The Human Car

I don't believe that there is one cause but there are strong indicators of symptoms of problems (which are many and this is one of them.)

While you are correct that the higher density counties are skewed to the left of the chart, the fact remains the National average for the ratio of bike/ped fatalities is 13% and even a lot of our rural counties have a hard time getting below that.

BarracksSi

Not to get into your business of raising your son, but I have to ask -- was he going at an unreasonably high speed (i.e., 90+ mph)? Or was he going with the flow of the traffic around him?

Particularly on congested freeways, it's much safer to travel at roughly the same speed as everyone else -- not faster, but not slower, either. It's like a herd of cattle out there; run too slow and you just might get run over.

dynodonn 

Luckily that GPS technology was a distant pipe dream in my youthful days, my parents would probably still have me under lock and key to this very day if they knew of all the escapades my friends and I have had at the beginning of our motoring experience.

The Human Car

+1

genec

It was early morning on a weekend, so I doubt he was "pushed by traffic" (reality is, when I confronted him with the evidence, he admitted that the wide open road was just too much... )

He hit 80 for several minutes and held it... that was the straw that broke the camel's back... so to speak.

He has since quite changed his driving habits...

BarracksSi

I have to bring this up again --

It's true. But... they feel "comfortable" at a given speed only because of how much -- or how little -- they know about driving. They usually aren't aware of how long it takes to get the car to respond to their reactions (perception, recognition, decision, physical action -- and that's all BEFORE the car's controls are even moved), nor are they aware of how their presence can affect others on and near the road.

So:

As I get older, and I realize how little I really knew about driving when I was a teenager, I'm convinced that better driver training can get us a long ways towards better, safer driving in general.

genec

Yeah I was guilty too, but only on freeways. Frankly, to this day I feel we can easily raise the speed limits on freeways.

Surface streets need more control... it's shared space, and all users need to be considered.

genec

+1000

BarracksSi

Only 80? That ain't nothin'... That diesel Ford Transit van I mentioned earlier (the one my family rented in Germany) was flying along nicely at 95 mph (and sucking down fuel like it was cool... but, boy, was it ever expensive!).

That's not a fair comparison, though. I felt safer on the unrestricted stretch of A5 in southwestern Germany than I ever have on an east coast interstate highway in the US.

dynodonn 

I sure most everyone here relate to this, to go the speed limit in the slow lane in some places and you better have some ramps going over the top of your vehicle. The one incident that sticks in my memory is when the national speed limit was 55 MPH, I was flowing with traffic at 75 MPH in the slow lane and having traffic pass me at 80 to 90 MPH in the fast lane, and in the rear view mirror is a very old female driver in a newer Mercedes diesel just a few feet off my rear bumper. As soon as an opening in the fast lane appeared, she did a Daytona slingshot around me and had that Mercedes up over a 90 MPH in no time at all with black smoke rolling out the exhaust, mere feet off someone else's bumper.

genec

Yeah only 80... but well over the 65MPH speed limit. I didn't want him getting the mindset that "well it's OK... " And that seems to have worked.

These days he says "I leave fat gaps." I thought it was a cool expression... basically he holds to the 2 second + rule... and better. That is a lot better than many folks drive on local freeways.

StrangeWill

I agree with the training, especially with simulators being so advanced these days we should be throwing students into these and putting them on icy roads, and quick-thinking situations.

It's one thing I really haven't liked is that I haven't been put in enough "ZOMG!" situations to be certain that I can handle most of them. It's really hard to train yourself to stay away from knee-jerk responses and think stuff out quickly.

However, while I'm still young, I drive for a job, so I still think I'm one step ahead of most drivers, doing all that defensive stuff, using my agility and quick responses plus the wisdom of others to help me out of situations as opposed to the popular American idea: "the rolling brick", probably the best quality is that I never feel in a hurry, even if I should feel it, and therefore take my time and watch out for things people commonly overlook, , to help keep me safe.

San Rensho 

Beg to differ. What makesdrivers feel "comfortable" is how confident they are which is directly related to the type of road they are on. A multilane, divided road inspires confidence (whether that confidence is justified is a completely different matter and is what road designers should look at when they design roads to be driven at a certain speed) and higher speeds. Narrow, one lane roads with oncoming traffic inspire less confidence and hence lower speeds.

BarracksSi

Yeah, true. Add more features & hazards to similar roads, though -- like, have one multilane divided road in the middle of nowhere, and another multilane divided road lined with houses.

I think my point is that, if drivers knew how easily an accident can happen, they'd go slower by choice and not feel like they're being bossed around by the government.

genec

Beg to differ... I believe how "comfortable" drivers are has a lot to do with their isolation from the road.

Sound proofing systems in cars, along with air conditioning and power steering coupled with good sound systems all work to "remove" the motorist from their environment. There is no feedback to the motorist to tell them they are moving too fast. A glance at the speedometer doesn't mean a thing as the numbers are just numbers.

Where once motorists drove around with windows rolled down and manual steering and were aware of the road and things around them, these days motorists are often only "connected" visually.

This "comfort" makes it easy to push on the gas pedal.

John E

I concur, to the extent that I often use the cruse control to avoid being lulled into speed creep.

Another huge problem is that a given motorist will drive at what he/she perceives to be a safe speed, unaware of an approaching obstruction or hazard.

dynodonn 

Cars of today also handle the road better and have a higher power to weight ratio, better than some "race only" cars built just a few decades ago, inspiring even more driver confidence.

njkayaker

The problem that I have with the graphic is that it is encouraging the viewers to draw a conclusion that it cannot actually support.

The chart does not support that conclusion. It does not contain the data to support that conclusion.

Since it might be harder to speed in high population areas (due to high traffic and congestion), the lower % speeding-tickets per population could be explained by that. Also, in high population areas, more people are using mass transit. That is, a large part of the population isn't even driving!

The ratio of bike/ped fatalities is another discussion. I certainly would like to see fewer cyclists killed or injured. Heck, why not lower the numbers of pedestrian fatalities too.

So, what does that ratio mean?

That ratio is probably because closer to 100% of bicyclists ride in the streed and closer to 0% of pedestrians walk in the street. That ratio ould likely be much lower if people walked in the streets or if cyclists rode on side walks. The ratio is also probably higher because pedestians take care when they cross the streets.

njkayaker

I think the problem is that driving for the most part is easy. That encourages an inexperienced driver to think that driving is easy all of the time. It's the rare things that are hard and it takes a fair amount of experience to handle them properly or to anticipate them (to avoid them entirely). Of course, we also have relentless media examples that drivng recklessly is "easy" and "safe".

BarracksSi

Controlling a car at reasonable speeds is easy, definitely (although some people still can't get that part right). It's all those other things outside of the car that are difficult, confusing, and carry the potential to injure or kill someone.

That stuff (along with car recovery & control and mixed-surface driving) is what I'd like to see taught through better instruction.

The Human Car

The chart has two logical outcomes 1) is that motorists obeying the speed limit is more deadly to pedestrians and cyclists then motorists that speed. Or 2) the police are not enforcing the speed limit in high bike/ped crash areas. If you live in one of the high bike/bed crash areas one of those logical outcomes will be eliminated immediately. If you would like some more background on the enforcing the speed limit problem here in MD this is an interesting read: https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/loc...,7111265.story

Talking to local police they have confirmed that they do not ticket drivers driving 40mph in a 25mph residential or school zone.


When looking at bike/ped crashes you are looking at mostly pedestrian crashes. And for MD you are looking at mostly crashes on 25mph roads, essentially the same roads a lot of residents are clamoring for traffic calming.

StrangeWill

I love my manual steering, power steering gives you the sensation that you need to steer your car straight. However even with my windows down it's extremely hard to tell where sounds are coming from, a siren usually has me looking in all directions until I can see it because I basically only get stereo instead of surround sound.

However I also agree, my manual steering gives me real feedback as to your speed at 75, and on some freeways thats the legal limit, not to mention you can feel when the front end is slipping even the most tiny bit.

I'm also on a car forum (actually we just had a thread posted about a cyclist saying driving is like a drug, oh the fun), and we typically agree that manual steering is better, and wish there was a mix (powered for parking, manual for driving). Of course at the same time, we agree that manual transmissions are better, but that typically just confuses people, however I think it's made me a much better driver being as I can't eat a hamburger, do my hair, and read a newspaper while driving even if someone would pay me to do it. You also learn to anticipate and plan ahead, along with complete focus on driving as opposed to dicking around with things with your free hand.

I'm going to have to partially disagree with that, it isn't an exact science really, I've seen people do 15 over and 15 under on the same road at the same time of day under the same conditions, I think the largest factor is the driver's style of driving. If they typically speed, it doesn't matter the road, they'll speed. It's probably a factor, but you can't say a specifically designed road will make people slow down, unless there are speed bumps, which as I've said before, solve the issue in a polar opposite manner of what needs to be enforced (larger vehicles need to be slower, not faster).

ivegotabike

I dont favor lowering speed limits either, they are low enough. I most certainly identify as a cyclist first, pedestrian second, and motorist last. I have been driving less than a month. I have always been satisfied with the speed limits, just not how idiotic and incourteous some drivers are. Why are you laying on your horn behind me when there is an open "fast" lane that you could more easily use to pass me? That kind of thing. You know?

njkayaker

There is at least one more explanation: car versus bike/ped interactions are much more common in highly populated areas. This additional explanation has nothing to do with speed!

Since there is a lower percentage of people driving in highly populated areas, the %tickets/population must "logically" be less!

Maybe, this is due to the difference in average speeds on road-ways. That is, in rural areas, there are more higher speed roads OR the focus on monitoring speed is on the higher speed roads.

Since we don't know what the "non-local" police do, this piece of information isn't useful. It's possible that the %tickets/population is higher in rural areas because it's easier and more profitable for cops to give tickets in those places (plus, the cops might have less other things to do).

Another false causality. You might see the close to the same number of pedestrian accidents if people drove the speed limit because very few pedestrians are walking in the vacinity of high-speed roads. Residents would "clamor" for traffic calming even if speeding was rare.

================

I don't disagree that there might be a problem. I don't think the "statistics" provided do much to illuminate the real causes of the problem. It is very difficult to prove causality of complex phenomena with simple statistics.

Kyle90

Some of the people on this forum never cease to amaze me... I ride a bike from time to time, that's why I'm here. The fact I drive an air-polluting pickup truck from 1989 is 100% irrelevant.

How many people here understand personal responsibility? It shouldn't be the laws job to play Mom and Dad.