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Motorcycles have tires about the same diameter as car tires, but have a fatality rate that's nearly 28x worse. The lack of a safety cage protecting the passenger compartment is the primary factor. In a car accident, the car absorbs most of the impact energy. In a motorcycle or scooter or bike accident, you get to absorb most of the impact energy.

There's also the mass imbalance when a car and scooter collide (basically, the lighter vehicle bounces backwards off the heavier vehicle, resulting in occupants of the lighter vehicle experiencing nearly 2x the acceleration forces). But that can easily be eliminated from the comparison by looking only at single vehicle accidents.

• It's why we strive to further reduce airliner fatalities when it's already one or two orders of magnitudes safer than any other form of transport. The media gives plane accidents disproportionately more coverage than other transportation accidents, causing the public to demand planes be made safer than they already are.
• Same thing with child abductions. Abduction by a stranger is incredibly rare - only a few dozen cases happen each year. But because the media gives those cases wildly disproportionate coverage, every parent is scared to death to let their child out of their sight for 2 minutes.
• Shark attacks always seem to make the national news, even though on average only about 1 person is killed each year by sharks in the U.S. Meanwhile the approx 100 people killed each year by deer go unreported except maybe as a local news story.
• School shootings are another example - they've actually been decreasing over the last two decades. But because the media automatically splashes any school shooting on the national news, the public incorrectly thinks they're becoming more common. Statistically, more high school students are killed by complications from pregnancy (page 3) than from non-gang, non-suicide school shootings. But I've yet to see a news story take that angle against teen pregnancy.
• Terrorism. If you include all the 9/11 fatalities, you're roughly 4x as likely to die from terrorism than lightning. Exclude 9/11 and you're roughly 6x more likely to be killed by lightning. I think I've seen one news story in 40 years of someone being killed by lightning. Yet every terrorist incident, even the ones which fail and cause no damage or injury, seem to automatically make national news.
• Until the last couple years, the media basically ignored the decade-long rise in drug overdose deaths. It wasn't until it surpassed car accident deaths that they finally began taking it seriously. The day which crystallized this in my mind was the 2016 murder-suicide on the UCLA campus. That story immediately made national news with live coverage on all the major networks. On the very same day 2 people died and over 57 were hospitalized from drug overdoses at a music festival in Florida. But that story barely made it beyond the local papers, and I didn't see any coverage of it on TV. I only happened to see it because I clicked on a different story from a Florida newspaper in Google News.
• After overdoses and traffic accidents, suicide is the #3 cause of non-disease death. But it's extraordinarily rare to see a news story about a suicide unless it's a celebrity. Which is a real shame because this is probably the most preventable cause of death we have. And if more people knew how common it was, they probably wouldn't feel as alone with their problems to commit suicide.

And these are the

the expensive version isn't exactly a bowl of peaches either, having much higher insurance claims, severity, and totals http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/st...

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic... for some numbers.
Neither the Uber, nor the Tesla are self driving cars. In both a human did not take the action they should have taken. This is not even the 'I tried to break, but the brakes failed' scenario. That would be MORE like a self driving car incident.
Yes, looking ate the number of miles that people drive, people are safe drivers. 1.16 per 100.000.000 miles driven in the US.

So yes, 3 deaths would be a lot, but they have not yet happened.

There is a LOT of reasons the comparison is complete BS. IHS uses 'driver deaths' per registered vehicle years as the baseline because they know if a passenger dies it doesn't make a car more dangerous. Using IHS method, I can't see how Tesla AP would possibly come out near the top.

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/st...

At any given speed I would rather be in a smaller more maneuverable car.

However, the stats suggest that drivers of cheap SUVs die less than drivers of cheap saloon cars: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...
(Drivers of luxury cars are pretty safe, whatever their vehicle style).

I would imagine that there is some sort of override when the driver continues to press on the accelerator or increases. What's really going on is probably in 22% of the time despite warnings and automatic breaking, the driver's actions override the car and continue to back into objects.

If human overrides were factored in to the 78%, I agree that would probably represent close to ideal performance for the automated system. But the underlying article reads to me like the 78% was the result of a suite of fully automated tests.

That is also probably near ideal performance as chaos theory states that all robotic life will eventually rise up and attempt to kill their masters.

I would imagine that there is some sort of override when the driver continues to press on the accelerator or increases. What's really going on is probably in 22% of the time despite warnings and automatic breaking, the driver's actions override the car and continue to back into objects.

If human overrides were factored in to the 78%, I agree that would probably represent close to ideal performance for the automated system. But the underlying article reads to me like the 78% was the result of a suite of fully automated tests.

Even most European cars aren't capable of passing our small offset crash test, yet. USDM cars are provably safer than those in any other market.

so he looks at the IIHS crash tests database(2018 models) under the small offset crash test:

Poor:
Nissan Versa, Fiat 500, Hyundai Accent, Nissan Juke, Nissan Leaf, Jeep Patriot, Dodge Journey, Dodge Grand Caravan, Nissan Frontier

Marginal:
Toyota Yaris, Mitsubishi Mirage, Ford Fiesta, Kia Rio, Volkswagen Beetle, Hyundai Velostor, Chryslar 300, Chryslaer Charger (4 dr), Chryslaer Challenger (2 dr), Cadillac CTS, Volkswagen Tiguan, Jeep Wrangler, Jeep Cherokee, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Dodge Durango, Ford Explorer, Toyota 4Runner, Chevrolet Silverado, Toyota Tundra, Dodge Ram 1500

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings

What car do you drive?
You're really driving a Euro car aren't you?

If a Chrysler PT Cruiser gets into a serious front-end fender bender, the entire front end gets replaced for $4k. Just nuts!

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/most-small-cars-arent-economical-for-crash-repairs-ford-focus-performs-the-best-rabbit-and-prius-are-the-worst-in-bumper-tests

This. Distracted driving laws make driving significantly less safe. They're exactly backwards, and those of us with common sense have been saying this since the first distracted driving laws were first proposed. But states keep passing them anyway, and they keep proving us right by producing statistically significant increases in accident rates despite the appearance of a reduction in use (Trempel et al). And it isn't just the anti-handheld talking laws. Anti-texting laws had the same effect.

You want a cell phone law that will reduce accidents? Make it legal to use a cell phone, but only if you hold it in a way that you can use your peripheral vision to see the road. Make it illegal to use it in your lap and legal to hold it up in front of your face for brief interactions. Encourage app developers to add low-distraction modes for their mobile apps so that you can interact with the basic controls at a glance.

Of course, the problem is compounded by car companies that keep switching to non-tactile touchscreen interfaces on their high-end cars, thus guaranteeing that drivers get used to taking their eyes off the road for extended periods of time. And make it illegal for new cars to be sold with touchscreens on the front of the dashboard while you're at it. Require the screens to pop up from the top of the dashboard instead.

Here's some stats:

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...

If there were massive crashes every day, why would they be news?

Yep, still news. Because road closures (usually what happens with trucks crashing) is something people need to know so they can avoid the area.

In all honesty, though, European roads are designed better on average. They have roundabouts but few rotaries, while Americans have rotaries that cause maximal contention points and more crashes. They have long merge lanes and stronger lane-control rules, whereas American highways are designed with the briefest window to get on the highway or else you're getting right back off, and so you're contending with people trying to exit while you're trying to enter. They've also got better driver's education--we learn to operate a car, and my driver's test was three right turns in a parking lot; I failed it; and the proctor passed me in frustration on my fourth try by falsifying some of the numbers.

Funny, I have seen multiple roundabouts, but no rotaries, in the US at least. Some admittedly seriously screwed up signaled intersections. Modern highways all have longer entrance/exit merge areas, except for those built prior to 1965 or so, as compared to the 0 merge areas on many autobahns in Europe. On driver's education, absolutely, it's far better in Europe. My impression is that if you can start the car and put it in gear, you'll get a license in half the US.

EU statistics for 2014 show that heavy trucks were responsible for 15% of deaths caused by road collisions. In the U.S, of 6 million crashes each year, 0.5 million (8.3%) involve trucks, and are responsible for 9% of deaths caused by road collisions. Unfortunately, nobody's doing the statistics of collisions per VMT, and what you really want to know is fatal and non-fatal collisions per vehicle miles traveled. For this particular problem, we want to know the statistics for highway collisions per highway miles traveled.

Does it really matter per mile traveled? Or total number per year? Btw, for 2008:

• 123,918 large trucks and 13,263 buses involved in non-fatal crashes
• 49,084 large trucks and 7,123 buses involved in injury crashes
• 73,047 injuries in crashes involving large trucks and 16,760 injuries in crashes involving buses
• 74,834 large trucks and 6,140 buses involved in tow-away crashes
• 2,609 large trucks and 11 buses involved in hazmat (HM) placard crashes

and in 2015, 11% of US fatalities were truck related.

The U.S. doesn't allow trucks to ride the left lane in most locales. They ride in the center lane at speed, away from the busy right-lane contention points---you know, the string of constant intersections. Apparently most crashes occur there. Because of the high speed of travel in the left lane, trucks would either need a lot of stopping distance (which nobody is giving them) or a lower speed (causing dangerous lane changes around them, creating additional contention points and more collisions), so banning them from the left lane is sensible.

You, you pointed out problem #1 with trucks on the highway - they require significantly more distance to stop at speed. The European solution to require them to drive slower immediately works out. Also, since they require more distance, they should keep larger spacing between them and whomever is in front of them. So, the right lane contention becomes really no contention if they're a) moving more slowly and b) keep appropriate spacing. Trucks are a hazard to regular vehicles, and shouldn't be permitted to endanger them unnecessarily. They should share the roads responsibly. Right now, in the US, they do not.

If the small overlap test was invented in 2012, how did the Volvo s80 pass it in 2007? http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratin... click on "other model years" to see the test results through time.

i jsut have no tolerance for people like you who think that driving is anything less than a serious responsibility. The sooner we get people like you out from behind the wheel, the better.

Nationwide in the US, ~30% of driver fatalities involve alcohol: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...

I've lived in Japan for the past 6 years, and when I first got here I was amazed that they have these long-established taxi services called "daiko", to prevent drunk driving. ( https://japan365.wordpress.com... ) If we are serious about preventing road fatalities, why aren't these services prolific in the states? Why don't we have stiffer penalties for DUIs, and lower BAC limits?

I know a LOT of "recreational drivers". NONE of them go joyriding under the influence. So if anything they take the responsibility of operating a motor vehicle more seriously than the general population. Japan is where drifting was invented, and to this day there remains a large subculture of late-night street racing. Yet the country has significantly lower fatality rates than the US: ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... ). Also note that, unlike the US, Japan has almost no fatalities due to intoxicated drivers ( http://www.stat.go.jp/english/... ), despite the fact that BAC limit in Japan is 0.03 instead of the US's 0.08.

Insurance rates are all about numbers, and the instant the autonomous cars surpass human safety numbers, human-driving will be over.

If that's the case, and it's all about insurance liability, why aren't motorcycles illegal or otherwise priced out of the market? Hell, why aren't sports cars ALREADY so stupid-expensive to insure that no one could afford them?

Full disclosure: I used to drift here in Japan, until I wrecked my Toyota Chaser and parted it out (a single-vehicle, low-speed accident at ~2am, on a public road only used to access a fenced-off area on rare occasions). I still own a sports coupe (Toyota Supra) that is getting upgraded to ~600hp for non-drifting fun on the streets. Last year I got a motorcycle license and bought a 250cc naked bike. I ride ATGATT (All The Gear, All The Time). Outside of computers and women, automotive hobbies are the biggest allocation of my time, and by far biggest allocation of recreational funds. Yet my insurance is CHEAP compared to what people pay in America (No argument for Liberty can silence the 30,00 dead every year from auto collisions.

What is your objective? What number of auto fatalities is acceptable? 10,000? zero?

Enjoy it while you can, we are coming for exactly people like you

Are you this vitriolic in your efforts to prevent other sources of mortality, such as suicide (42,000+ in 2014)? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fasta...

Your post is a perfect example of why the Nanny State is so despised. You exaggerate the risk posed by some activity that you don't like (usually a position borne out of gross ignorance), and then go on a crusade to undermine people's ability to enjoy themselves by leveraging the government and other institutions to stuff other individuals back into the box of what your erroneous ideals tell you is the "approved" way of living. The sort of busybody that is active in Homeowner Associations, making everyone else miserable.

This guy gets it: ( https://books.google.com.vn/bo...)

I mostly see lights with a delay where all are red very briefly, but it could be where I have lived in the US. What annoys me is that even with that there are often people entering the intersection when the other traffic's light turns green.

I believe we should get much tougher with driving tests in the US. One thing I would add for states which get a lot of snow is some sort of testing in the ability to handle it. I'm not sure how to practically do this year round though - simulated snow course?

I've never been to the UK so I can't really speak to the drivers or road engineers there.

Also I wonder what the stats look like on a more granular scale than just the US.

I found a state by state breakdown:

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...

From 0.52 deaths per 100 million miles in Massachusetts to 1.89 deaths per million miles in South Carolina.

Montana is 2nd worse at 1.81 but I assume that is due to long distances and harsh winters. I don't know what's going on in SC.

Interestingly, 94% of MA fatalities are urban while only 28% of SC's are. SC is more rural to be sureso I'm not sure how useful that is.

The interesting thing that I find in the gun control debate is that Progressives show great concern and compassion for gun victims and demand we "do something" because of all the deaths from guns.....

From the site http://www.gunviolencearchive....

Total number of gun deaths in 2014: 12,556

That is a horrifying number and is alarming. However, those same Progressives literally shrug off this statistic:

from the site https://www.guttmacher.org/fac...

Total number of abortions in the US in 2014: 926,200

Thats nearly TWO orders of magnitude more deaths.

I know I know, "clump of cells" and all. But Progressive are incredibly blasé about life in one sense and incredibly dramatic about it in another.

Another statistic:

From the site: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...

Car crash deaths: 35,092

So I'll finish with this. I get that strengthening abortion restrictions is something that Progressives won't do because well "those aren't people". And the Right won't move on gun restrictions because of the right to bear arms.

But you know what would be the best thing and save a lot of lives would be? How about we keep government from restricting our access to self driving cars because they can't figure out who will be liable. Because the longer we wait to get access to self driving capabilities the more people will be impacted by that last number. And thats one we can actually affect, although ironically by having the government not overly regulate.

I think you mean "Oh, Science..."

The majority of studies show that accident rates go up, not down, when red-light cameras are put in place. Eliminating red-light cameras is the logical response.

This study shows that complaints go down, not up, when police use body cameras. The logical response would be to continue using body cameras and continue studying the results to verify that the effect isn't temporary or isolated.

True, and those same studies show that the kind of accidents change when red-light cameras are introduced. We've gone over this many times.
When red-light cameras are emplaced the number of rear-end accidents go up and T-bone accidents go down. The net effect is that the number of crashes with injuries goes down and especially down is the number of deaths. So it matters what number you pick from the study to look at. I happen to think the number of serious injuries and deaths is more important than the number of broken tail-lights.
http://www.iihs.org/frontend/i...

As for the complaints against police, the actual study is at http://cjb.sagepub.com/content... and it contains many self-criticisms. It should be mentioned that the police are required (in these studies) to tell the person they are confronting that they are being recorded.
There is clearly a Hawthorne effect going on here.
One of the things the study's authors want to know, but there is no data, is whether the kinds of interactions change. That is, are the police doing fewer stop-n-frisk type interactions, that is, are they avoiding interactions where there is a greater likelihood of civilian resistance?
This is a study that is well worth reading.
http://cjb.sagepub.com/content...

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic... http://www.cheatsheet.com/auto... It seems Tesla isn't doing to bad. The Nissan 350Z had 143 deaths per million registrants.

Total
Deaths %
Arterial 20,233 62
Collector 5,654 17
Local 6,070 19
Total 32,675 100

Arterial are highways, and all are high speeds, so ~2/3 are highways. As such, the roads that AP is used on has an average fatality rate of 1 / 40-45 million miles. Compare that to 1 fatality / 130+ million miles by a Tesla running AP.
Even now, Tesla AP is saving a number of lives.

Another data point - Deaths on Texas Roads are 1 in 70 million. while not all highway driving, I would assume that the distribution is pretty skewed in favor of it.

But maybe more pertinent
More than half of the deaths occur at speeds > 55mph. (assuming this is highway) -- http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...
This seems to suggest that your likelihood of dying is the same on or off the highway, though I imagine you are probably more likely to get into an accident off the highway, just not likely to die from it. Unfortunately, you would need to get a number on the the miles driven on and off highways, I couldn't find it quickly.

I don't know the American numbers. Where I live most fatalities happens on small country roads by people driving too fast in the dark, sometimes drunk. They happen at highway speeds, but not on highways. Fatalities on highways are an order of magnitude less common.

Another data point - Deaths on Texas Roads are 1 in 70 million. while not all highway driving, I would assume that the distribution is pretty skewed in favor of it. But maybe more pertinent More than half of the deaths occur at speeds > 55mph. (assuming this is highway) -- http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic... This seems to suggest that your likelihood of dying is the same on or off the highway, though I imagine you are probably more likely to get into an accident off the highway, just not likely to die from it. Unfortunately, you would need to get a number on the the miles driven on and off highways, I couldn't find it quickly.

"the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated," while a fatality happens once every 60 million miles worldwide..

It is quite disingenuous as it is comparing US high-end vehicle driver statistics with world-wide statistics including 3rd-world countries where driving can be borderline suicidal. As a quick comparison via Google. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports as of 2014 (last year stats are available, including all vehicle types), there were 32,675 vehicle crash-related fatalities. By state, that ranges between one fatality in 68 million miles driven (South Dakota) and 161 million miles driven (Vermont), with an average of one fatality in 92.5 million miles traveled nation wide. So even the worst-case US example is better than the claimed fatality rate.

You're not being honest, though; that's the point. France took away the "toys" and, yet, they still have the dead people. I'm not okay with dead people (well, as a natural part of the life cycle, actually, I am, but I digress), I just realize that removing easy access to commercially manufactured guns doesn't solve the problem. If it did, France would have fewer mass shootings per-capita than the US, not more. Given the same population (that's why the statistics are per-capita) we should be able to expect fewer mass shootings (not mas shooting deaths, but the shootings themselves) in France than the US, but that simply does not follow reality or facts, both of which actually do matter.

You want facts? You want to concentrate on the number of people killed? The 2015 stats aren't out yet, but here's 2010-2014. For the FBI's purposes, 1 death = 1 murder, so these numbers are the actual number of people killed, not simply the number of incidents.

We're talking about banning rifles, right? Let's analyze the data, then. I'll even throw in shotguns to make it fair.

Let's look at the most recent statistics first: 2014. There were a total of 11,961 murders reported in 2014, of which 8,124 involved guns. Sounds bad, right? It is, but it's not bad for rifles, which were used in only 248 of those. Add in the 262 shotgun murders and long guns (510) still haven't killed more people than hands, fists, and feet (660) or knives (1,567).

I know, I know, there's a huge number of "type not stated" firearm murders. Let's take a look at those, then. If we assume the same ratio of handguns to rifles to shotguns to other[1] (5562:248:262:93, or 90.22%, 4.02%, 4.25%, and 1.51% respectively), we can add 79 rifle murders and 83 shotgun murders. Still, neither killed more people than hands, fists, and feet, or knives. Combined (672), they're just barely more deadly than hands, fists, and feet; they still don't touch knives, though.

Do you want to ban handguns? Or do you want to jump on the "ban rifles" bandwagon and not affect any real change? I ask because, and here's the important part, these statistics hold true as far back as I can find it.

If you want to ban handguns, we can talk. I mean, they're the most useful guns for personal and home defense in typical situations, and they're the most prevalent and will be literally impossible to remove from circulation (or reduce in any meaningful number), due to how easy they are to hide or transport, but they do consistently account for more than 50% of murder weapons in the US (going back to 2001, there are only 3 years [2001, 2010, and 2013] where they only accounted for nearly half), so maybe that would be worth trying. We could spend billions on it like we've done with marijuana and prostitution, I'm sure it'll work this time.

But rifles? Consistently 2%, except for 2002 and 2007 where they weighed in at 3%. Hell, hands, fists, and feet consistently more than double that; and knives? Consistently at 12% or higher.

Want to affect real change? Make it harder to get, and easier to lose, your drivers license. That should cut down some of the 32,675 annual vehicle-related deaths, a number which absolutely dwarfs the murder rate (nearly triple!), weighing in at more than four times the rate of gun-related murder. Rifle and shotgun murders are rounding error, something I'd expect you to be familiar with given the way you attempted to school me in statistics earlier.

People

The Model S outsells every model in Volvo's lineup so clearly Tesla is doing something customers appreciate more than Volvo

Volvo's customers have fourteen models to chose from.

Volvo sold 52,279 cars in March alone, up 12% from last year. Volvo Car Group Retail Sales By Car Model - March 2016

Volvo is serious about autodrive, with full autonomy coming soon, possibly as early as 2018. But there is no question that Volvo is building some very good cars right now.

Crashworthiness:

Small overlap front G
Moderate overlap front G
Side G
Roof strength G
Head restraints & seats G

Crash avoidance & Mitigation

Front crash prevention Superior [6 Points]

Low speed autobrake 2 Points
High speed autobrake 3 Points

Child Seat Anchors (LATCH) ease of use A

2016 Top Safety Pick - 2016 Volvo XC90

That said, this article claims motorcycles experienced 26 TIMES the number of deaths per mile in 2013 (i.e. 2600% the fatal accident rate). Another Wikipedia article claims 30 times the fatal accident rate.

So, you might be a more careful rider, more aware of your surroundings, paying more attention to the road, but you're not safer. Also, wearing gear other than a helmet almost certainly does not reduce your risk of death (but probably makes for a prettier corpse). You can wear the nicest pair of leathers, but when that Volvo driving soccer mom blows through the intersection and t-bones you none of that stuff is going to help (even the helmet isn't going to save you in a head on collision). Quiz: where is the crumple zone on a motorcycle? Answer: You're it.

And seriously, my experience is that most bad motorcycle accidents are caused by cager drivers doing something unexpected (half the time because they just didn't see you). So, it's good that you're aware of your surroundings because you can avoid a lot of accidents by having your head on swivel. But... don't think that you are safe. Just enjoy riding and realize

I'm not trying to say don't ride. I've been riding since I was 14 (and I'm 59 now). I raced when I was a kid, and I've owned 1 liter crotch rockets since the 80s... Still riding a 1000RR Fireblade. I'm also a commercial helicopter pilot... and, there's no doubt in my mind, riding motorcycles is the most dangerous thing I do.

Ride safe, and keep your life insurance paid up! Cheers! Check out this fun page.

Your individual freedom ends just before my bumper, so if self-driving cars result in a significant decrease in accidents, I have little sympathy for your desire to be able to T-bone my car in an intersection and kill my family when you missed the stop sign because you sneezed.

Do you take the same approach with your neighbors? Do they use gas powered lawn mowers or trimmers? The emission from those is a significant health hazard. How about barbecue grills or burning trash? House fires are much more prevalent in neighborhoods that allow open burning. Let's not forget that the neighbor that has trees in his yard is also a hazard to you because in a storm or high wind, that tree can come crashing through your roof.

Now, if you are really concerned about protecting your family, don't live in a major city, where accident rates are significantly higher. Of course, that is your personal choice, but then that isn't about the other person's liberty or choice having a negative impact on your life, but instead it is directly related to your choice.

If they are running their gas powered leaf blower in my living room, or driving their lawn tractor through the side of my house, yeah, I'd take the same approach - use it if you want to, but keep it out of my property and don't put my life at risk.

Open burn is not allowed where I live, and any burning at all is restricted across the state based on weather conditions. Yet people keep moving here faster than housing can be built to accomodate them.

don't live in a major city, where accident rates are significantly higher

I don't believe that's true, auto fatalities are split pretty evenly between rural/urban, but more people live in urban areas, so the rate is actually lower in urban areas.

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...

“urbanized areas” of 50,000 or more people ... For the 2010 count, the Census Bureau has defined 486 urbanized areas, accounting for 71.2 percent of the U.S. population.
http://www.citylab.com/housing... [citylab.com]

But you're missing the entire point of self driving cars -- to reduce the accident rate *everywhere*

Do you have a citation for that claim? Genuinely curious, I've got a study that indicates otherwise and there's a number of others that conclude the same thing - including benefits. Here's a good write-up about one such study:
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/...

Here's another good article about that:
http://www.planetizen.com/node...

The key takeaway from that:

"A 2010 meta-study of dozens of research papers on speed cameras found a uniformly positive effect on street safety, with a 30 to 40 percent reduction in crashes that cause serious injury or death following the rollout of most programs," wrote Aaron Bialick for Streetsblog SF in January.

I've not actually seen anything that says the opposite of that. It's not that they're not without some problems but that they certainly *do* affect driver behavior. At least according to those studies. I... Err... I spent a long time in the traffic modeling industry - I generally try to keep abreast of developments.

Again, this is KGIII - posting as an AC 'cause I ran out of posts. That 50 post limit is kind of silly but, alas, I can go no further. I will keep this open to see if you've got some sort of study. I'm kind of interested in seeing this evidence that you've got. It might be of come in handy.

First, there is NO such thing as 100% death proof. There have been 5 serious injuries/deaths in around 75,000 Model S. 1) a car thief that hit an old 1920's street light at over 100 MPH and split the car in half. He actually died a day later. 2) a car that went over a cliff and dropped over 300 feet. 3) another car that went over a cliff and bounced some 250 feet off the sides. 4) another one that had a head-on with a semi-truck that ran OVER the Tesla, crushing it. 5) the most recent in which an old man drove through a garage and put the car in a pool, but was unable to escape and drowned. Beyond that, tesla is by far the safest car ever made and yet, it is NOT 100% safe. It is STILL possible to die in it.

"The group said no drivers of '88 through '92 Volvo 240s were killed during those years [between 1989 and 1993]" http://community.seattletimes.... 5 people were killed in a 240 the next year, though, when they were hit head on. http://www.iihs.org/externalda...

I get that _you_ may feel safer if something else does things for you but lets be realistic about the numbers and risk. Fear mongering is not how you go about advocating change, but that is what you are attempting to do. The appeal to emotion is way too obvious.

To start, we are moving the numbers to more recent 2013, in which you had a .0088% chance of a fatal car crash.

By comparison, you had a .17% chance of dying do to heart disease, a .02% chance of dying from diabetes. You had a higher chance of death by suicide and influenza than you did from a car wreck. (math done using a sample size of 350,000,000 and numbers from the CDC and here (easier to find than numbers hidden in the bowels of the CDC PDF).

The point is there are lots of risks in life. Breathing in a lung full of air could cause you to catch influenza, or pneumonia. You are way more likely to DIE from those things than by driving a car, even with shitty drivers on the road. Eating poorly, not exercising, and ingesting the wrong substances (carcinogens) are exponentially more deadly than cars.

If you want to push self driving cars I'm fine with that. You can buy one and do as you wish. Current technology does not make them that much better than humans. Come to Mountain View and drive around near one. They can't differentiate between a speed limit sign and a "during school speed limit" sign so we end up having big backups on some main roads because of those cars. They don't accelerate any faster than my grandma, and don't break any better or worse than a person either.

One day I'm sure they will be great, but that day is not today. I would still rather have the option of manual versus no control of the car. Think about tyranny and extortion for a minute, and that can be corporate as well as government.

"but a motocyclist doesn't have to wear a helmet."

This is somewhat misleading. Almost every state in the U.S. has some type of motorcycle helmet law:
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...

For the states with "partial" laws, this is usually the requirement that the rider maintain a $10,000 insurance policy, as well as an age requirement.

The helmets I've seen people riding around with, on motorbikes, here in Canada are typically pathetic and wouldn't protect your head any better than a baseball cap. Just padded beanies.

You rarely see people wearing a helmet that would be legal in Europe or, for that matter, riding a motorbike thats better than a toy.

"but a motocyclist doesn't have to wear a helmet."

This is somewhat misleading. Almost every state in the U.S. has some type of motorcycle helmet law:
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...

For the states with "partial" laws, this is usually the requirement that the rider maintain a $10,000 insurance policy, as well as an age requirement.

Source from CDC (as of 2011).

Source from IIHS (as of 2013).

This will save lives. Even with excellent drivers behind the wheel.

Maryland just abolished the parallel parking requirement, because of the growing moron population. Automated safety systems can come none too soon.

Montana is 48th in population density - there's hardly anyone there (less than 7 people per square mile). The 2013 Census estimates put the Billings population at 109,059, the only city in Montana to surpass 100,000 people. The State of Montana had total length of 69,567 miles of national and state highways, roads and streets in the year of 2006.

With a total population of only 1 million, if every single man, woman, and child had their own car and took to the road at the same time, there'd be an average of 360 feet between each car.

However, even with this ultra-low traffic density, Montana drivers suck

The fatality rate per 100,000 people ranged from a low of 3.1 in the District of Columbia to a high of 22.6 in Montana. The death rates per 100 million vehicle miles traveled ranged from 0.56 in the District of Columbia to 1.96 in Montana.

Low traffic density and they still manage to kill themselves more often per mile than anyone else. Maybe they just reached "peak crash deaths."

From the story:

Research shows that sticking to the speed limit when other cars are going much faster actually can be dangerous, Dolgov says, so its autonomous car can go up to 10 mph (16 kph) above the speed limit when traffic conditions warrant.

Anyone know what "research" Dolgov is referring to? It's always been self evident to me that a car travelling slower than the flow of speeding traffic is a danger, but actual evidence would be nice.

Not that it matters. We don't really prioritize safety. We pay lip service to safety and then pursue other agenda. If safety was our first priority small cars wouldn't be allowed on roads; mortality and injury severity is substantially higher for light vehicles. And no, it's not because SUVs are slaughtering Prius owners. It's physics; all else being equal a small, light vehicle will more often kill or more severely injure you in a crash.

Statistics and facts don't agree with you:

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/texting-bans-dont-reduce-crashes-effects-are-slight-crash-increases

Numbers don't lie. Think about what you are advocating. In South Carolina a texting ban was just approved. Anyone that gets into any minor accident now can have their entire cellphone bill accessed to verify they weren't texting. We just created the lowest bar ever for a court to approve access to cellphone records by local police. I can't even imagine what would happen if they wanted to see your Google Talk or iChat logs to verify you weren't using them.

I responded to you already, but here is some more:

Strayer DL, et al. "A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver," Human Factors (Summer 2006): Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 381–91. http://www.distraction.gov/dow...

Fitch, G. A., Soccolich, S. A., Guo, F., McClaffert y, J., Fang, Y., Olson, R. L., Perez, M. A., Hanowski, R. J., Hankey, J. M., & Dingus, T. A. (2013, April).
The impact of hand-held and hands-free cell phone use on driving performance and safety-critical event risk
(Report No. DOT HS 811 757). Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
http://www.distraction.gov/dow...

From the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety:
"Two epidemiological studies have linked talking on a cellphone directly to increased crash risk, using cellphone billing records to verify phone use of crash-involved drivers. A 2005 Institute study of drivers in Western Australia found that when drivers were talking on mobile phones there was a fourfold increased likelihood of a crash resulting in injury to the driver. 10 The findings were consistent with 1997 research that showed phone use among Canadian drivers was associated with a fourfold increase in the risk of a crash involving property damage but no injury."

Seriously, there have been hundreds of studies on this topic. If all you can find is one paper, LMGTFY

You are an idiot.

Women between the ages of 30 and 50 (i.e. mothers) have the lowest fatality and accident rates of any other age or gender group.

See here as one example of easily obtainable information: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...

--
cheers - ben

n.b. Leaf Owner.

Agreed. The leaf is just too range challenged. (Claims 100miles, owners say half of that)

Leaf owners aren't claiming 50 mile ranges, at least not in bulk.

I do blended highway/city driving in a huge sprawl city, and I get about 86. [That's 3.9 miles per kWh, which jives with what a lot of people will tell you.] Even under the worst possible conditions (all freeway) I get the 70 miles necessary to go to my office and back.

Add to that, the leaf has little in the way of creature comforts or high tech gadgetry.

What creature comforts do you think the leaf is missing?

It matches most other lines of car at similar prices in terms of features. The mid-level version (which is less than 3k ask over the base) has a nice XM stereo with on-steering-wheel controls, navigation, heated seats, heated mirrors, etc. It's nothing "fancy," but it's certainly not missing hightech gadgetry. The base model is only missing built-in navigation and has cheaper wheels.
http://www.nissanusa.com/elect...

Its safety rating is Good, (code word for mediocre)

Perhaps. "Good" at IIHS is their top rating. It's only 4 out of at Safecar.gov USnews gave it a 9, which is in the middle of other Hybrid/Electric cars.

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratin...
http://www.safercar.gov/Vehicl...
http://usnews.rankingsandrevie...

Its a pretty bare bones car, sold at a loss.

As mentioned, it is not any more bare than any other car in this price range.

Its performance is abysmal

You haven't driven one, or you're only interested in high-speed driving. Yes, the Leaf tops out at 93mph (that's a 10,000rpm artificial limit on the motor), but it's VERY VERY quick in city situations, and certainly doesn't suffer getting on the freeway either. You've got full torque from a stop. You never worry about merging or having to beat someone out to change lanes. It's not a giant beast, but it's by not means a car with "abysmal performance."

Heh, someone upthread posted an article that demonstrates this unintended consequence is already happening.

The NY police are making things worse - texting bans increase crashes.

clearly drivers did respond to the bans somehow, and what they might have been doing was moving their phones down and out of sight when they texted, in recognition that what they were doing was illegal. This could exacerbate the risk of texting by taking drivers' eyes further from the road and for a longer time."

But since when did NY ever let data get in the way of a bad law? If it means more revenue, more cops, and someday anti-texting Hummers, then screw the people getting in car crashes.

1 in 8142 insured passenger cars, SUVS and pickups for model years 2010-12 were involved in a noncrash fire claim.

93 Fusions over MY2010 to MY2012 (800000 insured vehicles) caught fire without even being involved in a crash. Extrapolate that to ~62 Fusions for MY12 -MY13, and that's not even counting the ones involved in accidents.

source: http://www.iihs.org/media/ae7293cc-294f-4e31-b3ad-827b25317eb8/-1367394320/HLDI%20Research/Fire%20losses/HLDI_FireLosses_0913.pdf

2010-2012: 93 insured Ford Fusions caught fire (3-yr period, so 31 per year) without even being involved in crashes or vandalism. (That's 2010-2012 model year, not claim year, i.e. we aren't talking about 8-year-old Ford Fusions here.)

That's out of 800000 insured-years of vehicles, or ~267000 vehicles insured for 3 years each. At 31 per year, that's roughly 1 in 8000 insured Ford Fusions catch fire every year, without even being involved in accidents. In two years, that would be 2 in 8000 (i.e. 1 in 4000).

Sure it's not 2013 stats, but over two years, 1 in 4000 insured Ford Fusions caught fire just standing still.

Coincidentally, the Ford Fusion stats happen to be almost right at the average - according to the source below, 1 in 8142 insured passenger cars, SUVs and pickups has a noncrash fire claim made against it.

source: http://www.iihs.org/media/ae7293cc-294f-4e31-b3ad-827b25317eb8/-1367394320/HLDI%20Research/Fire%20losses/HLDI_FireLosses_0913.pdf

For example how do I know that medicine is safe to take. I am unable to test it for myself, not being a biochemist.

Do you do an EE analysis on the electrical products you buy, or do you look for the UL (Underwriters Laboratories) sticker? Drugs are an interesting example here because the FDA has crowded out any private provider, where it's hard to compete against "free", especially when "private non-profit" is illegal.

a mechanical engineer to decide whether a car was safe

So you don't go by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crash test ratings? Consumer Reports even includes their data and adds additional criteria like comfort and maintenance ratings.

I have no choice but to rely on the government for many things, because I am unable to get the required expertise to be completely self-reliant.

Have you ever checked on whether a doctor was board certified, whether a bike helmet was ANSI or Snell rated, or whether a manufacturing company was ISO9001?

The only time you don't have a choice is when the government has come in to take over an industry. Ask the organic food folks, where the third party certifying organizations have been driven out of business by the feds, who allow non-organic material in foods that are allowed to be labeled as "organic" by them (but were not by the independent parties).

We reduced the BAC limit to 0.05 in the 90's and this is why Australia has 5.7 deaths per 100,000 people (8 per 100,000 vehicles) and the US has 12.7 deaths per 100,000 people (15 per 100,000 vehicles). Because it sure as shit isn't because Australian's can drive.

Actually, the USA is at 10.4 as of 2011, and 1.1 per 100 million vmt, which works out to 6.8 per billion km.
Your death toll of 5.71 per 100k (2011 data), and 5.8 per billion km.

Results: You're still safer than we are even by distance driven, but we drive a HECK of a lot more per person. In addition, given that the proposal is, high end, expected to save ~8% of alcohol related deaths, which is in turn only 1/3rd of total deaths - that's about a 3% cut in death rate. That would drop us from 10.4 to 10.1 per 100k, and from 6.8 to 6.6 per billion km. Better, but still far short of your own.

For that matter, let's assume we ELIMINATE all alcohol related fatalities. That's 1/3rd of our deaths gone. That would get us down to about 6.9 per 100k people, still above your figure, and 4.5 per billion km, finally below your own. You're 15% safer per km driven, btw.

Conclusion: We have problems, and it's not all attributable to alcohol. Reducing the BAC allowed would help a little, perhaps. But it's edging into territory where treating driving as a privilege, and not a right, and getting marginal people out of the driver's seat would be beneficial. For that matter, getting tougher with driver's ed would help.

The answer to this is simple.

1. Offering a blood test doesn't alter the odds they will attempt to contest it in court.
2. Increasing 'fines and suspensions' doesn't cut it. Already you have the problem where we end up tossing convicts in jail because they can't pay their fines, and suspensions often don't do a thing here because the main result is they simply drive on a suspended/revoked license. Or get a waiver for 'work purposes'. Or they lose their job, making it even more unlikely that they'll be able to pay your increased fines.
3. Same problem as #2. They often simply don't have the money, and we already have your 'loser pays' system, more so than MOST countries. You think the lawyer to contest your DUI is free? Paid for by the defendant. Remember plea bargains? The USA is king of those. 90% of people end up pleading out for reduced sentences. But, raise the fines - oops, they're MORE likely to fight, because, well, they're bankrupt anyway if they plead! If you arrange such a generous plea bargain, then the legal hawks sit there and say you're suppressing justice because you're making it cheaper to simply plead guilty.

In recent years, Australian courts have ordered the installation of Alcohol (Ignition) Interlock Devices into cars driven by people with multiple high range DUI convictions. Personally I'd rather these people have their licenses torn up for life and their cars auctioned off, but that's just me.

That's fine. In my state you get one for the first DUI, no matter the range. Were you aware that many US States have required them for decades, even for the first? From what I'm seeing, in all the states I've checked you're getting it period for the 2nd, no 'high range' required.

I'm not saying that we don't have problems. What I'm saying is that reducing the BAC level isn't going to help much, which I backed up with some math and 3 citations. We need to do more to stop the HIGH BAC drivers - when they're driving at .24 and up, triple the current legal limit, making it so they're 5X the legal limit isn't going to change much.

Heck, given that the human psyche is often more affected by the certainty of punishment over the severity of it, a hand slap and $50 fine would probably be sufficient to stop 99% of drunk dri

I agree with the parent, reaction time is only a single measure of driver "effectiveness". I can't help but wonder if we are asking the wrong questions in these studies. A better study would compare the accident rates in locations that have hands-free/no-text laws with those that don't.

One study by the Highway Loss Data Institute indicates a slight increase in accidents after no-texting laws are introduced. One possible explanation is that with the new laws, drivers continue to text but with the phone below the window sightline, causing the driver to look away from the road for longer periods of time.

Exactly the opposite result as the law intended!

It's astonishing, what with all the various gadgets enticing people's attention in the 1970s and 1980s, that it's only now become a problem.

I wonder what changed between now and then that has dramatically increased the incidence of accidents caused by driver distractions. But I suppose we needed something to make up for all mechanic and doctor billing lost after seat-belts and crackdowns on drunk drivers. Those people have mouths to feed, after all.

A few things here: other than things that impaired driving (and there were appropriate laws about that back in the 70's and 80's), what we have now are roadways designed for faster speeds, and vehicles with different safety standards (mostly significantly better). However, we also have significantly more vehicles on the road, and it is significantly easier to get your license and to afford a vehicle. Link this to a culture with isolationist tendencies, and you get a situation where something that would have been relatively safe in a 70's car can be incredibly dangerous today, even with improved standards. Plus, with the improved flow of information, people actually find out about all the bad stuff that goes on now, whereas back then, the problem wasn't assumed to be as big as it actually was.

Or something like that.

Actually, it hasn't only now become a problem. If anything, the other problems have decreased to the point that it's finally significant enough to focus on. Traffic fatalities have gone down at the same time as the use of gadgets have gone up. In fact, you're 5 times as likely to be in a distracted driving accident due to daydreaming as you are to be in one due to mobile phone use. The bans don't work, they just give lawmakers something to do that has the appearance of addressing the real problem while they ignore what really works because what really works doesn't get votes.

Lie: Texting is making the roads more dangerous than they used to be. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, "In 2011, traffic deaths fell 2% to 32,367 from the previous year, making traffic deaths in 2011 at the lowest level since 1949 -- and a 26% decline since 2005."

Lie: Texting is causing the majority of distracted driving accidents. In the news today, "According to the report, which was published earlier this week, 62 percent of the drivers studied were 'generally distracted or lost in thought.' Conversely, the study found that only 12 percent of those examined were using their cell phones - either texting, talking, or dialing.

Lie: The solution to texting accidents is a ban A "study by researchers at the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) finds no reductions in crashes after laws take effect that ban texting by all drivers. In fact, such bans are associated with a slight increase in the frequency of insurance claims filed under collision coverage for damage to vehicles in crashes."

Opinion: We're focusing on the wrong problem. I spend about two hours a day commuting and get to observe both great and courteous drivers and and also dangerous and rude drivers. People like to focus on banning gadgets because it gives a false sense of hope, they hope that the answer is simple and safer roadways can be had by stopping people from doing something. My opinion is that safer driving comes by education, training, testing and enforcement. I believe that gadget bans are as ineffective as the distracted driving laws that are ignored already. Focusing on a specific detail like a phone causes people to do the same thing they would without the ban, but they do it in a more clandestine way which actually makes the real problem, distraction, worse.

Don't take my word for these facts. Search for statistics about traffic fatalities and for the study done by Erie Insurance Group. Here are a couple links to get you started:

• Wikipedia - List of motor vehicle deaths in U.S. by year
• Daily Mail - Keep your mind on the road
• Highway Loss Data Institute - Texting bans don't reduce crashes; effects are slight crash increases

Actually, there's some evidence that laws prohibiting texting while driving are indeed counterproductive.

Just FYI.

Actually, theres sufficient evidence that shows they make the roads more dangerous...

And there's at least as much evidence to the contrary.