Great article. I agree a lot with the safety culture in commercial aviation and the commitment to investigate and fix root causes.
Now can we please apply the same standards to car crashes? The same human errors and bad infrastructure keep getting repeated over and over again. And the problems are getting worse, with SUVs and distracted driving on the rise.
The cognitive dissonance people have around this issue is astonishing. We are willing to ground the 737MAX fleet when a few people get a (surely terrifying) open air flying experience; but 44,000 people are killed on the road in the US _every_ year (and rising!) and very few people seem to care. In most age cohorts, death by car is the largest killer. In the US you have a 1 in 107 chance of dying in a car crash in your lifetime. Even simple and completely reasonable measures to reduce these insane numbers are seen as some kind of tyrannical affront to ones freedom (see the current CA measure to add speed limiters).
The car industry, car culture, and car centric thinking in the US and much of the world is totally out of control.
I too have thought a lot about this cognitive dissonance. I think that there are several differences to the two issues, and so, in people's attitude towards it too.
One, I think, is that flying is something that is being done to us, and driving is something that we do ourselves. So the agency, the point of view is very different. Something bad happening while being passive is much more horrifying because of the powerlessness.
The other is that cars and driving environments differ a lot, while planes are much more similar to each other. What I mean by this is that it's easier to dissociate the car deaths, because that happens to some other people over there, nothing like me, but plane badness happens to everyday folk in a big winged tube, like me.
I think that if we drove the planes ourselves, the issues would be much more similar. And similarly, if everyone took the train, the bus, or a ship, and similar things would happen to a train, bus or ship, the freakout would be similar to what we see now with planes.
> is that flying is something that is being done to us, and driving is something that we do ourselves. So the agency, the point of view is very different.
Correct. An all-too-popular viewpoint is, "I'm a good driver, unlike everybody else on the road!".
> if everyone took the train, the bus, or a ship, and similar things would happen to a train, bus or ship, the freakout would be similar to what we see now with planes
I believe this is the case already. A train or bus kills a few hundred a year, it makes national news for a week. Don't get me wrong, it's a tragedy and needs to be fixed. But then, those 44k car-related deaths are continually brushed aside.
The illusion of control. Most humans are instinctual predisposed to it, and it generally has to be unlearned. It's why blackjack is much more popular than roulette in a casino, even though there is much more room to play blackjack sub-optimally, but effectively zero chance of playing roulette in a way that hurts your chances of winning.
Even if you know you aren't a good driver, you would still carry around the idea that it was your own fault for not being a better driver. Its really the level of personal agency involved (and the sense of that agency being taken away) that causes the brushing aside.
I think the dissonance is surely curbed when sitting in a plane at cruising altitude realising that I am much more worried if these engines break down as opposed to my car, as I am likely to fall out of the sky.
Planes if broken down fall from the sky. Cars that breakdown don't. The people operating the plane are well trained, any tom dick and harry can drive a car without any check on their mental and physical state before they hop behind the wheel.
TIL that car fatalities were declining until 2019, and then reversed and are getting worse.
What happened in the last five years? Safety features of the cars themselves are improving (emergency braking). Alcohol may be a factor, but why in the last five years? Cars have been big for a while. WFH probably reduced commuting time. Other countries appear to be on the decline.
Ironically, heavy traffic is one of the better "safety features" of our automobile transportation system. Since crowded roads are higher-conflict roads, there is a bit of luck in the fact that traffic slows down when it gets crowded. There may be more collisions, but they are less deadly.
Suddenly there is a pandemic, and there are orders of magnitude fewer people on the roads. The number of collisions goes down, but the number of deaths goes up, because all of the collisions are at higher, deadlier speeds.
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Driving Went Down. Fatalities Went Up. Here's Why. by Charles Marohn
> TIL that car fatalities were declining until 2019, and then reversed and are getting worse.
Per your link, fatalities per mile drive bottomed out in 2014 and barely dropped after 2010. There's been some speculation that this reversal in safety was tied to the rise of smartphones and a corresponding increase of distracted driving.
Note that deaths per vehicle mile traveled (VMT) went up during Covid. Reducing commuting time doesn't necessarily reduce deaths under that metric -- just the opposite! Commuter trips are probably the safest per VMT since they're the most familiar.
There were stories about this effect, even as total collisions went down because of the bigger drop in VMT[1]. I speculated that this was a combination of
a) the above effect (stripping out the safer commuter trips), plus
b) the roads being dominated by people least willing to follow the advice to stay home, which correlates with being anti-social and reckless (mean though that sounds! [2])
My facebook friends suggested
c) the immense stress of coping with the Covid world made the average person less able to concentrate.
I also suspect:
d) traffic enforcement was reduced and drivers gradually started branching out into more aggressive maneuvers as they became aware of this.
Note that people saw their car insurance rates go down during covid because the typical personal policy only cares about accidents per unit time, and rarely adjusts for miles driven.
But I don't know why it hasn't regressed to the pre-covid levels -- probably because WFH hasn't completely reversed.
The driving majority has members who support buying tall heavy SUVs and pickup trucks "for their family's safety", running over pedestrians, speeding wherever they please, and protesting any kind of traffic calming or enforcement. And then there are the teens who run over cyclists for fun, such as in the case of Andreas Probst. Do you support that methodology?
I don't necessarily know that you can conclude from a few memes that people are actually out there doing this, I see it more as venting frustration. They're certainly advocating for it, though.
The vandals in question call themselves "Tyre Extinguishers". Search for that phrase in that subreddit, and you'll see it's full of people defending them.
I would never recommend this methodology to a friend or a family member. Drivers are vindictive, violent people and the risk is too high to be worth it.
And I hope they all go to prison. Used to be you'd be hanged for stealing a horse. Taking a person's means of transport is evil. I am, indeed, a vindictive and violent driver, apparently.
You just wished prison and positively mentioned hanging people in response for relatively harmless activism (tyres can be inflated again, you know). So yes, I think you are violent, at least when cars are mentioned.
To be clear, deflating tyres is illegal, but most successful activism campaigns are. I support the cause they're fighting for, unnecessarily huge cars hurt our environment and neighborhoods.
Wishing prison is morally correct. If you read what I was saying as "we should hang people for deflating tires", there may be another issue here.
I think my reaction highlights the clear issue in their thinking. I will never support anything these people want, because they hate me personally. Taking away people's transportation is a bad thing to do, period. If I go kick a bunch of puppies to campaign against people dying, I'm still a bad person.
> Taking away people's transportation is a bad thing to do
Drivers have been taking away transportation from non-drivers for decades. Look at suburbs without sidewalks. Look at winding suburban culs-de-sac that massively increase travel distance and make walking and cycling impractical. Look at the drivers who shout down any attempt to install bike lanes, or those who refuse to fund public transit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqQw05Mr63E
> they hate me personally
Sounds similar to drivers who want to run cyclists off the road. "Get off the road!" "You don't even pay insurance and road tax!" Also sounds similar to drivers who deny pedestrians the right to exist.
Overall, rpmisms, I don't think you appreciate your privileged position as a driver. Society has spent the last century bending over backwards to serve motorists like you. I hope you can develop a sense of compassion for those who are not in a car and are continually subjected to verbal and physical aggression from motorists.
I want better walkability and bicycle paths. I ride a motorcycle, I also have issues with cars acting awfully.
It's still wrong to damage others' property, even if your feelings are hurt. Motorists are the majority of the country, especially geographically. Don't you think more people would appreciate the privilege of being close enough to ride a bike? The real display of privileged behavior is injurious action against moral enemies. I have a lot more tolerance for someone losing their temper, as opposed to what is essentially gentle terrorism.
<whiney rant> After notjustbikes got big, he dropped any humility and started preaching to the choir, calling people who didn't agree with him racist idiots. I complained in the comments that I used to be able to recommend his videos sight-unseen to the people who needed to be convinced. He replied and insulted me as someone who just found his channel and couldn't take the truth. </whiney rant>
Unpopular opinion, but the truth: We have to drive and it's a right. I agree about the infrastructure issues. Still the modern "safe driving" mentality that people want is at odds with that REALITY.
This could change with public transit, however we don't do this. Even the best countries fall short, and most don't get close. It's actively discouraged in the USA.
Actually, you could argue that people already have to deal with too much BS to drive. The paperwork, rules, and so forth clearly are challenging for people to adhere to. So we throw the majority of people into a situation they aren't equipped for on a daily basis. Then this becomes a major cause of legal efforts, that alienate perfectly good citizens from society and cause us to forfeit our civil rights.
You can claim that people just need to be responsible, or we need to pass some safety law but it's delusional. The truth is we don't have a replacement for this. The average person can't afford to be carted around, and we would need to get to a place where driving was purely recreation.
So we are going to need very good public mass transit options, and IMO some kind of vast network of professional drivers that are more affordable than Uber, for the occasional "cargo trips" or to go "the last mile" (more like 10-50).
WTF? Driving is by definition a privilege. You're maneuvering a 2-ton murder machine.
We got into the current mess because people treat driving as a right - I have to have parking, I have to get there fast, I have to bend everything society to fit my car. And when someone gets caught for a DUI, judges go lenient because they know that taking away their license will obliterate their means to work and live.
> So we are going to need very good public mass transit options, and IMO some kind of vast network of professional drivers that are more affordable than Uber
Sort of. We need denser cities and mixed-use neighborhoods so that people can live close to the goods and services they need. Transit is a feasible problem as evidenced by Europe and Asia. No society has operated under the assumption of a vast network of professional private vehicle drivers (so, disregard bus drivers).
> go "the last mile" (more like 10-50)
That's the problem. We have to stop designing cities like that.
The point was to give an UNpopular opinion. The current driving system is a joke in need of reform. The poor suffer the most.
IMO people just need to cut some of the BS with this driving stuff. I don't think judges really go particularly leniently anymore. You can't function without a car.
The reality is that we probably need to accept that driving is here to stay as a basic NEED and act accordingly. Certain people that are extremely dangerous drivers are going to get their rights curtailed, however we should also support everyone functioning in society.
I think we need to get closer to the system I saw in Netherlands, however IMO it really fell short of what I want to see. Until we surpass this, I think we just need to accept driving.
Lots of jurisdictions, even in EU have vast areas with poor service. Most cities I've been in would be fine with public transit. It's networks of large population centers that can be easily connected, especially with good bike culture we could be just like the Netherlands. It's large swaths of the non-city land that contain people and towns that would be a challenge.
You can't just not drive. It raises alarm bells and attracts unwanted attention. I'm not the only one that's experienced this, I think you can find this on /r/fuckcars. An employer almost called the cops on me once. It's fucking weird. That's not even getting into how unsafe it can be.
How can we pretend this is a "privilege"? IMO it's like calling healthcare a privilege (which btw I also think is a right)
> Driving is by definition a privilege. You're maneuvering a 2-ton murder machine.
I think this point needs sharpening a bit by making the implicit explicit: "Driving" per se isn't the issue, it's where one does it and who else they may endanger when doing it badly or recklessly. People can maneuver 2-ton murder machines alone on their personal closed track as much as they want.
At least in the US I can see a reasonable argument for most people needing to drive, but it's much less obvious people need to drive the vehicles they do the way that they do to meet basic transportation requirements. One obvious if almost certainly unpopular solution would be to have the basic drivers license you get now with essentially no effort only cover small speed limited cars that would pose far less risk to everyone else on the road. If you want or need something larger or faster, require a separate license with testing, experience, and re-certification requirements in-line with the extra responsibility operating such a vehicle should involve. You abuse that even a little, back to a GPS speed limited Corolla hatchback you go.
This addresses the issue with a lack of driving alternative while also addressing the cases where people need more than basic transportation. But I guarantee people would lose their minds and start setting fire to their local DMV if such a change were even theoretically proposed. Because the problem with car culture in the US (and elsewhere) isn't that driving is a necessity, it's that being a driver comes with such a massive sense of unearned entitlement that any restrictions at all for any reason are treated as a massive violation of God given rights. Even attempts to enforce existing laws are met with absurd levels of hostility, like the opposition to red light or speed cameras.
I say this as someone who likes driving and likes cars, but as someone who is also a private pilot, the reason we don't have a driving safety culture like we have a flying safety culture is that the absolute worst possible example of an unsafe pilot you could imagine is basically the average driver. And not only is that driving behavior accepted in a way it never would be in the aviation community, but it's treated as an unassailable right.
They see it as an "entitlement", because that's how society works. Don't want to drive and you will immediately start to experience discrimination, including microaggressions (no it's not like being the victim of racial oppression, just another way wind up in an outgroup).
The REALITY that I think is still being ignored in this thread is we don't rely on planes for our day to day travel, on average. I'm never going to need to hop in a plane just to eat, make it to work, or meet my friends.
I don't think it's "an entitlement" to want food, to get to work, and not be treated as a burdensome freak. To the vast vast majority of people, even frequent business travelers, flying is for occasional long distance travel, never for day to day activities.
If we really get to the point where non-driving is treated equally to driving, I might agree. However this seems exceedingly unlikely and is incredibly expensive. It would require me to be able to get around as a non-driver with the same cost and convenience. This turns out not to be economically feasible.
People only have to drive because they (either directly or via elected officials) chose to design large swaths of land that were only livable if cars were elevated to the preferred mode of travel. Better infrastructure design (in general, points of interest being built closer together) would obviate something like 90% of car trips.
But being forced to drive was absolutely a choice, and one that, with some effort, can be undone.
There are a lot of factors that really complicate this system.
Enforcement focuses on the wrong parameters. Police love to remind us that, "Speed is always a factor." Well, it's certainly the most easily measured one. The trouble is, what speed is wrong? Is it the 5 cars who want to drive 90mph on the freeway, or the 2 cars who want to drive 65 in both lanes? By obsessively enforcing speed limits, police have managed to perversely incentivize the difference in speed between drivers who are willing to risk a ticket, and drivers who self-righteously bottleneck traffic. I have never even heard of the law, "keep right except to pass" being enforced, even though it seems pretty obvious that it would help.
People don't want to drive. People have to drive. That reality perversely incentivizes drivers to minimize effort. There is very little motivating drivers to drive better than they need to. How could we possibly change this incentive? Fear tactics are not working. Threats are not working. This is an open question: what if it has no answer?
Infrastructure demands backwards-compatibility. We can't just build a new part of a city without roads. Where would people put their cars? If people living there didn't have cars, then where could they go? Where could they work? Could anyone visit? Utopia must have a compatibility layer: somewhere that alternative transit can transition to highways. But where? If you have to park your car away from home, then you need to manage the risk of unattended property. If you have to get a ride in someone else's car, is that affordable? If you are going to take a bus, how long will you have to wait? How many busses will you have to transfer between? No matter what we do, the compatibility layer will always be inefficient.
Infrastructure demands infrastructure. The only solution to more traffic is more road. The only solution to more road is longer driving distance. The only solution to longer driving distance is more time in traffic, which is identical to more traffic. The only way to stop growing this system is to stop growing the amount of drivers. How can that be done? In order to become a non-driver, you need a minimum viable alternative, otherwise you will have to drive just like everyone else. In order for alternative transit to be viable, there needs to be enough of it around that it feeds its own infrastructure demand. If alternative transit is built with a highway-compatibility layer, then that compatibility will effectively remove the need for alternative-transit growth. Realistically, alternative transit won't start demanding itself until its utility is equal to the highway system. We can't build that all at once, so how can we overcome the already-present highway infrastructure demand cycle?
No matter how you look at it, the highway system is feeding the worst aspects of itself into its own growth. The only way to change this cycle is to build a lot of alternatives really fast, and make them dirt cheap. It's a political nightmare. Even so, I would much rather live in that nightmare than the one where rubber meets the road.
I don't really agree that this is the "trouble". Any competent transit-related professional knows what type of driving is wrong. Even American cops know [0] that in terms of traffic the key thing is to not impede traffic and target dangerous driving.
However, hunting school zone speeders, left lane hoggers and traffic weavers will never generate as much revenue as using an automatic machine that points at cars going faster than arbitrary number.
I love driving in the country, too. What I hate is driving in the city.
There is no need to completely eliminate the highway system. The need is to provide viable alternatives so that people who participate in the system do so by choice.
Besides, public transit doesn't need to involve any interpersonal interaction. You could have a private compartment and still be more safe and more efficient than commuter traffic.
Now can we please apply the same standards to car crashes? The same human errors and bad infrastructure keep getting repeated over and over again. And the problems are getting worse, with SUVs and distracted driving on the rise.
See https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/ for a community that is sounding the alarm on the insidiousness of car culture. Or see these reasonable urbanists if you think FuckCars is too extreme: https://www.youtube.com/@OhTheUrbanity/videos , https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes/videos , https://www.youtube.com/@CityNerd/videos