Despite improvements, driving in America remains extraordinarily dangerous

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21656668-despite-improvements-driving-america-remains-extraordinarily-dangerous-road-kill?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/pe/st/roadkill

by edward • 11 years ago

65 78 11 years ago

economist.com

Implicated• 11 years ago

Are there no editors at this outlet? How does something with so many blatant errors ever get published?

kefka• 11 years ago

No.. "We're just going to cherry pick what data we want to show for our narrative. Damn be the statistics and facts."

brians• 11 years ago

It's a parody of the standard European article about America and guns. Nicely subtle.

andrewtbham• 11 years ago

I have friends that work in the ER... and the joke is...

What is the difference between a motorcyclist who wears a helmet or not? open or closed casket.

NathanthePie• 11 years ago

What do you call a motorcyclist without a helmet?

An organ donor.

mcguire2• 11 years ago

Deaths per 100,000 people is probably the wrong figure to look at to determine the safety (or lack thereof) of driving.

According to this[1] list of traffic-related deaths by country that includes deaths per billion vehicle-kilometers (also not a great figure, but better), the US has 7.6 and Japan has 8.3---Japan is more dangerous, not much less. Spain is the same as the US, France is 6.3, and Germany is 4.9.

According to the IIHS[2], Montana as 1.96 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles, while New Jersey has 0.74, a factor of 2.6 vs 3.7 according to the article's deaths per 100,000 people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... (WHO data, 2013?)

[2] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit... (2013 data)

dkhenry• 11 years ago

It seems as if the author had a point they wanted to prove and then tried to find some facts that lined up with their point.

tlb• 11 years ago

I disagree. Comparing two countries with the same deaths per billion miles, the one where geography and urban planning causes people to drive more miles is more dangerous.

nicksellen• 11 years ago

Deaths per 100,000 people is probably the wrong figure to look at to determine the safety (or lack thereof) of driving.

Kind of. It's useful to see the per distance and per population figures. You are likely to drive more when you are in the USA compared to Europe (due to the culture and bigger distances to travel) and this increases your risk.

If I was analyzing my total risk of dying in a road accident, both figures would play a part.

akgerber2• 11 years ago

That figure isn't particularly illustrative either, conisdering that, in much of the US, living a normal life requires driving significant distances on a daily basis. In most other countries, driving is an optional convenience.

The deaths per vehicle-kilometer figure doesn't illustrate that it's very difficult to opt out of the automotive dangers in the US. And thus we also have a hard time forcing dangerous drivers to stop driving, in order to keep the rest of us safe from them.

ajmurmann3• 11 years ago

I agree. However, I find that even more remarkable. I looked at the wiki statistic yesterday and the comparison between Germany (where I grew up) and the US made me think. Roads in Germany do feel safer and better organized. But because of the famously high speed limits on the Autobahn I didn't expect to see number like this. I used ot go 220km/h in a Golf 2 from 1994. That was even scarry back then at times and seems downright insane now that I am used to US traffic.

As someone else mentions, I think that drivers pick lanes at will leads to constant lane changes and also to traffic jams and reduces throughput. That to me is a huge thing that needs fixing. It also makes driving much more pleasant. You never have a "wall" of three slow cars in front of you and now have to figure out which one of them will eventually make way, so that you can pass and now everyone has to change lanes. It's insane! In addition to the broken "protocol" that's being used on roads cars are also much less save. Lots of pickups have these pipes on front of their car's grills (sorry no idea how those things are properly called). These are actually illegal in Germany because they increase injury likelihood for pedestrians. Trucks in Europe have to have barriers on the side, so that in a collision they push a car aside and have a big impact area, rather than just hitting with a car with the edge of the trailer just at the same height as where people's heads are. Really cheap to do and would save lots of lifes. There are also many more very large cars in the US. If those crash into a smaller car that can have much more severe consequences. I think the lack of monster pick up trucks in Europe helps. I know many people here get these trucks to defend themselves against other people who are in these huge vehicles.

SilasX2• 11 years ago

What about a metric that accounts for speed? Should it account for that?

Intuitively, if two cars each average one death per million miles, but one of them had an average speed of 5mph, and the other 60mph, then the faster one should be regarded as safer because it maintained that death rate under less safe conditions.

mcguire2• 11 years ago

That would help, I think. I suspect a difference in average speed is partially behind the differences between Montana and New Jersey, possibly more important than the usual "Montana drivers are freedom-loving (or insane) and don't like to be told to wear seatbelts."

josinalvo• 11 years ago

Not quite so sure...

1. Deaths per 100,000 seem to be pretty good a measure for pedestrian deaths

2. Your measure does not consider the cost of driving more

But, one point I think you have: If indeed the number of deaths per km is similar, then the solution to car deaths is to drive less, not to drive more safely

bryanlarsen• 11 years ago

But in Japan, people generally take public transit for ordinary travel and only use their car for extraordinary travel. I suspect the death rate of "deaths per billion vehicle-kilometers of extraordinary travel" in the states would be much higher than 7.6.

nefitty• 11 years ago

Is there a Google autonomous car waiting list somewhere?

nostrademons• 11 years ago

This is how self-driving vehicles will get adopted - if enough articles come out showing just how bad humans are at driving, there will be a public safety call to first introduce and then mandate autonomous vehicles.

newman3144• 11 years ago

BZZT. No.

Try imagining the transition period, usual shitty driver [1] vs. autonomous vehicle or vs. a car equipped with V2V.

Plus there are enough rich people in the world with nice cars that will most likely never give up their right to enjoy their car.

The proper fix is better mandated driver education and better infrastructure. Other countries can do it, it's way past time the US caught up.

[1] My favorite, the cut across 4 lanes because the idiot realized that the exit was being passed. I have absolutely no issue if he kills himself as a result of his own stupidity. What I take issue with is someone taking ME out because of their burning desire to win the Darwin Award.

Frondo• 11 years ago

The way the fix is going to come in will be via insurance. Person-driven cars will have to start paying crazy insurance compared to machine-driven cars, because people are so much more error-prone than well-made machines would be.

tokenadult• 11 years ago

The article shows a deaths-per-mile driven figure rather early in the article: "For every billion miles Americans drive, roughly 11 people are killed. If American roads were as safe per-mile-driven as Ireland’s, the number of lives saved each year would be equivalent to preventing all the murders in the country." The article looks at a variety of statistics for examining international comparisons of road safety: "And in some ways things have been getting worse. For example, between 2009 and 2013 pedestrian deaths jumped by 15% as the economy recovered. In Britain, over the same period, the number fell by a fifth."

On my part, I would much rather drive in the United States (as I have to, in a culture so bound to the automobile) than in Taiwan, the only other country I've lived in for a long time. I had a driver license the first time I lived in Taiwan (1982 through 1985), but I never drove there. The second time I lived there (1998 through 2001), I didn't even bother getting a driver license. It was a luxury when the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit system extended a subway line out to where I lived in the suburban city of Panchiao during my last year there. I much prefer public transportation commutes to driving commutes when I can get them. (Where I live here in the United States I necessarily have to commute by car to work, even though we chose our neighborhood for its convenient one-mile walking distance from much of our shopping and our visits to the county library branch.) My oldest son was acculturated to public transportation while we were living in Taiwan the second time and now happily lives in New York City without a driver license.

jonathansizz• 11 years ago

After moving from the UK to the US fifteen years ago, I was amazed at certain practices that are common in the US: tailgating, weaving and undertaking are ubiquitous here.

I also noticed that a significant fraction of drivers don't know how to use acceleration lanes; they wait at the beginning of the lane until they can pull directly into the main flow of traffic. Tailgating and weaving are probably so common because many drivers do not see left lanes as overtaking lanes, but rather seem to have a favourite lane that they always use; other drivers must navigate around them.

Also, the driving test in the UK takes about 1 hour, with 40 minutes of driving in all conditions (highway, urban, overtaking, merging, emergency stop, three-point turn, parallel parking in an actual parking space, etc.). For my American test, I had less than ten minutes of driving - I took a right out of the test center, drove for 1/2 mile, took a left then three rights and headed back to the test center, went round the back and parallel parked between bollards that had at least two parking spaces between them. That got me my license.

It's just a different culture here - driving is seen as a right, not a privilege.

_delirium3• 11 years ago

It's just a different culture here - driving is seen as a right, not a privilege.

Partly that's because in huge parts of the country, it's effectively a necessity to be able to drive in order to get to work, buy groceries, etc., since public transit outside of a few urban cores is very spotty (often nonexistent). Therefore removing someone's license, or not letting them have one in the first place, is seen as a very serious matter that could greatly complicate the person earning a living.

mondoshawan4• 11 years ago

That's because most of the U.S. Is rural, not urban, and highly spread out. Public transit just isn't practical when you have states the size of multiple EU countries and people haven't well centralized into tall cities.

The further east you go, the better it is.

federico3• 11 years ago

...in huge parts of the country, it's effectively a necessity to be able to drive...

In many European countries sprawls are illegal. Roads, buildings and public transportation are planned to avoid large low-density cities.

mondoshawan4• 11 years ago

It varies upon the state. California is pretty lenient -- I've seen people actually cheat on the written tests (10 true false questions!) and not be called on it. Some don't even have a driving test!

In AZ, I had to take a long form multiple choice test of 40 questions plus a 30 minute practical demonstrating my understanding of the dimensions of the car, parallel parking, urban, highway, and rural driving.

helipad• 11 years ago

I too moved from the UK to the US and the roads feel incredibly unsafe.

In Michigan, for example, there are terrible potholes. Drivers also often in beat-up cars, often related to high auto insurance – that may create an attitude of not caring as much about bumps. They'd never pass an MOT in the UK. Drivers tailgate, text on their phone, overtake on any side and regularly demonstrably drunk.

newman3144• 11 years ago

The running joke is that Michigan roads are ALWAYS under construction.

I suspect that has to do more with "job creation" rather than a desire to have good roads. After all, there are plenty of other places with similar weather without the horrendous roads.

tzs• 11 years ago

The shortness of your driving test may have been partially due to your already having been licensed in another jurisdiction. I believe that some states test new drivers more extensively then they test experienced drivers.

UnoriginalGuy2• 11 years ago

When you move from one state to another state, that is definitely the case. I would have had to just take a written test and then would have received my license.

International individuals are almost always required to take the full driving test simply because driving is so different in other countries and a lot of stuff doesn't apply to the US.

I too learned in the UK, and when I moved to the US I still took driving lessons for a few weeks before taking the test because driving on US roads is dramatically different from the UK and there is a lot of little nuances to get used to.

kodis• 11 years ago

Maryland has recently eliminated the parallel parking test from their driver's exam. In my experience, this was the only part of the test that required any significant amount of practice.

moron4hire2• 11 years ago

I've driven all over Ireland, Scotland, and Germany and saw just as much road idiocy as in the US.

UnoriginalGuy2• 11 years ago

But your standards of bad driving are based on what you're used to in the US. So things that we consider bad practice wouldn't even flag on your radar.

So, yes, people make the same high level driving mistakes in the US and around europe. The problem the US has is that the normal day to day driving is so much worse.

Tailgating in particular is extremely common in the US. It scares the heck out of me when idiots behind me driving within two car length of me at over 65 MpH even when there is space enough behind them that they could easily double that gap, still arrive at their destination at the same time, and if I needed to stop suddenly they wouldn't rear end me.

ajmurmann3• 11 years ago

Having moved here from Germany I think that people randomly picking their favorite lane is probably the biggest factor. It also makes things incredibly inefficient and driving much less pleasurable. I am convinced that sorting cars by speed with slow cars on the right would increase throughput dramatically. Without that a road with as diverse speeds as the Autobahn would be impossible. US freeways have to accommodate a much smaller range of speeds and still fail because it's so badly organized.

Given that Germany has much higher speed limits and still fewer fatalities per mile driven, I would definitely focus on giving tickets for overtaking on the right and not speeding up on the on ramp. That shit makes things dangerous for everyone and provides benefits to no one. It's just plain stupid. I would implement draconic penalties for that shit.

leeoniya• 11 years ago

Having recently traveled to Germany, I have to say that while the passing rules are great, the Autobahn experience is not. The frequent drastic speed limit changes (from none to 50kph or even 30kph) as you pass through small rural towns is very annoying and takes a lot of concentration not to enter a town too fast and get an automated photo taken.

heimatau• 11 years ago

Solid breakdown. I wish in America we'd encourage both. Like the DMV could have a 'basic DL' and an 'advanced DL' and it comes with perks like lower insurance, heck maybe even lower gas prices (ex: pay less in taxes on gas). This system would be elaborate and costly but...I think the financial cost is small compared to the possible benefits of encouraging an educated/skilled driver.

maxerickson• 11 years ago

Insurance companies offer a somewhat similar discount, if you agree to a gps monitor.

They could certainly offer lower rates to drivers that pass a skills test, but I doubt they care to (just because I sort of doubt it would be a better predictor than the information they already use (age and driving history being the big ones)).

ams6110• 11 years ago

Tailgating and weaving are caused mostly by frustration due to improper lane usage. It is the law everywhere that on a multi-lane road, the left lanes are for overtaking and slower traffic needs to keep to the right. However it's rarely enforced.

Several states (Indiana being one) have recently enacted new laws that allow ticketing drivers who are driving at the posted speed limit but blocking traffic in the left lane. So even if traffic coming up from behind you is exceeding the speed limit, you are not permitted to block the left lane.

ShirsenduK• 11 years ago

What word can one use for driving in India? Suicidal? Its much much more chaotic all the time.

somberi• 11 years ago

India roughly accounts for 15% of road traffic deaths worldwide, although it has just 1% of the world's motor vehicles. In 2011, the country witnessed 440,123 accidents that left 136,834 people dead, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. In the decade up to 2011, the number of deaths on the road jumped by 44.2 per cent.

A rough calculation of the data in the World Health Organisation's global status report on road safety 2013, on the number of registered vehicles and the number of estimated road traffic fatalities around the world, indicates that in India, there is an average of one death for every 840 vehicles. Meanwhile, China has one death for 2,942 vehicles, while the US has one death for every 7,847 vehicles.

What's more, the majority of road fatalities in India (65%) occur on state and national highways and 78% of all road fatalities are attributed to human errors, such as speeding, inattention, drunken driving and prediction errors.

But if you take Death per thousands, you can see India is at parity with the world. Ref: http://qz.com/216766/despite-what-you-may-think-indias-hardl...

gwern• 11 years ago

But if you take Death per thousands, you can see India is at parity with the world. Ref: http://qz.com/216766/despite-what-you-may-think-indias-hardl....

Why would you bother to point this out when you already explained in your earlier statistic, about death per vehicles, why going by population is a ridiculous comparison? (India is a poor country with relatively few automobiles, yet the death numbers are sky high and comparable to countries with more automobiles.)

smm2000• 11 years ago

Pretty much everyone in India has a scooter which is probably more dangerous than the car. Unless you count scooter as a motor vehicle, this statistic is meaningless.

dmckeon• 11 years ago

Proposal for the US: shift teens from cars to smaller vehicles: mopeds, scooters, and very small displacement motorcycles - 50, 100, 150 cc engines - and tie advancement in license class/engine size to both age and other achievements: graduating high school or getting a GED, completing an associate degree or technical program, graduating college, completing military or national service, or being employed for X hours per week.

Put strong negative incentives in place for motor vehicle violations - temporary downgrade in license class, bump in insurance costs, delay in advancement to next license class.

This would significantly increase the number of small vehicles on roads while decreasing the power and weight of vehicles being operated by less experienced drivers. It would provide a easily visible way for young people to display their level of age and accomplishment (or lack of it).

Operators of larger vehicles would have to deal with the presence of many more smaller vehicles, which could have a herd immunity effect - with 10x scooters on the street, car drivers would be more likely to notice and avoid two-wheelers of all sizes. Reduced carbon output would be another benefit.

001sky• 11 years ago

Huh? what about rain, snow, sleet, and fog? What about the desert and mountainous western states? What about the wind in the midwest?

2 wheel transit requires actual expertise unless limited to mediterranean climates. you also have no way to deal with practical concerns like injuries, spare tires, designated drivers, and transit of things like gear for sports. that is all stuff that is the bread and butter of yound people needing cars/transit and why the parents delegate it out.

on the flipside, smaller cars & motorsycles are more dangerous. EG, when hit by all the massive SUVs and crazy f150 class vehicles favored by commercial drivers.

their is a logic to why americans drive the cars they do. in part that's why the story is more akin to a tradgedy than a farce. the issues don't solve themselves with trivial remedies.

Untill their is public transit that is safe, all-weather, and comprehensive, the public will need de-centralized and private transit solutions.

unfortunately, the geographic and population topography of the country does not suit the european model of public transporation. there are also many issues now that it is "too late" to save places like california, who now have such massice entrnched residential real estate that new transit corridors cannot be built by the state without paying in essence ransom to current deed holders.

...etc.

unethical_ban• 11 years ago

"Hello parents, please put the light of your life on a two-wheeled vehicle so if she gets on an accident on the highway going to school, she won't hurt anyone else."

sgift• 11 years ago

"Or put him/her in a four-wheeled vehicle which will drive far faster than the two-wheeled one and kill the light of your life in case of an accident. The choice is yours!"

bruceb• 11 years ago

"...tie advancement in license class/engine size to both age and other achievements: graduating high school or getting a GED, completing an associate degree or technical program, graduating college, completing military or national service, or being employed for X hours per week."

Why should driving a car be tied to education? Shouldn't it be tied to how well you drive? If an 18 yearold adult wants to work and not go to college why should they not be able to get a license?

On a practical level those who are not getting the GED probably come from poor backgrounds and less likely to have a car anyway.

sehugg• 11 years ago

Mobile use is pretty bad too. Every time I see someone who's not used their signal or has failed to turn their head before cutting me off in my lane it seems they have a phone pressed against their ear. And I don't want to even mention the people who are looking at tablets on their laps (!)

baby2• 11 years ago

To pass my driver's licence in France I have to pay ~1000euros and then I get 20 hours of "free" driving lessons, then if the teacher think you need more hours you have to take more hours, each hour cost 40euros more. And after all of that you can pass the driving test.

I've never heard of anyone that didn't need at least 10-20 additional hours. Most people fail their driving test at least once. I personally failed the writing exam and had to wait 6 months to try again.

Here in America I can go there, pay 30 bucks and I can pass my writing test in a day. And then come back a few days letter, pay like 10 dollars and pass the driving test.

Maybe it's related with the number of accidents?

PS: Don't get me wrong, fuck the extreme french driver's licence system.

tinco• 11 years ago

Doesn't sound very extreme to me. In The Netherlands there are two separate tests. The theory is 40 theory/insight questions, of which you are allowed 5 mistake and 25 danger recognition tests of which you are allowed 12 mistakes. In the danger recognition you are shown a picture shot from the drivers seat that shows the speedometer and some situation, you have 3 options, keep on, foot off gas, brake. You get 8 seconds for each question and it costs 30 euros.

The practical test is something I think around 50% of people fail after an average of around 35 1-hour lessons. It costs around 200 euro I think. You can expect to spend between 1500 and 2000 euro's on a license.

bcassedy• 11 years ago

Is the teacher a govt employee or are they a private business? If the latter, I'm not surprised that everyone needs more hours. The teacher is incentivized to squeeze every student for more money.

It reminds me of a story from my father's youth. He had gotten a minor DUI (back when there was such a distinction), had his license suspended, and was sentenced to see a counselor for a prescribed number of visits. After those visits the counselor could, at his discretion, recommend more counseling or recommend the license be renewed.

Edit to clarify: He had to see a counselor for x visits. He could choose from a list of approved counselors and he would be responsible for any fees.

After the prescribed number of visits the counselor recommended more counseling. Dejected, my father went home and thought. The next day he called up the counselor and said, "You know, I don't feel that I need further counseling. I'd like to see another counselor for a second opinion."

The next day he had a recommendation for license renewal from the first counselor.

baby2• 11 years ago

Is the teacher a govt employee or are they a private business?

Private business! I had a friend who spent hundreds of hours driving with his father before 18, and when he had to go through this thing to get the real driver's licence, they asked him to do 10 hours more (400euros). This was a joke really, and my friend is too nice so he didn't say anything.

idlewords• 11 years ago

There's the old Confederacy, screwing up our stats again.

menegattig• 11 years ago

Well.. try to drive in São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro - Brazil.

Tiktaalik• 11 years ago

It's remarkable to me just how normalized the danger of cars has become, and how hard it is to push back against the status quo.

In contrast in the Netherlands as car use increased and deaths increased in the 50s-60s, there was a strong push back, with groups such as Stop de Kindermoord (“stop the child murder”) forming to protest against ceding the city to the car.

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicy...

Subsequently the Netherlands didn't design completely around the car, has a very high bike share and is dramatically safer than the USA.

People point to self driving cars as the solution, but it's really just doing the wrong thing better instead of doing the right thing.

A better solution is to design our cities so that they aren't completely designed around the car. Reducing space for cars will not only make our cities safer, but it's also the healthier, more affordable and and more sustainable solution.

jessaustin2• 11 years ago

The Dutch are either much better and wiser people than we are, or they saw the results of cars taking over other nations and learned from our mistakes.

I'm fairly indifferent to automobiles, and a bit of a gun enthusiast, but I wonder... Do the dangers posed by cars and the dangers posed by guns in USA somehow cancel each other out psychologically? That is, some people dismiss the dangers of firearms by pointing out how many more people are killed by drivers. Others feel better about driving by saying "well at least it's not like owning a gun". To ensure that everyone dies of cancer or old age, we'll have to make big changes with respect to both firearms and automobiles.

GigabyteCoin• 11 years ago

Unfortunately drunk driving still doesn't seem to be taken all that seriously in North America.

Most of my friends will admit to driving home when they know they shouldn't have. I used to be in that category but have made good use of the bus system over the past few years.

In Smalltown, NY where my friend's cottage is located... her father tells stories of the town's own police chief driving home after a heavy night of drinking at the local legion after fish fry fridays. He brags that his driving habits are untouchable in that town because of this knowledge.

It's disgusting, really.

Tagbert• 11 years ago

When I travel to Brasil it is always a relief to return to the US because driving in Brasil is very dangerous and nerve racking. The drivers are very aggressive, non-cooperative and there are almost no traffics officers to make sure people follow traffic regulations.

Despite improvements, driving in America remains extraordinarily dangerous

Related Stories