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Comment by tstrimple | Hacker News Reader

To me the comment spoke to our criminal lack of intelligent road design. It’s well known through multiple studies that road design impacts how fast people drive far more than posted speed limit signs. If we actually cared about road safety, we would design roads to be more safe and not just design a road that is comfortable to drive 60mph on and put up a 25mph speed limit. When you want slower speeds you need to make lanes more narrow. Add obstacles along the side of the road so it doesn’t feel so open. Add medians as areas where pedestrians have a refuge when daring to cross a place designed for vehicles. Add chicanes and bollards to force speed compliance in especially dangerous areas. There seems to be almost none of this happening in most places in the US that I have visited.

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We also could largely solve this problem with technological enforcement but people really hate that. If we made both the financial penalties for speeding and the probability of being caught sufficiently high, we could practically eliminate it overnight.

> We also could largely solve this problem with technological enforcement but people really hate that.

The challenge in giving powerful entities direct control over our actions is they:

directly control our actions,

ceaselessly seek to control other actions,

will be as unaccountable as they can be,

will not ever allow control to flow in the other direction.

This type of whining about slippery slope hypotheticals is ubiquitous in these discussions, but it's not very compelling up against the current reality of 40,000 unimaginably violent early deaths every single year in the US alone

Still tiny compared to heart disease!

Most of those are avoidable plus the rate of long term disabilities is about 10x the death rate (so 400 000) and of minor injuries is 10x that (so 4 million) plus... we can do both. There is plenty of money for safer road infra, DRIVERS JUST DON'T WANT IT because killing a stranger matters less than 5 fewer minutes spent commuting per day.

The same situation is true of heart disease, albeit the risk is generally killing themselves vs a random stranger.

People just run out of shits to give at some point, and do what is easy.

Agreed, especially when the opposition is formed out of several major industries in the country (car manufacturers, adjacent companies, road developers, big box stores, etc.).

I'm not sure it rises to 'opposition' per-se. For instance, I don't think anyone is sitting there cackling about how they're killing anyone due to them being obese fat asses, and figuring out how to make it worse.

It's really macro-economic and social inertia. Those sedentary folks have also convinced themselves they LIKE IT, and there is room (and real economic incentives) in the US trending in those directions. Like low property prices in the 'burbs, cheap gas (by global and economic standards), etc.

> it's not very compelling up against the current reality of 40,000 unimaginably violent early deaths every single year in the US alone

I disagree. The economy depends on the rivers of money that flow through the roads. Roads dispense communication, goods, labor, et al, over the vast area that is the USA. 40k deaths, distributed across the US, is a good deal.

On the other hand, I had great expectations for companies that wanted to provide a solution that's safer for a profit (robocars). A handful of people died during the development, and it's rejected outright by large portions of the population. So here we are.

Not only is this accounting callous, it seems to presuppose that there is societal benefit in reckless, antisocial driving behavior. I don't believe that this is true. Imagine a world in which median vehicle speeds remained the same and traffic fatalities went to zero. I'd take that 10 times out of 10 compared to the status quo.

Of course I was being mildly hyperbolic when saying we could solve speeding with technological enforcement, but I genuinely believe it could make a massive difference and lead to a significant quality of life improvement for most people. For those with the need for speed, build more tracks. But we should stop normalizing reckless behavior on our shared roadways. There should be an expectation of safety and we should maximize traffic flux while minimizing traffic injuries and fatalities.

Before we tackle the hard problem outlined above, let's solve the easy problem of pedestrians (bikers, scooters, skateboarders, etc.) traveling on highways and crossing traffic in undesignated places. I can't tell you how many times I've had pedestrians impatiently run across the roadway in front of my car.

I'm not sure one problem is easier to fix than the other. They both seem to come from people acting irresponsibly to arrive earlier at their destination, probably combined with an infrastructure to nudge towards that behaviour.

Changing behaviour with a penalty isn't terribly effective unless enforced in such a way that it is incredibly privacy-invasive, more effective is changing the layout of the streets. But I wouldn't be sure that that is easier to fix on the pedestrian side than on the vehicle side.

Let me get this straight, do you want to put the burden on pedestrians?

I guess it could also involve building proper crossings.

this is such a hilariously bad take that I have no hope that anything will ever change

> Not only is this accounting callous, it seems to presuppose that there is societal benefit in reckless, antisocial driving behavior

You cannot eliminate risk, stop people from taking risks or stop people from dying. You say callous and I say practical. We all make tradeoffs every day, which has elevated society from subsistence existence. eg Every person doing physical labor, every doctor pushing diseases to be more resilient.

Mere sacrifices for The Greater Good. The Greater Good!

Will you step up when it’s your turn?

We all do, every day.

Idk. Technological enforcement seems like it really should be the last resort here. Why should we not focus on stopping the construction of stroads and building safer streets and roads first and foremost before we reach for a tech solution that will undoubtedly come with privacy and abuse related tradeoffs while also likely being less effective.

Think probabilities here. Given human nature, what are the most probable solutions?

I’ve seen a number of cities find the authority or political will to increase the number of automated speed cameras. This suggests (while not a complete complete solution) a real step in the right direction

Given the entire urban planning political environment has shifted towards gradual but substantial infrastructure changes, at this point the main barrier to change is just making it happen. And to achieve that all you need to do is push for new road standards and guidance at a city, county, or state level.

Once that's done the changes can roll out whenever there's maintenance or road widening going on. This is for example what Florida is doing to push for a comprehensive passenger rail system and it's what other countries have done to make their roads and streets safer and more efficient as well. So it'd stand to reason the same principle would work at state and local levels in the US for this as well.

The only real argument against it I could see is that it'll take too long but 30-50 years really is nothing for widespread infrastructure improvements.

In my one trip to China so far, this is exactly what I observed!

It's the same in Australia. Speeding is quite uncommon and you'll be very quickly caught out.

Indeed, just because a problem could theoretically be addressed (I think solved is a reach) by technology, doesn't mean it's a sensible choice.

Much like how putting a sign that says "pull" on a door that's designed to be pushed is analogous to what most places in NA do, which is to threaten people who use the road in the way it's designed.

The reason this isn't solved is because traffic deaths are considered to be a "cost of doing business". Most pedestrian traffic in the US is in cities and due to the way funding formulas and political representation works in the US, suburban and rural areas have more political power than urban areas which care more about traffic throughput than pedestrian safety, so the issue never gets fixed. The only places in the US making headway have large urbanized areas and even they are struggling.

Rural areas don’t have much political power either. A lot of rural America is actually unincorporated which means they don’t have a municipal level government, and instead are ruled by the county[^†].

In my experience the outsized political power is across gegraphic areas and instead is divided between classes, with the rich having almost all political power. A rich neighborhood in San Francisco hold much more political power than an improvised suburb in Fresno.

Instead the reason I believe for pedestrian traffic being considered the "cost of doing business" among the political classes, is the good old hatred of the poor. Pedastrian casualties are extremely rare among the rich, as the rich usually drive almost everywhere, and if they walk, they do so in an area which they have lobbied to make safe for pedestrians. The rich don’t care if the poor die.

†: As an immigrant, this feels like a major democratic oversight, one of many USA should fix if it wants to consider it self a democracy by 21st century standards.

Let me understand this. Are you suggesting adding yet another inefficient layer of government in sparsely populated areas?

BTW, in at least some states there are intermediate subdivisions of government, e.g. townships and districts, which take care of the roads even in rural areas.

You are responding to my footnote, but ok.

Yes. This is what most—all?—other democracies do. More realistically though, municipality level governments include surrounding rural areas. In areas with small towns and large areas of rural farmlands, the farmers and town residents have equal representation, but the farmers obviously have a bigger political influence (hopefully the municipality governments have enough representatives though that the townfolks have at least a couple of representatives).

In reality unincorporated America also includes heavily urbanized areas (more often than not poorer than the surrounding areas). Here in Seattle this includes Skyway and White Center. But even if aside from those it is pretty unacceptable that all local planning for the community of e.g. Fairwood, or even Hobart don’t have any say in their municipality level organization, instead relying on the same county council as Seattle for their local affairs (a council with only 9 representatives for a total of 2.2 million constituents).

Other states may be different, but at least in California there’s a pretty straightforward path to incorporation if a community desires it. The large number of unincorporated areas are because the residents don’t think the tradeoffs are worth it.

Counties are also generally all too happy to delegate decision making to communities which will take it on even if they don’t incorporate.

It still feels like a democratic oversight. The most favorable interpretation is a failure of policy.

It is simply not acceptable to leave any part of your population without municipality level representation. Delegating this to a community council is not democratic and is extremely ripe for misuse. If a community wishes to remain unincorporated you have to look at why that is, and offer accommodations or change the incorporation strategy accordingly.

For example both Skyway and White Center (unincorporated King County, WA) voters have refuse to be incorporated with Renton and Burien respectively, but it was the Seattle city council (not voters) that rejected incorporating White Center, and voters have never been asked if they want their own independence. At the same time Vashon hasn’t even been asked.

If America was serious about democracy they would establish a policy in which every populated area outside of reservations will have local level representation in like 30 years (ideally they should have started that policy 30 years ago). And if there is no agreement on how a single community (say White Center) hasn’t incorporated by that time, have a plurality wins—or better yet, ranked choice—vote on e.g. 3 options, Seattle, Burien, or independent.

Skyway and White Center aren’t rural. They want to be unincorporated to pay less taxes and follow less rules. I agree that suburban unincorporated shouldn’t be allowed. I would add that small, below 50-100k, suburban cities shouldn’t be allowed. But that isn’t for smaller subdivisions but larger ones,

But that has nothing to do with rural areas. My brother lives in Iowa near medium town. Everything else is small towns, less than 1000. Should those incorporate and spend money on city services? What about the farmers who are spread out? What municipality do they belong to? The county is the best option.

1) build a society that requires a car to get around

2) exclusively sell cars with ludicrous acceleration and top speed

3) set legal speed limit at 1/6th the top speed of most vehicles

4) enforce strict financial penalties for operating one’s obligatory high-powered vehicle at more than 1/6th its maximum speed.

I’m strongly anti-car - I think we fucked up a whole lot designing society the way we did, but at this point, actual strict enforcement of speed limits with financial penalties is just robbery. If you want fewer people to die in car accidents, build a world that doesn’t obligate everyone to drive, or build a world where the vehicles for sale aren’t all SUVs with 0-60 times that would embarrass a Ferrari from 40 years ago, but don’t just start fining people when they use the vehicle you made them buy to do the thing it was made to do.

Please be realistic about what interventions are available given the current US system. Redesign our entire road system? Sounds great, but how are we going do it?

Think about the policy changes and thousands or more of political wranglings across every populous jurisdiction in the United States.

Even if we get it done over the next 20 to 120 years, what are we going do in the meanwhile?

Like a lot of things, start with reviewing what works elsewhere, start some pilots, and what works do bigger and bigger rollouts.

Like, use data. If marketers and TikTok can trick us so easily using these techniques we can do the same in socio-technical settings too.

Like most things, “architectural” systems solutions will work better than point behavioural interventions, but it’s always going to be a mix.

Bike safety in The Netherlands was a multigenerational effort ranging from creating standards around roads intersections, bike paths and pavements and slowly remediating old ones while building new ones.

That’s only a tiny part of a society-wide effort to improve quality- and length-of-life measures, but like the US Interstate highway system, has had measurable results in terms of economic and social outcomes.

Some actions taken today will have individual results tomorrow. Some in 30 years. Better get started, right?

If something is illegal and enforced, people won't do it.

We’ve tried that with Prohibition, the War on Drugs, and speed limits. Even where speed limits are enforced, people speed.

Singapore style drug enforcement seems to work. It's just a question of political will. Same applies to speeding etc of course.

TIL there are no drugs in Singapore.

Vastly, vastly less.

> 3) set legal speed limit at 1/6th the top speed of most vehicles

> 4) enforce strict financial penalties for operating one’s obligatory high-powered vehicle at more than 1/6th its maximum speed.

Most consumer cars are going to have a hard time at 120mph, if their tires are even rated for it.

So then you're claiming that most speed limits are 20mph.

Which they're not.

And then, I'm not sure? Should it be legal to drive suburban streets at triple digit speeds?

I am not sure what you're trying to get at, beyond "we should be able to use our cars to the limit of their capability, even if it exceeds our own as a driver".

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