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Comment by interfixus | Hacker News Reader

Entirely my take, minus the irony. I hugely dislike driving with an armed boxing glove in front of me. A boxing glove originally put there for the benefit of people not inclined to wear a seatbelt. The vast majority of traffic accidents I see (and I drive 8 - 10 hours every day) are entirely self-inflicted. Too much speed, too little distance, no focus on the road ahead and the rear view mirror.

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> The vast majority of traffic accidents I see (and I drive 8 - 10 hours every day) are entirely self-inflicted

How do you know that by driving by a wreck?

If there isn't a meteor on the hood, but instead the driver ran into something, then the number of times your assumption is wrong will be sufficiently small that the parents observation is valid.

Certainly it will be a far more useful way to guide policy than "You don't know for a fact that all those accidents weren't caused by external events outside the drivers control." however technically true.

There aren't evil driving-fairies nudging people's elbows, and we have manufacturing and inspection regulations to keep the percentage of mechanically unfit vehicles low. That just leaves the drivers themselves holding the primary responsibility in the majority of cases.

These are all things you already knew, which makes the question disingenuous and of questionable ultimate purpose.

I was in a major wreck last winter. Hit a tree head-on due to black ice on the road. I was not braking or turning at the time of the slide. My car had snow tires and was in 4-wheel drive.

How exactly is that my fault?

You make no men to on of environmental factors causing wrecks.

You also make no mention of multi-car wrecks.

Clearly you live in some part of the world with perfect weather?

Hate to break it to you, but you were going too fast.

Attempting to refute a point that no one else made is definitely your own fault.

The original commenter can be reasonably assumed to know which accidents they witnessed could have been influenced by things like weather, and thus are not part of his assertion.

Likewise all the follow-on vehicles in multi-vehicle events are irrelevant. No mention was made because they obviously have no bearing on the observation and point being asserted. Meaning, sure, in addition to a large number of a certain class of accidents he's talking about, there are also a other classes of accidents he's not talking about, so what?

Clearly you live in some part of the world with imperfect schools? Oh was that rude and childish?

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