Comment by forrestthewoods | Hacker News Reader

Comment by forrestthewoods | Hacker News Reader

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forrestthewoods

Accidents happen. All the time in fact. By one calculation 17,589 per day in the US [1]. Most of the time both people are in a steel cage and escape unharmed. About 115 people per day will die (also [1]).

There is a level of accepted risk tolerance in our choosing to let people drive cars. Accidents happen. People will get hurt. People will die. And you know what. Yes. Yes it is ok. The benefits outweigh the cons by multiple orders of magnitude (not that there is a unit of measurement).

You could ruin lives and throw drivers in jail but that just hurts society even more (imo). Ruins lives, costs the state money, and doesn't even change behavior. Accidents are accidents after all. You either have cars and accept that there will be accidents or you get rid of cars [2].

So fuck it. Yes. Yes it is ok. Accidents happen. We should, of course, work diligently to reduce risk and improve safety. And we do. But accidents will happen and people will die.

[1] https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100109053104A... [2] Or maybe get rid of human controlled cars. Cyclists raise your hand if you want to ride against the risk profile of a driverless car!

> Cyclists raise your hand if you want to ride against the risk profile of a driverless car!

Driverless cars can detect cyclists: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/28/google-cars-c...

So, a patient driver who sees me plus never road rages at me? This is one of many situations in which a non-human driver is superior. Yes, I'd raise my hand to that.

Sure, I'd raise my hand. But this is a very strange point for the OP to raise. Driverless cars are not at option at this time (calm down, I know they exist, I cycle amongst them daily). In the future, sure.

It’s absurd to say “well, 30 thousand people per year die in car accidents in the US, and it’s the leading cause of death among young people, but oh well, it’s just inevitable and there’s nothing we can do.”

We can make dramatic improvements to these numbers if we build safer roads and get more people using public transit, biking, or walking instead of driving. Many countries in the world have much smaller rates of fatal road traffic accidents than the US does.

Not only that, but getting people to commute some way other than by car makes a substantial impact on carbon emissions, and more physical activity (even if it’s just walking from the bus stop to the office) has nice health benefits.

But stricter penalties for reckless driving that kills cyclists/pedestrians also seems entirely reasonable. A car is an incredibly dangerous machine, and people should treat driving with the care and respect it deserves.

So, why not just increase the penalties, but don’t put anyone into jail?

In the article it sounds as though people receive a low fine. Why not take their driver’s license away for a month or two? Or what about probation? A points system where the driver’s license is lost after you rack up enough points?

There are ways to deter people from behaving recklessly without destroying their lives. Actually, if possible that should in my opinion always be the goal of the justice system (and it’s a failure – inevitable, probably, but still a failure – if that doesn’t work out).

If juries don’t want to send someone to jail, wouldn’t it be much more likely that they would want to take someone’s driver’s license away for a month?

How about stricter driving tests and better driver education?

I think a proactive approach is far better than a reactive approach.

Your post effectively cancels itself out. "yes it is ok", but we should work to reduce risk and improve safety (a.k.a no, it's not ok).

By having zero penalty for negligence permits unpredictable behavior. A higher penalty (higher than zero in this case), one would hope, would encourage drivers to conform.

Well, the data from Europe shows you (Americans) can do much better than the deaths you have now. And of course the title of the article is not to be taken literally, but then again complaints about that are the bane of every article posted to a site populated with computer folk.

Or in other words bad driving is socially acceptable. Drink driving used to be OK also.

Why not just ban bad drivers from driving. You would get less congestion, safer roads, and free up driving jobs for more appropriate people.

The issue isn't bad drivers. The issue is people. What percentage of people do you think will have an at fault accident at least once in their lifetime? How many drivers would be left if every single one of those people had their license revoked?

An at fault minor accident, sure. An at fault accident that causes the death of another person - a very small percentage of the population. Penalty is at least acknowledgement to the victim's family that a fault of another caused their death, and action has been taken in an effort to prevent this from occurring again.

I really couldn't give a damn if those drivers who have killed another human being due to their driving were not allowed behind the wheel again.

The severity of the penalty is another matter. But your words advocate no penalty, and this idea that "hey, we all screw up sometimes, don't sweat it".

You talk of percentages. Look at the percentage of cyclists killed by vehicles in the US. If all we cared about was percentages, there would never be a drive for cycle lanes, there would never be a movement towards cycle oriented cities. You are telling a small percentage of pioneering citizens to suck it up, because "you knew the risks". Some scream of entitlement. I think cyclists are entitled to their lives. Don't you?

But there are some quite good markers for identifying potentially dangerous drivers beyond actual collisions. For example people who repeatedly use mobile phones at the wheel or are caught speeding. An honhest mistake is more forgivable than willfully putting people in danger.

Pewrsonally I think collisions should result in a large income based fine that is given to the victim and not paid for by insurance. We need something in between "insurance sorts it out" and manslaughter.

If you kill someone with the negligent operation of a firearm, I would expect you to be charged. If you kill someone with the negligent operation of a vehicle, why the free pass?

To be clear, no-one's debating honest accidents. But if you are at fault, you should be held to account for it.

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