On the other hand, newer cars have gotten more dangerous for pedestrians. Safety is indeed a luxury.
nis0s•6h ago
How? My car breaks automatically whenever there’s an obstacle behind it or in front of it.
tzs•4h ago
Are we sure about this? In the US the pedestrian death rate from cars in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 was 3.6, 2.6, 1.7, 1.4, and 2.0 per 100k.
Some cursory research turns up some interesting characteristics of the increase from 2010 to 2020.
• It was almost entirely in urban areas.
• Over 2/3 was on non-freeway arterials. Only about 1.4% was at intersections. (The percent of pedestrian deaths at intersections is around 16%)
• 90% was in darkness.
• It was adults. The rates for children continued to go down. For the years given above they were 2.7, 1.6, 0.8, 0.4, and 0.3 per 100k.
Cars did get heavier from 2010 to 2020 by about 4%. That would mean 4% more momentum at a given speed and 8% more kinetic energy but when dealing with getting hit by things that weigh a lot more than you do velocity is more important than momentum or kinetic energy [1], so I doubt that this was a significant factor.
Cars with shapes that are less safe did get more common, so that could be a part of it, but from where and when most of the increases were it seems there is a good chance that it is not so much that cars themselves but the behavior of drivers (and to a lesser extent) pedestrians that is mostly responsible.
Distracted driving due to phones, speeding, and reckless driving are all way up.
[1] Would you rather be hit by a Fiat 500x at 60 km/hr or the largest freight train ever constructed at 0.2 km/hr (since we usually don't talk about speeds that low to help visualize it at that speed it takes 18 seconds to go 1 meter)? The train would have 500 times the Fiat's momentum and 1.7 times the kinetic energy, but I'll definitely choose to be hit by the train. I'd even pick the train at 1 km/hr, where it has 2500 times the momentum and 42 times the kinetic energy. (Going the other way, a typical 9 mm bullet has 1/1500000th the momentum of that 0.2 km/hr train, and 1/87th the kinetic energy, but I'll the the train over the bullet).
decimalenough•7h ago
The headline is misleading. Yes, a new luxury car is safer than one from 15 years ago, but both are infinitely safer than a car from the 1970s where seatbelts didn't exist and the crumple zone for the steering wheel column was your chest.
sheepscreek•7h ago
That’s a great point - safety has been improving at an incredible pace over the years. The same argument could possibly be made when comparing a vehicle from 1960 with another from 1975. I wonder if some things got lost in translation.
mikestew•7h ago
Your point stands, but collapsible steering columns and seat belts have been mandated in the U. S. since the late '60s.
At the same time, "luxury"? Even our 20 year old Scion has ABS and air bags. Okay, no lane keeping or collision avoidance, but I've got that on my (granted, top trim) Hyundai.
dfxm12•4h ago
What do you mean misleading? It is a direct quote.
decimalenough•54m ago
The headline implies the situation "today" is somehow worse than it used to be, when this is manifestly not the case.
schappim•5h ago
In the past, high-end safety always worked its way down. ABS, airbags, and backup cameras all started out as luxuries and became standard. The real question is whether this new wave of sensor-driven safety will do the same, or if the economics of software and subscriptions will freeze the gap in place.
analog31•7h ago
nis0s•6h ago
tzs•4h ago
Some cursory research turns up some interesting characteristics of the increase from 2010 to 2020.
• It was almost entirely in urban areas.
• Over 2/3 was on non-freeway arterials. Only about 1.4% was at intersections. (The percent of pedestrian deaths at intersections is around 16%)
• 90% was in darkness.
• It was adults. The rates for children continued to go down. For the years given above they were 2.7, 1.6, 0.8, 0.4, and 0.3 per 100k.
Cars did get heavier from 2010 to 2020 by about 4%. That would mean 4% more momentum at a given speed and 8% more kinetic energy but when dealing with getting hit by things that weigh a lot more than you do velocity is more important than momentum or kinetic energy [1], so I doubt that this was a significant factor.
Cars with shapes that are less safe did get more common, so that could be a part of it, but from where and when most of the increases were it seems there is a good chance that it is not so much that cars themselves but the behavior of drivers (and to a lesser extent) pedestrians that is mostly responsible.
Distracted driving due to phones, speeding, and reckless driving are all way up.
[1] Would you rather be hit by a Fiat 500x at 60 km/hr or the largest freight train ever constructed at 0.2 km/hr (since we usually don't talk about speeds that low to help visualize it at that speed it takes 18 seconds to go 1 meter)? The train would have 500 times the Fiat's momentum and 1.7 times the kinetic energy, but I'll definitely choose to be hit by the train. I'd even pick the train at 1 km/hr, where it has 2500 times the momentum and 42 times the kinetic energy. (Going the other way, a typical 9 mm bullet has 1/1500000th the momentum of that 0.2 km/hr train, and 1/87th the kinetic energy, but I'll the the train over the bullet).