[HN Gopher] Traffic engineers build roads relying on outdated re...
___________________________________________________________________
Traffic engineers build roads relying on outdated research, faulty
data
Author : rntn
Score : 142 points
Date : 2024-06-23 14:17 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theconversation.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theconversation.com)
| bluejekyll wrote:
| Something that makes this even more insidious, is that trying to
| change roads to be safer often triggers many studies about the
| impact of those changes. These range from studies on traffic
| congestion, to safety itself, local business impact, etc. What
| makes this so hypocritical is that hardly any of those studies
| were done when the roads were put in, or subsequently widened.
| There were no studies on how wide, fast roads would negatively
| impact neighborhoods. How they would make it dangerous just to
| walk around, or increase the local pollution (air and
| particulates ending up in streams). They didn't study how these
| widened roads might negatively impact downtowns, etc. All of this
| car investment happened as though it was for the greater good,
| and many people still believe this.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Studies like this always seem to me to be a formality.
|
| The conclusions are what the person paying for the study wants
| them to be.
|
| If a local municipality is anti-car, they will run a study
| justifying adding bike lanes everywhere, even though once they
| are built you never see bicycles in them, and they create more
| difficulty for cars by narrowing or taking away lanes.
|
| Or they'll install "traffic calming" speed bumps, chicanes, or
| curb-extension bottlenecks on neighborhood roads when (almost)
| nobody in the neighborhood wanted them.
|
| On the other hand, if they are pro-development, their studies
| will show that a new or widened road will lead to more business
| development, more jobs, more tax revenue.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Bike lanes success are well measured and will often carry
| more people than a car lanes will.
| Filligree wrote:
| They carry more _bicyclists_ , you mean.
|
| /s
| bluejekyll wrote:
| No, they also carry people on trikes, in motorized wheel
| chairs, scooters, joggers, people on those mono wheel
| things. Bikes might be the most popular choice, but many
| people are starting to refer to these lanes as "mobility-
| lanes" because they improve the lives of more than just
| bicyclists.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > Bike lanes success are well measured
|
| Where? Outside of cities with very high density I don't see
| this being true. For medium density and less, what I've
| seen is that bike lanes remain empty. Bike counters
| basically show them to be failures, since the utilization
| barely increases over time or even lags population growth,
| while the car lanes remain fully utilized.
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| Are these the same bike lanes that start and stop
| randomly and are often just the shoulder of a 45-mi/h
| road with a bike, and implied middle finger, painted on?
| oblio wrote:
| Have you EVER tried to bike for commuting, grocery
| shopping, transportation in general, on those bike lanes?
|
| If cyclists aren't using them, they're not doing it to
| spite you. They're doing it because there's no network
| and 500m of bike lane doesn't take them somewhere useful
| or because they're badly designed and dangerous or very
| unpleasant due to heavy car traffic, pollution, etc.
| tom_vidal wrote:
| Your car bias is showing here. The reason bike lanes and
| traffic calming measures get installed is because people are
| literally dying due to poor road design that prioritizes car
| speed over everything else.
|
| You might not want traffic calming, but everyone else who has
| to deal with your driving does.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| And isn't it really about how people are driving? In my
| state, we drive like maniacs, constantly speeding at least
| ten MPH over the limit. The term, "drive friendly" is
| scoffed at. Slowing down to let someone on the highway is
| unseen.
|
| On city streets, tailgating is common, jacked up pick-ups
| are drenching the interior of your car with their
| headlights after dark, making all your mirrors a blinding
| image. Can we please put our phones down for safety's sake?
| Sometimes I ride a motorcycle, so I'm hyper aware and see
| all kinds of just plain terrible driving practices. Most of
| it is simply a lack of patience behind the wheel. On the
| turnpike, when that car passes doing twenty over, do we
| really think they think about the possible consequences?
| bluecalm wrote:
| Yes, people in general are terrible at driving. Teaching
| them is hopeless that's why we need solutions that works.
| There are two right now: infrastructure that makes it
| hard and very inconvenient to go fast and heavy handed
| enforcement. The latter option only works in very well
| developed civilised societes like Switzerland or Nordic
| countries have. Most others are stuck with traffic
| calling measures as their population has too little too
| lose to care about safety.
| orwin wrote:
| The solution is easy, I just saw it implemented in a
| nearby town (8k people): make the road curb a little,
| never fully straight, add bollards everywhere on the side
| of the road, and narrow the road at every crossing (with
| metal/concrete bollards). Bollards are great: they
| protect pedestrian and are intimidating it seems.
| According to the mayor (I ate with him, friend of my
| mother) the architect who gave him the idea was a nudge
| expert, and they tested it first with thin, plastic
| bollards around the town (it worked, but wasn't
| protective enough). The city is halfway between two
| economic 'centers' (28k and 50k population) and see a lot
| of traffic as those cities grow. No pedestrian death in
| the last two years AFAIK, when pre-covid you had half a
| dozen injuries every year and a mortal accident every
| other year.
|
| So the bollards do seems to work. Install bollards!
| II2II wrote:
| At least in my city, devices were installed in many bike
| lanes in order to count the number of userd. They show that
| people do use them.
|
| As for traffic calming, curb extensions, etc.: the city only
| started adding those modifications after pedestrian
| fatalities started going up and people started demanding them
| because they got tired of hearing about deaths all of the
| time.
|
| None of this is because the city is pro/anti-development
| since most of the projects could be construed either way. In
| a lot of cases it was simply to see which measures were
| effective because we often lack the data to know what will be
| effective.
| jimberlage wrote:
| We did a study in my neighborhood after two pedestrian
| deaths. The deaths definitely were the motivator for the
| community action and studies.
|
| You know why the idiot traffic engineers made the streets so
| wide in the area where these oversized cars killed two
| people? "The average commute on the road would be extended by
| 1 minute."
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > hardly any of those studies were done when the roads were put
| in, or subsequently widened
|
| Where do you get this idea? NIMBY works every bit as well on
| new or expanded roads, and it gets used constantly. Hell, we've
| spent hundreds of millions of dollars just trying to decide if
| we can build a new bridge, and that doesn't even involve actual
| planning. It's amazing we get _any_ infrastructure projects
| done now given that every single person can stall them
| indefinitely.
| bluGill wrote:
| only when someone speaks up. The worst roads are in nobodies
| backyard (who likes on a stroad - nobody, they all live on
| cul-de-sacs off the stroad)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Perhaps you live somewhere were everyone is content? My
| neighborhood is full of people (admittedly, many older) who
| mobilize at the slightest rumor of change anywhere in our
| vicinity. Bigger road? No way, that means more traffic.
| More houses? No way, that means more traffic. The
| neighborhood associate is quite active about staying on top
| of anything planned for this region of the city so they can
| light up our inboxes with information.
|
| Probably the one thing they _wouldn 't_ really be bothered
| by is expanding that cul-de-sac, as long as it will still
| be a dead end and not a new connection that traffic might
| choose to use to transit across the neighborhood.
| panick21_ wrote:
| This might be true now, but it wasn't when all these massive
| highways, roads and stroads were built. US cities weren't
| destroyed because the people that lived there voted on it.
| For the most part you had a bureaucratic elite come in over
| the top and simply create laws and change the regulation.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > US cities weren't destroyed
|
| US cities were not destroyed, and this is just
| misinformation, or hyperbole at best. In fact virtually all
| cities benefited from car infrastructure, since it brings
| people and things to the city, lets people efficiently get
| around, and so on. It helps the economic value of a city
| and also improves quality of life. If this wasn't true,
| there would have been a response with a broad political
| base. But there hasn't been. At best, a tiny minority of
| residents gets upset about roads and organizes into
| activist groups that make such claims. But the majority of
| the public enjoys and utilizes driving infrastructure.
| oblio wrote:
| They enjoy it when it's not in their neighborhood. Notice
| the cul de sacs everyone loves.
| bluecalm wrote:
| Yeah and more and more people are fat and die or get sick
| from air pollution. Truly a win for car based
| infrastructure.
|
| Your argument doesn't work because people are terrible at
| making good choices as individuals. Public enjoys smoking
| too, especially when pushed by advertising. Yet we
| somehow managed to push back on it a bit and people are
| now die less frequently from lung cancer and you can now
| breath in many cases you couldn't before.
|
| Driving is like smoking only much worse.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Driving is like smoking only much worse.
|
| That is a weird comparison. Smoking has no objective
| upsides, unless you count pleasure or the stimulant
| effect of nicotine. Driving, on the other hand, has a
| _huge_ utilitarian aspect that is impossible to ignore.
| There are many things you cannot accomplish using public
| transit, and many of the counter arguments are
| transparently made by young healthy individuals with a
| lot of stamina, plenty of spare time, and no children.
| And probably no house. That may seem like utopia to some
| folks but it completely ignores reality, so the argument
| is dead on arrival.
| bluecalm wrote:
| Driving bigger cars which are often only bigger outside
| has very little utility or even negative one if you don't
| count pleasure people get from driving dangerously.
| Minivans beat SUVs in almost all use cases and are safer
| for others as well but here we are.
|
| I am not saying cars don't have utility but the problem
| is that you can buy a more dangerous, more polluting,
| bigger one and not pay the costs you incur on others.
| It's like smokers blowing the smoke into other people
| faces and then disposing of the cigarette butt on the
| street without paying anything.
|
| Just make drivers pay the costs they incur on others and
| then let people choose. Right now it's a giant subsidy
| for driving at every step.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > This might be true now, but it wasn't when all these
| massive highways, roads and stroads were built.
|
| I guess that depends a bit on how far back still includes
| 'now'. Portland is the nearest big(ish) city to me, and
| they absolutely killed road expansion about 40 years ago;
| that is when most of the freeways and major arterials in
| the area were being built out. There have been a few small
| extensions built since, a bit of widening now and then, but
| they are the exception and they take many years to get buy-
| in.
| dmix wrote:
| > Something that makes this even more insidious, is that trying
| to change roads to be safer often triggers many studies about
| the impact of those changes. These range from studies on
| traffic congestion, to safety itself, local business impact,
| etc.
|
| I thought you were going to say they spend all their effort on
| studies to appease every special interest group instead of
| actually fixing things.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << These are the sorts of systemic conditions that lead to many
| so-called road user errors.
|
| There is certainly an argument to be made that we are all
| outcomes of the system in which we operate. That is to say, we
| all victims of circumstance. Does that, however, mean bicycles
| should swerve between cars like motorcycles in CA ( and lately --
| illegally -- in IL ) or go against the traffic diagonally?
|
| Both examples are admittedly anecdotal, but very recent and both
| from recent trip downtown.
|
| At the end of the day, it is the user error. Having a tank to
| drive just happens to be re-assurance that whatever happens, the
| other user will bear the brunt of their bad decision.. which is
| supposed to be deterrent. But, apparently, it is not.
|
| I honestly do not know what it is about bikes, but not completely
| unlike BMWs and Teslas, they seem to attract oddly aggressive
| drivers.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Cyclists just don't see themselves as normal road traffic, so
| they don't see themselves as having the same responsibilities
| or held to the same standard, which is something I'm guilty of
| myself. I've ridden against traffic for short periods or ran
| red lights on a bike before (where it's clearly safe to do so),
| since I feel "semi-pedestrian"
| imabotbeep2937 wrote:
| "Against traffic" is different as a bike or led though.
| Sometimes when lanes are very narrow and visibility isn't
| good, you need to go against traffic (on the shoulder) so
| that the driver sees your face and responds faster. And you
| can see to bail if someone hasn't made room.
|
| But if it's a Chicago intersection and you just said I'm on a
| bike all 12 lanes have to yield to me and you zoom diagonal
| in front of cars... the Darwin Awards are never short of
| applicants.
|
| E-bikes and scooters and stuff have made this 1,000 times
| worse. The number of drunk kids who think they can go max
| speed down a hill through intersections and cars will just
| magically make way for them... Terrifying.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Bikes don't kill entire families when they crash. They don't
| need to follow the same rules as cars. Forcing them to follow
| rules meant for cars makes the roads more dangerous.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| That's why they should be kept on the sidewalk where they
| belong. Legalize sidewalk biking, ban road biking.
|
| The horror at this from the cyclist community is why anti-
| cyclist sentiment is so strong.
| panick21_ wrote:
| In the US side walk are already hilariously under
| designed and roads are already hilariously over designed.
| In many places side walks are barley large enough for
| pedestrians and bikes to cross.
|
| And pedestrian infrastructure is just horrible designed
| for wheeled vehicles in the first place. As people with
| kid strollers and wheel chairs find out quickly.
|
| The actual solution, that pretty much every other first
| world country in the world has recognized is to start to
| build proper safe infrastructure for bikes (and the US
| overwhelmingly has plenty of space for that). Or to lower
| car traffic speed such that sharing can be done safely.
|
| If the US had huge sidewalks everywhere and fantastic
| design for access of wheeled vehicle, your suggestion
| might make sense, in the actual world, it doesn't, it
| just makes the world worse for people that walk and those
| that cycle.
|
| This is literally already all figured out and backed up
| with plenty of research but somehow people have to come
| up with their own 'solutions'.
| whatindaheck wrote:
| > In the US side walk are already hilariously under
| designed and roads are already hilariously over designed.
|
| So many people jog in the streets exactly for this
| reason. Sidewalks are often poorly maintained and falling
| apart. I'm not sure how anyone handicapped is supposed to
| get around.
|
| In a previous life, during heavy winter storms, I would
| commonly walk in the streets because they were maintained
| while the sidewalks were covered in ice. The city once
| changed its plowing algorithm due to angry drivers but
| for sidewalk maintenance they act almost powerless.
|
| Years ago I visited Amsterdam and the pedestrian
| experience was incredible. It was like walking around a
| theme park. Ever since that experience I can't unsee the
| hell we've created in the states with our cars-first
| mentality.
| jltsiren wrote:
| That's a terrible idea. Biking on the sidewalk should be
| illegal for everyone except young kids. Sharing the
| sidewalks is dangerous when the speed difference between
| the average cyclist and the average pedestrian is
| something like 10 mph.
| twixfel wrote:
| Anti-cyclist sentiment is so strong because they don't
| want to ride on sidewalks?
|
| That makes no sense at all, something tells me you hate
| cyclists and will continue to hate cyclists wherever they
| are.
| recursive wrote:
| You're victim blaming.
|
| My favorite unsubstantiated theory about anti cyclist
| sentiment is that exposes the radically car centric
| nature of US society and people don't like noticing that.
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| Well no, because the US practically invented "f*ck you,
| got mine". Everyone ELSE has to sacrifice, not ME. Not in
| MY back yard. Not in MY school. Not in MY city. Guess
| what happens when everyone turns into a narcissist?
| Cyclists die and the drivers get a slap on the wrist.
| isthatafact wrote:
| That can work by widening sidewalks and designing them so
| that bicycles can cruise safely at full speed, protected
| from and prioritized over cars, and also clearly
| separated from the walking sidewalk so there are no
| unpleasant interactions. The bonus is that if one
| acquires the space for this by removing car lanes, then
| the city becomes a little bit nicer for everyone.
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _That's why they should be kept on the sidewalk where
| they belong._
|
| You think mixing 2 kph pedestrian traffic with 20 kph
| bicycle traffic is a good idea?
|
| (Side _walk_ s are probably called that for a reason.)
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| Not surprising that someone who can't see how dangerous
| cars are also can't see how dangerous putting cyclists on
| the sideWALK is.
| twixfel wrote:
| Different modes of transport have different capabilities,
| dangers, and responsibilities. Horses, bikes, cars, HGVs,
| pedestrians--all different, actually there's no real shame in
| ignoring car laws when you're not driving a car. You have to
| use your brain and accept the fact that these laws were only
| made with cars in mind.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I don't think this is controversial but I think HGVs should
| obey traffic laws
| twixfel wrote:
| I don't think this is controversial but HGVs tend to have
| even more stringent traffic laws, ones that cars don't
| have to follow. In my country HGVs have lower speed
| limits than cars, for example. I don't think this is
| controversial but it would be strange for cars to follow
| rules that only apply to HGVs.
| imabotbeep2937 wrote:
| Lane splitting motorcycles and bicyclists are literally always
| illegal btw.
|
| Lane splitting is for air cooled engines stuck in traffic,
| where they literally need to move or shut down. (It is
| technically illegal to park the vehicle with engine shut off in
| case you can't restart). It has absolutely never been legal for
| anyone to shoot through gaps in traffic because of erectile
| dysfunction compensation. It is only in the absolute emergency
| that you need to walk your bike around to keep it from melting.
|
| In general I do agree. Campaigns to "see motorcycles" just end
| up with 80yo biker gangs thinking it's okay yo blast their
| engines in residential. Campaigns to "share the road" lead to
| bicyclists who will absolutely charge an SUV just to get on the
| news. I'm all for road safety but it absolutely requires bike
| clubs of all types to stop being twits.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Lane splitting in California is legal for motorcycles
| fyrn_ wrote:
| No one is charging your SUV on a bike to "get on the news"
| that's borderline delusional. If you seriously think this is
| real my advice is to try biking on a shared road. Survival
| instincts will show you the truth of that concept.
| shkkmo wrote:
| This is false.
|
| California passed AB 51 in 2016 which codified lane splitting
| under California law. There is no mention of "air cooling".
| There are guidelines that say you should not go more than 10
| mph faster than traffic and not faster than 50 mph total.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| > Lane splitting motorcycles and bicyclists are literally
| always illegal btw.
|
| Maybe in the United States of America. There are a great many
| developed countries where lane splitting by motorcycles and
| bicycles is not only legal, but even expected and encouraged.
| paulnpace wrote:
| At least as early as 2002, the MSF in California taught
| that lane sharing is legal in California.
| gertlex wrote:
| I'm piling on at this point, but I appreciate that this got
| me to go read and learn a few more things (that the internet
| says are true, anyways).
|
| Lane splitting has never been illegal in CA, but is
| apparently illegal in all other US states. (Having been in CA
| for about 10 years, I've gotten used to it, but think it's
| still crazy. Definitely have seen it on highways in the
| midwest before that, too)
|
| This link was informative:
| https://www.kqed.org/news/11680481/10-things-you-need-to-
| kno...
|
| Basically, not illegal; the 2016 law passed just said, "CA
| Highway Patrol can make guidelines", which was in response to
| a previous attempt by the CHP to give those guidelines.
| Helpfully the article includes those guidelines, too.
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _Lane splitting has never been illegal in CA, but is
| apparently illegal in all other US states._
|
| Splitting and filtering are legal in other US states:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_splitting#Legal_status
| _in...
| bsder wrote:
| When traffic is really slow, lane splitting is really
| useful. A splitting motorcycle can easily be moving 2x to
| 3x the speed of cars sitting in a jam.
|
| However, I agree that lane splitting gets more and more
| dangerous as traffic starts flowing faster.
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _Lane splitting motorcycles and bicyclists are literally
| always illegal btw._
|
| The state of of California would disagree with you:
|
| * https://www.chp.ca.gov/programs-
| services/programs/california...
|
| As would several others:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_splitting#Legal_status_i
| n...
| rdedev wrote:
| There are always going to be bad drivers cars and bikes
| included. The deterrence or responsibility of driving a large
| vehicle is ignored by the bad driver The deterrence or
| responsibility of driving a large vehicle is ignored by the bad
| driver. The point of the article is that we can set an upper
| limit to the total damage done in a accident by having better
| roads and cars.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > Does that, however, mean bicycles should swerve between cars
| like motorcycles in CA ( and lately -- illegally -- in IL ) or
| go against the traffic diagonally?
|
| In my anecdotal experience driving all over the country,
| aggressive bike riding tends to pair with poor bicycling
| infrastructure.
|
| Where infrastructure is designed for bikes and following the
| rules is safe and makes sense, then compliance also goes up.
| This is much of the point that the article was making.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Cars systematically break laws so often that it is simply not
| commented on. And the reality is the waste majority of
| bicyclist do not do borderline suicidal rides. Research shows
| overwhelmingly that most people on get on bikes if there are
| safe ways to bike.
|
| The evidence is obviously anecdotal because and comment on it
| because its exceptional, while people not properly stopping at
| stop signs or going to fast is literally no even worth
| commenting about.
|
| > I honestly do not know what it is about bikes, but not
| completely unlike BMWs and Teslas, they seem to attract oddly
| aggressive drivers.
|
| You seem to indicate that you understand what a systematic
| issue is but then completely throw it out with this comment.
|
| The reason only 'aggressive drivers' ride bikes (if this is
| even remotely true, more likely its just those you notice) is
| because most normal people rationally decide that these places
| are to dangerous to ride the bike in.
|
| > .. which is supposed to be deterrent. But, apparently, it is
| not.
|
| Given how few people bike in the US, it clearly is.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| And they sometimes get very upset when people call them out on
| their BS.
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7jq98/man-fined-for-enginee...
|
| https://indyweek.com/news/wake/state-engineer-files-complain...
| complaintdept wrote:
| There's data that suggests that the increases in
| vehicle/pedestrian collision is mostly due to the in car displays
| that require you to take your eyes off of the road to do
| anything. Most excess collisions since around 2010 collisions
| have been at night, when peripheral vision is less likely to
| catch movement, and when the screens will mess up your night
| vision.
|
| Also, smartphones being used while driving are a massive hazard
| that people aren't really talking about. The number of people
| that I, or my passenger, has seen texting while driving is really
| shocking. I'd wager it's a bigger problem than drunk driving ever
| was.
| imabotbeep2937 wrote:
| Literally in the article.
| complaintdept wrote:
| Oh god the shame.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > the screens will mess up your night vision
|
| This was a huge problem in a car I rented recently. There was
| so much light coming off the dash I could hardly see the road,
| and there was no obvious way to dim it (all my older cars have
| a dedicated knob or wheel to control the dashboard brightness).
| Neywiny wrote:
| Mine has increase/decrease buttons but once the headlights go
| on it gets a lot dimmer. I like that except for when I'm
| going through a tunnel or something and it gets a bit
| distracting having so much change brightness at once
| hypeatei wrote:
| > and there was no obvious way to dim it
|
| This is another issue that plagues a lot of modern cars. Lack
| of physical buttons and moving a bunch of functionality into
| the touchscreen which increases distractions and causes the
| driver to get flustered.
| Qem wrote:
| They should at least have a monochromatic red mode set by
| default. The color that mess the least with night vision.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Check out 'cycling mikey' on youtube. He has all the
| convictions that prove you are correct. One area where i do
| congratulate the british plods is they will convict using gopro
| footage. Strangely unhelpful and aggressive when confronted by
| an auditor, though.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| What you mention implies that the US government should mandate
| HUDs in all vehicles, so that drivers are not incentivized to
| take their eyes off the road to check speed or directions.
|
| I 10000% support this and I think a good 5% of what makes Elon
| a bad person was him going on twitter and saying that HUDs are
| stupid and that teslas will never get one.
| imabotbeep2937 wrote:
| Key missing component: CAFE needs a rewrite. US emissions laws
| have a cutout so that larger vehicles have less stringent
| emissions requirements. The problem is that this is no longer a
| gap it's a chasm. Slight hyperbole but a Japanese kei car many
| Americans would love town own muat do closer to 50mpg, while a
| monster pickup can do 15mpg. It ends up that a small car can cost
| $15,000 and the giant pickup costs... $15,000. Many consumers
| compare the two and wonder if the econobox is really a good
| choice.
|
| The bright shining hope: Most Americans do not want these big
| cars. Legislation is making small vehicles less competitive, when
| it should be the other way.
|
| AKA - we have good, cheap(ish) electric trucks now. Legislation
| doesn't need to worry about farmers who can't afford electric
| anymore.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Unless it's a total stripper meant for something like a highway
| maintenance department fleet vehicle, a "giant pickup" will
| cost 3 or 4 times that amount.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| The most popular F-150 trim level runs about $50k. It's not
| stripped out by any means.
| Neywiny wrote:
| Yeah whenever I'm in an SUV I try to compare mileage. They'll
| get ~30% worse mpg than me in the same situation and I'm just a
| gas sedan, not even a hybrid
| krisoft wrote:
| > I'm just a gas sedan
|
| We are trully living in the future. :) I heard that cars are
| getting smarter but you are the first i have the pleasure to
| chat with.
|
| Joking asside, i don't know if I have ever seen a more
| succint example of how people identify with their cars.
| Neywiny wrote:
| Yeah I see it now lol. I love that car. It holds all the
| stuff I need, 5 people comfortably, great safety (blind
| spot monitor, Lane keep, a backup camera [which I know is
| standard now but it's my first one]). When I got it I
| immediately drove/slept in it 1500 miles back home. So kind
| of instant bonding.
| rainsford wrote:
| I think electric trucks/SUVs are a major reason changing CAFE
| standards won't actually solve the problem though since they
| are at least just as big and dangerous to other road users as
| gas powered vehicles and are often much faster and heavier.
| Changing the CAFE standards 20 years ago would have helped
| avoid the trend of increasing vehicle size, but here on the
| cusp of widespread electric vehicles I'm not sure it would have
| the same impact.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| What we really need and would never do is to put a pedestrian
| collision rating in NCAP, which Euro-NCAP already does. (NCAP
| is the system used to give safety ratings to cars.)
|
| Right now the NCAP has pedestrian _avoidance_ but nothing on
| impact. It would be fairly trivial to test the impact of
| hitting a crash dummy at 30mph.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Euro-NCAP would do virtually nothing to alter the design of
| a Ford F-150 or Dodge Ram, unfortunately. It's a very weak
| testing protocol.
|
| However the US regulator is already floating a proposal to
| include similar pedestrian testing in its requirements.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Or change the licensing laws to be similar to other countries
| where a "regular" car driver's license only allows for a
| smaller weight vehicle.
| Ekaros wrote:
| In Europe regular B license for cars only allow up to 3500 kg
| gross weight. For car or combination. That is already lot of
| car.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I did an internship for Mercedes and I was able to drive
| our mid-sized R&D bus as my (routine) American driver's
| license allowed me to drive vehicles and vehicle
| combinations up to 26000 lbs GVWR/GCWR. Several of my
| German colleagues did not have a license permitting them to
| drive it.
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| Then watch 51% of the Senate (representing 17% of the
| country) claim that that's communism and then shutter the EPA
| in retaliation.
| doe_eyes wrote:
| Honda Civic is $24,000. Ford F-150 is $36,000. These are
| representative prices for popular budget choices. And that
| baseline F-150 isn't a behemoth. It's 209" long and 76" tall.
| That's just 10" longer and taller than, say, Tesla Model X.
|
| I think the emission standards are dumb, but this narrative
| around customer choice is really getting distorted in weird
| ways. The bottom line is that people in the US want to drive
| pickups. Maybe for good reasons, maybe for bad reasons, but
| they go out of their way to do this. And the average pickup is
| probably shrinking right now, not growing - for example, there
| are fewer and fewer models with 8" beds, and 5.5" is the new
| standard (instead of 6").
|
| Yes, a newspaper can always post a photo of a lifted 2024 RAM
| 3500 next to a 1975 Chevy C10 pickup to get some internet
| outrage points, but if you post an apples-to-apples comparison,
| the changes aren't really all that dramatic.
| ip26 wrote:
| _there are fewer and fewer models with 8 " beds_
|
| That's more a function of crew cabs and using a pickup as a
| family vehicle. The bed has to shorten as the cab lengthens,
| else the truck gets unmanageablely long.
| doe_eyes wrote:
| There are two models with full-size four-door crew cabs and
| 8' beds, and they can work in most US suburbs. I think it's
| less about whether it's manageable and more about the
| aesthetics. The front-rear proportions on 8' trucks just
| aren't great.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I get so tired of people mindlessly citing CAFE laws.
|
| A lot of people like bigger vehicles. For ages, big cars
| drove poorly, absolutely guzzled gas, and lacked features.
| Over the past 20 years, auto makers basically solved all of
| these issues.
|
| A lot of big vehicles drive much better for what most people
| do - straight driving on highway. Fuel economy is "good
| enough". Large trucks and SUVs have great feature sets. On
| top of all of that, large vehicles seat more, hold more, and
| generally still fit in most parking spaces and garages.
|
| People just want big cars
| immibis wrote:
| Moving more mass will always use more fuel than using less
| mass.
| bluecalm wrote:
| People want big cars and people want everyone else to pay
| for them. Build big parking spaces for free. Widen roads
| for free. Not cover costs of accidents or otherwise the
| insurance would be too much. Not pay for all the polluting
| either.
|
| It comes down to: "I want to drive big, loud, smelly,
| dangerous car free of any consequences for fraction of the
| cost". We don't tolerate such desires in other areas but
| cars somehow get free pass still.
| doe_eyes wrote:
| Huh? We tolerate it pretty much everywhere else. You can
| buy a 2,000 sq ft home, even though you could live in a
| 500 sq ft condo. You can buy a computer more powerful
| than needed for work. You can buy Apple instead of Dell,
| even though the extra money would be spent better on
| helping the homeless or preventing malaria in the
| developing world.
|
| It's really not that black and white. There's a line
| between the government deciding the optimal allocation of
| all resources and you retaining some degree of personal
| freedom. Techies in the SF Bay Area are very quick to
| draw that line in a way that affects other people's
| lifestyles, but doesn't affect their own. Guess what -
| pickup drivers in Texas have critical opinions about your
| consumer choices too.
| dalyons wrote:
| None of your examples require other people to pay for
| your choices, like giant trucks needing wider roads do.
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| Well, the energy use required kinda is an externality, in
| that the entire planet continues to warm in ways that are
| deleterious to continued human prosperity. But who cares
| when you can get BIG TRUCK.
| doe_eyes wrote:
| A computer or a home that uses more energy has
| externalities for others that certainly aren't covered by
| your electricity bills alone. Taxpayers pay for new power
| plants, everybody pays for emissions, etc. Almost
| everything has externalities that aren't fully accounted
| for in the sticker price, because it would be insanely
| complicated to do that kind of accounting, let alone do
| it in a way we can all agree on.
|
| If you think the math for cars is uniquely bad, I think
| that's a reasonable position, although I suspect it's
| pretty myopic. The externalities of cheap consumer goods
| from China, or of a clothes dryer or an AC unit, are
| pretty terrible too.
|
| The math aside, there is a huge risk to this sort of
| hyper-rational accounting. It's probably not cost-
| effective for the society to medically prolong the lives
| of people over the age of 50. There are many squishy,
| hard-to-parametrize overriding considerations for policy
| decisions, and if we accept it for our lifestyles, we
| should probably at least try to understand what they are
| for other lifestyles too.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| Which giant trucks "need" wider roads? I see pickup
| trucks in the 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 ton range drive on
| standard roads around me every day.
| anonfordays wrote:
| >big cars drove poorly, absolutely guzzled gas
|
| They still guzzle insane amounts of gas and generally drive
| poorly. That hasn't changed in decades. They may handle
| better than they did in the past, but they still handle
| poorly. Similarly they may get better gas milage, but not
| by much, and not in comparison to other vehicles.
| anonymousab wrote:
| > That's just 10" longer and taller than, say, Tesla Model X.
|
| Which could also reasonably be called a pretty big car.
| oblio wrote:
| It's big, almost 5m long. In Europe it would definitely be
| classified as a big car, most people have family cars under
| that, probably around 4.6-4.8m
| kcb wrote:
| > Honda Civic is $24,000. Ford F-150 is $36,000. These are
| representative prices for popular budget choices. And that
| baseline F-150 isn't a behemoth. It's 209" long and 76" tall.
| That's just 10" longer and taller than, say, Tesla Model X.
|
| Disingenuous as heck. I've literally never seen a modern non-
| commercial regular cab, standard bed F-150. Far more likely
| the people in question are driving massive SuperCrew cabs.
| And those SuperCrews start at $43,000 which means more like
| $50,000 for a realistic spec. Regular
| Cab/6.5-Foot Bed: Length - 209.1 inches / Wheelbase - 122.8
| inches Regular Cab/8.0-Foot Bed: Length - 227.7
| inches / Wheelbase - 141.5 inches SuperCab/6.5-Foot
| Bed: Length - 231.7 inches / Wheelbase - 145.4 inches
| SuperCab/8.0-Foot Bed: Length - 250.3 inches / Wheelbase -
| 164.1 inches SuperCrew/5.5-Foot Bed: Length - 231.7
| inches / Wheelbase - 145.4 inches SuperCrew/6.5-Foot
| Bed: Length - 243.5 inches / Wheelbase - 157.2 inches
|
| > And the average pickup is probably shrinking right now, not
| growing - for example, there are fewer and fewer models with
| 8" beds, and 5.5" is the new standard (instead of 6").
|
| Nope, as you can see above bed may be shrinking, cab growing
| and growing.
| doe_eyes wrote:
| > Disingenuous as heck. I've literally never seen a modern
| non-commercial regular cab, standard bed F-150. Far more
| likely the people in question are driving massive SuperCrew
| cabs.
|
| These start at about $44,000. I was responding to the
| parent's claim that you can have a normal sedan or a pickup
| for "$15,000", so consumers choose the larger car sort of
| by default.
|
| In reality, they pay a lot more for pickups because they
| want pickups, not because of some lopsided pricing
| incentives.
| sampo wrote:
| > And the average pickup is probably shrinking right now, not
| growing - for example, there are fewer and fewer models with
| 8" beds, and 5.5" is the new standard (instead of 6").
|
| For non-Americans: While literally writing truck bed lengths
| being 8 inches (8") and 5.5 inches (5.5"), the text means 8
| feet (8', 2.44m) and 5.5 feet (5.5', 1.68m). Americans don't
| always remember which of the " and ' is which, so they use
| these interchangeably (and according to the movie This is
| Spinal Tap, so do the English).
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _And that baseline F-150 isn 't a behemoth._
|
| Yeah...
|
| * https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/honda-
| civic-2021-se...
|
| The F-150 is +1216mm (48") longer, +228mm wider, +546mm
| taller than a Civic.
|
| > _It 's 209" long and 76" tall. That's just 10" longer and
| taller than, say, Tesla Model X._
|
| What is the front-end height of all of these vehicles?
|
| > _Pedestrian deaths in the US have risen in recent years.
| Concurrently, US vehicles have increased in size, which may
| pose a safety risk for pedestrians. In particular, the
| increased height of vehicle front-ends may present a danger
| for pedestrians in a crash, as the point of vehicle contact
| is more likely to occur at the pedestrian's chest or head. I
| merge US crash data with a public data set on vehicle
| dimensions to test for the impact of vehicle height on the
| likelihood that a struck pedestrian dies. After controlling
| for crash characteristics, I estimate a 10 cm increase in the
| vehicle's front-end height is associated with a 22% increase
| in fatality risk. I estimate that a cap on front-end vehicle
| heights of 1.25 m would reduce annual US pedestrian deaths by
| 509._
|
| * https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S22120122
| 2...
| gabruoy wrote:
| A big problem with the idea that "people don't want small
| cars" is that that sort of statement comes from the car
| manufacturer looking at new car sales. People who want large
| trucks and SUVs are willing to buy new. People who want a
| small car have the option to buy a new 2024 Honda Civic, or
| they could spend significantly less to get a used Honda Civic
| (in normal economic conditions). Since the manufacturer only
| profits of of new cars, they have little incentive to sell
| any cheap or small cars since they compete so heavily against
| last year's model at the used car lot.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The solution is to stop classifying cars as trucks by invoking
| a more stringent definition of a truck. The PT Cruiser should
| never have been a truck. None of the XUVs should be trucks.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| All of the SUVs I've owned are classified as wagons for
| insurance.
| edude03 wrote:
| > Most Americans do not want these big cars
|
| Based on what? Anecdotal I know, but my biggest frustration is
| I can't convince friends and family they should buy a small car
| instead of an SUV because they always say "I might need to move
| a couch/dresser/friends/etc one day". I'm convinced they would
| come out way ahead buying a small car and renting a truck the
| once or twice a year they need it but again, I've yet to
| convince anyone that's the case
| dmix wrote:
| Beyond personal needs people want what others have, what they
| see in films, and what they see marketing for. The price and
| general availability impacts all of those things. Car
| companies will push what makes most economic sense and
| consumers will to, which helps create trends people hop on
| to.
| Spivak wrote:
| Because the small car is the same cost as an SUV but worse
| utility wise. I actually go the other way, I bet the back row
| of an SUV (or tall hatchback like the Honda Fit) gets more
| use carrying people or large items than the back row of your
| average sedan. During growing season I'm constantly
| schlepping dirt and mulch home. I can fit 5 humans and all
| our camping supplies no problem. Fit a whole assembled grill
| in the back we got from FB marketplace.
|
| You get the utility of a truck and van with the MPG of a car,
| I see why they took over the world. If it weren't for pickup
| trucks being a cultural icon they would probably have
| replaced the "workman" vehicle too.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| A simple change would be to raise taxes on petrol, but usually
| no politician wants to touch that one with a 10 ft pole.
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| You must hate poor people as that's who it's going to affect
| the most.
| oblio wrote:
| They'll just move to EV trucks. We need taxes for car sizes
| (wider lanes needed = money, bigger parking spots needed =
| money, etc), pedestrian/cyclist safety ratings (more
| dangerous to pedestrians/cyclists, higher taxes), noise
| levels and weight (more road wear and tear plus particulate
| production).
| WheatMillington wrote:
| >Most Americans do not want these big cars.
|
| That's patently false.
| Amezarak wrote:
| People keep repeating this but isn't the case. The smallest
| cars from budget automakers are their cheapest cars and they've
| almost all been discontinued for lack of sales. I know, I drive
| one. And people look at it as a joke, they'd never buy one, and
| they think it's hilarious I do. I'd buy another for my commute
| vehicle when this one diesbecause I do like it but Honda
| discontinued it for miserable sales numbers.
|
| Americans by and large want SUVs at a minimum the size of CRV
| or RAV4, or else a pickup. At any rate with hybrid vehicles
| getting 40mpg is very attainable. I have a three row SUV that
| gets this. And I bought it because I really wanted a much more
| comfortable vehicle I could fit more humans and stuff in.
|
| Other comments addressed this, but it's also absolutely bananas
| to claim trucks are as cheap as small cars in the US. Even the
| F-150 quoted in the comments which is already more than 10k
| more than the car is quoted as the base model that basically
| doesn't exist outside of work fleets. You'd be lucky to find a
| truck with 100k miles for 15k.
| tom_vidal wrote:
| The YouTuber Not Just Bikes made a great point in one of his
| videos: why in the world are public safety improvements up for
| debate? If people keep falling off a walkway, we don't hold town
| hall meetings to debate the merits of pedestrian safety, we don't
| do studies on the impact to traffic flow, we just put up a
| railing.
|
| Here in Philadelphia, advocacy groups spent years fighting to
| have a wide, lethal stroad that runs through the middle of the
| city put on a road diet. Residents were polled, and something
| like 70% of people in the surrounding neighborhoods were in favor
| of it. The city spent millions in planning and engineering, and
| then right before paving was about to start, a local
| councilmember blocked it and canceled the whole project on the
| half of the road that runs through their neighborhood. So half of
| the road was narrowed to two lanes and has no speeding, no
| fatalities, and generally sane driver behavior. The other half is
| a reckless free-for-all that's exhausting to drive on and
| terrifying for pedestrians and cyclists.
|
| Millions in taxpayer dollars and the political will of a majority
| of citizens were wasted because our system allows one NIMBY to
| stop everything. A year later, there has already been a cyclist
| fatality on the road.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Putting up a railing has no cost other than financial.
|
| Narrowing a road makes it worse for its' primary purpose.
|
| You would definitely not just narrow a footpath on a busy high
| street without considering the impact.
| audunw wrote:
| > Narrowing a road makes it worse for its' primary purpose.
|
| The worst thing is, this isn't always true. A good two lane
| street can have similar or better average speed than a bad
| four lane stroad.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Which has higher throughput?
| oblio wrote:
| For moving people? It's laughably easy: the one with bike
| lanes, sidewalks, public transport.
|
| Cars are the least efficient form of transportation if
| you REALLY care about throughput.
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _Which has higher throughput?_
|
| For a 3.5m / 12' lane, you can move 6-8x more people via
| bicycle, and 7-10x more pedestrians, per hour, than via
| private motorized vehicles ("cars"):
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_per_hour_per_d
| irect...
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| You can fit like 50 people on a bus, and maybe 10 in the
| equivalent space taken up by two SUVs. Seriously, how is
| this a question?
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| https://www.mikeontraffic.com/numbers-every-traffic-
| engineer... says one lane peaks around 1,900 vehicles per
| hour. Even if we assume each vehicle only carries one
| driver, we need 38 busses per hour (one every 95
| seconds!) to match that capacity. In practice we're lucky
| to see two busses per hour scheduled.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > A good two lane street can have similar or better average
| speed than a bad four lane stroad.
|
| Can you provide a more specific argument or evidence? To
| me, it seems obvious that two lanes has less capacity than
| four lanes. Therefore, a two lane road will have worse
| traffic, all other things held equal.
|
| It also doesn't matter that the other two lanes might be
| repurposed for something else like bike lanes. In my
| experience, when bike lane projects are forced onto a city
| by activists, without authentic support from the general
| public, it ends up just creating a lot of underutilized
| infrastructure. In many west coast cities it is common to
| see clogged up car lanes next to permanently empty bike
| lanes. So even if in theory you could pack those bike lanes
| with more people (although moving at low speeds), it's
| never true in practice. The real throughput only gets
| worse.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| the common diet is from four to three (a left turn lane),
| which is actually better for traffic flow, since left
| turners now have a dedicated pocket and don't block
| traffic, fewer people get rear ended, etc.
|
| the problem with how the US does bike planning is that
| the payoff doesn't happen unless you have a bike
| _network_ ; biking is so unsafe on regular roads that a
| partial journey on bike lanes doesn't cut it. so often
| bike lanes get poor usage than they would otherwise get
| due to lack of connectivity.
| Timon3 wrote:
| > Can you provide a more specific argument or evidence?
| To me, it seems obvious that two lanes has less capacity
| than four lanes. Therefore, a two lane road will have
| worse traffic, all other things held equal.
|
| While it's true that two lanes have less capacity than
| four, it's also measuring the wrong value - throughput is
| what you want to optimize for. This means you have to
| take a bunch of additional factors into account, for
| example:
|
| - How many lanes do the connections to other roads have?
| Any time you're reducing the number of lanes, you're
| creating potential bottlenecks. If you have one lane,
| then widen up to four, and narrow back to one, you'll
| most likely have worse throughput than if you'd just kept
| one lane.
|
| - How much space do you have for switching lanes? The
| more lanes, the more time people need to get into the
| correct one for their destination. You need to telegraph
| exits etc. much earlier.
|
| - Do surrounding roads have space for the additional
| induced traffic? Time and time again, extra lanes have
| made traffic problems worse instead of better.
|
| There are of course also disadvantages, e.g. the impact
| of any single lane being blocked. It's a complex and
| fascinating topic, especially considering the similarity
| to other networks (e.g. computer, biological).
| anamax wrote:
| > A good two lane street can have similar or better average
| speed than a bad four lane stroad.
|
| Average speed isn't the goal. Bandwidth is.
|
| And, in case you're thinking about talking about "induced
| demand", that's fallacy.
|
| The demand is/was there. More bandwidth means that more
| people try to satisfy it.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| >Narrowing a road makes it worse for its' primary purpose
|
| That's kind of the problem with urban planning in many cities
| in the USA -- the "primary purpose" of roads is assumed to be
| to serve cars, rather than to serve people.
|
| >You would definitely not just narrow a footpath on a busy
| high street without considering the impact.
|
| Happens all the time in my city for construction projects -
| an entire sidewalk will be shut down for years for
| construction, forcing pedestrians to the other side of the
| street (which means 2 extra waits for stop lights). Often the
| closed sidewalk is used for nothing at all except to hold a
| construction fence.. a more pedestrian friendly solution
| would require a covered walkway.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| People are in cars.
|
| I get it, we like public transport. It's just daft to go
| all in the other direction and pretend that cars aren't
| useful or don't count or something, though.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Is there any city that's done that and has completely
| banned cars to replace with transit? I haven't seen any
| except in very small pedestrian-only districts.
|
| But I've seen a lot of fighting in my city anytime any
| transit or biking project reduces road space dedicated to
| cars, even if just removing on-street parking.
|
| >People are in cars.
|
| All too often, a "person" is in a car, which is a pretty
| poor use of space.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Private automobiles and in some cases other motorised
| vehicles are banned in Mackinac Island, MI, and Halibut
| Cove, AK, in the US, Giethoorn, Netherlands, and Lamu,
| Kenya (possibly old town only). And a number of others.
| Several seem to be vacation spots or resorts, so have
| unusual usage and aesthetic patterns.
|
| <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/16-places-around-the-
| world...>
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| The entirety of the Netherlands used to look like the US
| in the '60s and '70s, albeit not at Super Sized(TM)
| scale. Look up their urban design in 2024, it's quite
| pleasant and human-friendly.
| immibis wrote:
| People don't have to be in cars, and most cities have way
| more people in cars than necessary.
| mlyle wrote:
| Cars are great. I like cars. I like driving as a mode of
| transport.
|
| But there's a lot of potential ways to use space other
| than cars. The problem is, in seeking to accommodate cars
| at the expense of all else, we've made all other forms of
| transport -- like walking through a cute downtown on a
| spring day -- less practicable and common. In turn we
| drive more, spread businesses out for more parking, and
| created a never-ending feedback loop for more driving
| infrastructure.
|
| In turn, the infrastructure has grown to a point that we
| can't really afford it from tax revenues, and where the
| mixed use of a thoroughfare for accessing businesses and
| going long distances does well at neither.
|
| Unfortunately, getting us out of this loop is going to
| make things less convenient for some people for awhile
| before we can get to something better. There's no
| avoiding that, but continuing to make the same decision
| and hope it gets to a better outcome would be nuts.
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _It 's just daft to go all in the other direction and
| pretend that cars aren't useful or don't count or
| something, though._
|
| Useful for what? More useful than what? Less useful than
| what?
|
| How many people does private car transportation move? How
| much can a car lane move per hour? How about a bicycle
| lane? Bus lane? [0] What do private cars interfere with?
| Goods transportation / delivery perhaps? People's health
| (through pollution and/or lack of active mobility)?
|
| It's not that cars cannot be useful, but are they more or
| less useful _than other options_? What does leaning
| towards cars inhibit?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_per_hour_per
| _direct...
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| In case you need a reminder, this is the hottest month on
| record, beating out... last month, and the month before
| that, and the month before that. How do you think this
| happened? Hint: not bikes.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > That's kind of the problem with urban planning in many
| cities in the USA -- the "primary purpose" of roads is
| assumed to be to serve cars, rather than to serve people.
|
| Serving cars _is_ serving people. Who do you think is
| driving the cars or being driven in them?
|
| As an aside, I am surprised that this exceedingly shallow
| point is still being made in 2024. Let's be honest - it
| never made sense, and was only ever brought up as an empty
| slogan to dishonestly dismiss those who depend on and
| benefit from cars (which is most of the public in most
| cities).
| Johnny555 wrote:
| >Serving cars is serving people
|
| So is better transit, and biking, and even shutting off
| entire streets to cars and making them into pedestrian-
| only districts - and those can often serve more people
| than when it was just a road for cars.
| immibis wrote:
| Insane argument. Serving giant death mechas is serving
| people. Serving Houthi raiders is serving people. Serving
| Adolf Hitler is serving people - he's a person, right?
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _Serving cars_ is _serving people. Who do you think is
| driving the cars or being driven in them?_
|
| From a strictly utilitarian perspective, you can serve
| more people in the same land space by other forms of
| transportation:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_per_hour_per_d
| irect...
|
| If you have a budget of $ _x_ , do you want to move more
| or fewer people? Because private auto transportation
| ("cars") moves the lowest volume.
|
| Further, cars interfere with things that may not have
| alternatives, like trucks that make deliveries. There
| tend to all sorts of options for _individuals_ (and the
| average occupancy of a car is like 1.0) to move hither
| and thither and yon, but if you want to deliver a
| refrigerator or a sofa, that 's a lot harder to do on
| public transit--though not unheard of:
|
| * https://www.blogto.com/city/2022/01/couch-toronto-
| subway/
|
| * https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/5erltx/appare
| ntly_...
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| And who benefits from the massive increase in CO2? You DO
| realize that your cozy cul-de-sac won't be spared the
| effects of climate change too, right? It rained 20 inches
| in Miami the other day. It's broiling in India; the
| nighttime low was like... 94. You think serving cars is
| "serving people", but it's actually just serving you, and
| your selfish desires. The problem is, every other
| snowflake adult with a car and a sense of entitlement
| feels the same way. That's why people say they're stuck
| in traffic, and not that they ARE traffic.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Putting up a railing is the equivalent to putting up a
| guardrail next to a road.
|
| The primary function is already in place. Adding a
| railing/guardrail should have absolutely no negative impact
| on the primary or secondary functions.
| mlinhares wrote:
| Drivers need the freedom of plowing through pedestrians
| without consequences to their lives or their cars. It still
| puzzles me my whole neighborhood is full of stroads with
| large interesections and bollars are nowhere to be seen.
| Every single one of these intersections should be fully
| surrounded by bollards to provide safety to pedestrians but
| who cares about pedestrians, right?
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _Putting up a railing is the equivalent to putting up a
| guardrail next to a road._
|
| Which people do object to:
|
| > _In a twist that could only happen in the world of
| cycling politics, a city councillor in the New Zealand town
| of New Plymouth is making headlines for an eyebrow-raising
| reason -- he's worried about his beloved sports car. Murray
| Chong, owner of a Chevrolet Corvette just 160mm off the
| ground, has raised concerns that a proposed $14 million
| protected cycle lane might wreak havoc on his precious
| ride._
|
| > _Chong's main gripe? The 100mm-high concrete separation
| barriers, meant to keep cyclists safe, apparently pose a
| dire threat to the underbelly of his sleek sports car. In
| an extraordinary meeting, despite Chong's objections, the
| council voted in favor of the cycle lane plan, sending
| shockwaves through the world of low-riding vehicle
| enthusiasts._
|
| * https://momentummag.com/a-new-zealand-councillor-
| objected-to...
|
| "Won't someone _please_ think of the safety of the cars! "
| /clutches-pearls
| hypeatei wrote:
| > why in the world are public safety improvements up for debate
|
| Because of political culture and human nature; everything is
| driven by FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) so you can basically
| spin anything to scare people or to line your own pockets,
| living standards be damned.
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| Pride, selfishness and stubbornness are there as well.
|
| 1. "why should I care about pedestrians? they should get a
| car!" 2. "there's no way I'm driving without 4 lanes...
| that's gonna be slow!" (it isn't)
| mlinhares wrote:
| Mind saying which one it was?
|
| There are so many I can't even say I have a good candidate for
| it :(
| mdmoll wrote:
| Sounds like Washington Ave
| mlinhares wrote:
| That tracks, south broad at that height is also pretty bad
| and only gets worse the more south you go and the same way
| north as you get further away from center city.
|
| Could be Girard as well.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > The YouTuber Not Just Bikes made a great point in one of his
| videos: why in the world are public safety improvements up for
| debate? If people keep falling off a walkway, we don't hold
| town hall meetings to debate the merits of pedestrian safety,
| we don't do studies on the impact to traffic flow, we just put
| up a railing.
|
| In my opinion, this isn't a great point, but a naive one.
| Literally anything can be argued for or against on the grounds
| of safety, and the fact that a safety-based argument exists
| isn't grounds to remove it from public debate. Also, blindly
| putting safety above all other concerns is just "safetyism",
| rather than a balanced argument. In the case of the railing,
| apart from a minor expense, there isn't impact to others. In
| the case of anti-car road diets, an attempt to create more
| safety will cause most users of that road to lose lots of time
| (to reduced speed limits, increased traffic). To most people, a
| few road fatalities a year simply does not matter in the grand
| scheme of things - it's a minor cost compared to the huge time
| savings of fast and convenient driving infrastructure.
|
| > Here in Philadelphia, advocacy groups spent years fighting to
| have a wide, lethal stroad that runs through the middle of the
| city put on a road diet. Residents were polled, and something
| like 70% of people in the surrounding neighborhoods were in
| favor of it.
|
| Mind linking to the poll? I find it hard to believe since the
| reality is that most people favor roads that are wide and have
| high speed limits, so they can get around quickly. A small but
| loud minority tends to argue, often successfully, for road
| diets. But most people aren't in favor of a war on cars because
| they get a lot of use from cars.
|
| Additionally, what you're claiming about the poll being ignored
| is the opposite of what I've seen in west coast cities. Here,
| anti-car activists get into the transportation department
| positions and then try to implement their ideological plan
| regardless of polls or studies. Usually, they run dishonest
| polls that provide justification to whatever view they already
| have - for example, an online poll that only activist groups
| are aware of, which lets them get whatever numbers they want.
| If a poll disagrees, they don't talk about it or act against it
| anyways (example: https://crosscut.com/2018/04/seattle-city-
| hall-listen-consti...).
| bobthepanda wrote:
| i think safetyism would be one thing if there was no safety
| problem to speak of, but road fatalities in the US are
| increasing again, and that is being driven by a 68% increase
| in pedestrian and cycling fatalities since 2011.
| https://smartgrowthamerica.org/pedestrian-fatalities-at-
| hist...
| cwillu wrote:
| The original argument is that there shouldn't be debate
| about safety improvements, not that there shouldn't be
| safety improvements.
| oblio wrote:
| > To most people, a few road fatalities a year simply does
| not matter in the grand scheme of things - it's a minor cost
| compared to the huge time savings of fast and convenient
| driving infrastructure.
|
| Especially if they get to kill poor people in bad
| neighborhoods on their way from suburbs to CBDs.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| If you actually cared about safety you'd require airbags,
| crumple zones, licensing, insurance, and crash testing for
| cyclists. You'd also ban them on roadways with speed limits far
| above what a human can reasonably propel a bike to, since dV is
| a major driver of accidents and lethality.
|
| Expecting a 15MPH ~250lb bike with none of those features to
| interface safely with 55MPH 5,000+lb traffic is moronic. You're
| better off building parallel infrastructure and taxing cyclists
| to pay for it via licensing.
| twixfel wrote:
| Bikes were here first.
| immibis wrote:
| Why is there 55mph 5,000+lb traffic?
| nix0n wrote:
| > You're better off building parallel infrastructure and
| taxing cyclists to pay for it via licensing.
|
| I think it's worth talking about taxation here. Roads are
| generally in the top 3 costs for most municipalities along
| with police and firefighting.
|
| Even when you add together tolls, gas tax, vehicle excise
| taxes, it doesn't cover the costs of road maintenance, and
| needs to be supplemented by sales tax, building property tax,
| etc.
|
| If bike infrastructure reduces the number of cars, SUVs, and
| pickups that are on the road just to carry one person around,
| the reduction on road wear means it's a total cost savings.
|
| (For what it's worth, I think the same argument applies also
| to buses.)
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _If you actually cared about safety you'd require airbags,
| crumple zones, licensing, insurance, and crash testing for
| cyclists._
|
| I've crashed on a bicycle, more than once. I've crashed even
| on a motorcycle (on a racetrack). The damage that is caused
| to myself, to my machine, and the surrounds, is tiny compared
| to the damage that is caused by an automobile with (at least)
| an order of magnitude more mass: a friend of mine had a car
| go through the front of his house, and the physical carnage
| was impressive (no person was injured thankfully).
|
| And every time licensing has been looked at for cyclists, it
| has found to be a dumb idea:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj47qJ-UUno
|
| > _You're better off building parallel infrastructure and
| taxing cyclists to pay for it via licensing._
|
| Cars cause much more damage to roads than bicyclists, and
| they should pay proportionally:
|
| * https://www.investopedia.com/gas-taxes-and-what-you-need-
| to-...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
|
| And bicyclists already pay for local roads through local
| property taxes:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjv8WQu92c0
|
| The problem is that roads are now practically monopolized for
| private vehicle use to the exclusion of everyone else, and
| the costs are not fully paid for by drivers. Higher density
| areas subsidize lower density ones, and road infrastructure
| is a big part of that:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI
| isthatafact wrote:
| > "You're better off building parallel infrastructure and
| taxing cyclists to pay for it via licensing."
|
| yes, a parallel infrastructure would be welcomed by current
| cyclists and by many of those who now abstain from cycling
| because of persecution and threat of death on the roads.
|
| If everyone can agree that a parallel infrastructure is
| needed, the funding question is trivial. The overall costs
| could even be negative due to the reduced need to subsidize
| car usage (also health benefits of cycling, etc.). If it
| makes you happy, we can let little kids slap a sticker on
| their bike to take of the "licensing".
| mindslight wrote:
| > _You'd also ban them [bikes] on roadways with speed limits
| far above what a human can reasonably propel a bike to ...
| You're better off building parallel infrastructure_
|
| They are and we do? You know those signs when you get on a
| highway that say things like pedestrians/bicycles/horses/etc
| prohibited? That's what those are for.
|
| If you're proposing that the rest of the roads' speed limits
| be lowered to what's achievable by the average cyclist, then
| why not just advocate for that directly? Personally I don't
| appreciate the oversigning trend, generally preferring to
| drive at a decent clip as conditions permit most of the time,
| but also being content to follow the rare bicycle at that
| vehicle's speed until an opportunity to pass with a wide
| berth and clear oncoming visibility.
|
| The real problem here is drivers who expect to be able to
| continue driving at whatever speed they want regardless of
| who else is using the road. Apart from when I was cycling
| myself, I used to experience this pretty harshly while
| shoveling snow. Half the drivers would treat me as a human
| being and slow and go mostly into the other lane. The other
| half would continue their speed right at me, ostensibly
| thinking it was acceptable to create close call danger for
| fun and spray me with shit from their tires (ie not just
| assault but outright battery). Similar situation with a dinky
| ride on lawnmower. It's funny how the ratio changed when I
| started doing the snow/grass along the road with a compact
| farm tractor - apparently the prospect of assholes' cars
| being significantly damaged effects their ability to see!
|
| As far as taxes, municipal real estate taxes more than pay
| for the meager wear bicycles cause to the road. And as a
| general proponent of freedom I certainly wouldn't want to
| implement multiple new draconian papers please mandates just
| to assign taxes a few percent more accurately.
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| I mean this matter-of-factly: have you ever actually ridden a
| bicycle?
| noahtallen wrote:
| 250lb bike? Wtf are you talking about. The heaviest e-bikes
| are like 50lb. Bikes are so safe that they require none of
| these extra steps that cars require, because cars are much
| more dangerous. It's simple physics. There have been dozens
| of pedestrians and cyclists killed by cars in my city this
| year, and none by bicycles ever, to my knowledge. More
| evidence that cars require more strict licensing and safety
| measures.
|
| Not safely interfacing on existing roads -- that's 100% true.
| And cyclists would love parallel infrastructure. Problem is,
| in the US, it's seen as anti-car (and therefore anti-
| american), and so is much less common than it should be. But
| in the Netherlands, this is how they make biking one of the
| primary transport modes.
| constantcrying wrote:
| >why in the world are public safety improvements up for debate?
|
| Because, as every engineer knows, everything is a tradeoff and
| good intentions can lead to bad outcomes.
|
| I can't comment on your specific case, but obviously any
| measure that wants to improve safety needs to be evaluated
| based on whether it is actually effective, whether it is cost
| effective and whether there are negative consequences.
| Neywiny wrote:
| Maybe those safety rating systems should include the things SUVs
| are bad at. I think there's one tester who does a body roll test
| and most SUVs fail to swerve out of the way of something without
| rolling. Unsure if that's still true. But with that and like a
| "how likely is your child to be squished dead" rating, maybe
| people will think twice
| jameshart wrote:
| The vehicle _purchaser's_ child will be safely in their third
| row seat watching the inbuilt Netflix on their personal
| entertainment display so why should they care?
| Neywiny wrote:
| True. Feels hard for me to come up with a way to make people
| like these care.
| bloopernova wrote:
| Until the US government isn't deadlocked and is able to pass new
| laws, this isn't going to get better at all.
|
| The huge hoods/bonnets on SUVs and trucks need to be regulated to
| make future cars smaller. I'm not an expert (I'll pontificate
| anyway) but could external airbags help at all?
|
| One issue with our neighbourhood is that SUVs use our road to
| skip past 2 junctions that get congested during school drop-
| off/pickup. The moms sometimes look ridiculously tiny in their
| urban tanks, but they speed through a residential road to shave
| off a minute from their school run. People in cars appear to act
| more selfishly than people outside of cars (has there been any
| research on that?) and I think roads should be designed with that
| in mind.
| swayvil wrote:
| There's a parallel between driving behavior and internet
| behavior. Both isolated, inspiring recklessness.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The difference between Europe and the US is fairly simple. Euro
| NCAP has a pedestrian collision test as part of the safety
| rating and NCAP does not, only pedestrian avoidance.
|
| If you could not get a five star safety rating because your car
| mangles somebody when hitting them at 30mph the tune would
| change pretty quickly. See all the things tested in Euro NCAP
| in section 2.2. https://www.euroncap.com/media/80156/euro-ncap-
| aeb-lss-vru-t...
| frankus wrote:
| What's weird is IIHS (a non-government nonprofit) is
| publishing articles like this [1] and yet AFAIK doesn't
| incorporate pedestrian safety into its new-car ratings. One
| would think insurance companies would also be interested in
| the safety of the people whom their insured collide with.
|
| [1] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/designers-must-make-
| vehicle...
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Changes are coming, although I'm skeptical of their impact.
|
| https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-proposes-new-
| cras...
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Unfortunately, Euro-NCAP ignores some of the most important
| factors, such as ground contact.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Oh does it? Where can I read up on that?
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| I don't know of anyone who's written about it,
| unfortunately; I discovered it in the course of my own
| analysis of Euro-NCAP standards as part of a work
| project.
|
| The test protocol is here:
|
| https://www.euroncap.com/en/for-
| engineers/protocols/vulnerab...
|
| I used to be very excited about Euro-NCAP but when I
| actually researched it, I became fairly critical. It only
| measures AEB, and leg impact and head impact against the
| car, with very little consideration put into how the
| general profile of the car affects the collision
| kinematics. Whether the car pushes pedestrians onto the
| ground or throws them up in the air, it doesn't matter --
| only the initial contact between the car and pedestrian
| is measured. (And while representing the pedestrian by a
| disembodied leg and a disembodied head).
|
| It's had a good influence in some ways, most importantly
| by testing head impact at various points on the hood,
| which has forced automakers to reduce stiffness and add
| more space for deflection between the hood and the engine
| block. I think in other ways, it's helped accelerate a
| trend towards brick-shaped vehicle fronts, because they
| perform better on the leg impact tests. I personally
| believe this will result in fewer leg injuries but more
| deaths.
| jameshart wrote:
| 5 star safety rating only matters inasmuch as it impacts
| insurance costs. And pedestrian risk should _already_ be
| priced into insurance costs, independent of whether it's in
| the safety rating tests.
|
| If they change the standards and a truck doesn't get a five
| star rating, the manufacturer will just not mention the
| safety rating in their marketing materials, and astroturf
| online forums with opinions undermining the value of the
| safety rating ('they changed it specifically to mark down
| trucks'; 'it doesn't test the safety conditions that really
| matter anyway'; etc... heck you _already_ see people raise
| these talking points about NCAP) so customers can rationalize
| themselves into ignoring that the truck they want to buy only
| scored 3.5 stars.
| panick21_ wrote:
| All the most important issues are local and state and have
| nothing to do with US federal government.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The problem is that there is a whole generation of road
| engineers taught to use federal interstate standards on local
| roads, but there isn't a more appropriate local road
| guideline.
|
| When people use these standards for local roads it's because
| it's the same mindset as "no one ever got fired for picking
| IBM."
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| Except road funding, huge chunks of which come from the
| federal government (because, big surprise, cities and states
| can't afford thousands of miles of stroads and highways
| without invoking a government that can print its own reserve
| currency).
| zip1234 wrote:
| > One issue with our neighbourhood is that SUVs use our road to
| skip past 2 junctions that get congested during school drop-
| off/pickup. The moms sometimes look ridiculously tiny in their
| urban tanks, but they speed through a residential road to shave
| off a minute from their school run. People in cars appear to
| act more selfishly than people outside of cars (has there been
| any research on that?) and I think roads should be designed
| with that in mind.
|
| There are school busses--need to penalize people driving
| children to school as long as there are busses. The 'school
| run' needlessly increases traffic and danger and causes
| expensive decisions in school design.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Most districts have actually done the reverse because school
| buses are really expensive.
|
| If anything we need to bring walking to school back to
| historic levels. In 1969, 48% of children did so, but in 2009
| that had declined to 13%. http://guide.saferoutesinfo.org/int
| roduction/the_decline_of_...
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| To be fair, I used to live like two or three miles from
| school, and we would've had to pay for the bus because I was
| "too close". So mom dropped me off at like 6:00 AM because we
| were poor as shit. If we cared about education at all, we
| wouldn't make families pay for something that I'm pretty sure
| used to just be free.
| lolinder wrote:
| "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy
| action."
|
| It sounds like the problem we have here is that each individual
| incident is analyzed and catalogued as an incident, so we never
| get to 'enemy action'. The most urgent issue to resolve is whose
| insurance is going to pay for it, which requires assigning blame,
| and in each case it's usually clear where the blame lies. This is
| all the system working entirely as expected and we can't really
| skip this step.
|
| What ought to happen next is that the incidents get compiled,
| trends turn up, and we change our designs according to those
| trends.
|
| The article is pretty light on details about the extent to which
| this _isn 't_ happening among traffic engineers. Requiring
| smaller vehicles or banning touchscreens has to come from
| Congress, so it's outside the control of any city's engineers.
| Anecdotally, the engineers in my own city seem pretty determined
| to consider the possibility that any given accident had a bad
| design as the root cause, and regularly fix and improve
| intersections and road markings according to what is happening.
| They're not perfect, but I don't get the sense that they're
| resting easy on the assurance that it's all user error either.
| romaaeterna wrote:
| Some time ago, I read all of the published data on the safety of
| traffic circles, as I had often seen them recommended as a safer
| alternative to traffic lights.
|
| I was not very impressed. The confounding factors for the traffic
| light to circle projects were always far too large, and it always
| had to be coupled with the fact that it was usually poorest
| intersections that get rebuilt. I no longer have a high opinion
| of traffic safety research as a field.
|
| Regarding this article's claims in particular, traffic fatalities
| went up a certain amount after 2020, and I doubt that road design
| changes were a primary driver. (Policing trends are one possible
| candidate.)
|
| Regardless, in the last six months or so, my Tesla's autodrive
| went from "expensive joke" to "safer driver than me". IMO,
| leveraging existing technology could cut traffic deaths to a
| small fraction of what they are now over 3-5 years, were we to
| pursue aggressive conversion of the existing vehicle fleet.
| robomartin wrote:
| It's a dramatic article likely intended to help sell his book
| (with an equally dramatic title).
|
| Missing from all of this is, well, data. He squarely blames large
| vehicles, SUV's. Now, I have no horse in this race, I prefer
| small vehicles for practical every-day driving. For moving
| family, dogs, camping trips, etc., a minivan is great.
|
| Yet, at a very basic level, some of what he is saying makes no
| sense to me. Take this introductory statement:
|
| "As a country, we hit the threshold of 1 million cumulative
| deaths in 1953, 2 million in 1975 and 3 million in 1998. While
| the past several years of data have not yet been released, I
| estimate that the U.S. topped 4 million total road deaths
| sometime in the spring of 2024."
|
| So, 4 million by 2024. Fully half of that by 1975. Care to guess
| how many SUV's existed in 1975? Also, I am going to guess average
| speeds where likely lower.
|
| He is blaming SUV's and claiming that making them 10 cm lower
| would have a dramatic impact on results. OK, well, if the data up
| until 1975 is any indication, this is nonsense.
|
| How about distractions, drunk driving and, yes, pedestrians and
| cyclists. Accidents are not always attributable to one side or a
| single variable. The world is a complex multivariate problem.
| This guy is trying to sell books by hating on everything and only
| blaming one or two variables: SUV's bad, wide roads, bad.
|
| And then there's are the circumstances of each accident. He gives
| the example of an SUV losing control, jumping a curb and killing
| a father and his kid. Well, not every accident is like that. And,
| no, life isn't going to be perfectly safe. You are not going to
| go down to zero accidents and zero fatalities, no matter how hard
| you might try.
|
| Which brings me to the last point: He offers not data whatsoever
| on how things would improve if his world view were to be adopted.
| If we ripped-up and modified every road and shrunk every vehicle
| by 10 cm.
|
| You see, it is easy to be critical of anything when you don't
| have to be accountable for any of it. Happens all the time with
| "experts". As an example, the financial world is full of
| economists who just "know" all there is to know about
| finance...yet none of them are billionaires and few (none?) run
| successful businesses at scale.
|
| Yes, of course, road safety is important. I just think that the
| solutions include far more variables than what this guy trying to
| sell a book seems to be focusing on in this article. In a few
| decades, self-driving cars might solve this problem nicely. Don't
| know.
| xyst wrote:
| There is overwhelming evidence against the increase of dependency
| on car centric transportation. Yet people just don't get it until
| it impacts them personally (ie, death of loved one, loss of limbs
| of friends, paralysis, DUI).
|
| I'm honestly done with trying to convince politicians, car-
| brains, "traffic engineers", transportation departments that they
| way we have been scaling our infrastructure is a tremendous waste
| of resources. Every talking point they have presented has a
| mountain evidence against it, yet they continue churning away at
| "wE mUsT bUiLd mOrE hIgHwAyS!!1 [at the expense of the
| federal/state/local budgets, environment, and communities near
| these projects]".
| GiorgioG wrote:
| For those of you that want small vehicles, they exist for the
| buying. For those of you who want big vehicles, you're in luck,
| they also exist for the buying. Anyone that wants to limit
| people's choices can shove it up your arse!
| jenadine wrote:
| How about the choice to be able to walk or cycle in a safe
| environment?
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| That's communism, obviously.
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| Oh wow, I didn't realize there was no problem and everything
| was perfect already. Thanks!
| tzs wrote:
| > And our reality is one where more pedestrians and bicyclists
| are getting killed on U.S. streets than at any time in the past
| 45 years - over 1,000 bicyclists and 7,500 pedestrians in 2022
| alone
|
| It links to https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-
| statistics/detail/yearl... for that 7500 pedestrians in 2022
| figure.
|
| Yet on that very same page there is a table of pedestrian and
| bicyclist deaths going back to 1975, which shows that 1977-1981
| all had more pedestrian deaths (7732, 7795, 8096, 8070, and 7837)
| than 2022 (7522). Several of those years are within the last 45
| years.
|
| For bicyclists 2022 is indeed the biggest year just edging out
| 1977 (1084 vs 1003).
|
| This might be forgiven as just being a little sloppy. If he'd
| just have said "past 40 years" instead of "past 45 years" then it
| would have been accurate.
|
| But wait...the US population was 338 million in 2022, and around
| 220 million in 1979. We really should look at rates.
|
| 2020 pedestrian deaths per 100k population were 2.22. They were
| above that every year from 1975-1991. Same for bicyclists--every
| year from 1975-1991 was higher than 2020.
|
| For pedestrians the rates peaked in 1979 at 3.76 then declined
| fairly linearly to 1.33 in 2009, then rose again fairly linearly
| to 1.95 in 2020, then jumped a bit to 2.22 for 2021 and 2022.
| Same pattern for bicyclists.
|
| Here's a graph of the rates by year [1]. The bicyclist rates are
| per 1m instead of per 100k to make them easier to read.
|
| [1] https://imgur.com/a/BJ2h9o9
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