The Exceptionally American Problem of Rising Roadway Deaths

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/upshot/road-deaths-pedestrians-cyclists.html

by IfOnlyYouKnew • 4 years ago

101 116 4 years ago

nytimes.com

Maxburn2• 4 years ago

Seems to me that enforcement throughout Covid went down. People noticed and I think drivers are more wild now.

raylad• 4 years ago

Possible correlation to long COVID neurological damage.

Similar to what happened with lead tetraethyl in the 50s-70s.

musk_micropenis• 4 years ago

This is so incredibly speculative, it's borderline outrageous to even make the claim without something to back it.

otherme123• 4 years ago

If that was true, we should see a general world trend, and not a "Exceptionally USA problem".

moistly2• 4 years ago

Long COVID Patients May Develop Nerve Damage: Study https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20220303/long-covid-patients...

What are possible long-term neurological complications of COVID-19? https://www.ninds.nih.gov/current-research/coronavirus-and-n...

Does nerve damage contribute to long COVID symptoms? https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/does-nerve-da...

First three DDG hits for “long Covid nerve damage.” IOW OP’s speculation is plausible.

jmugan• 4 years ago

I don't leave the house much, but on the Austin subreddit, people are talking about this all the time. Enforcement seems down and wild driving is up.

itronitron• 4 years ago

Five years ago I considered Austin to have some of the worst drivers in the US. Although 99% of Austin drivers I consider to be safe and courteous the remaining 1% would drive in an absolutely reckless manner such as turning right from the far left lane, which I saw happen on more than one occasion. Disturbing to think that is only getting worse.

dionidium2• 4 years ago

If it seems like enforcement went down it's because it's fallen off a cliff. Some examples:

* In April 2014 San Francisco police issued 11,612 tickets for traffic violations. In April 2022 they issued 338. No, that's not a typo. It went from 11,612 to 338. (Some links here: https://twitter.com/hknightsf/status/1537100042623848448)

* NYC police issued 5,039 tickets during the third week of July 2022; they issued 19,126 during the same period in 2019. Unlike San Francisco, they haven't totally stopped writing tickets, but the numbers are down drastically. (Some info: https://nypost.com/2020/08/09/nypd-traffic-tickets-plummet-b...)

* In Minneapolis police have been making 80% fewer traffic stops each week since the death of George Floyd. (Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-minneapolis-police-s...)

Maxburn2• 4 years ago

That's about what I expected but it is nice to see data.

cscurmudgeon4• 4 years ago

There is also a uniquely American trend of not enforcing traffic laws in the name of social justice.

https://www.denver7.com/news/national/cities-and-states-bann...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/us/police-traffic-stops.h...

Over time, things add up.

A really curious person will ask if the drop in enforcement correlates with rise in deaths. They seem to start at the same time.

mmmpop3• 4 years ago

Aside from the seatbelt infraction, which of these violations have anything to do with an increase in highway fatalities? Are you suggesting something along the lines of the broken windows theory of deviance?

cscurmudgeon4• 4 years ago

Do you think it is remotely plausible that:

P(causing death | minor violation ) > P(causing death | ~ minor violation)

Also:

P(reckless driving | without cops) > P(reckless driving | cops)

Here let me one step further and present data:

California to Stop Towing, Impounding Vehicles of Unlicensed Drivers

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/california-impounding-...

"According to a study conducted by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, unlicensed drivers are almost three times more likely to cause a fatal crash than licensed drivers."

https://www.berginjurylawyers.com/blog/auto-accident/unlicen...

Is NYTimes so journalistically lazy/corrupt that they couldn't connect two obvious pieces of facts?

et-al• 4 years ago

Road deaths aren't limited to just highway fatalities.

Or are you suggesting that collisions at higher speeds, or from running red lights won't increase the chances of injuries for both pedestrians or occupants in cars?

binarymax• 4 years ago

In my town, the previous mayor had all the red light cameras removed, as it was considered a regressive tax. But now, the number of people that blaze through just-changed red lights is out of control. So the fix? The delay between red to green was increased. Some intersections now have a 5 to 10 second overlap of reds to allow for all the maniacs to speed through the just-changed light.

bluedino2• 4 years ago

This is my guess. Everyone just drives like a psycho. 65 in a 40 zone, 90+ in 70mph highways, after a light turns red you have to wait 2-3 seconds for that car or two that run it.

Then you have people pulling out into traffic, turning left from the right lane, stopping for no reason in the middle of the road...

Combine that with 1 in 8 drivers not even having car insurance (it's over 20% in some states), the amount of irresponsibility is mind-boggling.

sheeeep86• 4 years ago

I would love to see these numbers correlated with the number of large pickups that are driving on the roads. These types of cars offer no pedestrian safety and are more and more common in the US.

newaccount742• 4 years ago

I think the biggest factor is high fronts on trucks and SUVs that seem to be designed to crush pedestrians, together with increasingly poor visibility.

We have the same problem in the EU. Pickups are not as popular here, but even small cars are getting SUV styling with pedestrian-killing hoods.

I had high hopes that Tesla would make sleek and pedestrian-safer cars popular again: the Model X has a pretty low front for an SUV. Unfortunately Tesla threw all that out the window and designed the most effective pedestrian-crushing-device I've ever seen -- I hope the Cybertruck is delayed for a few more years....

twblalock• 4 years ago

We have the same problem in the EU.

Then how does that explain why increased road deaths are exceptional to the USA?

throwaway294566• 4 years ago

Because, while the same problem exists, it doesn't exist to the same extent. The average size of the vehicles is smaller, even bigger European SUVs are far smaller than what americans call trucks. And there are less of the really big and deadly ones, almost none with a neck-breaking-bar, etc.

leoedin• 4 years ago

I was totally shocked by the shape of truck grills last time I visited Canada. The standard F150-esque chassis used for all sorts of commercial vehicles is fronted by a huge slab of steel. And those things are everywhere - it's not just the obvious "manly truck lovers", but all sorts of commercial vehicles where it's totally unnecessary. In Toronto the parks service are all driving around in those trucks. As the parent of a 2 year old, they are SCARY - the blind spot in front must be massive.

In Europe we mostly use van derived chassis for commercial vehicles. Ford Transits or Fiat Ducato (Dodge Ram Promaster in NA). They seem to be able to serve the same purpose without having terrifying blind spots.

acdha4• 4 years ago

The U.S. heavily subsidizes those vehicles and the wide roads & parking they require so we have tons of them. Europeans also buy them for the same reasons but you have to be especially committed to intimidating your neighbors to pay that much more for fuel, parking, etc. and deal with narrower streets.

Swizec3• 4 years ago

Fun result from an old Fifth Gear episode back when SUVs were called “four by fours”.

https://youtu.be/4aCumC7sJIg

The taller nose of an SUV better distributes forces across more of a pedestrian’s body, which reduces injury. And you get pushed ahead of the car instead of being scooped up to hit the windshield with your head. This is again better for the pedestrian as long as the car stops in time not to run over the person lying on the ground.

You’ll notice that non-SUV noses have been getting taller and flatter for the past ~15 years. This is a direct result of Euro NCAP rules for pedestrian safety.

edit: if you’re downvoting, I really suggest you watch the linked video. It’s great food for thought.

smcl• 4 years ago

Has British-English moved on from calling them "4x4"?

Panzer04• 4 years ago

Is that true? My understanding is lower hoods roll pedestrians over, whereas tall, solid hoods basically bring them to full speed immediately, doing a bunch of damage in the process.

ip26• 4 years ago

I can believe it, but it sure kills visibility. Children don’t even come up to the middle of the radiator.

paulryanrogers• 4 years ago

Got a link for those new rules? Or for studies about how higher hoods are safer for pedestrians?

sagarm• 4 years ago

This is wrong. SUVs kill pedestrians by crushing their bones and organs and popping their skulls like watermelons when they end up under the wheels. With lower hoods pedestrians instead go over the hood, suffering relatively minor broken bones and concussions.

lamontcg2• 4 years ago

https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-study-suggests-todays-s...

In the Michigan crashes, SUVs caused more serious injuries than cars when impacts occurred at greater than 19 miles per hour. At speeds of 20-39 mph, 3 out of 10 crashes with SUVs (30 percent) resulted in a pedestrian fatality, compared with 5 out of 22 for cars (23 percent). At 40 mph and higher, all three crashes with SUVs killed the pedestrian (100 percent), compared with 7 out of 13 crashes involving cars (54 percent). Below 20 miles per hour there was little difference between the outcomes, with pedestrians struck by either vehicle type tending to sustain minor injuries.

onetimeusename2• 4 years ago

Maybe in a secondary sense the type of automobile is part of it but also I don't know why you are saying there is "increasingly poor visibility". There have been trucks and SUVs for decades now as well.

My belief is that very bad habits were created by the empty roads in 2020 that made people start speeding. A plausible case can be constructed around this theory based on evidence. A lot of people are anecdotally familiar with this as well.

    Traffic data indicates the higher death toll was related to higher average      
    speeds in conjunction with more of those on the roads driving under the
    influence of drugs and alcohol and a slight decline in seatbelt use.[1]

Speeding increased after the pandemic lockdown.[2] There also appears to be an increase in road rage incidents.[3] So far in 2022 NHTSA says that there is an increase in road deaths for early 2022.[4] One theory that could explain the sustained increase is lower levels of traffic enforcement.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/covid-19-speeding-highway-deaths-...

[2] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/pandemic-lockdowns-made-rus...

[3] https://www.healthline.com/health-news/road-rage-has-risen-d...

[4] https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/early-estimates-first-q...

fasthands9• 4 years ago

I don't know how much can be attributed to this but always seemed weird to me that the safety tests (which both are mandated legally and also used in marketing) are solely about how safe the passengers of the car will be in the event of a crash.

It seems like a classic collective action problem. If an automaker has a new car design which will make its passengers 5% safer in a crash but passengers in the other car 10% more likely to die then they have incentive to do the design change anyways. I wouldnt know the exact numbers but would think with a lot of the changes (such as cars getting 1000s of lbs heavier) the impacts are real - especially when you factor in pedestrians.

rafeto• 4 years ago

I don't know about other markets, but Euro NCAP (https://www.euroncap.com/) includes pedestrian and cyclist safety in their assessments and Land Rover claimed that they had to stop the production of the original Defender because it did not comply with the mandated minimum safety standards for pedestrians and occupants.

I spent a lot of time in a 2012 Defender without any airbags and seats which were essentially just screwed to a wooden/sheet metal frame - but the high and upright seating position made me feel safer than do in an (objectively safer) sedan or hatchback.

gnopgnip• 4 years ago

There are a lot of automotive standards that address pedestrian safety, other crash testing besides the ones for passengers. This is why pop up headlights and hood ornaments are rarely used now for example.

S_A_P• 4 years ago

While I agree that styling elements that are outright pedestrian harmful(a row of spear heads across the grill, etc) should be banned, I also HATE the way that these same regulations are making all cars look the same. Maybe folks who don't like cars don't care. I DO care what a car looks like.

As someone who also would not like to meet his demise by an errant vehicle, I think I would rather see a bunch of safety tech designed to not hit pedestrians in the first place would be ideal. Auto stop seems to be getting pretty good and while you could never eliminate vehicle to pedestrian crashes(suicide by car is likely impossible to protect against in many scenarios) But I hope we can stop making all the cars look like a shin destroying tear drop. :)

newaccount742• 4 years ago

The same argument could be used against airbags and seatbelts, or against crumple zones.

Crashes are unavoidable, and any feature that can reduce the lethality of crashes should be considered.

lm28469• 4 years ago

Add absolute piss poor control/regulations on what's on the road. I've seen more crashes in a week around LA than in my entire life. Half the cars had bald tires, at the first sign of rain you saw a crash every 10-15min

At least 25% of the vehicles on the roads there wouldn't be considered legally road worthy in western Europe

Zak3• 4 years ago

California appears to have an annual safety inspection, which many US states do not. According to the NHTSA, 6.8% of crashes involved a vehicle with a significant safety fault, which was not necessarily a causal factor in the crash. 4.9% of crash vehicles had a tire or wheel defect.

This suggests to me that there probably isn't a desperate need for stricter vehicle inspections in the US.

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... (PDF)

browningstreet• 4 years ago

Purely anecdotal: I work from home but one day per week head out during rush hour and drive across town for a gym appointment. I almost never drive between 4p-6p anymore — my usual gym hours are 5am. The rush hour commute is crazy and scary enough that I have considered cancelling it.

One factor I notice is most drivers have their phone up in front of their faces. And at least during rush hour, the biggest trucks are driving pretty slow and the smaller more random drivers definitely correlate to smart phone obsessed drivers. Lots of sudden moves.

Further, people on the freeway totally obsessed with their phones are easy to spot: lane drifting and driving speeds that are typically inconsistent with the prevailing speed of the cars around them.

I drive a Tesla and use auto pilot almost all the time (I don’t have FSD). When you’re going a very consistent speed, the inconsistent behavior of the cars around you feels way more prevalent.

Another potential factor: left lane highway driving. I drove in a 3rd world country this summer and they were very consistent about driving in the right lane and only passing in the left lane. No one at all drove in the left lane. I think left lane driving in the US leads to more risky maneuvers and road rage responses.

pessimizer• 4 years ago

people on the freeway totally obsessed with their phones are easy to spot: lane drifting

Drift, JERK, drift, JERK. It's the mating dance of people who can't stop twittering, facebooking, or texting for even a second.

timeon• 4 years ago

most drivers have their phone up in front of their faces

I've noticed this as well (but I'm not in US).

bluedino2• 4 years ago

I wondered if it's only common in the US

khalilravanna2• 4 years ago

The consistent speed thing is so crazy to me as someone who almost always uses cruise control. Why don’t more people use it? (Pretty sure it’s been standard on every car since like 2005?) If people used cruise control and stayed in their lane most of the time (i.e. not switching lanes constantly to try and “get ahead”) I feel like traffic would improve noticeably everywhere.

When I drove in Germany it was eye opening to no longer be the exception as a person actually following the rules and not driving like someone on amphetamines in a rush for a meeting. It’s the same feeling when you work at a company with bad management and then work at one with good management: “You mean I can just trust you to do your job…?” -> “You mean I can trust you to drive a car at high speeds without killing me…?”

ghaff2• 4 years ago

(Pretty sure it’s been standard on every car since like 2005?)

Only have had adaptive cruise control the past few months.

I had regular cruise control for ages. I mostly stopped using it. On roads with any amount of traffic, I found it encouraged driving in a way that prioritized maintaining speed no matter what including getting close or changing lanes when it really wasn't necessary. And if I just constantly overrode it, why bother using it?

JTbane• 4 years ago

Another potential factor: left lane highway driving. I drove in a 3rd world country this summer and they were very consistent about driving in the right lane and only passing in the left lane. No one at all drove in the left lane. I think left lane driving in the US leads to more risky maneuvers and road rage responses.

I try to stay in the right lane at all times, but according to truckers it's safer to stay in the left lane, as vehicles merging onto a highway from the right act poorly.

soneil3• 4 years ago

I stopped cycling since lockdown. There's been a complete shift in attitudes. Every public space is adversarial.

But totally with you on phones. I've always made a habit of making eye contact with people so I know I've been seen (on bike & on foot). It's very difficult to do now - everyone's staring at their knees.

(Not in the US, and yes it's illegal here.)

DamnInteresting• 4 years ago

Likewise anecdotal: At least in the area where I live (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA), there seems to be a sharp rise in drivers who tailgate dangerously close on the freeway, especially in the carpool lane. I can be going 9+mph over the limit, and cars will still come flying up from behind, follow dangerously close for a few minutes, then illegally pass over the solid double white line so they can proceed 2-3 mph faster. And the drivers look so pissed off. Like it was a major insult that they were temporarily forced to drive slightly slower than their preferred speed. Yikes, people. Check your priorities.

whateveracct• 4 years ago

In Seattle, the left-most lane is carpool. Which means it is often people who would normally be in the right lane. It completely destroys the idea of certain lanes being faster. "Traffic" is frequently 4 cars all going through speed limit next to each other. People don't get out the way, although they are easy to bully if you apply Chicago driving behavior to them ;)

muti• 4 years ago

https://archive.ph/sEmh5

lkrubner• 4 years ago

The chart shows that the uptick begins in 2014, roughly when the meth epidemic became a true epidemic, spreading to every part of the USA, so meth in particular, and drugs in general, are the most likely explanation. So these deaths fit in with the narrative of "rising deaths of despair."

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/deaths-of-despair-depres...

jahnu• 4 years ago

http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

onetimeusename2• 4 years ago

That also correlated with the times that a number of states began to legalize marijuana for recreational use[1]. There are studies looking at this relationship and finding a correlation between road death increases and marijuana legalization.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._j...

[2]" https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2022-07-19/...

pasquinelli• 4 years ago

i bet it correltes to a million different things.

brookst• 4 years ago

Interesting correlation, but is there anything else these states have in common that would also correlate?

rufus_foreman• 4 years ago

Do people only do meth in America?

dionidium2• 4 years ago

The chart shows that the uptick begins in 2014

If we're guessing about correlations I'd point to something else that happened in 2014 that's much more significant and directly related: the death of Mike Brown in Ferguson, after which police who were roundly criticized for pulling over too many people committed to performing drastically fewer traffic stops. The second visible spike follows the death of George Floyd, which resulted in a redoubling of that commitment [0].

[0] See my other comment in this thread for some numbers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33769708

simonswords82• 4 years ago

Whilst the message is quite blunt this subreddit does a good job of highlighting just how much of our world's urban planning and infrastructure is built around cars:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars

Until I stumbled across this it had not occurred to me how much people (and walking) are placed second to cars and infrastructure. Surely this needs to change going forward.

soneil3• 4 years ago

I spent a few years in the US, and this struck me so hard. It's really difficult to even explain. You know how see something like cows being sacred in parts of India, and we can't even get our heads around it? I feel exactly the same confusion when I see how sacred cars are in the US. People will fight against designing infrastructure around people, to appease their cars. Jaywalking is a crime, because it offends the cars. Public transport is a dirty word, because it offends the cars. And if you ask anyone to even imagine any other way - at best they'll patronisingly explain that you just don't understand their religion. More often they'll get hugely defensive of it. Most people won't even entertain the thought exercise.

I half get the impression the US would be a happier place if you'd give up the charade and just let the cars vote instead.

mym19903• 4 years ago

A lot of American incentives are purely aligned to generating revenue or power through lobbying. I would be hard pressed to imagine that cycling or pedestrian unions have any kind of pull compared to large automakers. I absolutely love cycling through a city that has the infrastructure for it, and opt to walk to anything less than a mile away. I have been hit twice while riding a motorcycle, the first time was nearly fatal. I also drive a truck. So I guess I am the embodiment of all the good and bad of the system :( Definitely cognizant that I drive a danger machine though.

stevenwoo2• 4 years ago

For whatever reason, motorcyclists' deaths are about up 10x times pedestrian/cyclist deaths over the same time period in the USA according to that graphic accompanying the article. Genuinely curious as non motorcyclist - is there awareness of this or collective outrage among the motorcyclists' community?

mym19903• 4 years ago

I am not sure to be honest, as I don't ride anymore(I figured 3rd strike will be the one that gets me).

There is a quote that seems to ring true to me: "There's two types of riders; those who have crashed, and those who will." Most new riders don't believe it, but the truth is that whether you crash or not is almost never in your control, and being naive of this will just get you killed faster. Unfortunately, death seems to be something that is ever present if you are part of a bigger rider community, a lot of riders know someone close that passed away.

simonsarris• 4 years ago

Truly strange that there's no mention of the Obama admin "reforming" CAFE standards in 2012 so that the larger the vehicle's footprint, the worse fuel standards it needed to be compliant. Every single automaker went the route of making their vehicles larger, that is, compliant. You can no longer buy a new small truck in the US which is very frustrating.

The timeline for CAFE standards making America's most popular vehicles enormous tracks with the uptick on their graph. Though maybe it's something else. Someone down-thread suggested "meth" but vehicle size seems an awful lot more likely, especially since its motorcyclists and pedestrians that are dying.

froh• 4 years ago

strange indeed. maybe nobody mentioned it because the lower mpg requirement for "light trucks" was already in place since the 1980s? and even the drop in requirements accross the board in 2012 was already compensated for by 2014 and the mpg mileage was higher in 2014 than before and went further up ever since?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy

the lack of small trucks could also be caused by dark marketing of larger, heavier vehicles as "more secure".

gcanyon• 4 years ago

Not Just Bikes on YouTube covers road/pedestrian/bike safety extensively. https://www.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes Specific videos:

Crossing the street should be safer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ByEBjf9ktY

How to quickly build a cycling city: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI-1YNAmWlk

Wasting money on car infrastructure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds-v2-qyCc8

The wrong way to set speed limits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bglWCuCMSWc

Safe cycling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8F5hXqS-Ac

"Stroads" are dangerous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM

marcusverus2• 4 years ago

How could you bring yourself to write such an article without referencing the ENORMOUS differences in miles driven per capita? Folks in the US drive at a rate more than 6x that of France, the UK, or Germany. With that in mind the differences cited are neither surprising nor particularly indicative of a uniquely dangerous driving experience.

https://data.oecd.org/transport/passenger-transport.htm

tbihl• 4 years ago

It does raise the question, however, of what all those extra miles are getting us.

pandaman• 4 years ago

Single family houses with front and back yards, more variety in stores, more choice in services, random businesses, which would not exist otherwise (you can have an underwater basket weaving studio in some strip mall and still get enough customers to pay rent since your customer base comes from 60+ miles radius), convenient access to parks and trails for pretty much everyone etc.

abigail95• 4 years ago

This is like saying you have more meth addicts because you smoke more meth.

The solution of driving less doesn't seem useful or astute. It also doesn't explain why deaths went up as people drove less often during the pandemic.

trgn2• 4 years ago

Man is measure of all things. That americans need to drive more to get their daily needs met, is not a mitigating factor. In fact, maybe it points at the root of the problem.

marcusverus2• 4 years ago

My point was that this article is misleading. It criticizes US road design as unsafe and backs this up with misleading per-capita data. If you compared US road fatalities to Somalia on a per-capita basis, I bet they'd kick our asses, too! Not because they have safer roads, but because per-capita data introduces all sorts of extraneous variables (car ownership, miles driven, etc) that make it useless as a measure of road safety.

The fact of the matter is that American roads twice as safe as European roads on a per-mile basis--which is the only meaningful way to measure road safety.

So... why write an article about how unsafe American roads are relative to European roads when they are twice as safe?

ergvgdvgrd2• 4 years ago

Floyd riots and defund the police. If your DA and politicians won't stand behind you, cops retreat to the donut/coffee shop. Completely logical response.

deadbolt2• 4 years ago

The Floyd riots didn't have anything to do with police policing traffic.

ergvgdvgrd2• 4 years ago

Police are people too. Just as Twitter employees were demoralized by Elon's behavior and it effected everything they did, so are police officers effected by morale. Traffic stops can escalate very quickly, but why do it when no one has your back?

nickpinkston• 4 years ago

While I'm sure the US probably does have some bad rates. (pedestrian deaths, etc. makes sense we're bad at) I'm unsure this really corrects for the other factors.

How does this correct for average mileage spent in cars per per country? Seems like mostly a function of population density and wealth?

ie maybe the US has low pop density and high wealth, so unlike the highlighted Japan/France (who have great public transit / rail), we can't justify it as much but people can still afford to use cars constantly.

Judging based on traffic aggression, it would seem America is actually on the more chill side compared to what I've driven in across the world.

I think their recommendations to change urban spaces to make them safer make sense though, so no argument there. More just wondering if maybe our car culture is kind of baked-in to our material conditions.

The Exceptionally American Problem of Rising Roadway Deaths

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