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Open Source Mapping Software Shows Every Traffic Death On Earth
cartechboy writes "Traffic deaths are set to outpace AIDS/HIV and malaria in the developing world, so the UN is trying to change that perception. This shocking open source, interactive map of crash data from the Pulitzer Center ought to help. It's grisly, but very informative. The mapping was produced by Pulitzer Center journalists using open source mapping technology from Mapbox. Compare the U.S. fatality rate of 11.4 per 100,000 to that of other nations, like the Dominican Republic, Iran, and Thailand and see how people were traveling when when killed (car, bicycle, etc)."
"I would really like to know how the U.S. fatality rate of 11.4 per 100,000 compares to that of other nations, like the Dominican Republic, Iran, and Thailand, but I'm too lazy.
Ah screw it, I'll just make it a news topic on slashdot and wait until someone else does it for karma."
- timothy
I was expecting a map pinpointing where every death occurred, instead we have a a funny interface to a list of ~30 countries with the # of death per 100k people.
Traffic deaths are set to outpace AIDS/HIV and malaria in the developing world, so the UN is trying to change that perception.
Huh? So the UN is saying there are some facts, and they want to whitewash them so we have a different "perception" of the facts? Or, perhaps they are saying there should be more AIDS/HIV deaths?
Is there any good reason that this stat is 11.4 out of 100,000 instead of 1.14 out of 10,000 or say a normal percentage?
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Reading MapBox's site, they stress open source a lot - their Javascript API, iOS SDK & design studio are all 'open source', and they're using OSM for the backend data. Other than a list of plans which seem very similar to other commercial offerings, I don't see any indication of which open source licenses apply here - is it one of the popular ones like GPL or BSD, or some custom version?
They need to make a guns version of this.......would be nice to compare! Would bet there are more people killed with traffic deaths for the most part.
US Deaths caused by illicit drug overdose - ~5,000 per year
WAR ON DRUGS!!!!
US Deaths caused by terrorists - 3000, twelve years ago
WAR ON TERROR!!!!
US Deaths caused by hacking - 1 (and that one by "friendly fire", sorry Aaron Schwartz)
WAR ON HACKING!!!!
US Deaths caused by automobile accidents - 30,000 per year
umm...
We'll get back to you on that.
(admittedly not a fair or entirely accurate comparison... but it does say something about America's priorities.)
> interactive map of crash data from the Pulitzer Center
Cool. It's easy to use. If you look down in the lower lef rrrrrrrrrrrrt crsh boom bang ding ow.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
They are all there, you can also zoom in the map to make it easier to see the countries. The blue dots are just for specific news stories, hovering over a country gives you its stats.
Dominican Republic - 41.7
Iran - 34.1
Thailand - 38.1
When I saw the link, I thought it meant "road skill", but the page makes it clear that they mean "roads kill". Which is, frankly, nonsense. Roads are completely harmless. Now if they had written "cars kill" then they would at least have an argument (although not a sound one, IMHO, because it is bad driving or other stupid behaviour on the road that kills). But I'm pretty sure that the number of people killed by roads is negligible.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
...that it's not newsworthy unless it involves some form of mass transportation, especially ones that fly.
Can't navigate it at all. Try the "back" button, it creates a backreference every time the mouse is moved? wtf.
One thing missing, is the criteria used to determine how such deaths are qualified in each country. Japan, as an example, has their own criteria where you need to die in the first 12 hours after a crash to be counted as a highway fatality. This is dissimilar from other countries and allows Japan to appear to have much safer highways, cars, etc. in comparison.
:)
Skewed data is incorrect data, so it might help to at least publish stats based on identical criteria. Unless I missed it, I don't see that as part of this 'study', where it appears the stats are taken as given by each country - best example may be the two perfect scores
>> Traffic deaths are set to outpace AIDS/HIV and malaria in the developing world, so the UN is trying to change that perception.
What's wrong with "the perception"? This actually looks like good news to me. Is the problem that when people find out about all these traffic deaths (e.g., caused by a convenience) that they quit funding for disease control?
RoadSkill or RoadsKill? PetSmart or PetsMart? ExpertSexchange or ExpertsExchange?
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Traffic deaths are set to outpace AIDS/HIV and malaria in the developing world, so the UN is trying to change that perception.
I don't see what perception the UN is trying to change. That traffic accidents are a lesser cause of deaths than AIDS and malaria in developing countries? Does this even qualify as a "perception," much less one that needs rectifying?
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
I just got back from the DR... wholly shit driving is insane there. Having a motorcycle driving towards you on the wrong side of the highway median at night with no lights on the bike was a regular occurrence. Also, basically every driver on the road after 7pm is 100% hammered drunk. Driving in Santo Domingo feels like real life Frogger.
Anyone else think the ambiguous URL (Roads Kill vs. Road Skill) is just a little bit funny?
I know what you did last summer. Just kidding, I don't work at the NSA.
Even with very low enforcement, India has stats slightly lower than China and also comparatively lower to many countries with far higher enforcement. Which made me happy, till I realize we probably have potholes to thank for this - hard to have traffic fatalities when everyone is inching along slowly on bad roads in high traffic!
I'm guessing they are trying to show correlation before traffic enforcement and deaths per capita - wish there was also a version that showed obedience of road rules & deaths per capita, i.e. when traffic stays in its own lane and doesn't cut signals, does that significantly reduce the fatality rate? I know, its a more subjective area so there can't be any good statistics for it - but imho just staying in lane properly would greatly reduce the 'speed' related deaths atleast, and maybe for some other categories too.
This chart is nearly useless, as it doesn't account for the average distance traveled per country. You'd be better off reading the wikipedia page that has those stats : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
Or looking at trend in deaths / mile over time. For example, the US rate of 1.1 per 100M miles in 2011 is an all-time low : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
I just got back from the DR... wholly shit driving is insane there.
As a general rule of thumb, and contrary to common sense, a driver's recklessness is inversely proportional to his ability to afford to repair or replace the car.
Indeed, the per-capita numbers are useless and misleading — the safest country is where there are no cars at all. Much more interesting would be the number of deaths per mile (or kilometer) driven.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Even the US is quite high, compared to some other countries:
Iceland - 2.8
Sweden - 3
UK - 3.7
Netherlands - 3.9
is it me or is it a bit odd that that map has two bridges crossing lake Michigan
and a bridge going to Isle Royal
http://roadskillmap.com/#43.11702412135048,-86.5283203125,5
"I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
"Shocking"? No.
"Grisly"? No.
"Informative"? Yes.
Hyperbole aside, it's pretty interesting, but the summary implied it would show the location of every traffic death, not just the results of a global poll.
Proverbs 21:19
Even the high of around 40 deaths per 100k (Dominican Republic) is not THAT much more than the U.S.. Only 4x as much? I would have guessed it to be much, much worse based on experiencing driving in other countries.
Far from raising the issue to crisis level I'm more including to say that is not an issue worth paying any attention to whatsoever, it's a matter for local solutions, not the U.N. What are they going to do, put crossing guards at every intersection in Bangladesh? Hope they ship out coffins along with the guards!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We'll continue to spend a metric assload of money on anti-terrrererserm instead of improving driver safety and training because "us vs. them" makes a much sexier political selling point than "us vs. some-not-easily-definable-abstract-thing" that's astronomically more likely to be a fatal danger to us.
And, really, that says as much about us as it does about the maligned policy makers we elect.
It would have been really cool (and morbid) if it did show every road death on earth, but all it does is provide aggregate numbers for most countries and presumably for just some recent period of time (in the past few years or so). This is a completely misleading slashdot subject line.... damn moderators.
gus
.. if only.
I once was in Thailand, and took a minivan-taxi from thee airport to my hotel in Phuket, about 20 miles. On the way there it started pouring rain, I mean utterly pouring. As we drove down the road I saw a moped with three people on it, maybe more; I couldn't really tell because of the mass of people clinging to that thing as it was puttering down the road. There was a kid sitting on the front, and the driver was looking around the kid to see ahead. As we passed it, (it was on a side road) I noticed the driver lose control and the whole thing slid over and crashed, sending people flying. It wasn't going very fast, so I hope they were ok, but I told the driver and I don't think he cared to call the Thai version of 911. He did nothing.
The level of stupidity on display there was mind boggling. It was stupid to drive a moped out like that in the rain. it was stupid to try to put as many people on there as possible. It was stupid not to call 911. The whole thing was surreal, and yet this happens all the time there. I understand if you have to get the whole Surapapangkornipongikongkorn family to Aunties house for dinner, but there has to be a better way.
...we need to pass new laws that prohibit people from buying cars. This is outrageous!
Really?
First, a 10-fold difference is quite important. Second, I would like to see the average speed of motorized traffic in these countries.
Fatality rate is 41.7 per 100000 in DR and ~4 in Germany. Now my guess is that should people try to drive in the DR as fast as it is customary in Germany, that 41.7 rate would go much higher...
Honestly, in many cases the rankings / ranges are the opposite what I assumed. Considering the US is recognized as having a high number of car-drivers (perhaps too many) and low number of public-transportation-users (perhaps too few)... I assumed we'd be way up there just due to us constantly driving into eachother.
Not that we're particularly low, but we're a lot less than some countries I would assume would have less than us (per capita)
In the Dominican it looks like they'd have to calculate number of deaths per metre driven.
Better US roads? You must be kidding... I have been living in Montgomery county, Maryland, for the last 4 years and I have regularly seen potholes deep enough to drown in after a thunderstorm...
Nevermind that you lost your legs. For example, the number of serious injuries that don't result in death would be extremely high for countries where everyone drives a scooter. Why do we only count death for these statistics?
Normalizing for distance traveled doesn't make any sense at all. It would automatically reduce the accident numbers in proportion to country size, since very large countries tend to have empty roads whereas small countries often have densely packed roads. By far the majority of accidents involve more than one vehicle, so that would skew the statistics badly. You would have to add population density into the calculation as well to make it fair.
There is no clear and strong skewing factor when deaths are normalized for population, so the mapping in TFA is quite reasonable.
obviously you have never driven in Netherlands. It's not that laid back and you'd be surprised by the population (and car) density. Try super high enforcement of traffic law, very strict driving exams, high quality roads, strict safety regulations for cars and separate lanes for bikes.
You can't say the same about guns.
Millions upon millions of guns are sold legally each year. Between hunting and range shooting you can in fact say that the OVERWHELMING majority of guns are used as safe, useful, non-criminal tools.
Only 31k people died from gun injuries in the U.S. in 2011 - of those many were criminals shot, and 19k were suicides! Again, millions of guns sold, a tiny number of deaths, especially if you compare number of deaths per total number of guns to number of deaths per total cars...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Here's the full paragraph it mangled:
Death by car is random and suddenâ"which, unfortunately, means it tends to fall into the category of "accidental," and hence, unpreventable. But with traffic deaths set to outpace AIDS/HIV and malaria in the developing world, the UN is trying to change that perceptionâ"and this shocking interactive map ought to help.
The U.N. is trying to change perception that traffic deaths are unpreventable.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
very strict driving exams
Yeah, this. Where I am, you can not know 20% of the driving rules and still get a license. In the next state south of here, you can not know 40% of the driving rules and still get a license. I heard there was some talk of decreasing that to 35%.
I think 5% might be more reasonable, as a measure of mis-marked questions on a test.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
When I saw the link, I thought it meant "road skill", but the page makes it clear that they mean "roads kill". Which is, frankly, nonsense. Roads are completely harmless. Now if they had written "cars kill" then they would at least have an argument (although not a sound one, IMHO, because it is bad driving or other stupid behaviour on the road that kills). But I'm pretty sure that the number of people killed by roads is negligible.
Well, if you're going to nitpick, then I'm afraid we have to go deeper. After all, it should be pointed out that the worst death rates are in developing countries where motorbikes and motorscooters are a dominant form of transportation. No cars involved, so "cars kill" is incomplete.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
more people driving vs public transport...
It is true that in the United States most public transport deaths were due to boredom or old age rather than a traffic accident. Where I live, I would not be physically able to leave my house in the morning and get to work at the time I am supposed to be there (8:30).
I used to live in Chicago, which has a much better public transportation system. There, I was able to get up at 5:30 in the morning and make it to work on time via a 10 minute walk, a 50 minute bus ride, a 45 minute train ride and another 10 minute walk. Or I could drive, in which case, it was a 40 minute drive and a 10 minute walk.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
From TFA:
In a surprising number of countries, not knowing how to drive is no hindrance to obtaining a driver’s license or getting behind the wheel. In Nigeria, the Federal Road Safety Commission only recently made it compulsory for new drivers to take driving lessons and pass a test before obtaining a license; in the past you could simply buy a license.
The free market at work!
Where are they?
Let me guess, "No child left behind", right?
The Dominican Republic is on an island southeast of Florida. Three out of four Major League Baseball players come from there.
Iran is right between Iraq and Afghanistan. That's in the Middle East, which is nowhere near Chicago, but is really the part of western Asia which connects Europe, Africa and Asia together.
Thailand is a country in south-east Asia just a bit west of Vietnam. It is a popular destination for chess players and expatriot Americans who don't miss their flights out of Moscow.
If you want to learn more about traffic deaths in any of those countries, try pointing to them on this map. It's like a fun game, a lot like finding where states are on a map of the USA only for whole countries.
If you're still having trouble finding them, here's a tip: They're all coloured darker than the other countries around them.
So are most drivers.
Pretty sure it's large caliber bullets coming from Apache attack helicopters.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
14,000 vs 5 is not a close call in my book.
They didn't, really. If you click through the "next" links in the lower-left, you'll eventually see that North Korea claimed that they had zero fatalities, just like Uzbekistan, another tyrannical state, claimed (i.e. take both with a grain of salt).
Another panel notes that underreporting is a major issue in the developing world and that Pakistan's claimed rate is significantly under what experts estimate. The reason we don't have anything to contradict North Korea is the lack of free data you allude to.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Around here you have to score a minimum of 80% on the written test in order to pass and that's been like that for years. Just out of curiosity, how many questions are there on the test where you are? The main criticism I have about our written test is that it's only 25 questions and probably should be more like 50 minimum.
That happens a lot outside of the developed world. In China I would regularly see 3 or more people on motorcycles and scooters. I even once saw a guy pedaling a bike that had him and 3 kids balanced on it.
There was a study last year I read, although a quick Google search does not find it. I think it was "New Scientist". The gist was that the more expensive a car was the more likely the driver was to violate a studied subset of traffic laws including giving right of way to pedestrian in crosswalks. The study stuck in my mind because of the studied cars there was one exception that really stood out in the data, the Nissan Leaf for some reason had drivers that were much less likely to violate those laws, compared to drivers of similarly priced cars.
How did they manage to get data from North Korea?
Good question. The one guy that drives there hasn't died in an accident yet. But on the other hand they probably have three guys following him around recording his mileage, where he goes, who he talks to, etc.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
the latency on this thing is terrible. I just tested it out with a quick drive through the local playground, and it took half an hour to update the map.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
I live in the Driving Shithole of the USA (Washington, DC), and recently traveled to Germany. I was very impressed by the German practice of, among other things, putting up convex mirrors around blind driveways so people could see. I bike in DC and am terrified I'm going to get splattered one of these days.
I was biking yesterday on Massachusetts Ave and would rest at red lights by putting my front wheel in a pothole and, by doing so, let me reach the ground with my leg comfortably. They're a damn hazard to cyclists -- I need to be watching the cars, not trying to plot my course around potholes.
That's Iraq.
They're different countries.
According to the website, you're statistically safer on the bike than you are walking, if that makes you feel any better.
I was in Thailand earlier this year, and the figures didn't surprise me at all! The cab drivers drive like maniacs, with people on scooters swarming inches away from them, weaving in and out of traffic. And it's not unusual to see scooters with 3 people on them, or girls with skirts riding side-saddle
"I've driven in the U.K. before. You don't have as many people dying because it's rare to have a chance to be going fast enough that anyone can die in an accident. Mostly you are sitting still in L.A. quality traffic jams, until you get out into way open areas."
Bullshit - have you driven all over the UK for an extended period of time? I have. I live in NZ but used to live in the UK and I can tell you that NZ drivers are shockingly bad compared to those in the UK. UK drivers know how to use their mirrors, they don't tend to tailgate and they don't run red lights by and large. Sure, there are some arseholes on the road as there always is but the majority of UK drivers are well trained and observant, plus the cars are kept to a decently high standard due to the strict MOT that they have to undergo each year, Compulsory insurance also helps keep the idiots off the road.
The driving test in the UK is difficult by comparison with the one in NZ and that is why it isn't surprising to see 3x as many deaths per 100,000 in NZ as in the UK. Cars here are wrecks, insurance is optional so it isn't uncommon to have hit and run incidents as I experienced last year (I now ride my motorcycle with a helmet mounted camera to give me a chance of getting their plate and model of car) and many drivers don't even have full licenses and yet learners are allowed on all roads including motorways (although learners are supposed to do no more than 70Kph.) The highest speed limit anywhere, even motorways, is 100Kph (62Mph) and even that seems too fast for some drivers who don't understand lane discipline, stopping distances or driving to the conditions (speeding in fog and pouring rain? Check. Speeding is endemic) whereas in the UK you can be tooling along at 70Mph on a good quality motorway in very heavy traffic and still the accident rates are low. Here I'm lucky to go a week without seeing a major accident on my daily commute. I've seen more accidents here in 6 years than I saw in 25 years driving in the UK.
Sure, there are areas in the UK you don't want to drive - the M25 is a parking lot much of the time - but get outside the home counties and there are lots of decent roads and not that many traffic jams. Driving in a city is a mugs game anyway and one of the things that drove me onto a motorcycle was the fact I can get to work 3x quicker by bike (35 mins) than I can by car. The UK has more bikers which is indicated by the higher road accident percentage and it is a sad fact of life that if you aren't car shaped you're largely invisible.
NZ has a strange mix of drivers from countries that have interesting rules too - we have Indian drivers who subscribe to the might is right rule so a bike better get out of the way of a car which better get out of the way of a truck regardless of who has right of way. Throw in lots of Chinese drivers who haven't enough road experience and then a bunch of holiday makers from the US and it gets pretty interesting.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
In some places (DC, London) you'd have to be careful about division-by-zero errors. It's entirely possible that someone drove zero miles and still managed to get shot in Anacostia.
Just got back from a Sweden trip. On the regular major highways they have separated the opposing lanes physically by wire fences, so it seems it would be indeed difficult to have a fatal incident there. I saw hundreds of kilometers of those fences. For passing slower traffic they are using instead the 2+1 lane model, having relatively short 2-lane stretches where one can safely pass.
No idea why they are not building such highways in my own country. It seems they are fixated to building only fully divided highways (2+2 or more lanes) with bridges and tunnels and everything, which takes enormous amounts of money and thus takes forever to complete. Soon the EU support will be over and we are left with some tens of kilometers of super-highways and hundreds of kilometers of ancient overcrowded highways where dangerous overtakes are the new sports for the people.
That's just because fewer people bike and for shorter distances. I'd be interested to see fatalities/mile for cyclists and drivers in the same geographical area (say, DC, or NYC, or whatever).
Oh ok. Not too bad for things that are mostly only used safely and non-criminally as toys right?
Since as I said 19k of those were self inflicted (meaning they could have used a car or razor or jumped off a bridge, making the tool irrelevant), and some percentage of the remaining deaths were criminals being shot - that's actually a pretty good figure, made higher of course because people like you insist that many innocent people go unarmed.
As for toys, there were over 260k injuries from toys in 2011.
By your logic we should not allow children to have toys.
What an ass. The sad thing is, you are a dangerous ass, with views that will get people killed or raped who could have protected themselves otherwise.
There were 83k rapes in 2011. If all of those women had been armed do you think that number would be higher, or lower?
Every one of those rapes, and rapes in years to come is on you - because you persist in spreading your dogma that guns are bad, when plainly they can help. Every woman you convince to be scared of a simple tool, is one more victim that is of your making.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The last time I took a written test it was only 25 questions, but they were selected randomly from a much larger pool of questions. Most of the ones I got were really quite stupid and have nothing to do with driving. For example, do you know the penalty for passing a school bus with it's flashers on?
Setting the standard higher doesn't help when the test is stupid to begin with.
obviously you have never driven in Netherlands. It's not that laid back
I have in fact driven in the netherlands. You may think it's not that laid back - you have plainly not driven in the U.S. or anywhere with aggressive traffic for that matter.
Try super high enforcement of traffic law
Not that I saw, apart from some speed cameras. It's that more people follow the rules as they are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's right there in the map (*). Yeah I know, it could be in the summary too, but hey, it's an interactive map, OF COURSE you clicked those links, didn't you?
(*) You do know how to locate Dominican Republic, Iran and Thailand in the map, don't you?
I don't have a sig.
You're assuming the OP can pinpoint those countries in the map? HE MIGHT BE AN AMERICAN, YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!!
I don't have a sig.
Have you ever been hit by a rolling dumpster going downhill at 8KPH?
Yes, I have been hit at that speed - rear-ended by someone because "I stopped too fast".
You may notice we are talking about cars here. I was in one when hit, because I stay off the roads when on foot...
The result of the hit? A small scuff on my bumper, we both went on our ways. I certainly did not show up on a map of fatalities.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When I was driving in Thailand, the most memorable moment was when I went uphill with our small rental car and on a blind curve found two trucks coming down side-by-side, one truck apparently attempting to overtake the other, downhill, in a blind curve. Fortunately, I had fast enough reaction, was driving fast enough and the shoulder was wide enough, so I was able to get there and let them pass.
In some places the driving looked much more like a video game than real life - twisty road going up and down, filled with vehicles in a random and changing number of lanes, made up from bikes, scooters, motorbikes, tricycle motorbikes, plus normal cars, buses and trucks as well.
I have also driven around Germany. Frankly I found it not that different from driving in the U.S., except Germans were more likely to follow laws, and very much more likely in particular to stay to the right on faster roads.
Training is not the issue. No amount of training will make a person less of an asshole while driving. Culturally, Germany simply has fewer self-important assholes and that shows while driving.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The mopeds are largely what made the DR crazy. I saw 5 person families crammed onto one moped, while the father (who was driving) also carried a large propane tank off the side.
If you eliminate the 4-5 days of Songkram from Thailand though you are likely closer to US rates. (Not really, but possibly cut to 20.)
If you eliminate the Buddhist driving technique (turn into a busy road without looking, because if you were meant to die you will... it's all fate), limited mopeds to (2) children, (2) adults, (1) chicken, and (1) dog, and required Song Thaew drivers to be sober you would beat the US for sure.
Just because they're driving a BMW or Escalde does not always mean they have the "ability to afford to repair or replace the car". I would hazard to guess that a lot of them can't afford the car (evidenced by borrowing money to "buy" it, or by leasing it).
Well, your argument to the contrary is based on an invalid assumption.
"I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
Was it this story?
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/02/27/218258/are-rich-people-less-moral
If so, it was from sciencemag
Same in Texas (might even be a 70%.)
I'm red/green color blind and at that time In Texas, you did not have to take a driving class to get a learners permit (and from there a license) as long as you were 18 or older.
One of the questions on the test was a picture of a horizontal light with one of the lights lit. It was a true false question on whether you keep going or stop. I got the answer wrong and still passed. (Horizontal lights are rare enough that I never paid attention as a passenger.)
I remember being amazed that putting in writing that I would run a red light was not an automatic fail.
Not to detract from your point, but if you need to lower a wheel by dropping it into a pothole in order to leg down comfortably, you really should be riding a shorter bike. You ought to be able to comfortably flat foot both legs at any given stop. Your ability to quickly pull away should some asshole just not see you as they come speeding up behind is greatly enhanced by being at a good balance when you're stopped.
I needed a sig so people would know who I am, but I was too drunk to make something witty, so you get this instead.
Map is disappointing. Whomever decided that color scheme should be slapped.
I was expecting something like this: http://map.itoworld.com/road-casualties-usa but for all countries.
The map linked has every traffic fatality in the United States, and the age, sex, and classification of each death.
5 times nothing is still nothing.
Is that some sort of joke?
Read the title of my message again. The keyword is the word "stats".
They could have just listed the fatality rates of the different countries; or provided a color-coded list.
For it to be useful as a map; it should be more granular, than merely painting every country the same color..... it should show fatality rates for states, provinces, counties, cities, and individual streets. Now that would make sense as a map.
What happened to KPH?
Have you ever been hit by a rolling dumpster going downhill at 8KPH? It ain't pretty.
I believe the technical term here is "minivan".
That's not a valid comparison because the DR doesn't have the same level of highway infrastructure as Germany.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
First, your math: 10 in 100 000 is 0.01%, not 0.1%.
You might say this just further supports your "x times nothing" argument but let's present this as follows:
If the number of fatalities are 0.01% per year, over a period of 50 years this means 0.5% chance of being killed in a traffic accident - that's 1:200. Or almost 1:1 chance of loosing someone whom you have known relatively closely (classmate, family member, co-worker, friend) in a traffic accident. A rate of 40 per 100000 means 1:50 chance.
Definitely more chance than winning the lottery, what I prefer considering practically nothing.
So why is this? Bangkok is not a third world place anymore; more people visit there than anyplace on earth except London for vacation.
I wonder if it is the case that the higher death rates due to traffic accidents in these countries is not just because of lax traffic laws/enforcement, but because of inadequate (or nonexistant) response time of authorities/ambulances to the accidents. it would be interesting to compare countries with similar traffic laws and customs which have varying degrees of immediate medical services like ambulances.
I guess what I'm saying is, Thailand, maybe you can keep your crazy driving laws and customs, and just put into place an Ambulance system, and your numbers of traffic deaths will drop.
Might be some truth to what you are saying, but driver discipline is probably more important.
This based on my experience driving across Europe a couple times - driving in Germany is a pleasure, people respect the law. Compared to that, driving in the Washington DC region is a nightmare and I can fully understand why the death rate is 2.5x higher even though speed limits are ridiculously low here...
I will NEVER EVER EVER EVER NEVER EVER EVER take a tuk-tuk again in Thailand, for any reason.
Firstly, regular taxis are more ubiquitous than when I first started going there 10 years ago, even though virtually none of them have seatbelts.
The tuk-tuk drivers are crazy, and the other drivers are too.
The air is dangerously polluted to breathe when in the back of a tuk-tuk in downtown Bangkok.
You were the one who spoke of a 10-fold difference. I saw no such thing.
Dominican Republic - 41.7
USA - 11.4
That's not even a 5-fold difference (it's not even a 4-fold one). I rounded it up to be generous.
I thought it was in 10,000 people, not 100,000. If it's 100,000, then it's even more insignificant.
I wouldn't say I know 200 people relatively closely, so your statement doesn't even hold. I would need to know them for at least 50 years too (and it must be a period during which they must be driving) for your probability to be correct.
Tenfold is between the Netherlands and DR.
Forget about the friends example. Just try to understand the difference between ~1:50 (DR), ~1:200(US), ~1:500(Netherlands) chance of dying in a traffic accident over the period of 50 years or 1:1.175x10e8 chance of winning the Powerball.
What's interesting is that they represented it as per 100,000 people, and not something more useful, like per 100,000 miles driven. People drive a lot more miles in the US than people in the Jamaica, which has almost the same death rate. Also Things get kind of interesting once you start looking at the breakdown as well. In Jamaica, only 36% involve cars, while in the US, 70% involved cars. In the Netherlands, 25% of accidents involved a bicycle, whereas in the US, it's only 2%. Kind of gives you an idea of who people get around in different countries.
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Yep. This bike is definitely the wrong size for me -- it was a cheap one bought in exasperation off of Craigslist (which had a lot of things wrong with it) after my previous one got stolen. The advertisement said that the previous owner was also my height, so I guess it didn't fit her either.
It is a piece of junk, but I'm a bit reluctant to get a new one that fits me properly because this is Washington DC, where everything is 1) too damn expensive, and 2) liable to get stolen. Maybe this one will get stolen too?
Fair enough.
:)
Buy lots of insurance, park it on the street
I needed a sig so people would know who I am, but I was too drunk to make something witty, so you get this instead.
2+2 seems big? I drive home from work each day on a highway that has a 10+10 section for about 3 miles before it splits into two 5+5 highways (and stay at 5+5 until the next split/merge)
To heck with country level data. Cities and insurance companies generally have the casualty rate for each intersection - that's the data you need if you wish to avoid traffic accidents or if you're involved in a resulting lawsuit.
So, America is not Number 1?
Are American's just not trying hard enough, or is there some kind of training problem?
Think people! What can we do to make American Number One again?
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Yes, 2+2 is quite big around here. There are some 5+5 and similar sections, but these are inside the city, not really highways.
And yet a value of 14K per 100K does not strike you as slightly implausible... There is an obvious transcription error, the comma is used as a decimal separator in many countries, so the number must be 14 not 14K. Still a big difference, but ... smaller. Don't let this stand in the way of your calling people crazy.
Wait, 14% of the population dies every year in Togo due to automobile accidents? That's just not possible. There must be a mistake somewhere.
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
If you're only able to move at 5MPH on average it's not likely you will die in an accident.
I'm not sure why you'd think this is the case in the UK - perhaps you've only tried driving around central London. A few factors affect the relatively low rate of road fatalities in the UK:
The first is the relative difficulty of getting a driving license. You must pass a theory test, which is multiple choice. It's not that difficult, but you can't pass it without having at least read the highway code, even if you can't remember quite all of it. Then you must pass a hazard awareness test, which shows you videos recorded from cars and checks that you are aware of things that may potentially be dangerous and so need your attention. Finally, you need to pass a practical test, which takes 30-60 minutes and involves driving on various kinds of road, where one major fault will result in failure. It's not unusual for people to require 2-3 attempts to pass, with lessons in between
Perhaps more important, however, is that safety statistics are the primary input into the road signal design system. Speed limits are set and traffic lights are installed in response to accident statistics, not (usually) to raise revenue. Police speed traps are also placed according to these rules. The USA has no equivalent system.
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I used to live in Chicago, which has a much better public transportation system. There, I was able to get up at 5:30 in the morning and make it to work on time via a 10 minute walk, a 50 minute bus ride, a 45 minute train ride and another 10 minute walk. Or I could drive, in which case, it was a 40 minute drive and a 10 minute walk.
That really is still shockingly bad. Public transport should not take twice as long to get to your destination as driving, and if that's considered "much better" than another location, it's a clear sign of why so many people in those places are against using it.
Here in Hannover, Germany, I can drive to work in about 35 to 45 minutes depending on traffic and the lights. Via public transport, it takes around 45 minutes consistently. Admittedly, I still almost always drive, since I carry a heavy bag to and from work each day and really don't like the idea of lugging it around any more than I have to.
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I was in Vietnam earlier this year, and the figures do surprise me. 24 for Vietnam, 3.7 for the UK. Here, I hardly ever see an accident. Less than once in five years do I see the aftermath of a fatal or near-fatal accident. I know of only one friend-of-a-friend killed on the roads.
I was in Vietnam for three weeks, and I saw one body lying in the road after being hit, and four non-fatal accidents with motorcycles (one man was concussed, the others walked away). Other tourists reported the same kind of thing -- one had seen three fatalities in three days!
I expect many road deaths in Vietnam aren't recorded as such.
I happened to read this last week, and could easily find it again. So: http://waronthemotorist.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/railway-safety-doesnt-need-scare-quotes-it-works/
(For some context on the first paragraph, if it rains many railway stations have recorded announcements like "due to the inclement weather conditions, please take care on and around the station and when boarding trains". The London Underground has loads of posters of people getting trapped in doors or falling down escalators, saying things like "watch your step after a night out: last year, 1 fatality, 452 injuries".)
The red graph at the bottom is for the whole UK (or maybe just Great Britain). Cycling is more dangerous per km than driving, but safer than walking or motorcycling.
The UK has some of the safest roads in the world, so the figures might not be so different elsewhere.
Road fatalities per 1 billion vehicle-km: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
USA: 8.5
Germany: 7.2
UK: 3.6 (lowest with the statistic, although only a few countries have it)
However, I'm not sure how they count passengers in buses. The cited British document seems to include cyclist and pedestrians. So I'm not sure this is the data you wanted.
You ought to be able to comfortably flat foot both legs at any given stop.
That's not what I've been told. When the pedal is at the lowest point, the knee should be slightly bent. That means when you're stopped you can balance on your toes, but not put a foot flat.
http://www.downtube.com/Bicycle_Fitting/Saddle_Height_Adjustment/ has decent pictures.
Copenhageners presumably know what they're doing: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/01/holding-on-to-cyclists-in-copenhagen.html
The most dangerous I saw was one man driving, another holding a trailer (nothing else connected the trailer to the motorbike) and balancing a couple of large pieces of glass on the trailer (for a shop window or similar). He was holding them against the palm of his hand, without gloves.
(This was Vietnam).
If you know Europe and the driving style in different countries you can pretty much predict how the numbers will be. I've driven in must European driver and the numbers match up with the attitude to driving in those countries. I nice example is Switserland, which scores 4.3 but is surrounded by countries with higher scores. But it's not just the drivers, it a combination of the driver and the infrastructure. Countries with sensible rules and decent and consistent road sign and warning systems also are the countries where drivers take the rules seriously. There's a big interaction between the two, when the rules, the signs and the warnings make sense 95% of the time you're far more inclined to take them seriously. But when, for example, speed limits are ridiculously low people will ignore them all the time, even in situations where they do make sense.
I was hoping to see something like the new BI Maps junk from Excel 2013 so I could see where to not drive in my city. TLDR give me what I want.
There is no data on fatalities per billion vehicle miles for these countries, but they would score even worse on that metric, since I doubt many of the vehicles there are racking up 15K miles per year like we do.
Thanks for that. I notice "airplane" isn't on the table, which is a bit noteworthy (they're very safe but not quite as safe as trains, I think). It would probably depend quite a bit (in America) on the sort of roads you were driving on; we're a country of huge distances, and I imagine the risk in driving might vary be as much as an order of magnitude between the Beltway (the horrible road surrounding Washington, DC) and I-10 in West Texas (oil wells and not much else).
Sweden - SAABs and Volvos. They simulate plowing into a moose at high speeds during their crash safety engineering.
(BTW, note that the Pulitzer Center stats are per 100K *people*, NOT per 100K vehicle miles, which is the usual standard benchmark for traffic safety statistics! This is a very odd choice for such statistics, and throws the entire effort into considerable question....)
Passing a written driving test means exactly zip, zero, and nada as an indication of ability top operate a car safely.
Ditch the written test entirely, as it's really just a measure of bureaucratic obeisance. Instead, replace it with a *real* behind the wheel test: De-emphasize things like parallel parking (although that should be required - if you can't master your car at low speed, you have no business trying it at velocity), and require things like demonstrating safely getting back into the traffic lane after running off on a sharply banked gravel shoulder at 70 MPH.
Four things are needed: 1) Better driver testing like that described above, 2) requiring large trucks to *always* remain in a designated lane on highways unless actually passing, 3) setting highway speed limits at no less than the 85th percentile of free-flowing traffic speeds, and 4) eliminating all alcohol laws other than a felony with mandatory 1 year jail time for driving over 0.12% BAL. (Yes, the BAL threshold needs to be that high - high enough to prevent/discourage "chickenshit" DWI checks that apply to everyone except, apparently, our serially drunk-driving District Attorneys here in Austin (two in the past few months!)
These changes would make the US among the very safest places to drive, while encouraging maximal freedom to travel safely and quickly.
I just completed a quick round trip out to west Texas, and I firmly believe that higher speed limits have dramatically *increased* the safety of these wide-open highways. There's really no reason at all why the speed limit on some of the wide, clear roads out there shouldn't be 90 or 100 MPH - a fair fraction of the traffic is quite safely traveling that fast every day, anyway...
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When I was in DR I found wonderful people, very kind and helpful, but I was amazed how bad drivers they were. Let me see
For China is different. When you are in Beijing, you have bridges everywhere and "you need to use them". If you, by the chance try to cross the road directly, be prepared to stay there for a long time, because no driver will stop for you.
Germany has high speed highways, but drivers are very polite in general. And I was driving in Orlando, Florida, USA, and noticed how gentle are the drivers there. Let me give a point of comparison with a red light.
Distance to stop in a red light:
Aeroplanes won't be in the chart as I don't think they're within the remit of the Department for Transport, whose figures they are. Or perhaps they are, but there are so few internal flights it could really skew the figures.
If you're only able to move at 5MPH on average it's not likely you will die in an accident.
When will this stupid meme die? Was it said on Top Gear or something, and repeated by people that don't know it's a comedy programme?
The average speed on UK urban roads at the peak is 13mph. Average speeds for other roads and other times are significantly higher.
The death rate on UK roads is low because road safety is taken relatively seriously compared to other countries.
For example, do you know the penalty for passing a school bus with it's flashers on?
Not being American I don't have to know. But there doesn't seem anything wrong with the question per se. If objective is to stop cars from passing a school bus with flashing lights, the penalty is a proxy for how important a rule it is.
It might not be one of the 25 most important questions about driving, but as you said, it's randomly picked from a larger pool.
When will this stupid meme die?
It's not a meme, it's life experience.
The average speed on UK urban roads at the peak is 13mph
Which bears out EXACTLY what I said. Driving around cities is HORRIBLY SLOW.
I'm not even talking about London. I'm talking about driving through random cities around the UK, northern and a bit western also.
Yes on the highways you are going at an avergae rate of speed generally but I ALSO was stuck in multi-hour long traffic jams just trying to go through cities on major arteries, traffic jams the likes of which I have only ever seen driving around LA.
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Its just fatal accidents so it includes passengers not just drivers. It also includes a lot of people who died on bicycles or walking.
I had to take mine last year because I moved to a new state. I agree some of the questions are arbitrary. "how close does an on coming car have to be before you have to dim your headlights" a: 900 ft b:"1000 ft c:1100 ft d:1200 ft This is irrelevant to actually driving. in the dark can you tell how far away the oncoming lights are to within 100ft... I cant, but I know when to dim my lights when I'm driving. I would be fine with stricter tests, but they cant just be about memorization of facts. Maybe situational questions of some kind would be better.
Looking at the UK data - they include buses and their occupants - which vastly skews their data to look much better than cars alone.
(BTW, note that the Pulitzer Center stats are per 100K *people*, NOT per 100K vehicle miles, which is the usual standard benchmark for traffic safety statistics! This is a very odd choice for such statistics, and throws the entire effort into considerable question....)
Well as you see from the text, it's meant to be less about driving per se, but more for comparison with other causes of death like diseases. Such a comparison wouldn't be possible without a common metric.
Try taking a scheduled minibus through the countryside. Or, actually don't try it. I've been on a couple and I've never been as scared for my life. They seemed to think the middle lane divider is a marker for where to drive... any oncoming traffic you just flash the lights to make them move out of the way.
I would hazard to guess that a lot of them can't afford the car (evidenced by borrowing money to "buy" it, or by leasing it).
That just indicates your limitations, not theirs. Most "rich" people are highly leveraged. They borrow lots, own lots, and have lots of cashflow. It's better to borrow at 5% and invest at 10% than to pay cash. Yes, I understand that most don't invest that way, but your logic is inherently flawed, even if it does sometimes correlate with the truth. That's only coincidental, not a result of your logic.
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That's why the US uses MVMT (Million Vehicle-passenger Miles Traveled). It corrects for men driving more than women when "proving" men to be worse drivers. It will make the US look better, as we drive more than most. It'll also make some of the developing countries look even worse.
It's closer to your actual chance to die per distance traveled in a car, or walking/driving near.
Learn to love Alaska
In Texas, if you know 2 of hundreds of laws, you could likely pass the test. There's a lot on the test I took years ago about DUI punishments and levels, and little on keeping right unless passing, or yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks. It's not just "knowing the rules" but "knowing the *right* rules", and that's a smaller subset.
Learn to love Alaska
Why would you need to know the punishment for passing a school bus stopped with flashers on, if you will *always* stop for it?
Lots of the test were about punishments, not what the rules are.
Learn to love Alaska
BTW, note that the Pulitzer Center stats are per 100K *people*, NOT per 100K vehicle miles, which is the usual standard benchmark for traffic safety statistics! This is a very odd choice for such statistics, and throws the entire effort into considerable question....
The number of people in a country is well known. The number of fatalities is well known. The average distance traveled by car is unknown. They could publish the numbers for the US, Europe, and Australia with the "benchmark" numbers, or publish the entire world with different ones.
They obviously thought that poor numbers available universally was more important than the most accurate numbers available in very few places.
I think it may have been helpful to try to do both.
Learn to love Alaska
Most efficient biking is done where your legs are fully extended at the bottom of the downstroke. That may not be safest for in-town biking, but is a commonly spread "optimum" biking position. It is compromised in BMX and mountain biking because power and efficiency may be secondary to control and maneuverability.
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Most "rich" people
...it's still conjecture. But to be fair, so was my statement. Without any good stats on who can afford the car they're driving, we're all speculating based on our own experience and point of view. I almost regret posting now, thanks! ;-P
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Why would you need to know the punishment for passing a school bus stopped with flashers on, if you will *always* stop for it?
"IF". The test is designed to work across the population, not just for those that meet your criterion for consideration.