Safety levels; aviation industry; losses per one million departures
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Niles H.
Commercial passenger flight is one of the safest modes of transportation -- which is somewhat surprising, because it is at odds with the fact that flying in the air, especially at high altitudes and speeds, seems to have some very unsafe aspects and safety challenges built into it. Yet the levels of safety that are achieved are impressive.
According to an article ("Risk Reduction") in Aviation Week and Space Technology, the International Air Transportation Assn (IATA) is still working diligently to improve: even in light of "the safest aviation year on record, [the IATA] is seeking a 25% reduction in the world accident rate in 2008."
i.e. they work on it!
You don't get fit without exercising; you don't master a subject without some diligent and genuine study; you don't often lose weight without attention to details, and change of practices; you don't learn a musical instrument or improve your technique without study and practice.........................
Many cyclists don't seem to apply themselves very diligently to improving or enhancing safety. There is a lot to be learned from the very impressive successes in commercial passenger aviation. [side note: private aviation flights (small planes) have a much, much worse safety record]
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"IATA's 2006 Safety Report deemed last year the safest ever for global aviation -- one accident per 1.5 million flights of Western-built jet aircraft, or a hull-loss rate of 0.65 per 1 million departures. The new goal: to drive it down to 0.49 per 1 million departures."
"...In 2006, IATA member airlines, which comprise about 94% of all international scheduled traffic, had... one accident for every 2 million departures -- significantly better than the global average...."
"In contrast, Russia/Commonwealth of Independent States had... a staggering 13 times the global average accident rate.... The Africa region followed [with about 6-7 times the global accident rate]"
The rates are much higher for Eastern-built jet aircraft -- in Africa, about seventy times higher than the global average (for Western-built), followed by the Middle East/North Africa region, with over forty times the global average.
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Improvements in flight crew training and regulatory oversight are among the strategies that will be implemented.
Efforts will be concentrated on weaknesses that have been identified, and improvements in those areas.
"The main contributing factors...include:
Lack of flight crew training and proficiency....
Go-around decision making...
Communications...(communication issues between pilots, or flight crew and ATC)
IATA this year will also be zeroing in on runway, ground and cargo safety enhancements.
Human error, increased traffic and miscommunication played a role in most of the runway incidents recorded in 2006, and IATA continues to work with... to enhance runway safety in all regions."
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They are persistent and diligent, and they set high standards for themselves.
And they don't delay -- they get on it, and set and accomplish new goals, each year, for new improvements and safety enhancements.
The BikeForums Team
-adv-
This is an archived thread, you can find the full version of this thread, with images, links and more content here.
It is safer because they know what the heck they are doing. Now....think about most people who drive or ride a bike....
Brian Ratliff
Yet, the cause of accidents in the road transportation system and the cause of accidents in aviation are extremely different, with the aviation safety problem being quite a bit easier to solve.
First, the risk any sort of equipment failure, which is the main source of risk on an airplane, can be mitigated very easily by frequent inspections and instrumentation. On the road, while this can be a problem, it is nowhere near the major source of risk. Cars (as opposed to the driver) are extremely safe, just like airplanes.
Second, there are very few people who are actively in aviation compared to the number of people who drive. At any one moment in time, there are probably over 100 million people out on the road in the US. There are, perhaps, a several 10,000's of pilots in commercial aviation. These several 10,000 people are, each and ever one of them, self-selected; meaning they are already driven to the aviation industry. Because they want to be there, they are more easily regulated. Raise the pilot training requirements, and you decrease the number of pilots, but increase the quality of those remaining. Increase the requirements for driving, and there will not be many fewer drivers, but there will be many more violations and, perhaps (depending on how the numbers come out), the roads will become less safe.
Third, take a look at the type of accidents which happen with the most frequency in the respective modes of transportation. In the commercial aviation industry, equipment (and now, mostly multi-point failures) are almost the sole cause of accidents. Wind shear rips a vertical stabilizer off. A cargo door blows open. Etc. Airplane to airplane collisions are rare, though they do happen. And besides being rare, it is a relatively easy problem to solve because when airspace becomes crowded, all movements are choreographed by the aircraft control tower, and any collision will be caused by a mistake by a relatively easy to regulate group of aircraft controllers.
Contrast this to automobiles on a road. First, the major risk is driver error, and the major source of fatalities are from drivers hitting one another. Drivers are a numerous group, probably 200-300 million in all in the US, and are not self selected. In the US, one drives because one needs to, not necessarily because one wants to. This means that the group is very difficult to regulate, because increased regulation doesn't necessarily lead to higher safety, but most likely leads to increased violations. Moreover, the responsiblity for an accident lies on the shoulders of the individual driver, not some central controller who is responsible for all movements of cars in the area.
Given these reasons, I don't think that safely solutions which are used in the aviation industry are transferable to the driving environment. The basic mechanical safety of cars have been drastically improved; to the point at which the casulty rate is going down purely on the technology built into modern cars. And 300 million drivers will always vastly outnumber by several orders of magnitude, the number of regulators (a.k.a. cops) and so just blindly increasing the requirements for obtaining a drivers license will not make a huge impact on safety on the roads.
Rather, instead of the methods used by the aviation industry, we need to utilize methods which are used in the advertising industry. We need to use methods for educating people which apeal to their emotions (conscious and subconscious) in the same way that Coke does to make people drink its product around the world.
Brian Ratliff
I should add that cyclists are, many ways, like pilots. Increasing regulation leads to less cyclists, but safer cyclists overall. Knowing this though, amongst experienced and well practicing cyclists, the largest cause of accidents are car drivers. Because cyclists are in contact with car drivers, which have the problems in regulation that I described above, without doing something about car drivers' safety records, the risk to bicyclists on the road can only fall to a certain level. Arguably, with bicycling being relatively unpopular in the US and with most of the bicycling population being self selected, enthusiastic, and well skilled (to the point where they are not doing any major no-nos), we are already at that level of safety.
Gusboh
Yet, the cause of accidents in the road transportation system and the cause of accidents in aviation are extremely different, with the aviation safety problem being quite a bit easier to solve.
Wrong. Read this. (http://www.boeing.com/news/techissues/pdf/statsum.pdf)
First, the risk any sort of equipment failure, which is the main source of risk on an airplane, can be mitigated very easily by frequent inspections and instrumentation. On the road, while this can be a problem, it is nowhere near the major source of risk. Cars (as opposed to the driver) are extremely safe, just like airplanes.
Wrong again, having read the pdf now, you'll realise that the pilots present the biggest risk by about a factor of three. Equipment on aircraft is not the problem, the people that fly the things are (and i just cited a Boeing source i know, but it's industry accepted as accurate.)
Snip... Increase the requirements for driving, and there will not be many fewer drivers, but there will be many more violations and, perhaps (depending on how the numbers come out), the roads will become less safe.
Yeah? source?
Third, take a look at the type of accidents which happen with the most frequency in the respective modes of transportation. In the commercial aviation industry, equipment (and now, mostly multi-point failures) are almost the sole cause of accidents. Wind shear rips a vertical stabilizer off. A cargo door blows open. Etc. Airplane to airplane collisions are rare, though they do happen. And besides being rare, it is a relatively easy problem to solve because when airspace becomes crowded, all movements are choreographed by the aircraft control tower, and any collision will be caused by a mistake by a relatively easy to regulate group of aircraft controllers.
Wrong again. Here's another nice graphic (http://www.boeing.com/commercial/safety/fatalities_by_accident.html), it shows that the most common accidents are controlled flight into terrain (pilots flying a perfect aircraft into the ground, and loss of control in flight (pilots mishandling aircraft). With a bit of research you'll find just how rare aircraft failures are. Oh, and despite midair collisions being rare, they aren't unheard of, and often (always) are caused by humans (air traffic controllers, pilots) making errors.
Contrast this to automobiles on a road. First, the major risk is driver error, and the major source of fatalities are from drivers hitting one another. Drivers are a numerous group, probably 200-300 million in all in the US, and are not self selected. In the US, one drives because one needs to, not necessarily because one wants to. This means that the group is very difficult to regulate, because increased regulation doesn't necessarily lead to higher safety, but most likely leads to increased violations. Moreover, the responsiblity for an accident lies on the shoulders of the individual driver, not some central controller who is responsible for all movements of cars in the area.
Half right. Humans represent the most dangerous part of any socio-technical system. However, difficulty in regulation is because you aren't thinking outside the square - licensing being a privilege not a right. Make it cost a fortune. Make fines in the vicinity of $5000 or jail time... It can be done, but not if you don't get really tough.
Given these reasons, I don't think that safely solutions which are used in the aviation industry are transferable to the driving environment. The basic mechanical safety of cars have been drastically improved; to the point at which the casulty rate is going down purely on the technology built into modern cars. And 300 million drivers will always vastly outnumber by several orders of magnitude, the number of regulators (a.k.a. cops) and so just blindly increasing the requirements for obtaining a drivers license will not make a huge impact on safety on the roads.
The casualty rate having dropped due to seatbelts and ABS and airbags i can see - but source?
Same goes for the regulator - why do the cops have to be the regulator, don't you have the DMV? make them regulate. One could easily come up with a system by which facial recognition was matched to licences at stop lights or something. Then the cops don't even need to chase.
Again, make a licence expensive, and driving without one an unacceptable risk, and i can't see how it would have no impact.
Rather, instead of the methods used by the aviation industry, we need to utilize methods which are used in the advertising industry. We need to use methods for educating people which apeal to their emotions (conscious and subconscious) in the same way that Coke does to make people drink its product around the world.
Reasonable idea, except the safety is not something which makes people feel better - getting that to happen would be a big undertaking. And safety also is not a convenience item, it's a constant behavioral pattern, which is much tougher to influence than the purchase of a simple convenience item.
Look, the only reason i've said all this is because misinformation about flying is just as prevalent as misinformation about cycling.
Take home message - from aviation to driving to nuclear power to whatever high risk activity, human error is the leading primary factor of accident causation. In fact, you find me an accident in the last 100 years that has no human involvement at all, and i'd be absolutely stunned.
No accident is caused by a single factor either, they all have mulitple factors present, that contribute to the accident Google "the reason model"
Oh, and the reason they want to reduce the rate is because at that rate, in about 10 years, we'll be losing a jet per week. Not a good thing for public perception...
Good source. I don't have numbers, just impressions, but the numbers back me up now. Out of 40 million flight hours a year, there have only been 6000 fatalities with 400 crashes since 1996. By reason and by these numbers, it means that the problem is easier to handle, and easier to solve.
Wrong again, having read the pdf now, you'll realise that the pilots present the biggest risk by about a factor of three. Equipment on aircraft is not the problem, the people that fly the things are (and i just cited a Boeing source i know, but it's industry accepted as accurate.)
Perhaps I am wrong on this point. It doesn't change the gist of what I am saying. The equipment is still second place. And the pilots are a dedicated group who can be easily trained.
Yeah? source?
Just a guess based on the relative need of a car (don't start with whether a car is "needed" or not, we are talking about percieved needs here, not necessarily actual needs), the number of people who need to be regulated, and the number of people doing the regulation. Again, it might turn out to decrease safety. It depends on how the numbers turn out, which I don't have access to at the moment. Nevertheless, my point is that simply turning up the juice on driver requirements is not a slam dunk. There is plenty of room for unintended consequences given the type of system we are talking about here.
Wrong again. Here's another nice graphic (http://www.boeing.com/commercial/safety/fatalities_by_accident.html), it shows that the most common accidents are controlled flight into terrain (pilots flying a perfect aircraft into the ground, and loss of control in flight (pilots mishandling aircraft). With a bit of research you'll find just how rare aircraft failures are. Oh, and despite midair collisions being rare, they aren't unheard of, and often (always) are caused by humans (air traffic controllers, pilots) making errors.
Of course. My point being that the group making the errors are a small group. Small groups are easier to regulate than the 300 million drivers out on the streets.
Half right. Humans represent the most dangerous part of any socio-technical system. However, difficulty in regulation is because you aren't thinking outside the square - licensing being a privilege not a right. Make it cost a fortune. Make fines in the vicinity of $5000 or jail time... It can be done, but not if you don't get really tough.
I am talking about what actually happens in the world. Of course, licensed driving is a "priviledge, not a right", but it is, practically speaking, a necessity to drive, and even if fines are raised, people will tend to violate these laws to meet their needs. For example, speed kills, everyone knows that. But most everyone speeds too. The fact is that the number of drivers will always outnumber the number of enforcers by several orders of magnitude. People will take the risk. I've been pulled over and had my license checked exactly three times in the last 5 years, and all were due to my boneheadedness. If I didn't run the red light, if I didn't speed, if I didn't tailgate, on those occasions, nobody would do a check of my license. Safety happens before the accident, I care little about the consequences the unsafe driver will have after I am hit. I care much about making unsafe drivers into safe drivers before the damage is done.
The casualty rate having dropped due to seatbelts and ABS and airbags i can see - but source?
Same goes for the regulator - why do the cops have to be the regulator, don't you have the DMV? make them regulate. One could easily come up with a system by which facial recognition was matched to licences at stop lights or something. Then the cops don't even need to chase.
Again, make a licence expensive, and driving without one an unacceptable risk, and i can't see how it would have no impact.
You have, don't take this the wrong way, an inflated sense of what is possible to implement and not possible. How hard was it to just get red light and speeding camaras installed on the streets? And facial recognition? Not possible on a reliable basis yet. Computers are simply not good enough at sifting through the massive amounts of visual data to arrive at a picture of the world as humans see it. This is why we don't have cars which can drive themselves. They might have a database of what an obsticle looks like, but it will still likely be fooled by a shadow. There was a prize recently for an autonomous vehicle to make it across some desert (I forget the details, all I know is an underdog group from Stanford won over the powerhouse Carnagie Mellon (where my brother goes to school to get a PhD in robotics computing)). It was only completed last year or the year previous, and all the computer had to do there was recognize an obstacle or not, not try to match dimples in a rock to a database of specific rocks. The best machine vision can do now is on assembly line inspections where the lighting and orientation of the part can be controlled. Not all problems, especially in the machine vision field, are easily solved by throwing resources at them.
Your system might work if the technology existed. As it is, the lack of enforcers of the law will still leave very much room for unintended consequences.
Reasonable idea, except the safety is not something which makes people feel better - getting that to happen would be a big undertaking. And safety also is not a convenience item, it's a constant behavioral pattern, which is much tougher to influence than the purchase of a simple convenience item.
Here's the thing though. Safety is such a bugaboo for driving precisely because it is taken as a convenience item. What's the argument against a cell phone ban? Convenience. What about the old battle of the seat belt laws? Convenience. Driving is so routine that it will be impossible to separate it's ties to convenience.
But safety can be made emotional; I argue that making safety emotional is the only way to make it relevent against arguments of convenience. That's what advertisers excell at! Who the F*** cares a twit about Coke? But did you hear that themesong from the 70's: "I'd Like to Buy The World a Coke"? It was brilliant! You cannot hear that song without getting a tear in your eye, especially in the age before television made it obvious you were listening and seeing a commercial. It single handedly made Coke into an emotional product. Something to bind the world together and all that crap.
This twisting of emotions that advertisers are good at can be put to good use. Ironically, it is the insurance companies who are leading the way, with their own advertisements (not those corny public messages that people just laugh at). Remember the commercial about the guys, they are just talking about irrelevent guy stuff in an SUV, then POW!!! they are broadsided by a car? That's what I'm talking about.
Look, the only reason i've said all this is because misinformation about flying is just as prevalent as misinformation about cycling.
Take home message - from aviation to driving to nuclear power to whatever high risk activity, human error is the leading primary factor of accident causation. In fact, you find me an accident in the last 100 years that has no human involvement at all, and i'd be absolutely stunned.
No accident is caused by a single factor either, they all have mulitple factors present, that contribute to the accident Google "the reason model"
Oh, and the reason they want to reduce the rate is because at that rate, in about 10 years, we'll be losing a jet per week. Not a good thing for public perception...
You are obviously passionate about aviation. I won't hold it against you. And don't worry too much. The aviation industry is tightly regulated, and as you can see from page 12 of the first PDF, the accident curve is an exponential decay. There's no reason in my mind why it will stop exponentially decaying at the same rate. Perhaps you have information I don't (very likely, actually). FWIW, I don't think the number of car accidents are quite on the same exponential decay path, though I don't have numbers in front of me.
slowandsteady
The problem with drivers is that everyone thinks they are a good one. Have you ever met someone who said they weren't a good driver?
Brian Ratliff
The problem with drivers is that everyone thinks they are a good one. Have you ever met someone who said they weren't a good driver?
Any ideas on how we deal with this little twist on natural human behavior? People tend to disrespect you if you just get in their face and tell them they are a bad driver.
Personally, the VW commercials where it shows people doing mundane things in their car, talking with their friend (like the one with two guys and one keeps saying "like" all the time), then BAM!!! It really captures the reality of a car crash. They are sudden and unimaginably violent.
Like falling off your bike. You don't get it until it actually happens. When it does, it is faster than you'd imagine, certain parts anyway, certain parts are slower, like the tumbling through the air bit. The ground is unimaginably hard. These TV commercials capture some of the aspects of how sudden and violent car crashes are. And, so what if they are selling something.
Gusboh
Good source. I don't have numbers, just impressions, but the numbers back me up now. Out of 40 million flight hours a year, there have only been 6000 fatalities with 400 crashes since 1996. By reason and by these numbers, it means that the problem is easier to handle, and easier to solve.
I'd argue that it's not easier, just that the industry has spent billions on the problem.
Perhaps I am wrong on this point. It doesn't change the gist of what I am saying. The equipment is still second place. And the pilots are a dedicated group who can be easily trained.
Again, not easily trained - it's quite a difficult and expensive process. The difference is that someone realised a while back that pilots needed to be very good at their job because their job was bloody dangerous :D
Just a guess based on the relative need of a car (don't start with whether a car is "needed" or not, we are talking about percieved needs here, not necessarily actual needs), the number of people who need to be regulated, and the number of people doing the regulation. Again, it might turn out to decrease safety. It depends on how the numbers turn out, which I don't have access to at the moment. Nevertheless, my point is that simply turning up the juice on driver requirements is not a slam dunk. There is plenty of room for unintended consequences given the type of system we are talking about here.
This is the point i think, that at the moment, the culture is one of 'needing' the car as a commodity. Change that culture to one of privilege, and you change people's behaviour. Practical? Not in the short term. A good thing to aim for? Yep.
When laws are changed so that driving a car is made as difficult as flying an aircraft, or more punitive punishments are made for infringements ($1000 speeding fines, $10,000 drink driving for example) i think you'd see a real increase in safety levels. People won't take risks that they can't afford too often.
Of course. My point being that the group making the errors are a small group. Small groups are easier to regulate than the 300 million drivers out on the streets.
I'd say that every pilot makes errors, they're human, they'll screw up. You're right that the job is bigger for regulation of driving, but it's impossible because people don't want to throw money at the problem, and they don't want their driving to be taken away from them.
Safety happens before the accident, I care little about the consequences the unsafe driver will have after I am hit. I care much about making unsafe drivers into safe drivers before the damage is done.
Brilliant! That's exactly the way people need to think if they want things to change! (And it's exactly how people in aviation thought about it too.)
You have, don't take this the wrong way, an inflated sense of what is possible to implement and not possible. How hard was it to just get red light and speeding camaras installed on the streets? And facial recognition? Not possible on a reliable basis yet. ...snip...
Well, maybe and maybe not. Airport security is being trialled right now using facial recognition. And it's working. There are many other factors on the road for sure, but it does take people thinking outside of the square for change to occur.
Here's the thing though. Safety is such a bugaboo for driving precisely because it is taken as a convenience item. What's the argument against a cell phone ban? Convenience. What about the old battle of the seat belt laws? Convenience. Driving is so routine that it will be impossible to separate it's ties to convenience.
But safety can be made emotional; I argue that making safety emotional is the only way to make it relevent against arguments of convenience. That's what advertisers excell at! Who the F*** cares a twit about Coke? But did you hear that themesong from the 70's: "I'd Like to Buy The World a Coke"? It was brilliant! You cannot hear that song without getting a tear in your eye, especially in the age before television made it obvious you were listening and seeing a commercial. It single handedly made Coke into an emotional product. Something to bind the world together and all that crap.
This twisting of emotions that advertisers are good at can be put to good use. Ironically, it is the insurance companies who are leading the way, with their own advertisements (not those corny public messages that people just laugh at). Remember the commercial about the guys, they are just talking about irrelevent guy stuff in an SUV, then POW!!! they are broadsided by a car? That's what I'm talking about.
Being from oz (and having looked at the relevant stats), i can assure you that shock advertising has zero affect on driving. Our authorities have used it for years, and it just doesn't work. Same for the anti smoking campaigns, etc. (link to the Australian anti-smoking campaign) (http://www.quitnow.info.au/)
Driving safety is tied up in people's attitudes, and they are much much more difficult to change than somebody's feelings towards a drink. I really wish it were as simple as getting people to drink coke, but it isn't and won't be.
You are obviously passionate about aviation. I won't hold it against you. And don't worry too much. The aviation industry is tightly regulated, and as you can see from page 12 of the first PDF, the accident curve is an exponential decay. There's no reason in my mind why it will stop exponentially decaying at the same rate. Perhaps you have information I don't (very likely, actually). FWIW, I don't think the number of car accidents are quite on the same exponential decay path, though I don't have numbers in front of me.
Passionate is true ;)
That curve is a rate (it's actually pretty much stagnent, not dropping), and as such it means that as flights increase, so will the number of accidents. That concerns me.
It still remains that 40,000 will die in a year in the states in cars, and yet money isn't being thrown at the problem. That would put it up there with cancer etc in terms of deaths, but how much is spent on saving those lives?
Oh, and how do you get people to realise that 50% of people are below average drivers?
You can't. (unless you take their licence away)
You can however fix it with training so that average is better. And that is what needs to be done - driving tests more difficult, theory more difficult, medical tests, yearly driving exams etc. Will it happen? Not likely.
(there should be a bike test imo too, but that's a seperate story)
Cyclaholic
Brian, please don't take this the wrong way but everything you posted about aviation safety in your first post couldn't be less correct. I only just came upon this thread an was about to respond with basically the same reply as Gus.
Everything Gus is saying is right. He is professionally qualified in aviation safety, a PhD in fact if I remember correctly (sorry to 'out' you Gus :o ) I, on the other hand, have only held a pilot's license since I was 16 years old (I'm 41 now), I've flown in some of the remotest areas in the world and have participated in search and rescue operations. I can attest to the accuracy of everything that Gus is saying only through experience and involvement in the flying community.
I truly beleive driving a car can and should be as safe as flying an aircraft, in fact it should be held to even higher standards of safety simply because of the sheer number of participants and their close proximity. I doubt that as few as 0.01% of current license holders would meet the necessary safety standards to achieve that. I also don't hold any hope of such colossal cultural change.
Brian Ratliff
Perhaps the details are wrong; I am no expert at the aviation field, and if Gus is a PhD in this field, I'm not going to argue. But, my comments about the aviation industry being an industry more able to be regulated is the essential and valid point. It is this point that makes regulation of the aviation industry possible and the regulation of driving in the same manner impossible.
Instead of impossiblities, what do you all think we should do about it? We've already admitted that we hold no hope of regulating driving as closely as we do aviation. So, what do we do besides wallow in hopelessness?
Brian Ratliff
If you think that driving can be made as safe as aviation, then how would we do this, if we admit that a draconian measure such as make the testing and the punishments for violations so difficult as to strip 99% of all people of their right to drive is politically impossible?
Cyclaholic
If you think that driving can be made as safe as aviation, then how would we do this, if we admit that a draconian measure such as make the testing and the punishments for violations so difficult as to strip 99% of all people of their right to drive is politically impossible?
If we write off what has to be done as too difficult then we are defeated before we try and there's nothing to be done but learn to live with the status quo. Like you say, what needs to be done is politically impossible, meaning that those that have the power to initiate change have every incentive not to.
If we take a step back and ask if the current system is safe enough then I would have to say yes it is safe enough. Why? because the majority of your society deems it so. You and I clearly don't agree with the majority but in a democracy what is 'right' or 'acceptable' is determined by consensus of the majority. Every time an American gets in their car they are endorsing the system at the cost of 40,000 American lives per year one of which could be theirs (they accept those odds), they are accepting the status quo.
This leaves us with three options 1)Along with the majority of your fellow Americans accept the status quo, 2)Choose to not participate in your society and leave, 3)Garner majority support for the change you wish to make which will make it politically possible to initiate change. As I see it those are your only options. I'm going with option 1, how about you?
andrelam
One thing I don't understand is why there is no traffic/driving training in American schools till you are 16. I remember being in Kindergarden through 4th grade in school in The Netherlands, and they have work books that we had to learn about traffic safety. Granted some of the road rules are a bit more confusing liek traffic on the right has the right-of-way except if you are on a right-of-way loads. There are more traffic signs to go with that as well. But clearly they wanted kids to start to understand how has the right of way where and why. At least we were taught this from an early age. That does not mean that adult cyclists or pedestrians in Holland follow the traffic rules... but at least they know HOW they should work. My daughter in in Kindergarden now in NY state and I don't think there is ANY mention of road safety other than an accasional visit from a cop or firemen one a year to the class. It should come as no great suprise when a large percentage of the driving public is under the "understanding" that they have a God given right to the road and all the those anoying cyclists need to get the heck out of their way on the road. Education won't guarantee better behaviour in motorists, but at least they can't claim ignorance.
Happy Riding,
André
CdCf
Just a quick comment regarding fines. I agree that fines for reckless driving (whatever the offence may be) should be severely fined. One model that I fel would work great is the one used in Finland. The fine is set as a percentage of your income (or possibly income+personal fortune), so poor and rich people are hit equally hard. Well, a rich guy still has a lot more money left, but if you have to pay, say, 70% of your monthly income for a speeding offence, then you're probably a lot less likely to do so. With such a system, fines collected should go towards safety classes for unsafe drivers and traffic law enforcement.
Niles H.
I just re-read the original post -- once, beginning with this thought and premise: that these words are all about aviation, what does it have to do with bikes? or cars?
And, looked at from that perspective, it all looked rather irrelevant, dealing as it does with a separate field, aviation.
Then I re-read it a second time -- this time beginning with another thought and orientation: there is a lot of potential for crossover learning here; how can this be applied to bikes and bike riding? to my own safety? to others, and to bicycle safety generally? and to cars and driving? and to the interactions between bikes and cars, or cars and bikes?
Looking from that perspective, it was full of possibilities.
***
Fields don't have to be kept strictly separated. Safety principles can often be applied to many different fields. Quality of operator education (including self-education) and a high level of safety-consciousness are things that apply not only to jet planes, but to other planes and airborne vehicles, and to many other vehicles as well.
Accident prevention websites contain many principles that can be applied to a very wide range of situations and activities. They are not all limited to one field or activity.
Some of them can be applied to hiking, motorcycling, bicycling, jet skiing, walking down stairs, piloting an SR-71, or walking across the street.
Some principles are more specific, and apply only (or predominantly) to a certain vehicle or activity. Others apply to a variety of similar vehicles. Others apply much more generally or comprehensively, to a wide variety of other vehicles and activities.
Principles in educational psychology can be applied to learning how to play a saxophone, or a sopranino recorder. Or they can be applied more generally to all types of flutes -- from Andean Kenas to Indian Bansuris to Native American eagle-bone flutes to European contrabase recorders. Or to the entire woodwind family. Or to all musical instruments. Or to learning any subject whatsoever, including foreign languages, mathematics, or risk and accident reduction practices.
Psychological principles (and other aspects of accident reduction) can be applied to or implemented in many different fields, including cycling.
If one field has moved ahead of most others (in multiple ways) in successful approaches (on multiple fronts) to risk and accident reduction, then maybe they have something to say. Maybe there is something to learn from them.
The psychology of risk reduction (and accident reduction or prevention) is a very interesting field. It would be interesting to hear from those who have spent some time delving into it, and developing their understanding, skills, and practices.
Niles H.
Just a quick comment regarding fines. I agree that fines for reckless driving (whatever the offence may be) should be severely fined. One model that I fel would work great is the one used in Finland. The fine is set as a percentage of your income (or possibly income+personal fortune), so poor and rich people are hit equally hard. Well, a rich guy still has a lot more money left, but if you have to pay, say, 70% of your monthly income for a speeding offence, then you're probably a lot less likely to do so. With such a system, fines collected should go towards safety classes for unsafe drivers and traffic law enforcement.
I was thinking about this sort of system this morning. It makes sense.
It also makes sense, it seems to me, to have sharply escalating fine levels. The fine for the first time could be substantial, and enough to get their attention. It could be accompanied by a very clear warning that the next time will have a much higher (and more painful) fine. It would serve to heighten their interest in not doing it again.
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One thing about percentage of income: wealthy people can often spring back more easily. Their excess income is such that, even if you take away a month's income, they will (1) have plenty of savings and (2) make it up quickly. They have tremendous buffers, past and future, and may not feel it much.
Whereas a poor person, whose income is barely, barely keeping up with expenses can be hit much harder by the loss of a month's income. --even if the amount is far lower than the wealthy person is paying, and even if the percentage is the same.
The idea (percentage of income) seems better than a flat rate, but it could probably be developed further.
One of the most promising areas is in improving the education and psychology of education (and of changing attitudes).
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Legislation is one approach, and it has value.
But a lot can be done on the level of individual initiative. If a person takes an interest in safety and in learning, and in self-education, it can go a long way. It's hard to force people to be interested in learning something. It can work in some ways; but it seems better to have things on a more voluntary basis. People who learn a skill, and do it well, often do so because they have a real interest in the subject. Someone who has no interest in math isn't likely to shine in it, no matter how much you punish or push him or her.
If a real interest or love of the subject can be kindled first, then it is different. The learning is different and has a different quality.
(There is also the element of non-coercion or maintenance of freedom, and respect for the person's self-initiative.)
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One can also kindle an interest in safety in oneself. One doesn't have to wait for someone else to do it.