US Traffic Safety Is Getting Worse, While Other Countries Improve | Hacker News Reader

US Traffic Safety Is Getting Worse, While Other Countries Improve

bloomberg.com

10 pointsSirLJ9 comments

> Meanwhile, countries like Canada and France have embraced automatic traffic cameras — devices that are banned in many US states — to deter speeding and running red lights.

Those cameras make traffic less safe, because once they're in place, municipalities shorten yellow lights to collect more revenue from them. If other countries that have those are safer, it's despite them, not because of them.

> Some argue that deaths per mile driven is a better comparison, since it takes into account the added risks of driving more miles, as Americans are wont to do. But this flunks the test of common sense. Consider: If traffic deaths are flat, but everyone drives twice as far, is society safer?

This is completely wrong. Deaths per mile driven is correct, and it's deaths per capita that flunks the test of common sense. For example, compare the deaths per capita caused by playing Russian roulette vs. train crashes. Is riding a train more dangerous than Russian roulette?

That sounds like a problem with a political system where municipalities deliberately make them less safe so they can make more money.

Most countries local governments do not derive their money from money made off tickets.

This sounds like a funding incentive problem. Not a traffic camera problem.

If this is "not a traffic camera problem" because traffic cameras wouldn't necessarily cause it in an ideal world, then most if not all of the car crashes this article is talking about are "not a car problem" because cars wouldn't necessarily cause them in an ideal world either.

Your example is a poor example because you’re choosing the entire population as your denominator for the per capita statistic, but the actual percentage of the population engaging in Russian roulette and riding trains is drastically different.

Whereas the percentage of the overall population engaging in and/or being affected by driving is almost 100%, so the discrepancy that makes Russian roulette seem safer than trains in your example doesn’t exist when comparing traffic deaths across countries.

Why is it okay to weight deaths by whether people engage in an activity at all, but not by how often they engage in that activity?

> Those cameras make traffic less safe, because once they're in place, municipalities shorten yellow lights to collect more revenue from them.

Only in your world, not mine. We don’t allow that here.

> If other countries that have those are safer, it's despite them, not because of them.

Or because they don’t allow city governments to overrule traffic engineers.

Sorry you live where stupid people screw with your lights, but that doesn’t point to any flaw in automatic traffic ticketing.

As a Brit, accustomed to cars having an annual MOT which includes testing safety features such as brakes, suspension, tyre treads, not having missing mirrors, permanently broken lights etc, it was a "revelation" to find that in the US I could drive a 16-yr-old car and all that got tested was emissions. Maybe this has improved nowadays? When people have giant SUVs/pickups, that get old, and don't have the brakes checked, no surprise road safety is an issue....

Some thoughts:

- Are speed limits a factor? Seems like limits are slower in other countries.

- Lack of standard equipment? LED headlights (properly aligned), automatic headlights, automatic wipers, parking sensors?

- Ease of getting a license and lack of consistent training? For example passing a driving license test in UK is much harder than US.

Now, this is a real problem. Not heavily pedaled mass shootings. X200 people die from traffic accidents in US than from mass shootings. That’s right over 200 people from traffic accidents for each person dead of mass shooting. Why is the US focusing on the wrong cause of death?

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