Comment by thirsteh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thirsteh | Hacker News Reader

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As someone who's lived in Sweden and now America: The vast majority of Swedes drive small sedans/station wagons, not 4WD trucks. Ironically most Americans I ask about their unnecessarily large trucks cite safety as the reason they're not in a smaller car, while a significantly smaller portion actually got their truck to be able to pull others out of ditches, drive in rough terrain, etc.

If I had to guess, I'd say there being more metal involved is a significant factor in the number of deaths.

Two other possible reasons: 1. Manufacturers popular in Scandinavia, like Volvo and now Tesla, make much safer cars than their competition, and 2. It is ridiculously easy to get a driver's license in America compared to Europe. If you measured "graduates'" driving ability out of the gate, I'm sure Europe would come out on top. (Though, American roads being much larger and safer in general might compensate for this. I'm not sure what the article is talking about when it implies Swedish roads are safer -- they're a mess compared to America's in that respect.)

I would agree that getting a license in the US is significantly easier than in Europe. I'm American, but I lived in Scotland for 7 years and go my first drivers license there. I was told the pass rate was around 40%, which may or may not have been the truth. It was about a 45 minute test. Fast forward a few years to when I returned to the US for college and my drivers test was about 5 minutes long and an absolute joke.

As for the last point about American roads being larger and safer, I'm not sure the second part is true. They are definitely larger, but there's been research done to indicate that larger != safer. I'll try to dig up the article, but I'd tend to agree with the sentiment. I've seen significantly more accidents on large laned freeways in America with a 55 mph speed limit than skinny backroads in Scotland with a 60 mph speed limit, even with adjusting for the larger amount of traffic on the American freeways.

I guess it's possible that small and curved multi-directional roads are safer than larger, mostly one-directional roads (or in a grid system) simply because they force you to pay attention.

"Why 12-foot lanes are disastrous for security" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8439977

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