The constant switching between American and British nomenclature for drunk/drink driving ruins this for me
BATIRONSHARK on
TLDR Roundabouts and Highways Cameras Speed limits and Non alcoholic driving
shumpitostick on
Interesting article that looks at road safety and what works. From an American perspective, I think there are several interesting things here that the US, which has more than 5 times the road fatality rate of the UK, can look at. Roundabouts and drunk driving are some of the biggest areas of opportunity imo.
From a personal perspective, I immigrated from Israel to the US, and while I think the average American driver is much better than the average Israeli, there are still several things that the US lacks. The worst in my opinion is the road design. There are so many busy intersections which rely entirely on stop signs. In Israel all of these would have been roundabouts, which as the article states reduce collision rates by about two thirds. Another terrible kind of design is roads where to turn left, you have to yield to traffic coming the opposite way. You can get into situations where you have to force your way in to turn left, or turn only after the light has been yellow for a few seconds. You can also get surprised by cars travelling fast the other way.
Drunk driving, but also other forms of distracted driving like using your phone or being high on weed seem to have significantly lower awareness and higher acceptance than I’m used to. I’ve seen people arrive to parties in their car and drink, fully intent on drunk driving from the start. In Israel, we had lots of public campaigns to reinforce how bad drunk driving and driving with your phone are, but I haven’t seen much here.
hibikir_40k on
It’s simple enough: Non-congested highways are pretty safe without drunk driving. Make sure people don’t drink and drive in highways, by making sure their drinking establishments are easy to reach on foot, or barring that public transport.
In comparison, most Americans could not reach a bar on foot from their location, much less one to which their mates can also get to on foot. And to make things worse, having drinks near work often means highway driving on the way [back.You](http://back.You) either get rid of the alcohol or get rid of the highways.
Still, evaluating traffic safety just with deaths is very narrow. Most American cities have many non-deadly crashes in highways every single day. It’s better than if people were dying, but it’s not the kind of safety we should aim for: And yet that’s what we get when we enter ever larger vehicles that have trouble stopping quickly and will do significant property damage on a crash.
4 Comments
The constant switching between American and British nomenclature for drunk/drink driving ruins this for me
TLDR Roundabouts and Highways Cameras Speed limits and Non alcoholic driving
Interesting article that looks at road safety and what works. From an American perspective, I think there are several interesting things here that the US, which has more than 5 times the road fatality rate of the UK, can look at. Roundabouts and drunk driving are some of the biggest areas of opportunity imo.
From a personal perspective, I immigrated from Israel to the US, and while I think the average American driver is much better than the average Israeli, there are still several things that the US lacks. The worst in my opinion is the road design. There are so many busy intersections which rely entirely on stop signs. In Israel all of these would have been roundabouts, which as the article states reduce collision rates by about two thirds. Another terrible kind of design is roads where to turn left, you have to yield to traffic coming the opposite way. You can get into situations where you have to force your way in to turn left, or turn only after the light has been yellow for a few seconds. You can also get surprised by cars travelling fast the other way.
Drunk driving, but also other forms of distracted driving like using your phone or being high on weed seem to have significantly lower awareness and higher acceptance than I’m used to. I’ve seen people arrive to parties in their car and drink, fully intent on drunk driving from the start. In Israel, we had lots of public campaigns to reinforce how bad drunk driving and driving with your phone are, but I haven’t seen much here.
It’s simple enough: Non-congested highways are pretty safe without drunk driving. Make sure people don’t drink and drive in highways, by making sure their drinking establishments are easy to reach on foot, or barring that public transport.
In comparison, most Americans could not reach a bar on foot from their location, much less one to which their mates can also get to on foot. And to make things worse, having drinks near work often means highway driving on the way [back.You](http://back.You) either get rid of the alcohol or get rid of the highways.
Still, evaluating traffic safety just with deaths is very narrow. Most American cities have many non-deadly crashes in highways every single day. It’s better than if people were dying, but it’s not the kind of safety we should aim for: And yet that’s what we get when we enter ever larger vehicles that have trouble stopping quickly and will do significant property damage on a crash.