Hacker News Reader

Comment by atleastoptimal | Hacker News Reader

People buy SUV's because they want to avoid being injured in crashes (at the detriment of the other driver)

This is definitely true. I do not currently know a single woman who DOESN'T drive an SUV and the answer I've heard more than once is just that they feel safer. The problem is, they're not wrong. But it's a spiraling problem - more big cars make the roads less safe which prompts more people to buy big cars...

In Canada people also buy SUVs and trucks because they handle the bad winter weathers better.

Yet per capita, US vehicle occupants are more likely to be injured in general while on the road than Europeans. Perhaps the driving standards are just far too different.

They also travel twice as much.

Because US roads traffic control systems suck ALSO licenses are much easier to get, there is more of a tacit tolerance of drunk driving, and the lower rate of public transport makes more people forced to drive despite preferring not to, leading to less of a selective effect of drivers.

We've consequentially paved over the issues (no pun intended) via creating a socioeconomic hierarchy of insulation from traffic injuries. Giant SUV's have become the mainstay of the upwardly mobile 30s suburbanite, who is immunized from the road hazards, collisions and dangers that would cripple sedans.

Per capita isn’t meaningful, try per mile.

In a discussion about city design, per capita matters.

That being said, EU is generally safer per km too.

Is that just because Americans spend a lot more time in their cars than Europeans do?

No, per km Europeans are safer. Road design is safer, cars are safer.

I'm not sure it is so simple. Some states have death rates in line with western/northern Europe (eg massachusetts has 4 deaths per billion km, similar to Germany), but road design and cars driven in massachusetts are highly similar to states with a larger death rate(south carolina, looking at you).

Two people crashing in big SUVs/trucks aren't really safer than two people crashing in smaller cars. As for the difference, my guess is the driving standards.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com