There are some seriously mixed messages coming out of the NHTSA today, which perfectly illustrate what I like to call the tyranny of safety. On the one hand, the NHTSA announced today that overall traffic fatalities dropped by nearly ten percent in 2008, hitting the lowest levels per vehicle mile traveled since 1961. Estimates for the first quarter of 2009 show the high-single digit downward trend continuing into this year. In 2008, the NHTSA logged 1.27 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. Which, based on the number of cars and the shoddy quality of driving one encounters in this country (sorry, it’s true), is a remarkable statistic. But, for safety nuts like SecTrans Ray LaHood, it’s not enough. “While the number of highway deaths in America has decreased, we still have a long way to go,” he tells his press release. And how are we going to go about protecting Americans from the lowest fatality rates since JFK was elected and the Beatles were still playing the Cavern? Gizmos, baby, gizmos.
The Detroit News reports that the NHTSA has planned a study for 2011 which will determine whether Forward Collision Warning and Lane Departure Warning Systems should be made mandatory for all vehicles. FCW uses radar to alert the driver to objects in the path of the car, and in some cases could even apply the brakes. LDWS alerts the driver to unintentional lane changes, and in some cases could automatically return the car to its original lane. Because apparently the 1.27 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled are caused by drivers being unable to see what is directly in front of them, and falling asleep and drifting across lanes.
According to the NHTSA, these features are currently available for Model Year 2008 on select Audi, BMW, Buick, Cadillac, Infiniti, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Volvo vehicles. Which means it won’t be that expensive to make them standard on all models, right? But the added cost would just be adding injury to insult. The argument that these features should exist on all cars knocks down any further impetus for improved driver training. Or paying attention to what lane you are in. Or looking out the windshield and noticing objects which may lie in the path of your vehicle.
How much intrusion and driver disengagement are we willing to endure to eliminate the last traffic fatalities? Will Secretary LaHood only feel that we no longer “have a long way to go” when drivers are as disengaged from their transportation as the patrons of his beloved rail transit? As long as busybodies try to completely eliminate danger from an inherently dangerous (yet satisfying) pursuit, the tyranny of safety will march on.
When your personal vehicle is as automatic as those DisneyWorld monorails, they’ll be happy.
No. Wait. Then they’ll start making that experience even more boring….
Never mind LaHood’s rail fetish. It is the nature of bureaucracy (and bureaucrats) to sustain the bureaucracy. Locally, the cops are bombarding the airwaves with “Click it or Ticket” ads… to save 14 lives. (Their own words.) Per life “saved” this must be the most expensive safety campaign ever.
The figure that is the lowest since 1961 is the raw number of fatalities, at least according to the press release. (Which is pretty remarkable, considering how many more drivers and cars are on the road today, as compared to 1961.)
Fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled have been dropping for decades, and I’m sure that this figure was much higher in 1961 than it was last year.
The thing is, those fatalities may not have been preventable. Example: I have family that is Highway Patrol, and he covers Western NC which is famous for the Tail of the Dragon and the Cherohala Skyway. From the heads in Raleigh, they were told that they need to do something about all of those motorcycle fatalities. Yet at the time the most recent one had been a middle-aged man on his Harley who, with no traffic around and on a 4-lane divided highway, drifted his bike into the median and killed himself on the inner guardrail. I forget the exact cause (staring off into space?) but the folks riding near him had no explanation. No fatigue, sleep, etc. Some things cannot be prevented despite craziness. Sounds like Ray LaHood is awfully busy trying to make automobiles Idiot-Proof, and most folks realize what happens under that sort of claim…
I, for one, would welcome these features as standard equipment. Not necessarily for my driving skills, but for the DUI loser or the 16 year old text messaging teen approaching my wife or I at a closing speed of 120mph on a 2 lane highway at night in the rain. Believe me, if I could afford an S-class Merc and all of it’s electronic safety accoutrements for my wife, she would have one.
How much intrusion and driver disengagement are we willing to endure to eliminate the last traffic fatalities?
NHTSA/DOT crossed that line with me when they mandated putting an explosive device in my steering wheel, a decade and a half ago.
The trick, of course, is the kind of mandate enforced. Airbags aren’t so bad, as it’s legal to disable them. Will that be the case with mandated “stability control”, lane departure nonsense, and generally obtuse idiocy designed to make it easier for drivers to do something else when behind the wheel? If history is any indication…
America still need ABS standard in all cars before we go nuts with FCW and LDWS.
Imagine a strippo Ford Focus with these fancy systems still hitting something because the wheels locked. And left huge skid marks to prove the point. Brilliant.
The argument that these features should exist on all cars knocks down any further impetus for improved driver training.
Driving training has been shown time and time again to be ineffective, while safety features produce tangible results. The focus on achieving improvement gains through technology is totally appropriate. Driver training is ultimately a feel-good waste of money that gains nothing.
There will be a point, though, at which we hit a point of diminishing returns with these technical aids. There may come a point where public transportation really will be the only way to substantially reduce travel fatalities. I wonder whether the safety advocates will be able or willing to acknowledge that point at which further gains become next to impossible.
Perhaps at birth, the US Dept of Future Fatality Prevention will place a chip in the nogging of everyone in order to remotely control their desire to drive like an idiot when they reach driving age.
There will be a point, though, at which we hit a point of diminishing returns with these technical aids.
Like with the current emission standards ……..
Until you completely take away control from individual drivers (either through complete automation of the driving process or having everybody use mass transit), there are going to be collisions and resulting fatalities. These safety enhancements are nice, but at the end of the day it’s ultimately a dead end.
Every once in a while it hits me how crazy it all really is. Virtually anybody can get behind the wheel of a car and through their own carelessness cause an accident that can snarl traffic for hours, or seriously injure/kill people.
How about being encased in foam when in an accident, like Sylvster Stallone in the movie Demolition Man?
There was an Allstate commercial that mentions a lot of safety features, abs, etc. but ultimately said “accidents happen”.
@Pch101: “There may come a point where public transportation really will be the only way to substantially reduce travel fatalities.”
You should take a bus or elevated train here in Chicago. Several accidents a year per local news. Had a second story level el-train fall off the tracks & onto the street many years ago.
heh heh. it’s funny because in america we won’t establish reliable and efficient commuter trains, so instead we convert our automobiles and highways into de facto trains so we can drink beverages and make phone calls and take naps while commuting.
This is just a part of LaHood’s overall agenda to make driving and cars so expensive that public would migrate to his beloved cattle transporters. Adding the cost of mandatory gizmos works just as well as taxing the gas… and there’s a perfect excuse for it: safety.
If cars ever reach the point where I can’t run them into a brick wall if I choose, I think I’ll take whatever vehicle I have and run it into a brick wall.
I can’t see the point of living in a society that doesn’t permit choice.
I had a chat with a former NHTSA official last month, and his feeling was that driver training was near useless and technology was the fix for accident prevention. He mentioned the breathalyzer interlocks blogged here yesterday, because a significant fraction of fatalities are due to DUI’s. FWIW, he also liked red light cameras.
The interesting point I thought he brought up was about compromises with the ESC mandate in the US, which goes into effect shortly. The very promising initial data that demonstrated a 10-30% reduction in single car accidents were from cars equipped with rather expensive systems. (Anyone remember the ~$1000 ESC option on the mid-2000’s Ford Focus?) The standards for mandatory ESC are less rigorous than those systems studied, as carmakers pled poverty. His feeling was that real-world accident prevention data would not be as good with the cheaper ESC systems.
Sound familiar? ABS reduces stopping distances and was once hoped to reduce accidents, save $$$ and lives. However, a real-world study with GM mid-1990 cars with and without ABS showed no difference in accident rates.
@pch101
Driving training has been shown time and time again to be ineffective, while safety features produce tangible results.
Well, we could always try actually training new drivers. Both my kids, 26 and 21, got the same crap 32 hour classroom instruction program. It could be boiled down to 3 words – don’t do drugs. Doesn’t shed much light on how or why to steer into a skid. With kid #2, my wife set up a log book and until 50 hours were logged, no license.
re: FCW I will hunt down and disable anything that applies the brakes without my sayso. I’m OK with airbags, but braking is my business, not some speck of silicon.
I picture getting crushed to death on the highway by a drifting semi-truck (who naturally don’t have to install these new electro-safety features) because my government-mandated lane departure system wouldn’t let me drive onto the shoulder.
Ajla: I imagine your car will still let you apply the brakes or the throttle (well, barring an obstacle ahead of you).
Then again, LDS systems are all overridden if you signal a turn, so you’ll just have to signal your intent to move over to the shoulder. Whether the average driver would have the presence of mind to do so…
I can’t see the point of living in a society that doesn’t permit choice.
Well, then you’d better start building that mud hut in the middle of the Sahara, or perhaps a small rock dwelling above the snowline in the Himalayas. Unless you subscribe to complete asceticism, you’ll have to interact with people at some point, and you’ll have to live within some limits so as to preserve some kind of functioning society.
I think what you meant to say is “I can’t see the point of living in a society that doesn’t permit an arbitrary amount of choice, per my personal beliefs and values”.
The posters above noting “diminishing returns” have it right: at some point, we’ll hit the point whereby the effort becomes either ineffective or worse, counterproductive (which we see a glimmer of today in the quest for the Biggest Road Tank). I’m not sure we’ve hit that point yet, much as we didn’t when me mandated airbags, seat belts, helmets, or even car that won’t kill it’s passengers.
I don’t think that we should necessarily subscribe to “good enough” out of reactionary tendencies. There’s a real opportunity to challenge the people who design vehicles to come up with safe, effective and non-intrusive ways to lessen the likelihood of an accident. I think they can do it, and I think mandating it isn’t such a bad idea as we’re between the points where it’s demanded by the market and it’s problematically obstrusive.
It’s like environmental regulation: the market won’t react to problems until people are dying frequently and horribly enough to outstrip what PR can compensate for. As such, the government, which isn’t by and large motivated by profit, steps in and forces the address the problem before it becomes untenable.
The fatality RATE per mile was lower in 1961? With all the safety stuff we have installed in our cars these days I’m shocked that in 1961 with no seatbelts, ABS disc brakes, collapsable steering columns, head rests, side-impact door beams, airbags, radial tires and every car sporting a hood ornament shaped like a spear, they still had a better safety rate. And the average speed traveled back in ’61 was probably faster than today.
Maybe we have way less serious injuries than the old days? Not sure what’s going on.
ajla :
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I picture getting crushed to death on the highway by a drifting semi-truck (who naturally don’t have to install these new electro-safety features) because my government-mandated lane departure system wouldn’t let me drive onto the shoulder.
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If that’s your solution to the problem, you do need an electronic nanny or more new driver’s training.
psharjinian: It’s like environmental regulation: the market won’t react to problems until people are dying frequently and horribly enough to outstrip what PR can compensate for. As such, the government, which isn’t by and large motivated by profit, steps in and forces the address the problem before it becomes untenable.
Regulations are usually enacted well AFTER the problem has peaked. The fatality rate for automobiles, for example, had been declining for years when the first automobile safety standards were phased in for the 1967 model year.
Richard Chen :
July 2nd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I had a chat with a former NHTSA official last month, and his feeling was that driver training was near useless and technology was the fix for accident prevention.
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I totally agree. And I think driver deterrence could be more useful than driver education.
I believe that the police should confiscate the car of any drunk driver. Any drunk driving causing death should be convicted for man slaughter.
Remove dangerous drivers from the road is the best solution.
Will lane change warning sysetms and collision warning systems lull people into being less careful?
When I go on long trips, I carry cabbage, or carrots, a crunchy vegetable that keeps me from dosing off. If I still feel like dosing off as I crunch on my crucifers, I know it’s time to get off and sleep for a few minutes. It’s pretty automatic. I wouldn’t push that limit even if I had these gizmos, but I think other people might, and that scares me.
I also drive much more carefully in icy conditions in my Honda w/o ABS than I did in my (first gen) Saturn with ABS.
@wsn:
Other than speeding up, slowing down, or going onto the shoulder what else is there to do in that situation? Your horn could be of some use, still I’d rather have a plan B. You could always try not to ride alongside them for too long, but sometimes it happens.
Edward asked: “How much intrusion and driver disengagement are we willing to endure to eliminate the last traffic fatalities?”
From the NHTSA report:“The fatality data for 2008 placed the highway death count at 37,261, a drop of 9.7 percent from 2007.”
To put that in perspective, we are talking about more than twelve times more people than were killed in the infamous 9/11 attacks. We are hardly at a point of diminishing returns while seeking to save those last few lives.
Look at what has been done in response to the 9/11 attacks. Compare that to the glacial pace of improvements in vehicle design, roadway design and driver training. We are nowhere near a point of declaring victory over the carnage caused by our beloved automobiles and their drivers.
Motor heads have been bitching about safety regulations forever, but what do you think accounts for the marked decrease in fatalities per mile over the past few decades? It sure isn’t because drivers have become more skilled or conscientious.
I’ve had cars for over 40 years, and I don’t think I’ve ever before seen such rotten, inept driving by everyone including the guys who’re in the big rigs. They used to be the best, always signaling, flashing lights in thanks, staying to the right and in lane. When these guys are lousy, you know it’s gotten bad. As for the rest, using a turn signal is an anachronism, staying in lane is a sometimes thing, and speed mostly highly variable, depending largely on mood. Saftey devices, then, are either saving more people from themselves or the opposite, are actually part of the problem . Chicken or egg.
What’s the problem with this kind of tech, or even removal of driver control altogether? Would it be bad if we could all steer our cars onto the highway and then take a nap, instead of having to guide a ton or two of metal between sleepy or drunk idiots guiding their couple tons of metal, all at 70mph?
@Sajeev Mehta:
Side airbags and head curtains should also be made mandatory before this stuff. Cars with “safety packages” annoy the hell out of me, because finding one that has one on a used car lot can be a nightmare. Especially when you look at the IIHS side impact tests and see a model with optional side airbags earns a Good rating, while without gets TOTAL FAIL.
Many of these radar based collision warning/mitigation systems need more development time. I’ve been in a car with radar cruise that basically slammed on its brakes, on its own, because a truck in the other lane entered into a fairly sharp left turn, and the car thought the truck had pulled infront. Good thing nobody was right behind us, or this “accident avoidance” system could have caused an accident.
The idea of total safety because you’re riding a train instead of driving would come as a surprise to recent train riders in Los Angeles or Washington D.C. Given the options, I’d still rather drive.
Welcome to the safetyocracy folks.
I remember looking for information on disabling the DRLs on my Golf TDI (I don’t remember the numbers off the top of my head, but the number quoted by the Canadian government when they mandated DRLs was something along the lines of a less than 1% decrease in the likelihood of being involved in a collision by having them).
When I posed the question on a forum, the first replies were along the lines of, “Why would you want to disable this safety device?” When I explained that I knew how to use a headlight switch, I didn’t like the additional expense of constantly replacing headlight bulbs, I like to let motorcycles and emergency vehicles to have an advantage, etc., among the responses I received (along with the answer I was looking for) was “if that [sic] 1% is my daughter…” Never mind the fact that daughter is more likely to be in an accident because of distracted driving or inattention.
The fatality RATE per mile was lower in 1961?
Not at all. To compare, the fatality rate in 1961 was 4.92 per 100 million miles, versus 1.36 in 2007.
http://www.saferoads.org/federal/2004/TrafficFatalities1899-2003.pdf
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
Fatality rates keep falling. If you look at the numbers in the second link, you can see that we end up having roughly the same number of fatal crashes each year and about the same number of fatalities per crash. But we also have a much lower crash rate per mile than we used to, leading to a falling fatality rate. The technology is helping to prevent us from hitting each other in the first place, which is a benefit for the overall result.
Well, we could always try actually training new drivers.
Driver training has been extensively studied, and the opinion among researchers in the field is pretty much universal: it doesn’t do any good, beyond giving very basic skills to new drivers.
Much of driving is often a function of personality, and we cannot expect to use driver train to modify peoples’ personalities. That’s particularly true when practically everyone who drives believes him or herself to be an expert who is superior to everyone else. Electronics are much more effective.
Well, maybe LaHood should peep this study (courtesy Autoblog)
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/07/02/study-majority-of-highway-fatalities-caused-by-deficient-road-c/
Maybe a little more infrastructure spending is in order…
Simpler solution: Bring back the Volvo 240
Built from 1975-1993, only the very last models got ABS & SRS, Otherwise, the 240 series had no gizmo safety features. Nothing but solid construction, damn good brakes, and a relatively underpowered engine.
Yet to this day, the Volvo 240 series holds the record for fewest fatalities per million miles driven.
Stands to reason that all cars should be Volvo 240s.
heh heh. it’s funny because in america we won’t establish reliable and efficient commuter trains, so instead we convert our automobiles and highways into de facto trains so we can drink beverages and make phone calls and take naps while commuting.
Maybe we need trains with individual cars that pop off, pick you up at the door, then return to the train.
Remember, it’s not just your car, it’s your freedom.
John
Most people seem to treat ABS as simply more effective brakes, and more effective brakes don’t generally correlate with fewer accidents, since people just leave less following distance and drive faster. The real advantage is the ability to both brake and steer, which has kept me out of at least one accident (oncoming car making a very ill-advised left turn).
The lane-departure and forward-collision stuff is theoretically useful — no one can keep track of [i]all[/i] of the variables — but I don’t think it’s assuming to much to say that people who don’t pay much attention to the road pay even less when they have those devices. Perhaps that’s still safer.
NHTSA has done a poor-to-lousy job relative to other countries’ agencies responsible for highway safety. Take a look and see for yourself.
Driver-assistance systems (lane-departure warning, adaptive cruise control, and various others) probably will reduce some kinds and causes of collisions. But there may well be unintended consequences of these systems’ proliferation, for they will put us in the gap between having to do all of the thinking and avoidance for ourselves, and having to do none of it. The experience with ABS suggests risk compensation significantly reduces the safety benefit of driver-assistance systems. I have driven cars with advanced driver-assistance systems, including high-end prototypes not yet generally available. It’s quite impressive to experience a pedestrian-detection system accurately showing the position of a person after dark wearing all grey clothes in fog, who is utterly invisible by any kind of light. But what will be the result when drivers become dependent on these systems, their perception and attention become rusty and slow through reduced use, they devote more cognitive resources to non-driving tasks…and they are suddenly faced with a situation requiring keen perception, rapt attention, and reaction with through-the-spinal-cord rapidity?
wsn : If that’s your solution to the problem, you do need an electronic nanny or more new driver’s training.
Yeah, the guy obviously hasn’t seen The Fast and the Furious. I’d just drive under the trailer too!
I guess I can put up with mandatory nannies, as long as internet forums exist so I can collaborate on how to disable them.
Technology never stops moving forward so there is not reason to believe that our safety standards will stand still. But whenever ever new technology is introduced there is mistrust and complaint – seat belts, airbags, ABS, ESC you name it and radar based systems are no exception.
It should also be noted that none of these system made cars any worse or less fun to drive – quite the opposite: we currently not only have the safest cars ever but are also in middle of a muscle/sports car golden age.
I don’t see what the fuss is about.
@Pch101:
thanks for the stats which certainly confirm my experience
In the “old days” they sent the car to the body shop for repair and the bodies to the morgue.
now it’s reversed
Trains are much more dangerous than cars, statistically speaking, according to the government’s own statistics.
From 1994 to 2007, highway fatalities per 1 million passenger miles ranged from a high of 1.73 (1994) to a low of 1.36 (2007).
cite: http://wwwfars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
In every year except 1995 (0), railway fatalities well exceeded the auto fatality rate. From 1990 to 2007, the range was from a low of 2 to a high of 77 fatalities per million passenger miles.
cite: http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_02_38.html
I’ll take my chances in my car, with my skills, than a train, any day of the week, thank you.
In every year except 1995 (0), railway fatalities well exceeded the auto fatality rate.
You need to read your link more carefully, as you’re comparing apples to oranges:
A train-mile is the movement of a train (which can consist of many cars) the distance of 1 mile. A train-mile differs from a vehicle-mile, which is the movement of 1 car (vehicle) the distance of 1 mile. A 10-car (vehicle) train traveling 1 mile would be measured as 1 train-mile and 10 vehicle-miles. Caution should be used when comparing train-miles to vehicle miles.
A “train mile” will carry far more people than would a “vehicle mile,” effectively meaning that one train mile is equal to numerous vehicle miles. Your effort to make a direct comparison is inaccurate, and the fatality figures would indicate that the train is far safer — hardly anybody dies as a passenger in a train wreck.
The only gizmo that I like is the blind spot warning system. The rest are stupid. If you can’t stay in your own lane and notice that the car in front of you is slamming on his brakes, then you shouldn’t have a license.
“From 1994 to 2007, highway fatalities per 1 million passenger miles ranged from a high of 1.73 (1994) to a low of 1.36 (2007).”
And for trains in the data you linked to the number averages about 6 passenger train fatalities per 100 million passenger miles, or nearly two orders of magnitude better than the number for cars.
Well, we could always try actually training new drivers.
Driver training has been extensively studied, and the opinion among researchers in the field is pretty much universal: it doesn’t do any good, beyond giving very basic skills to new drivers.
Questions
1) did these ‘researchers in the field’ design the craptastic driver ed programs we have now?
2) can any of these ‘researchers in the field’ do, say, a bootleg turn?
3) are the Germans wrong about their comprehensive and admittedly expensive drivers ed?
“From 1994 to 2007, highway fatalities per 1 million passenger miles ranged from a high of 1.73 (1994) to a low of 1.36 (2007).”
And for trains in the data you linked to the number averages about 6 passenger train fatalities per 100 million passenger miles, or nearly two orders of magnitude better than the number for cars.
Reminds me of someone who once wrote into the local paper here that seat belts were dangerous.
His logic? He found raw data on accident injuries where more people injured were wearing seat belts than were injured and not wearing them.
Of course, you have to factor in that most drivers wear seat belts and what kind of injuries both groups suffered.
John
The Germans are not wrong about their driver ed. However, they have a big advantage in that Germans generally follow the rules. when I lived there I would calmly drive for hours on the autobahnen at speeds that are stressful and scary in the US. The difference is that you could count on German drivers using their turn signals, staying in the right lane except to pass, look backwards before moving into the left lane, etc. (However, don’t go slowly in the left when a fast person is behind you, they’re insane tailgaters there).
@eggsalad
“Volvo 240 holds the record for miles driven without a fatality”(slight paraphrase) Id love to see the black & white on that. Where? What climate and tempurature? Ive seen 240s not able to back out of slightly inclined parking spots with a half-inch of snow. Having driven them, I wouldnt recommend anybody drive them at anything over 50 if the roads arent dry.
Volvo 240s are the reason Volvo started making 850s. And I would posit that front-drive cars in general have the most to do with cars not flying off the road in bad conditions and hence the lower fatalities. Yeah ABS and airbags are helpful also. FCW and LDWS should register in the cars computer and should be used to revoke licenses of idiots or oldsters nearing the end of their driving days. Sadly at 87, my mom is one.
This ass is from Illinois.
And Obama’s Chief of Staff is one of the meanest sons of b?#%!s in government, even sending the head of a dead horse to an enemy.
If you think this Hood is anything but a thief, check out the roads in Illinois.
I can’t use a cell phone because dumb ass drivers.
A speed limit of 65 on deserted highways!!!
No more French Fries in schools.
We all have to be limited by the lowest common denominator…
It’s all about the dumbing down of America.
“I believe that the police should confiscate the car of any drunk driver. Any drunk driving causing death should be convicted for man slaughter. Remove dangerous drivers from the road is the best solution.”
How about speeders? I believe they kill more people than drunk drivers. Should their cars be confiscated? Maybe speeders should face more draconian penalties. Lots more of them…
as the patrons of his beloved rail transit? As long as busybodies try to completely eliminate danger from an inherently dangerous (yet satisfying) pursuit, the tyranny of safety will march on.
NHTSA…
Funny to mention safety and rail transit. Today on the way home from work early for the July Fourth weekend, my train derailed and ground to a halt in way too short a time frame. I was slammed into a wall inside the train and now have braille indentation on my forehead. Maybe I should have asked the hottie next to me to rub my head and tell me what it means!!
The lefties always have a stated reason, and depending on the issue it may be a different reason, but the real reasons are always the same: they hate cars, they hate oil and gas, they hate suburbs, and they love public transportation. Did I mention freedom?
pch101, john h. “passengers train-miles” is not defined in that reference. I thought “passengers train-miles” would mean passengers times the number of miles travelled.
I would still prefer having my fate in my own hands rather than public transportation.
“passengers train-miles” is not defined in that reference.
The definition comes straight from your own link. You need to read the footnotes, so that you know how to interpret what is presented.
A “passenger-train mile” is a mile traveled by a train that carries passengers. That allows for the exclusion of data from trains that aren’t carrying passengers.
I would still prefer having my fate in my own hands rather than public transportation.
That may be true, but then just admit that safety doesn’t really have anything to do with it. You claimed that safety was important to you, even though safety isn’t actually playing a role in how you form your preferences. If fatality data was truly that important to you, you’d prefer rail.
“The argument that these features should exist on all cars knocks down any further impetus for improved driver training. ”
There is absolutely no reason not to improve cars, improve roads, improve training, require periodic re-certification and strictly enforce traffic rules. These aren’t do one or the other type things.
“No more French Fries in schools. We all have to be limited by the lowest common denominator… It’s all about the dumbing down of America.”
Does high French Fry consumption correlate with intellectual ability and achievement?
“I would still prefer having my fate in my own hands rather than public transportation.”
Fine, but that has absolutely nothing to do with your personal safety or the safety of those sharing the road with you. Personal airplanes kill their occupants at a rate many times higher than commercial airplanes do, yet the pilot of a personal airplane enjoys the false sense of security which comes from having fate in their own hands.
I understand the desire to have my own damn hands on the wheel, but I have also had to reluctantly admit that the illusion of greater security I get by driving myself to Portland instead of taking the train or flying is in fact an illusion.
Feelings are feelings. Data is data. The two are not the same thing.
Driving training has been shown time and time again to be ineffective
True, but that’s a combination of cars being far too easy to drive, “training” being a joke, our cultural bias towards driving as a right rather than a privilege, and driving being more necessity than convenience in all but the largest cities (and sometimes not even then.)
Take Finland’s approach to driver training, and you would have better results here, even though the training would be more expensive. Here in the US, I was “trained” by coasting a car (don’t touch the gas!) around and around a track at my high school until I’d put in the required number of hours. Terrifying to think that I was on the street like that (and four accidents in two years to show for it, not speeding or dangerous driving, just not knowing what I was doing.)
Or get rid of all the automatics. If you can’t drive a stickshift, you can’t drive. An amazing number of drivers would be off the road if this happened. Hell, most drivers don’t even know how to change a tire, either.
You can’t demand better training or restrict drivers, though, until they’ve broken the law, provided they’ve done the minimum. That’s because we have to have our freedom, our right, to drive — which apparently includes our freedom, our right to be incompetent and dangerous.
Finally, without public transportation options, people who know they shouldn’t be driving do it anyway, because they need to get to work and the grocery store. It’s ridiculous. I know a few people like that personally, who hate driving and wish they didn’t need to do it, and are terrified on a daily basis. These are not good drivers.
This is, by the way, why my kids are going to be professionally trained to drive a car properly before they are allowed behind the wheel on a public road. No way am I letting them out there as poorly trained as I was.
The lefties always have a stated reason, and depending on the issue it may be a different reason, but the real reasons are always the same: they hate cars, they hate oil and gas, they hate suburbs, and they love public transportation. Did I mention freedom?
As a car (and motorcycle) loving “leftie”, I’ll ignore the pointless blanket generalization and ask: what do you have against public transit?
NHTSA and other organizations have said that the problem is the drivers, and it is obvious that these technologies as well as: traction control, air bags, backup cameras, blind spot warning systems, etc are all designed to make up for the faults of bad drivers.
Well, why don’t we fix the problem and stop trying to mitigate it with nanny technology? We need better driver’s education! We need to teach people how to drive! The current system focuses more on the rules of the road than it does the craft of driving. Because of it we’re stuck with technologies like that trying to save us from our own inadiquacies.
Forward collision warning and lane departure warnings are already prewired into all drivers. It’s called your eyes. If you are observant and not text messaging or fussing with your make up or staring at the bumper of the car 2 feet in front of you then there is no reason why you should need something to beep and flash to let you know that something is about to happen. You should already be aware of it.
I worry that technologies like this will just breed lazier and less attentive drivers. Why pay attention if there is a program that does that for you? Fewer crashes, yes. But also fewer people who can actually drive.
Bureacrats looking for justification for their department budget of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Remember – we all work for the ruling class in Washington. We need them because we are all toothless hicks who do not possess their superior intellect and abilities.
It amazes me how bad the road death rate is in America. Originally from the UK I’ve lived in the mid west for 18 months. I’m always shocked at how little attention many people pay to driving. Frequently I see vehicles cross multiple lanes of traffic at the last second to exit the road. Often these people have a cell phone glued to the side of their face!!
Comparing the statistics with those I could find for the UK http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/241056/
the reality of how bad the US road death rate becomes clearer. Per 1 million people 123 people died last year in the US as a result of road deaths 42 people in the UK.
US UK
Road deaths 37313 2538
Year of figures 2008 2008
Population 303 61
Deaths/ million miles 122.97 48.25
Billion miles driven 4732 312
deaths /100 mil miles 1.27 0.94
The death rates have dropped because people are driving less and therefore the traffic density is lower. There is nothing to suggest the driving standard has improved.
I think the problem is 3 fold – and 2 of 3 come down to driver education.
1st the test does not include any form of car control – how about having to pass a skid pan test?
2nd once a test is passed there is no incentive (or nationwide scheme) for people to improve their driving skills.
3rd Driver distractions have increase in resent year, now everyone is testing or changing the song on their IPod or adjusting their Sat Nav – lets use the technology to improves these distractive nature of these devices – ban the use of hand held phones and make all sat nav units, ipods etc voice activated.
(Sorry for going on a bit but as you can tell this is one of my soap boxes!)
teendrivingblog :
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:58 am
NHTSA and other organizations have said that the problem is the drivers, and it is obvious that these technologies as well as: traction control, air bags, backup cameras, blind spot warning systems, etc are all designed to make up for the faults of bad drivers.
Well, why don’t we fix the problem and stop trying to mitigate it with nanny technology? We need better driver’s education! We need to teach people how to drive! The current system focuses more on the rules of the road than it does the craft of driving. Because of it we’re stuck with technologies like that trying to save us from our own inadiquacies.
Forward collision warning and lane departure warnings are already prewired into all drivers. It’s called your eyes. If you are observant and not text messaging or fussing with your make up or staring at the bumper of the car 2 feet in front of you then there is no reason why you should need something to beep and flash to let you know that something is about to happen. You should already be aware of it.
I worry that technologies like this will just breed lazier and less attentive drivers. Why pay attention if there is a program that does that for you? Fewer crashes, yes. But also fewer people who can actually drive.
+1. To me the electronic intervention versus (proper) driver training comparison is like using a calculator versus learning long division. The average driver has become more and more disengaged from the act of driving, to the point of it being scary. How often does an accident description you read in the newspaper or on the web include the words “lost control of the car”? A car is a machine; barring a mechanical failure you can’t lose control of it. You did something (or more often, didn’t do something) to make the car do what it did. Proper driver training teaches you this. Unfortunately proper driver training costs more than what most people are willing to spend in this country.
Interesting discussion,
Stern is right: risk compensation or in more fancy terms, risk homeostasis, is the name of the game where many safety systems are concerned. ABS is great because it lets you tailgate with more control.
I do think ESC is great for the principal reason that it goes a long way to preventing rollovers of SUV’s – the best and easiest way to die in an SUV – at least when they roll because of last second evasive maneuvers. If they roll from direct impact with a lesser car – say… a sentra – then they still suffer.
My own personal gripe with daytime running lights is that they are only on in front. For example, driving in New York State, where headlights are required with windshield-wiper use, on a dark, cold, rainy day is not that big a deal. Everyone has their headlights turned on, so you can see on-coming cars, and you can see the cars in front of you because their rear lights are on.
Same weather in Quebec, where daytime running lights are standard… nobody turns on their headlights because “they’re already on” so you can see all the oncoming traffic on the other side of the divided highway, but have a really hard time seeing the cars that are directly in front of you, except when they’re actively braking – This is not safe!
that’s a combination of cars being far too easy to drive, “training” being a joke, our cultural bias towards driving as a right rather than a privilege, and driving being more necessity than convenience in all but the largest cities (and sometimes not even then.)
You’re citing myths that have been disproven. There are plenty of countries with strict licensing regimes, such as Spain and Italy, that have consistently higher fatality rates than the US (and that’s despite the fact that the US definition of “fatality” is among the broadest used — a “traffic fatality” does not have the same meaning in every nation, with the US definition encompassing the largest group possible.)
There is no correlation between fatality rates and the difficulty in getting a license. Some countries with stricter training have lower rates, others have higher rates. Cherry picking the data is misleading — the UK and Finland have some of the lowest fatality rates in the world. The US tends to be better than most, not as good as some.
This is, by the way, why my kids are going to be professionally trained to drive a car properly before they are allowed behind the wheel on a public road.
Road course training tends to lead to more accidents, because it encourages the students to become overconfident and drive too aggressively. It backfires, especially with young males.
If you want the kids to drive safely, then teach them to have enough patience and a healthy fear of death that they don’t collide into things and other people. Highway safety comes not from skilled evasive maneuvers, which almost never help, but from stupidity and machismo avoidance. The best driving skill that you can have is a good attitude.
The death rates have dropped because people are driving less and therefore the traffic density is lower.
Absolutely false. Look at the data above — Americans are driving almost four times the miles now that they were in the early 60’s.
Traffic density actually correlates positively with lower fatality rates. Rural fatality rates, particularly on non-freeways, are substantially higher than they are in urban areas. One critical reason for this is because it takes first responders more time to become aware of collisions and to reach a rural scene following an accident, so there are more traffic deaths during the “golden hour,” which are spared in more urbanized areas where help can arrive in time more often.
The US is a large country with a disproportionately high rural population compared to most other developed nations. Just so long as the US has different demographics, it will probably always have higher fatality rates than the UK, where less of the population lives or travels in isolated areas.
A lot of times in winter I wish I had the public transit option.
I work 11PM to 7AM and the bus between my little ‘burb and Omaha, which stops just 3 blocks from my home, quits running @ 6:30 PM, so I gotta get up @ the crack of 8:30PM to be out front shovelling/clearing the Ranger of snow and ice by 8:45 so I’m ready to roll by 9:30–10PM.
If I had, say, a 9:45 PM bus, I could sleep-in 45 minutes-1 hour before doing the old “Dagwood Bumstead in 4-buckle overshoes” dash for the bus stop and the sun could hopefully have the snow softened for me when I wake @ 1PM from my morning nap the next day.
PCH101 I need you to offer some facts to back up your claims.
“Road course training tends to lead to more accidents, because it encourages the students to become overconfident and drive too aggressively. It backfires, especially with young males.”
One teen defensive driving class in Florida has students with a 63 percent lower crash rate than state average. These classes teach teens how to AVOID crashes, what to do in dangerous situations and how to drive defensively so that they aren’t put in dangerous situations. They do not encourage dangerous behavior. I teach at a class in California, Driving Concepts, if we have a student who is cocky we give him/her special attention in order to remove the attitude they have and make them realize that they are not invincible.
“The death rates have dropped because people are driving less and therefore the traffic density is lower.
Absolutely false. Look at the data above — Americans are driving almost four times the miles now that they were in the early 60’s. ”
Perhaps, but we are driving less this year than we were last year and that is why this most recent drop happened. Increased driving since the 1960s was a big reason for more deaths, as well as schools dropping driver’s ed (I’m going to guess). Safety equipment has done a lot over the past fifty years to improve our chances out on the road, both in crash avoidance and survival, but I feel now that it is going way too far.
You are totally right about rural areas having more crashes than urban ones. You have a good point about response times, but there are other reasons for that as well. More open roads mean higher speeds and the states with the worst drivers training laws are typically rural states. In some of these states, like Alabama and Tennessee deaths of new drivers are actually increasing, not decreasing like the national trend.
I fear that you don’t have a clear understanding of what defensive drivers training is designed to do for new drivers. It definitely reduces crash risk and makes teens better drivers.
I need you to offer some facts to back up your claims
I could say the same of you.
Elsewhere on this site, I have posted examples of academic studies on this subject. You may find them if you look.
More to the point, the studies that I’ve cited previously are indicative of the research on this subject. You will be hard pressed to find anybody with academic credentials in this field who claims that driver’s education is effective; the opinions against it are nearly unanimous. Research conducted throughout the developed world indicates the opposite, consistently, and the literature is written with that understanding in mind.
Here’s a challenge to you: post two peer-reviewed academic studies authored in the last 40 years that shows that driver’s education has more than a temporary, limited impact on passenger car traffic accidents and fatalities.
we are driving less this year than we were last year and that is why this most recent drop happened.
You apparently don’t understand the data. The fatality rate is a rate. It is adjusted for the mileage, as it is expressed on a per mile basis (VMT = rate per 100 million vehicle miles.)
Except for a brief period during the early to mid 60s when fatality rates were increasing, the overall trend has been downward since we began keeping statistics. Last year was not glaringly different than any other period.
I fear that you don’t have a clear understanding of what defensive drivers training is designed to do for new drivers.
I understand quite well that driving instructors are trying to make a living by making false claims about the benefits of driver training. It’s basically a waste of money and doesn’t produce any benefit beyond imparting basic mechanical skills, such as steering, to those who don’t have them.
I’m not playing this game with you. I asked a question you responded by asking me one. That’s not how it works. If you don’t have an answer ok, but don’t put it on me to produce the evidence.
“I understand quite well that driving instructors are trying to make a living by making false claims about the benefits of driver training.” Now that is just hateful. I volunteer for a non profit that teaches teens: vehicle dynamics, visual skills, speed control and car control. We don’t make any money. We charge just enough to cover our costs. We do not make false claims. We are all professional drivers who know first hand what a difference knowing can make.
I’m not playing this game with you.
Translated: You can’t provide two peer-reviewed academic studies written in the last four decades that prove your point.
I’m familiar with the body of research and the consensus views of researchers. Therefore, it doesn’t surprise me that you can’t find it, because you won’t find a whole lot of credible work that backs your position.
It is no secret in the academic community that driver training is ineffective. If you take the time to read the studies, you will note that the discussion accounts for the fact that driver’s education is widely understood to be ineffective.
Any academic who argued that driver’s education was useful would be fighting an uphill battle with his peers, because they would be obliged to disprove all of the well-known research to date that states otherwise. The facts may go against the instincts of politicians, the average driver and driving instructors, but they are what they are.
The subject of teen defensive driving has been studied to death, and driver’s education has not been shown to reduce crash rates. Here is just one example from a NHTSA report to Congress, which is very much just like everything else you’ll find on this topic:
Many carefully conducted studies of driver education in the United States and abroad have failed to provide evidence for decreased crash rates among teen drivers who have participated in driver education programs (e.g., Jones, 1993; Mayhew & Simpson, 1996; Vernick et. al., 1999; Williams & Ferguson, 2004; Wynne-Jones & Hurst, 1985)…
…(Driver’s education) does not appear to result in long-term reduction in crash rates for novice drivers. Teens do not get into crashes because they are uninformed about the basic rules of the road or safe driving practices; rather, studies show they are involved in crashes as a result of inexperience and risk-taking. Given this history of mixed results on the ability of driver education to positively affect crash performance, it is unlikely that an educational program alone, no matter how well designed and implemented, would result in dramatic reductions in teen crash rates.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/staticfiles/DOT/NHTSA/Traffic%20Injury%20Control/Articles/Associated%20Files/811005.pdf
pch101@11:12
If you want the kids to drive safely, then teach them to have enough patience and a healthy fear of death that they don’t collide into things and other people.
pch101@12:44
It’s basically a waste of money and doesn’t produce any benefit beyond imparting basic mechanical skills, such as steering, to those who don’t have them.
As taught, drivers ed is a waste of time and money, but can’t it be taught per your earlier observation?
We’ve seen that adding features like ABS may have no effect because people adjust to accept the same level of perceived risk. Good example – if you want to cut speeding, just bring back bias belted tire technology and outlaw everything else.
I love ABS, airbags, stability control. I don’t mind proximity warning features but I don’t like the idea of government mandated active controls that are based on fuzzier logic, like the FCW and LDWS systems. As an engineer, I have some experience on how hard it is to go from blue skying to almost ready to really ready to deploy. Government, CARB for example, seems heedless of the difficulties in getting it right. The devil is in the details, and I’d like the early adopters to help work them out – if they choose the option – and at their expense, not mine. Audi and Lexus owners can afford to find out.
We’ve seen that adding features like ABS may have no effect because people adjust to accept the same level of perceived risk.
The data indicates that the opposite is true. Fatality rates keep falling, in spite all of these other factors (speed, unskilled drivers) that the average person believes are the cause of accidents. If you were correct, fatality rates would not be declining.
As taught, drivers ed is a waste of time and money, but can’t it be taught per your earlier observation?
It probably isn’t possible to change, because you can’t alter hormonal-driven personalities and self-centered, narcissistic behavior with training.
What needs to be understood is that this belief that accidents are caused by a lack of skills is a complete fallacy. Accidents are caused by improper attitudes that lead to recklessness or disregard for one’s social obligations as a user of public highways, not by a lack of technical or motor skills.
Many people get awfully annoyed with the idea that training doesn’t help, as they believe that skills matters and wish to think that they are superior to other drivers. But the facts of the situation lead to logical conclusions that the average driver doesn’t want to hear, including that the average driver is just average.
Politically incorrect as they may be, the most effective requirements would focus on restricting teen drivers, adding more safety technology to vehicles, and diverting as much traffic as possible away from city streets and onto interstates and public transportation. But when you have a culture where everyone is convinced that he is above average (a statistical impossibility), then it’s going to be tough to make that stick.
It probably isn’t possible to change, because you can’t alter hormonal-driven personalities and self-centered, narcissistic behavior with training.
Clarification: it’s not (all) hormones and narcissism, it’s also that, before ~21 years of age, the human brain hasn’t fully developed. One of the areas that develops very, very late is the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in short-term consequence management.
You could, colloquially, say that anyone under 21 or so is functionally impaired in a very specialized fashion. You could also, then, make the case for raising the age for licensed** drivers to 21***. Given what I’ve seen of insurance rate tables, this would help immensely.
You could probably do this without fear of retribution, too, because the young have no money and don’t vote, and often can’t be bothered to vote until they hit 50 or so.
** or at lease driving without someone >21 in the passenger’s seat.
*** And drinking. And conscription. And firearm ownership and/or use. And voting—my first two elections were wasted on youthful idiocy.
We’ve seen that adding features like ABS may have no effect because people adjust to accept the same level of perceived risk.
The data indicates that the opposite is true.
This is an old study, but the abstract postulates otherwise. There will be no resolution because we annoyingly keep changing more than one variable. Cars are becoming safer from implementing different features.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/regrev/evaluate/808206.html
It probably isn’t possible to change, because you can’t alter hormonal-driven personalities and self-centered, narcissistic behavior with training.
So how do the Germans do it, and how do the Spaniards and Italians not do it? Enforcement and civil penalties, maybe?
Pch101:
We are arguing two completely different things here. I do not teach driver’s ed. I do not teach teens basic laws of the roads or how to properly merge. I teach them how to respect the vehicle they are in (or as you put it fear)and understand the gravity of the responsibility they have. We do this by showing them what not to do and showing them what to do. Driver’s ed courses, as currently designed and implemented by individual states do not do this I think you would be hard pressed to find any peer-reviewed article that looks at the sort of driver’s education I think needs to be required instead of the type that is currently being implemented.
Everyone who has looked into the matter knows that inexperience, risk taking, and lack of mental development are all the reasons why teens do what they do. The only way to fix inexperience is through gaining more experience, that is what we try to do in our class.
We put teens through evasive maneuver to help them learn the muscle memory needed to avoid crashes. Otherwise, they only learn when they are in the situation in the real world, where it could be a life or death outcome. I fail to see how teaching a child how to properly execute an emergency lane change maneuver or regain control in a skid can do any harm. We show our teens how easy it is to lose control of a vehicle, and how it can happen with even low speeds to help get across the dangers of speed and risky driving.
The problems with restrictions is that they need to be enforced for them to be effective. In Colorado, for example, cell phone use is banned for new drivers, but a recent AAA study 66 percent of Colorado teens still talk on their phone while they drive, and half text message. From stories my students have told me it is obvious that enforcement is lacking. Parents are also oblivious to many of the dangers and the laws to enforce them themselves. But you can’t take education away from someone.
AAA Colorado survey: http://www.encompassmag.com/tds_2007/tds_responses_charts.html
We are arguing two completely different things here
No, we aren’t. Once again, academic research on this subject is quite clear and pretty much close to unanimous:
-Basic driver’s ed doesn’t reduce crash rates, because training doesn’t temper risk taking.
-Behind the wheel advanced/ defensive courses don’t reduce crash rates, and at least in the case of young males can actually lead to increased crash rates due to overconfidence created by the training.
-Courses taught in the US don’t work.
-Courses taught outside of the US don’t work.
These premises have been supported, time and time again, in studies conducted throughout the world, both in the US and outside of it. They don’t support and they directly contradict your position.
Sorry, but if you want to help us with teen drivers, then give them bus passes to keep them from driving. While you’re at it, also lobby to create a graduated licensing system for new drivers.
The problems with restrictions is that they need to be enforced for them to be effective.
That would be an argument in favor of raising the driving age, not for more training that doesn’t work and actually makes things worse. We don’t need confident teens with skidpad training, we need teens who prefer bicycles, walking and public transportation.
So how do the Germans do it, and how do the Spaniards and Italians not do it?
This I can’t prove, but I suspect that a lot of it is largely cultural. Orderly, predictable behavior is much better for safe driving, and some cultures are just more prone to self-imposed order and self-discipline.
It also helps to have a high percentage of traffic using interstate-type roads. They’re much safer than non-divided highways with intersections, even with the faster travel speeds. The ability to reduce head-on collisions can save a lot of lives.
It appears to me that the federal gov’t is doing the thing that it has the power to reduce accident and fatality rates in this country with. It doesn’t have the power to enforce stricter driver training requirements, since those are powers given to the individual states and not the federal government. So it is going directly to vehicle manufactures who they do have the power to regulate.
Cause I most definitely don’t see many states increasing the difficulty in which it’s citizens can get and keep their licences at the moment. Which is the only way to increase requirements for driver license training.
After moving to the USA from Australia, where driving is remarkably similar:
* Long distances travelled every day by loads of folks
* Lots of near empty rural B roads with little enforcement and little attention to road design and maintenance
* Similar levels of driver crappiness
* Similar ages of car fleets
* Somewhat similar mix of car sizes (we have lots of SUVs and large rear wheel drive sedans along with loads more hatchbacks and Euro oddities
There are marked differences though:
* We have uniform 35 year old seatbelt laws that are strictly enforced. Not wearing a seatbelt (driver or passenger) is expensive in $$$ and points to both the driver and the unbelted passenger.
* Hand held mobile phone use is banned in all states since 2002. Hands free is now banned too, but not in every state yet (AFAIK). The fine is astronomical ($500+) and 5 points is harsh. If only it applied to make up application and other stupid things you see on the roads.
* Our uniform BAC limit is 0.05 for most drivers and is strictly enforced for 30+ years with roadside blood and breath testing. It’s 0.00 for newbie drivers. We now have roadside drug testing, too. This did more than seatbelts in terms of reducing our death toll. Still, folks die from booze every day. I think mandatory interlocks are the way to go for those who’ve been lost their license even for a 0.51 infraction. Once a drug user, always a drug user.
* We are about have mandatory ESC and mandatory passenger airbags. We already have mandatory ABS and driver airbags. The government is already advertising on TV that you should not buy cars that do not have these features. The stats show that cars with these technologies are about 30% more likely to save your life than the same exact car without them. I’ve not had a car without them since 2001, and I’m never going back.
* Unfortunately, we have speed cameras and photo laser / radar everywhere. I have to drive past 12 speed cameras between home and my nearest large city. It’s pure revenue raising, and unrelated to safety. We have seen speed enforcement go through the roof and no consequential drop in roadside statistics since 2002.
Our death rate per mile is about half the US rate.
Yet, the folks who continue to be over representative in death statistics here are the young and stupid. They’re about to make it illegal for folks under 21 to have passengers after dark, and probably not able to drive (i.e curfew) if you’re a probationary driver after midnight til dawn to stop the massacre from the nightclubs. Unlike America, Australians drink too excess with actual alcohol and we like it that way. I really do think stopping the drink and drive culture is about the only way to stop young folks wrapping themselves around trees.
There’s a curvey bit of road in the hills near Melbourne that’s responsible for about 40 motorcycling deaths every year, which is about 1/8th of our entire road toll. I would like that road closed to motorcyclists. But as most folks who die there are in their 40-50’s, and thus the sort of voters that the government likes to pander to, I doubt it would happen.
Our (Australia’s) death rate per mile is about half the US rate.
This is quite inaccurate. During 2007, the fatality rate per 100 million kilometers was 0.75; convert that into miles, and the rate is 1.21 per 100 million miles, vs. 1.36 in the US during the same year.
Look at a state-by-state breakdown for Australia, and you can see that every state and territory aside from Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland has fatality rates that exceed those of the US average. Australia’s worst state is far worse than the US’ lowest performer (Northern Territory at 5.13 per 100 million miles versus Montana at 2.4) and its best underperforms the US (Victoria at 0.92, which is below Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont and Minnesota).
http://algin.net/austroads/site/Index.asp?id=15
Again, it’s difficult to compare fatality rates internationally, given differences in demography; rural areas generally have considerably higher death rates than do urban areas.
Also, without knowing how a “fatality” is defined in Australia, it’s difficult to know if we’re even comparing apples to oranges here. The US uses the broadest definition possible, so the Aussie data will either be similar or else be understated in comparison, depending upon what that is.
Cars are becoming safer from implementing different features.
You’re correct about that, and I misread your post re: ABS, so my apologies for that.
To clarify, passive safety features such as seat belts and air bags do work. The active features that are supposed to make us better drivers, such as ABS and third brake lights, generally have a short-term benefit but ultimately lose their effectiveness as drivers adjust.
The original post’s belief that training is key has been disproven, time and time again. As insulting as they may seem to be, the nanny systems that allow us to be less like ourselves are what do the most good. It’s really the human element that is the problem, and like it or not, the technology that allows us to be less impulsive and in control tends to be what accomplishes the most.