The Exceptionally American Problem of Rising Roadway Deaths (opens in new tab)

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

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

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

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

> We have the same problem in the EU.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://youtu.be/4aCumC7sJIg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

> most drivers have their phone up in front of their faces

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Possible correlation to long COVID neurological damage.

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

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

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

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

> The chart shows that the uptick begins in 2014

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

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

Do people only do meth in America?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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