Advocacy & Safety - Death on the Streets: Cars and the Mythology of Road Safety

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http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/02/men-of-england-rise-up-against-reckless.html


Another book which is so interesting that it makes my head hurt is by Robert Davis. Death on the Streets: Cars and the Mythology of Road Safety.

I've been reading it for ages. A couple of pages is enough for me to put it down and reflect. It's chock full of facts and references, as well as thought-provoking observations about the role of the car in our societies.

It discusses how most of the 'road safety improvements' of the past 50 years, from road design to seat belts, have actually resulted in a terrifying increase in danger from cars, which permeates all over lives and the book is also 'a social history of the terrible toll of car surpremacy...'

Worldwide, between 15-20 million people have died and hundreds of millions have been permanently injured in road accidents since the beginnings of motorised society early last century.

The book's publication in 1993 brought about the formation of the Road Danger Reduction Forum, of which Robert Davis is the chair.

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http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/02/death-on-streets-cars-and-mythology-of.html

Imagine suggesting a mode of transport which killed 40-50,000 people a year in the U.S. alone. Pollutes air and water and the noise and smell will be terrible. Oh, on top of that, we will tax everyone except the users of this transportation system. We will fight wars to keep this going. Think you could get that started today? People freak out when a plane goes down or a train derails.

Imagine suggesting a mode of transport which killed 40-50,000 people a year in the U.S. alone. Pollutes air and water and the noise and smell will be terrible. Oh, on top of that, we will tax everyone except the users of this transportation system. We will fight wars to keep this going. Think you could get that started today? People freak out when a plane goes down or a train derails.

And further image in order to make this more affordable cut out safety measures to save 1% or maybe 2% of the cost so this system can be the leading cause of deaths for kids.

Take it to P&R, Foo; or Car Free Living. The regulars there love OT Kar Kulture bashing rants.

I have to wonder, what it is about seat belts that causes cars to become so dangerous?

I have to wonder, what it is about seat belts that causes cars to become so dangerous?
A fealing of increased saftey???

Doubt it.

Risk compensation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

Risk compensation yeah like how the wider the road is built the faster the cars move. throw in crumple zones and airbags YIKES! the safer it gets the more reckless the behavior

Risk compensation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation


In 1981 John Adams published a paper, The efficacy of seatbelt legislation: A comparative study of road accident fatality statistics from 18 countries, Dept of Geography University College, London 1981 - published in 1982 by the Society of Automotive Engineers.[3] This showed that in the countries studied, which included states with and without seat belt laws, there was no correlation between the passing of seat belt legislation and the total reductions in injuries or fatalities. When all associated fatalities and injuries in road accidents were included, it appeared that some accidents were being displaced from car drivers to pedestrians and other road users.

So, the idea is anachronistic - being based on a study that is a quarter century old now - which may have shown that potentially - some accidents may have been displaced to pedestrians etc. by the passing of seat belt laws and not simply the presence of seat belts themselves.

Well, that's a stretch.



This paper was published at a time when Britain was considering a seat belt law, so the Department of Transport commissioned a report into the issue. In the event the report's author, Isles, agreed with Adams' conclusions. The Isles Report was never published officially but a copy was leaked to the Press some years later.[9] The law was duly passed and subsequent investigation showed some reduction in fatalities, the cause of which could not be conclusively stated, due to the simultaneous introduction of evidential breath testing.[10]

So there's no real practical, measurable info on whether or not seat belt laws make any difference.


Other research has taken groups of drivers, including those who did and did not habitually wear seat-belts, and measured the effect on driving style in the habitually unbelted. The drivers were found to drive faster and less carefully when belted.[11]

So drivers who normally do not wear seatbelts drive less carefully when wearing seatbelts.

So the question then, is how many people in the U.S. don't normally use seatbelts?

If somebody is claiming seat belts make for less safe driving, they're apparently twisting the facts around. The only support for the idea that seatbelts make drivers drive less carefully seems to be related only to people who normally don't wear them.

So, the idea is anachronistic - being based on a study that is a quarter century old now - which may have shown that potentially - some accidents may have been displaced to pedestrians etc. by the passing of seat belt laws and not simply the presence of seat belts themselves.

The concept of risk compensation has been broadly studied across many disciplines in a variety if situations including transportation. If you believe that people respond to incentives on the margin -- particularly incentives that are easy to perceive -- then changing behavior as a consequence of changing risk naturally follows. THCs Wikepedia reference is probably just for convenience. The literature on the topic is extensive ... meaning thousands of publications ... showing evidence for risk compensation under certain conditions.

My first reading of the seatbelt phenomenon was by Peltzman. A famous argument of the principle given by Walter Oi who considered what would happen if you made cars more dangerous by putting a big spike in the steering wheel facing the driver. Would you expect drivers to tailgate as much as without a spike? If you believe that they would tailgate less -- i.e., making the car more dangerous results in safer driving -- why do you believe that the converse is false? Again, if you simply want to talk about seatbelts (or automobile safety in a variety of situations), there are publications up the wazoo looking at the topic.

If you want to argue about risk compensation in some situation, I think that you can argue whether the change in risk is perceivable by the agents, whether the magnitude of the effect is significant, and so on.

Now, I don't recall a careful study that directly looked at the effect of riskier driving on pedestrian or cycling injuries over time. Mind you, the topic is quite casual for me. But I think that a model that says we made cars safer, leading to riskier driving, and resulting in more cycling and pedestrian injuries/deaths is quite logical. Whether the effect is big or meaningful is an empirical argument.

... But I think that a model that says we made cars safer, leading to riskier driving, and resulting in more cycling and pedestrian injuries/deaths is quite logical. Whether the effect is big or meaningful is an empirical argument.

... and of course this is one of the arguments when it comes to bicycle helmet use. It's not conclusive why it is, but it is conclusive that head injuries have not dipped with increased use of helmets.

I think the obvious point is we may be looking at the wrong things to increase safety. There are better ways of increasing safety for all than what the focus has previously been. A change in perspective may be beneficial.

Now, I don't recall a careful study that directly looked at the effect of riskier driving on pedestrian or cycling injuries over time. Mind you, the topic is quite casual for me. But I think that a model that says we made cars safer, leading to riskier driving, and resulting in more cycling and pedestrian injuries/deaths is quite logical. Whether the effect is big or meaningful is an empirical argument.

My point being that the argument is built on a study that is decades old. That's anachronistic thinking - it's the same thing with people who say that it takes more energy to make alcohol fuel than can be released from it - citing information that was gathered in the early 1970s...

Think about this, in 1981 cars didn't even have shoulder belts for back seat drivers - seat belt use was casual, and few places required mandatory seat belt use. So the mindset of "if I use a seatbelt I'll be safer, and those don't need to drive so carefully" makes a lot more sense two decades ago, than it does now when generations of drivers have always been wearing seatbelts.

Unless somebody does an up to date study on the subject of seat belts making drivers more dangerous to non drivers, I can't really buy into a word of it.

I'm not debating the existence of risk compensation, but rather how relevant the idea is here.

My point being that the argument is built on a study that is decades old.

I didn't read the book the original post referenced. So it isn't clear to me why this one study is so instrumental to the argument.

With that in mind, from what I gather the age of the study in this case is irrelevant, IMO. The argument is simply based on whether people take more risks in safer cars resulting in greater risks for pedestrians and cyclists. If seat belts still make cars safer -- my understanding is that conditioned on the properties of a collision the answer is an emphatic YES -- and people believe that wearing a seatbelt is safer than otherwise, then people will drive riskier than otherwise. Perhaps with other changes to the autos and roads, the relative change in risk -- either real or perceived -- due to seatbelts is different such that the marginal effect of seatbelts is no longer the same. But this isn't important to the overall argument.

There's one simple reason that this 'anachronistic study' is relevant.

The world is still filled with people, who have not changed at their core since the dawn of civilization. It's a truth of life that 'there is nothing new under the sun.'

It seems to me that road safety has been increasingly framed in terms of "safe crashing" at the expense of driver responsibility. As a result, people view "naked" travel modes like walking and cycling as inherently dangerous rather than viewing motoring as inherently dangerous. Guardrails, cable fences, breakaway poles, rumble strips, airbags, seat belts, crumple zones, etc. have certainly the saved lives of vehicle occupants on a per-crash basis at a given speed. But where is the public dialog on driving carefully? The American metric of a good driver is how fast they can go before they crash. Those travel modes that depend on careful driving are considered obsolete. It's time to stop celebrating safe crashing and start celebrating safe driving.

..... It's time to stop celebrating safe crashing and start celebrating safe driving.

I think we have begin to do so. Insurance penalties for bad drivers (and good driver incentives) are an example.

I read an interesting idea once: as a species, it's good for our survival to be frightened of dangerous situations (in our case, examples could be the dark, heights). People who weren't afraid of heights, for example, fell to their death, winning a Darwin award, while those with a healthy fear were able to reproduce and pass on that predisposition. We have evolved to have an innate fear of certain situations, but travelling at very high speeds is not part of our evolutionary experience, so, in general, it doesn't invoke the same sense of caution being 8 feet up a ladder would, even though it's more dangerous.

It seems to me that road safety has been increasingly framed in terms of "safe crashing" at the expense of driver responsibility. As a result, people view "naked" travel modes like walking and cycling as inherently dangerous rather than viewing motoring as inherently dangerous. Guardrails, cable fences, breakaway poles, rumble strips, airbags, seat belts, crumple zones, etc. have certainly the saved lives of vehicle occupants on a per-crash basis at a given speed. But where is the public dialog on driving carefully? The American metric of a good driver is how fast they can go before they crash. Those travel modes that depend on careful driving are considered obsolete. It's time to stop celebrating safe crashing and start celebrating safe driving.

Steve, well and beautifully said. +1000

I had a thought about risk compensation and how seat belts and especially air bags have nothing (or at least very little) to do with it. I mean honestly does having a warning sticker about air bag use on your dash really make you feel safer? I will assert no and further assert new cars are increasing the insulation between the outside world and the inside world of the car.

I remember spinning out once in a big boat of a car and it was like "Oh look the world is moving in a way I don't expect" rather then "Oh my gosh we are out of control and are going to crash." I like cars with stiff suspension and manual transmissions so you can "feel" the road but remove all that plus sound proof the thing and you lose touch of changes in the world around you.

The important thing to acknowledge is how the user feels and not the facts of if they are literally safer or not. You feel safe in an environment that resembles your living room couch, which more and more cars are a very close approximation.

I had a thought about risk compensation and how seat belts and especially air bags have nothing (or at least very little) to do with it. I mean honestly does having a warning sticker about air bag use on your dash really make you feel safer? I will assert no and further assert new cars are increasing the insulation between the outside world and the inside world of the car.

I remember spinning out once in a big boat of a car and it was like "Oh look the world is moving in a way I don't expect" rather then "Oh my gosh we are out of control and are going to crash." I like cars with stiff suspension and manual transmissions so you can "feel" the road but remove all that plus sound proof the thing and you lose touch of changes in the world around you.

The important thing to acknowledge is how the user feels and not the facts of if they are literally safer or not. You feel safe in an environment that resembles your living room couch, which more and more cars are a very close approximation.

I agree with your insulation comments and feel that this is more of an issue than the safety devices... the safety devices are passive, the user is not really aware of them and likely is not responding to them. The isolation from the road however is another issue. The motorist cannot respond to outside stimuli due to that isolation... where once the driver had feed back due to road feel and wind noise, that feedback is now removed.

Noisebeam and I discussed this a few years ago... centering on how rolling down the window in a car can really change the driver's perception of the world.

As it is now a motorist has to rely more and more on basically visual clues for feed back... the speedometer for instance to determine that they are going fast, and the view outside, whereas in the past, noise and vibration would give such feedback. The driver then starts to think, hey the world is spinning (as in that boat situation) vice hey, I am spinning.

Solution: Mandate convertibles.

It seems to me that road safety has been increasingly framed in terms of "safe crashing" at the expense of driver responsibility. As a result, people view "naked" travel modes like walking and cycling as inherently dangerous rather than viewing motoring as inherently dangerous. Guardrails, cable fences, breakaway poles, rumble strips, airbags, seat belts, crumple zones, etc. have certainly the saved lives of vehicle occupants on a per-crash basis at a given speed. But where is the public dialog on driving carefully? The American metric of a good driver is how fast they can go before they crash. Those travel modes that depend on careful driving are considered obsolete. It's time to stop celebrating safe crashing and start celebrating safe driving.


and of course all this safe crashing can only be safe for the vehicles occupants. It's not any safer for those outside the vehicle.

I agree, it's time to stop celebrating safe crashing and start celebrating safe driving.

...The important thing to acknowledge is how the user feels and not the facts of if they are literally safer or not. You feel safe in an environment that resembles your living room couch, which more and more cars are a very close approximation.

and also one of the reasons a lot of people are more afraid on a bike than in a car. On a bike, you feel the road, in a car you don't. IMHO, I think this awareness contributes to making decisions that keep you safe when on a bike.

Why is the discussion of auto safety a Foo thing.?..The auto is the immovable object met by some irresistible force. The object could be you or you on your bike..Trivia , Henry Bliss was the first pedestrian killed by an auto in NYC in 1899 at 74 and Central Park West . Since at least 5000 pedestrians are killed in auto accidents. Cyclists are equally vulnerable as are pedestrians ; to that immovable object - the car.

Take it to P&R, Foo; or Car Free Living. The regulars there love OT Kar Kulture bashing rants.
with the semi-colon, this kind of has to be read in a Mr. T voice.... :lol:

Why is the discussion of auto safety a Foo thing.?..The auto is the immovable object met by some irresistible force. The object could be you or you on your bike..Trivia , Henry Bliss was the first pedestrian killed by an auto in NYC in 1899 at 74 and Central Park West . Since at least 5000 pedestrians are killed in auto accidents. Cyclists are equally vulnerable as are pedestrians ; to that immovable object - the car.
So what are you advocating or proposing? Cyclists die of heart attacks and old age too. Do you also find these cyclist killer issues worthy of banal windmill tilting rants?

The isolation from the road however is another issue. The motorist cannot respond to outside stimuli due to that isolation... where once the driver had feed back due to road feel and wind noise, that feedback is now removed.



I can relate to this, even 30 plus years ago. I rode in two different cars, one lightened up with all the insulation/sound deadening removed, and one that had it's insulation intact. The one car with it's insulation intact, I could hold a normal conversation as though I was in a semi quiet restaurant. The car without it's insulation, I had to yell as though I was next to a busy freeway, and this particular car was doing 25mph less in speed.