposed trapped in a box with random other people, many of whom are dangerous, without any significant recourse. The only way I'd ever take public transport every day is if self-defense were strongly legally protected and I could be armed at all times, because there are too many crazy people out there that will kill you for looking at them accidentally, or for not dropping a dollar in their hat when they're busking, or whatever other reason they contrive in their delusional minds for why they should harm a random person they don't even know.
Statistically I might be safer taking public transport, but in a car I never have to expose myself to random crazies without an escape strategy, and I can choose how I react to other drivers to prevent accidents (I have avoided MANY MANY MANY accidents in my life due to my awareness and superior driving skills).
I feel for the psychological safety aspect, I really do. There are some cities in the US where the public transit system gets underutilized and hosts more bad behavior. From personal experience, MARTA seems rough after COVID, and psychological safety rightfully becomes a huge factor in avoiding the public transit system. But your second to last sentence is pure hysteria. If you feel that unsafe in Boston or NYC, I'd advise you to drive armed too, because you could experience trouble from a "random crazy" with road rage.
Agreed, and I do drive armed. I conceal carry every time I leave my house. So far I've only ever experienced one road rage incident in more than 20 years of driving, and it was able to be resolved without needing to use a weapon in self-defense. Unfortunately there's crazy people with self-control issues everywhere.
Generally speaking we have a problem in America that there are a lot of potentially violent mentally-unsound people roaming around, we have no cohesive plan to get these people treatment/help/medication, and in most major cities you will be penalized for defending yourself so you have little recourse if someone decides to attack you. Solving this problem will likely solve many other social problems, but there seems to be little political will to try to solve this problem.
As a former Canadian I often tell people that Canada's gun safety starts with a well funded social safety net.
It's not just that people "cant" (legally) get guns as easily. It's that they dont want to do terrible things with them.
Woof, I think this right here is the thing that we'll never get beyond. I get that when we talk about psychological safety for this, it's hard to point at numbers because people don't make measured judgments about numbers... But when you make a claim like that, I think it deserves some numbers to be more than just fear mongering.
While yes, we will need to account for this while driving. I do wonder if this takes us way to far from the root. People drive drunk so we need busses to be safe? Sometimes attribution is key and in this case I think we need to allow drunk driving's cause of death be "alcohol industry" and not "driving".
This leads into my argument that if we need gun more control in this country it's only logical we also need more direly Food control and Alcohol control (both obesity and drunkenness harm far far more people than guns)
Every place I needed to go to was over 5m walk away.
And point 1 - psychological safety? As far from it as possible.
And frankly, 1.3 deaths per 100M miles driven is not that dangerous. 40k per year in a country of 300M is not a lot of folks. Obesity likely kills significantly more.
the vast majority of people that live in NYC seem to do perfectly well without a car
> the vast majority of people that live in NYC seem to do perfectly well without a car
Yes, you can work around a lot of public transport issues (and NY has many of those) by extending your walk. Which is unpleasant in many situations but absolutely possible. And yes, I wouldn't want to drive in NY either.
I also knew a few folks who live in the NY suburbs who have a car as well, for when they need to do something other than commute to work in NY.
All I could easily find out about (including via Google Maps) was the subway and bus. And a 20m walk in the heat. At least all the skyscrapers provided decent shade.
When? The 7 has run directly to the Javits center for nearly ten years now.
> a couple of miles through just-shy-of-sketchy neighborhoods
This is a common issue for people who visit NYC. It's funadmentally an issue of perception, which makes it hard to address because it's inherently subjective, not rooted in objective facts. To get to the Javits center from the subway, you would have had to walk through the Theater District, Hell's Kitchen, and/or Chelsea. These are some of the wealthiest, most developed, and safest areas in the country. While you may personally perceive it as "just-shy-of-sketchy", that's fundamentally a perception issue: your expectations aren't calibrated in a way that aligns with the actual safety profile of the areas that you're visiting.