Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.)
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
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
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.
Let's completely ignore any utility that can be extracted from data on the grounds that it might be used by strawmen for guilt trips.
The number of people killed by roads rushing toward them is remarkable given their apparent inertness. It seems like there's hardly anywhere left that a man can enjoy an afternoon stroll off a balcony without falling victim to a bloodthirsty piece of pavement.
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?
Yes. If they make it "out of 10,000" then for many countries it would be less than one. Who cares if 0.72 person dies? If they make it a million, then it will be dozens to hundreds, and few people have emotional attachments to that many people. But if they use "per 100,000", the number of deaths will be about the same as the number of family members and close friends that a normal person would have.
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.
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.
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...
Check out the number of deaths per 100k vehicles at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate for a slightly different perspective. 6000 for DR, 8.5 for the US.
You may want to upgrade from Netscape 4.
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?
Sorry, I went crazy there and cited the Congo number. The DR is 140.
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
For example, the US rate of 1.1 per 100M miles
Interestingly, if you hop in your car and drive a mile to buy a Powerball lottery ticket, you are more likely to be killed in a wreck than to win the jackpot.
Yeah, but that makes the assumption that personal vehicles are the only way to get around. In Europe, for instance, people use public transport most of the time. That is much safer, and just as valid a way of reducing driving fatalities, but deaths/mile doesn't take it into account. Deaths/100k people, on the other hand, tells you that if you live as an average person in the country, this is your chance of being killed that way.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
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.
It's a poorly edited summary. As I posted above in response to a similar comment, the full text shows that they're trying to change the perception that because traffic deaths are accidental that they're unavoidable.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
14,000 vs 5 is not a close call in my book.
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.
"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!"
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.
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
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.
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
Culturally, Germany simply has fewer self-important assholes and that shows while driving.
True. Historically speaking, Germany has always been a non-aggressive, kind, and non-hostile country.
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.
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".
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News