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Comment by Alupis | Hacker News Reader

> Cars don't kill anywhere near as many people in Europe, though. The US is an outlier when it comes to first-world countries

Do you have some data for this assertion? The US actually has a pretty low fatality rate per mile driven. Although, anything above zero isn't acceptable to some people...

> It's insane that we let kids drive cars before they've even learnt how to use road.

We don't, at least in the US. You have to go through "Driver's Training" first in order to get a Learner's Permit. This training teaches all the road laws, best practices, scenario training, and how things work. Then you get your permit and are allowed to practice only with a licensed driver in the passenger seat.

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> Do you have some data for this assertion? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

Of the countries with data for fatalities per billion vehicle-km (not that many), the US (at 7.3) is equal to Belgium, lower than Czech Republic (11.5) and high than the 13 other European countries. In addition, counting fatalities per distance travelled will make driving less look like it has no safety benefits even though fewer people actually die. If we look at fatalities per capita instead (to attempt to adjust for country size, but not policies and behaviour) the US rate is 33% higher than Europe, more than twice as high as Canada and most of Western Europe and 4.5x Norway.

Compared to its peers, the US really doesn't have a low fatality rate.

> We don't, at least in the US. You have to go through "Driver's Training" first in order to get a Learner's Permit. This training teaches all the road laws, best practices, scenario training, and how things work. Then you get your permit and are allowed to practice only with a licensed driver in the passenger seat.

that's how it works in many places. OP was probably talking about letting people <18 years old drive.

> You have to go through "Driver's Training" first in order to get a Learner's Permit.

Not in my state. Here, there is no prerequisite to get your learner's permit. However, completing driver's ed is a high school graduation requirement.

> Not in my state. Here, there is no prerequisite to get your learner's permit.

And

> However, completing driver's ed is a high school graduation requirement.

Is the same thing.

Just your state decided to standardize what was taught, instead of letting private companies also offer it. For what it's worth, in California we have both.

It's not the same thing. You can still get your learner's permit even if you don't complete high school or the driver's ed graduation requirement.

That sounds like a special provision rather than the norm - there isn't a high percentage of youth not graduating from high school in the US.

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