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Monkeh:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on June 30, 2023, 09:52:52 pm ---By the way, the main reason why the US has a higher rate of road deaths per capita, compared to other wealthy countries is because people generally drive more miles there.

--- End quote ---

So what's your explanation for the markedly higher rate of road deaths per mile?
james_s:

--- Quote from: AndyBeez on June 30, 2023, 08:08:54 pm ---Best advice from an ex-British Army driving instructor was, assume everyone else is dumb. Hence his saying, defensive driving means, you have to do everyone else's thinking for them, even if they went to college.

You can become almost psychic, knowing that in three... two... one... those men in lycra are going to undercut the articulated lorry which is already positioned and indicating to turn. Looking through a visor or a windshield is an idiot watch. Am I the only one reading the road? With the advent of driverless cars, can AI anticipate the random actions of other drivers? Seems that AI driven vehicles are very fast at reacting to hazards, but not so good at anticipating them.

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That assumption has saved me from many accidents, I'm always expecting other drivers to do stupid things and too often I'm right. It's not like this is some baseless speculation or feeling, it's the direct result of driving hundreds of thousands of miles and observing this behavior with my own eyes. It's also been studied, one referenced here that distracted driving is more dangerous than driving drunk.
https://www.conradattorneys.com/blog/is-distracted-driving-more-hazardous-than-drink-driving/#:~:text=The%20National%20Highway%20Traffic%20Safety,road%20for%20about%20five%20seconds.

It doesn't mean that people are intellectually stupid, but a lot of people are simply terrible drivers, and there is plenty of data to back this up. I kind of wonder if the people protesting loudly are people that make a habit of doing things like using their phone while driving and they are upset someone is pointing out that this is moronic and dangerous behavior. I have a friend like that, nice guy but it's terrifying to ride with him, he's always on the phone and messing with stuff, he thinks he can multitask but he can't, there have been several close calls while I was in the car with him. I'm quite frankly surprised at the strong emotional reactions from some, I never thought it would be controversial to point out that there are a lot of bad drivers out there, or that a lot of people are stupid, George Carlin had a classic line about that "Just think how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that!" There are a lot of dumb people out there, and I'd have thought that most people on an engineering forum where people are overall probably smarter than average would have been frustrated by this many times in life.
james_s:

--- Quote from: Monkeh on June 30, 2023, 10:02:34 pm ---So what's your explanation for the markedly higher rate of road deaths per mile?

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Cultural norms perhaps? Or maybe it's just easier to get a license here? Or the training is worse? I know very little about driver licensing requirements in other parts of the world but in the US it is very easy to get a license at age 16. Our traffic accident and death statistics are skewed by teenagers who have dramatically higher accident rates than older adults.

"The crash rate of drivers ages 16-17 years was nearly double that of drivers ages 18-19 and approximately 4.5 times that of drivers ages 30-39, 40-49, and 50-59 (Table 1). Drivers ages 60-69 had the lowest crash rate."

https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/#:~:text=The%20crash%20rate%20of%20drivers,had%20the%20lowest%20crash%20rate.
gnuarm:

--- Quote from: Monkeh on June 30, 2023, 10:02:34 pm ---
--- Quote from: Zero999 on June 30, 2023, 09:52:52 pm ---By the way, the main reason why the US has a higher rate of road deaths per capita, compared to other wealthy countries is because people generally drive more miles there.

--- End quote ---

So what's your explanation for the markedly higher rate of road deaths per mile?

--- End quote ---

Where?  In the US it is not "markedly higher".  What exactly are you referring to?  Can you give a reference?
james_s:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on June 30, 2023, 09:15:47 pm ---Anyone claiming cars gaining more safety features hasn't resulted in a reduction in fatalities is mistaken. In the US, the number of road deaths per mile has been in decline, since the widespread adoption of the automobile.
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/

--- End quote ---

I don't think anyone is claiming that.

Deaths are only a small part of the picture. There is a much larger number of accidents that don't result in deaths, but many of those do result in injuries, and many others result in billions of dollars in property damage. Several years ago I was rear ended by a distracted driver, I was not killed or even injured, but my car was destroyed simply because someone decided their text message or whatever they were doing was more important than my property. Perhaps if they knew they were at a greater risk of getting hurt if they hit someone they would have paid more attention to what they were doing. I've yet to see someone texting while riding a motorcycle, motorcycles are dangerous and require the rider to pay attention.
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