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Comment by mrb | Hacker News Reader

"Yet, EU vehicle safety regulations have supported a 36% reduction in European road deaths since 2010. By contrast, road deaths in the US over the same period increased 30%"

I thought this stark difference might be partially explained by US population increasing more quickly than EU. However it turns out in the 2010-2024 period, US population increased by +10% while EU27 pop increased +2%. So although there is a minor 8% difference, this is far, very far, from explaining the stark difference even if we compared per capita. The EU is certainly doing something right here.

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There's a lot going on there, and it's not just vehicle design. Many countries have brought in reduced speed limits in urban areas, usually 30km/h, for instance. Your chances of dying if hit by a car at 30km/h are dramatically lower than 60km/h. Many countries also took the opportunity of COVID (roads not busy, construction industries in need of life-support) to improve cycling infrastructure. And rush-hour traffic is usually not as bad as it was, due to WFH.

In Ireland, public transport usage now is also much bigger share of commutes than pre-covid, particularly in Dublin, though I'm not sure if that's due to local factors or if it's replicated across Europe.

I wish we'd look at traffic speeds rather than speed limits since compliance varies widely depending upon the country and speed limit but I suspect that data isn't as available.

Decreasing limits to 30km/h in urban areas generally didn't actually change _mean_ traffic speed very much; urban traffic is on average pretty slow anyway.

Quite the opposite: Given how few people actually walk in the US these numbers are even crazier...

Does road death mean car accident death or pedestrians or both?

Shrodingers dead person. You don't actually know until you know what policy position you're gonna use the dead guy to advance.

Usually road deaths is all deaths and pedestrians get split out as a sub category. Primary sources and academic papers are typicaly good. Analysis thereof almost always has a policy it's trying to advance and will frequently mix and match to that end. Internet comments are worse still.

Minor nitpick, it seems the report is dealing mainly with the period up until 2020, not 2024. Not sure if it makes a significant difference for your numbers, but maybe adjust them?

See page 12 on https://etsc.eu/wp-content/uploads/15-PIN-annual-report-FINA...

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