[HN Gopher] America has the world's safest air travel but sucks ...
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America has the world's safest air travel but sucks so bad at car
safety
Author : kitkat_new
Score : 27 points
Date : 2023-09-01 18:22 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vox.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vox.com)
| black_13 wrote:
| [dead]
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| The article mentions badly designed roads and badly designed
| cars/SUVs when comparing with the other countries, but nobody
| talks about the standards regarding examinations and awarding
| driver's licenses to people.
|
| Maybe the countries with lower road fatalities have higher
| examination standards and don't hand licenses out like flyers or
| take your license away much easier the moment you mess up.
| tstrimple wrote:
| Iowa recently (2021) passed a bill allowing parents to teach
| their children to drive instead of requiring an instructor led
| class. I can't wait to see the results of allowing people who
| cannot navigate a roundabout to be responsible for teaching
| their children how to drive.
|
| https://www.kcrg.com/2021/05/10/bill-redefining-drivers-educ...
| kbelder wrote:
| They used to require instructors? I didn't realize any states
| did. Do any other states require them?
| Nullabillity wrote:
| This isn't a purely american thing, the swedish system
| largely relies on a mix of instructor-led classes and parent-
| led "homework". Although there are a bunch of safeguards in
| place: the amateur instructor must have had a license in good
| standing for N years, must have taken a special instructor's
| course recently, and must have a license to instruct that
| specific student.
|
| It does end up with a bunch of weird legal quirks though (for
| example: DUI laws apply to the amateur instructor but _not_
| the student).
|
| There are also separate car signs for professional vs amateur
| instructors.
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| It's speed cameras. You'll learn to respect the speed limit
| pretty quickly after your first fine for breaking it by a
| whopping 7 kilometers- after correction.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > You'll learn to respect the speed limit pretty quickly
|
| Many parts of the autobahn in Germany have no speed limits
| and they're not seeing more accidents than, say, in France
| (and France highways have limits at typically 130 km/h // 80
| mph). There are definitely less deaths on german limitless
| autobahns than on highways in the US.
|
| FWIW if you keep only highway deaths in Europe and remove
| friday/saturday nights and drunk drivers, there are hardly
| any fatalities on highways.
|
| Something something about kinetic energy and cars all driving
| in the same direction.
|
| Speed on highways really doesn't kill much. As simple as
| that.
| nvarsj wrote:
| I wonder what the reason for this is. Anyone with a pulse can
| get a US license. I've gotten a California license and a UK
| one.
|
| I passed the California one when I was 16 (which was an
| absolute joke) and proceeded to get into multiple close call
| collisions and got pulled over by the police with a threat of
| reckless driving.
|
| In comparison I failed my UK test twice with 20 years of
| experience driving in the US. It was much tougher to pass. You
| have to know the rules well and be comfortable driving the test
| car.
| mlyle wrote:
| I just wanted to commend you on an unusual level of insight:
| most people think they've always been an above-average
| driver.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| Amusingly I almost failed my US test after passing the UK
| test a couple of months earlier (I figured I should learn to
| drive before moving to the US.)
|
| In the UK I was taught to inch out slowly while making a turn
| at a junction to see traffic while in the US you must stop
| completely behind the line.
|
| Fortunately as the US test only requires driving around the
| block I didn't lose enough points to fail. The examiner said
| it was pretty common for people who learnt to drive in other
| countries.
| CincinnatiMan wrote:
| > I wonder what the reason for this is
|
| Consider how difficult life is for people who aren't able to
| get a driver's license. US society is not set up for non-
| drivers.
| cozzyd wrote:
| American driver standards are a joke. My driving test didn't
| even include parallel parking.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| If you have very limited time, it makes sense not to include
| it. Failing at parallel parking usually just means a low
| speed collision with another car.
| digianarchist wrote:
| I didn't even put my car in reverse for my California test.
|
| I failed my UK test once at 17 and passed at 26 but only
| just.
| tstrimple wrote:
| You can get away without knowing how to parallel park in
| probably 99% (not being hyperbolic) of the country just fine.
| Even when I lived in LA, you could easily find parking that
| doesn't require parallel parking. I'm far more concerned
| about the folks who can't deal with backing out of "normal"
| parking spaces.
| sdfghswe wrote:
| > America has the world's safest air travel but sucks so bad at
| car safety
|
| Yes, because any moron is allowed to drive.
| Lammy wrote:
| Everybody deserves freedom of movement regardless of how smart
| you think they are.
| sdfghswe wrote:
| You're talking about what people should be allowed to do,
| which is not what I'm talking about.
|
| I'm explaining why the safety of driving vs flying are so
| different. And the reason is that any moron is allowed to
| drive.
| throwaway128128 wrote:
| At every driver's ed they teach you that driving is a
| privilege, not a right.
|
| You are free to take the bus or ride a bike if one is
| incapable of driving safely. The rest of society isn't forced
| to suffer.
| Lammy wrote:
| There are too many parts of the continent with zero bus
| transit where distances between any two points make
| bicycling infeasible. In those places the alternative to
| driving is not traveling at all. Until those can be
| equalized then yes I do consider driving a right even for
| the people you look down upon.
| thfuran wrote:
| So should everyone be allowed to fly whatever plane they
| want in whatever airspace they want because there are
| parts to the country where even cars aren't a viable
| means of transportation?
| Lammy wrote:
| I'm obviously talking about populated places.
| thfuran wrote:
| Yes, me too. There are towns in Alaska with no roads in
| or out.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| The chart in the article is deaths per capita. Deaths per mile
| driven would be more relevant. Americans drive much more than
| people in the other countries mentioned (https://internationalcom
| parisons.org/environmental/transport...), a large part (but not
| all) of the discrepancy is due to that.
| cramjabsyn wrote:
| Lacking rail networks in the US must play a role in putting more
| people (and trucks) on the road and increasing severity of
| crashes
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| That's funny you say that because the US has one of it not the
| largest freight networks in the world
| sdfghswe wrote:
| It's funny that you mention freight, because that's
| completely irrelevant for people traveling.
| Lammy wrote:
| You could not be more wrong. Research the history of of the
| Class I railroads and they all had prestigious passenger
| service that became too unprofitable to run thanks to
| dwindling ridership and the cancelation of the USPS
| contracts in 1964. Their rolling stock was turned over to
| Amtrak at its formation in 1971.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Can you explain how this is relevant to modern traffic
| fatality statistics?
| Lammy wrote:
| Today's main line rails are mostly in the same places
| they were back when they hosted passenger service.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Which are now used for freight and instead people mostly
| move in cars, which are prone to crashing
| Clamchop wrote:
| I'm not sure why historical relevance is being talked
| about. Rail in the US failed to keep pace and has become
| largely irrelevant despite appearing that it could stand
| to benefit even more from modernized passenger rail
| because of often large distances between popular
| destinations.
|
| It is pretty irrelevant for this discussion except as a
| criticism of infrastructure.
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