“At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines”.
-Bruce Springsteen
66
" … Why are more people being killed by vehicles?
For starters, America’s growing love affair with pickups, SUVs and crossover utility vehicles means pedestrians are being hit by bigger, heavier, and more powerful vehicles. As a result, pedestrians who are hit are more likely to die or suffer life-threatening injuries, the association said. Pedestrian fatalities involving SUVs jumped by 50 percent between 2013 and 2017, it estimates.
Another factor is the growing population in many states, which has lead to more deadly encounters between drivers and pedestrians. The report also blames people being distracted by their smartphones and not being focused on the road as contributing to pedestrian fatalities. …"
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/pedestrian-deaths-hit-a-28-year-high-and-big-vehicles-and-smartphones-are-to-blame.html
2
"Then my niece was hit by one... running toward an ice cream truck."
So the parents of your niece failed to supervise her, allowing her to brake the law and run into traffic and SHE hit the car, who I assume was legally traveling down the road.
And you blame "the car".
Got it.
8
Terribly flawed logic Hear that confuses correlation with causation. Pretty basic fallacy.
9
The real "death machines" are cell phones.
9
The whole idea of "self-driving" or "smart" cars has always seemed absurd to me. Why would anyone buy one of these cars unless they were absolutely assured that they could get in this car, turn on the engine, tell the car where to take you, get in the back seat and take a nap until the car alerted you that you were safely at your destination without harming a flea?
You still have to be alert to the motions and decisions of any of these "smart" cars, so what is the advantage over a regular "stupid" car? This whole scheme is something dreamed up by the automobile industry and hyped to a low-intellect consumer. This is 2020 snake oil, folks. Ask rational questions about the "better mousetrap" and save yourself money and disappointment.
6
This younger generation is afraid of everything. Even cars- the greatest rite of passage to adulthood ever invented. To those of us who grew up and couldn't wait to drive, and still drive, it is tragic how pathetically fearful and phobic the present generation is. Even sadder, is that less than 4% of cars manufactured in the US are a stick shift. I have an idea- stop texting and staring at your idiot phones and driving will be safer. Life, I must say, is not as safe as your college safe spaces.
And one other thing- rock climbing- 1500 deaths a year and boating- nearly 3,000 deaths. And in Japan- nearly 5,000 bathtub deaths in 2014 alone. Yes, we need to ban rocks, boats, and of course, bathtubs.
7
While driving my car I have been rear-ended three times by bicyclists who were not paying attention to stop signs or intersections.
While walking to my office on a city sidewalk I was struck by a bicyclist who was unlawfully on the sidewalk. I was six months pregnant at the time.
Thankfully I was not hurt.
This morning...for the second time this week... I observed a bicyclist cruising... against the light...through a busy intersection. No helmet...hands swinging loose; who needs handlebars?
Last week there were THREE similar scenarios...note that phones were involved.
Last month I observed a cyclist...still on his bike and clad in a Lance Armstrong style costume.. screaming at and banging on the hood of a woman's car while she cowered inside...downtown Mpls...rush hour.
I could but will not go on.
Many...perhaps most... bicyclists in this city are flagrantly lawless and arrogant. In Minneapolis, this is tolerated so our city can be on record as "bike friendly".
And now we have scooters,too.
17
Pedestrians were killed by carriages, trolley cars and horses on a regular basis even before the car came along.
How many lives has the car saved? How many trips to the hospital which would have taken hours before the automobile?
All technology comes with risks and we should mitigate those risks as best we can, but they cannot be eliminated entirely.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/nyregion/nyc-pedestrian-deaths.html
8
Few people seem to take safety seriously.
Nearly every day, some insane person steps out in front of me, crossing the street, completely sure (apparently) that I saw them and have enough time to stop before I hit them. And you know what? Most of these people aren't looking at their mobiles -- they just seem to be challenging me to stop. Oh, I get it, "pedestrians have the right of way," but that means little when your mushy little 150 pound body is hit by a two ton vehicle.
We need better driver training and ongoing testing. This isn't a document you should get when you're 16 -- and never have to re-up.
Finally, I think there is an almost complete lack of police enforcement. Where I live in PA, only the State Police can use radar. It's an antiquated law meant to keep municipalities from setting up "speed traps" and ticketing everyone and his brother. I understand the intent, but this needs to change. I'd rather have a few extra people get tickets than many more going to the morgue.
2
They have strengthened cars and suv's for roll over accidents. The pillars in front limit your view and in the rear, the windows in the back and sides have become so small you need a camera to tell you whats around you. There's a lot of sheet metal where there wasn't before.
People are distracted by their cell phones and particularly bicycle riders think you're going to stop for them. Some times it's not possible stop in time or maybe the driver was distracted. There's other things going on in the road besides you. I've had near accident's both as a pedestrian and a driver in NYC but nothing is worse than a bicyclist that thinks if you step in front of them you deserve to be hit.
3
Internal combustione cars are also 'death machines' in that they spew toxic fumes wherever they go.
2
Sure, fewer miles and smaller cars will help. But AI stands to make huge reductions in accidents and deaths. Only today, a pickup and a car raced around me on the right, about 90mph and swerved to miss the semi I was about to pass, with just a few feet to spare. Artificial intelligence will be a lot better than organic stupidity and aggression.
4
Deaths per miles driven in cars has been dropping since the twenties. Cars are dangerous, but it's worth noticing that they have become safer and safer over time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT,_VMT,_per_capita,_and_total_annual_deaths.png
1
Actually, corrected for the number of vehicles on the road the rise is not nearly so alarming. They are up by 25 percent since 2000 while pedestrian fatalities have not risen by the same amount over the same period. The author chooses to take 2008 as their baseline, a misuse of statistics intended to make a point. The author ignores the rise in cycling and bicycle lanes. The author ignores the role of alcohol and darkness in the actual statistics. Instead, she cherry picks some sad cases to make here point. Even worse, she seems to believe their stories - no evidence was presented as to the actual nature of the accidents. Finally, the use of new car sales as a surrogate for the total population of SUV's on the road is just wrong. The only statistic that should be used is the cumulative number multiplied by total mileage. Total mileage has gone way up in the past 10 years, but the author again ignores facts when they get in the way of her "opinion".
You really should not publish drivel like this.
7
this is a genuinely disingenuous column not worthy of the New York Times.
There is no use of statistics - just anecdotes. Motor vehicle deaths have been going down for decades. In 1960, more people were killed in vehicle accidents than in 2018. The population of the country was less than half what it was then.
There is no actual information here - just anecdotal evidence.
There far too many legitimate issues that need to be addressed with actual facts instead of random stories.
I expect better of the Times. I'm deeply disappointed.
18
The only way this will be solved is in moderates from both sides coming together for discussion. But sadly, conversation seems to fall along the lines of 'anti-car tree huggers' vs 'you'll have to take my car/my freedom of movement from my cold dead hands'.
Cars will always be here. Ditto for pedestrians and cyclists. But...we clearly have given too much power to the auto. There's no denying that this was driven (so to speak) by the auto industry, and folks like Robert Moses. So long as there are suburbs, and where investment in public transit is less of a priority, there's not much we can likely do about the ubiquity of cars.
But in cities? Absolutely we can change things. Just because car ownership is considered 'normal' by so many in NYC, doesn't mean it should be so, nor that we can't start to change minds. Heck, there was a time when smoking in the home, the office, restaurants, in front of kids was totally normal. Just as with cigarettes, we can help people to understand just how perverted it is...this notion that everyone 'should' have their own private 2-ton vehicle. And that we should give up so much of our public space, to accommodate these Private Possessions? Heck, I'd love for the city to allocate some outdoor space to me, for some of my private possessions...maybe a patch of land for me to keep a patio table/chairs and small BBQ?
https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/how-we-allocate-street-space/1019971/
2
From the NYC database Vision Zero View
Citywide Totals This Year To Date 2019
Pedestrian
Fatalities: 75
Injuries: 6,339
What would be your response if these fatalities and injuries were from gun fire, who would you blame then?
http://www.nycvzv.info/#
1
One thing we should do is reform our imperfect traffic-control system, which is designed to control rather than inform. The Brits do it better and their roads are safer.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/traffic/1; https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/distracting-miss-daisy/306873/
1
We taught our kids since the first day they set their feet on pavement that cars are out to kill them. They walk at the far edge of the road facing traffic (except around blind curves, when they cross to the opposite side ahead of the curve) and ride bikes on streets that have enough room for cars to pass safely.
Here on Cape Cod we have many narrow roads with tiny shoulders. The numbers of tourists who stroll and ride bikes in the middle of a road without paying attention is astounding. Too, too many bike riders and walkers feel no responsibility for keeping themselves out of harm's way, that it's 100% on the car/truck driver to watch out for them. Seven if they have the law on their side, that's just plain stupid.
2
Who besides techies andventure capitalists really wantsself-driving cars anyway?
3
In 2014 an angry woman in an SUV threw her cell phone into the footwell of her vehicle and floored the accelerator. Her light was still red.
I drove my motorcycle into the left rear of her truck. I survived, but will carry the results of her stupidity with me to the grave. Her sentence - waking every morning to find out she's still her. I think I came out the better of both of us.
No, I don't ride any longer.
1
you'll have to pry the giant SUV's from the cold, dead hands of my suburban neighbors
Maybe the one effective way to make Americans aware of the death machine properties of cars is to start including the list of “ingredients” that makeup a car: a) Do you know that the so called new car smell is from the brew of plastics and the phthalates, an industrial chemical, that was used to soften them, i.e., your car’s PVC dashboard, seats, steering wheel, floor covering etc; b) As solvents, phthalates, in your cocooned automotive environment, once inhaled on a consistent basis can damage the liver, kidneys, lungs, and reproductive system — according to animal studies; c) The National Academy of Sciences in their report, Phthalates and Cumulative Risk Assessment, recommends that risks associated with phthalate exposure should be considered in the context of cumulative exposures to all phthalates and other anti-androgens. When infants, toddlers, and pregnant women are exposed to phthalates, it adds to the already existing burden of chemicals that also may interfere with normal development of the reproductive tract; d) Where do you think all the micro vulcanized rubber particles go to when they are rubbed off a car’s tire surface due to wear and tear? Into the atmosphere and into our lungs.
A philosopher once opined that if men were slugs, then he would understand the rationale for cars. The greatest transportation organ, designed by nature, and was used to populate the world, are your legs! Remember them?
Luck Nwoko
4
Regarding SUVs in dense urban areas, it was only once I decided to take a really hard look at the traffic around me, that I realized... I'd say that at least 60%...possibly 70/80%? ...of all the vehicles I see in NYC... are SUVs. This is beyond perverted. And indeed, the SUVs themselves are getting bigger and bigger: Denali. Suburban. Voyager. Range Rover. Escalade. Navigator. Hummer. And now I'm even seeing more Jeeps and pickup trucks (F150). Why on earth do NYers need such massive vehicles??
Well clearly, it's part of the monkey-see-monkey-do mentality. People have become brainwashed. They all use the same language of how their SUV makes them feel ...'safer' (actually wrong, since SUVs are top heavy and therefore more likely to tip over in an accident...) ...how they are 'more comfortable' (I can't speak to whether or not it's more comfortable to drive in, though I know they are certainly harder to climb in/out of...) .... that they can 'see the road better'. Um, sure, but good luck to everyone else around you, who now can't see anything around your 2-ton gas guzzler.
Auto manufacturers have also sold the American public on SUVs, esp since the profit margin on an SUV is significantly higher than a 4-door sedan. Again, Americans have been duped.
Then there's also the big, bada$$ mentality. What NYer wants to drive a sissy Car2Go or a Smart Car when you can impress everyone around you with your I'm Bigger and Badder than You Escalade?
4
I love the Nytimes....but standard approach these days:
[x topic] + connect any/all negative effects of Tech.
In this particular example, I urge the writer to check the data:
-94% of crashes are driver (human) errors
-crashes costs the US over $250B/year
- a gov study stated that automated vehicles could free up as much as 50 minutes each day/person
2
Maybe bikers should start following traffic laws and they won't get hit.
6
Need we mention the plague of cell phone use while driving?
Is there anything more frightening than seeing a fool talking as he approaches you stopped at a red light?
1
Had you written this article in 1951, the year of my birth, you would have been subject to the censors! My gut tells me that if the per capita investment in transit and other modes of mass ground transportation since then had been equal to that afforded the Interstate highway system, we would have a transportation system equal to that of the developed world.
2
As a Times subscriber I expect nuance, not click and bait scare tactics.
4
Cars are becoming toys for little boys in outsized adult bodies. Cars are designed for them. Stop playing with cars and guns children: This is real. Have you noticed how many all-black pickup trucks, high off the ground are being driven by "powerful Darth Vader" wanabees lately? What a sicko country is ours!
I was hit head-on by a stupid motorist who was entering my street on the wrong side of the road. Such a dumb person as was driving that car does not belong on the road in any kind of vehicle. Autonomous cars are just another way people's brains, hands, skills, and responsibilities are going, going, gone.
3
Too hard on the brakes again
What if these brakes just give in?
What if they don't get out of the way?
What if there's someone overtaking?
I'm going out for a little drive
And it could be the last time you see me alive
There could be an idiot on the road
The only kick in life is pumping his steel
Wrap me up in the back of the trunk
Packed with foam and blind drunk
They won't ever take me alive
'Cause they all drive
KILLER CARS
- Radiohead, 1995
1
Simplistic and far from comprehensive. Please, do better, Times.
6
This would be a great article if you also discussed how the, supposed, victims helped contribute to their fates. There's a lot more to this story than just "cars". I almost hit a road construction flagger while I was rounding a blind corner and a flagger jumped out in front of me waving her flag. Whose fault would that have been? Certainly not the flagger. Idiotic on her from the outset.
An article about accidents caused by bad drivers, concluding that self-driving cars won't change anything. In the NYT ??
5
First, my sympathies go out to anyone who is hurt or worse (and their family) by contact with a car. That is regardless of who is at fault. I really dislike it when tragedy has befallen someone & others make comments to the effect of "I have no sympathy for him ... it was his own fault because ___". Pain is pain and the hardest part of life is that people very rarely deserve the terrible things that befall them. Everyone dies but few actually deserve death.
That being said, I find this article to be manipulative & misleading. The author begins by recounting how her neice was hit by a truck while running toward an ice cream truck. That's sad but that doesn't make the accident the fault of the truck or driver. Children carelessly running out in front of traffic is a great concern of mine when I am driving & I go slowly because of it but people can't always be protected from mistakes they make.
Does the author think that people were not injured or killed by horses & buggies? Or that people are not injured by public transport like buses?
Most importantly, the premise of the article was that self-driving cars will not make things any safer yet rather than present any proof of her baseless theory the author disingenuously uses the possibility of DRIVERS being distracted by interacting with controls on TODAY'S PEOPLE-DRIVEN cars. Not once in the whole article does the author even address self-driving cars. She just attempts a bait and switch & seems to hope readers don't notice.
4
Cars are death machines. Trains are death machines. Airplanes are death machines. TVs, computers and smartphones are death machines (sit on your butt in front of one long enough and die of atherosclerosis).
Life is a death machine. Pick your poison.
150
Ban assault weapons, register guns like cars are now and demand universal background checks. Require smart gun technology so no one could shoot the gun but its adult owner. Pass red flag laws with teeth. Do that and you'll save many more people every year. Then come talk to me about the "death machines".
2
Cars are an expression of freedom. The ultimate freedom. American freedom.
As with guns, an ultimate American expression of freedom is the freedom to kill.
3
This article is completely ignorant about what cause the most accidents and what computers are capable of. Having cars automated will not eliminate accidents, but it will vastly reduce them and save thousands of lives every year.
Similar to how scary airplanes SEEM but how safe they are, it may seem scary to let a computer drive the car, but those who trust their car to drive them (in ten or twenty years) will be at mush less of a risk than drivers are today.
Something being scary doesn't mean it is bad for you. If that were true darkness would injure millions of anxious children every year.
1
Overall, driving was getting safer before the broad adoption of smart phones, which are the death machines.
Auto deaths per 100 million miles traveled was 3.5 in 1980, 1,53 in 2000, 1.08 in 2011, which was the low point. It was up to 1.16 in 2017. Fatalities per 100,000 of population is up about 11% from the 2014 low. Link to data is below.
So the technological fix will have to attack the cell phone problem, whether it be eliminating the human element overall in driving or just disabling the phone.
Also, I wouldn't be so hard on self driving cars. The huge majority of accidents involving Google's self driving cars have been caused by human drivers, not the self driving cars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year
cars don't kill people. Drivers kill people. A parked car has no effect on anything.
2
What will it take to get us out of our cars? There seems to be nothing.
If we require licenses for these "killing machines," why not the same for guns?
2
Living Austin, I see undisciplined driving every day. Tailgating is not even a concept here; it is the norm. If you leave any space on the highway behind he driver ahead of you, somebody immediately fills it. Turn signals are used 50% of the time at best, and when they are used, it is to show what one is already doing rather than what one hopes to do. Speed limits on city streets are ridiculously high; pedestrians walk on sidewalks while cars zoom by at 50 miles an hour only a few feet away. People drive as if it is a form of competition, and one can even predict how they will drive by the type of vehicle they possess. Ever since I moved here years ago, I have wondered why the city maintains no visible public relations campaign for safe driving. Instead, the main solution has been to add bicycles into the mix as if that can solve the problem. It only makes it worse. Much of this owes to a belief in the virtue of unbridled capitalistic "growth" and a promotion of overpopulation that the city simply cannot or is unwilling to keep up with, causing downtown congestion that makes the quality of life nearly unbearable. But much of it also owes to really stupid drivers.
5
How does the author"remain unconvinced "about autonomous vehicles when she makes a strong argument for their adoption? Here's more reasons:
1) av's will eliminate almost all accidents; pedestrian, bicycle and vehicular.
2) avs will eliminate drunk and distracted driving.
3) av's will eliminate traffic jams.
4) av's will unclog the courts and dramatically reduce costs.
5) av's will democratize transportation and massively increase productivity.
6) electric av's will dramatically reduce pollution.
7) av's will dramatically reduce crime. Hit and Runs, kidnappings, bank robberies with getaway cars, auto thefts etc.
They cant get here fast enough.
1
OK< I know, this is a NYC-based paper. But does the writer give even a single thought to people living in rural or exurban areas? Mass transit is close to nonexistent, and biking isn't a real option given the distances and types of roads involved. So in anti-car jeremiads, please spare a thought for those who live outside big cities.
258
My brother was hit and killed by a car when he was only 22. My father was hit and knocked to the ground by the large mirror on a pickup truck.
2
Actually the problem, as it is for most of society's ills, is too many people in too small of a space.
2
Ironically, according to the CDC, roughly the same number of people were killed in/by cars in 2017 as were killed by guns...about 40,000. But the gun deaths include 24,000 suicides. Roughly 400 were from rifles, including the "scary" AR-15s and AK-47s, but we're more interested in banning "assault weapons" than in significantly lowering either the number of car deaths or gun deaths.
A HS friend had both his legs broken when he was hit by a car and had to learn to walk all over again.
A college friend, an only child, adopted, was killed on his bicycle by a drunk driver. Leon lived for 2 hours...
An experienced motorcycling friend was killed when he was T-boned by a pickup truck.
A friend of my parents was killed when her impossible, irascible husband forced a left turn she told him not to...as she lay dying in the hospital she refused to even see him.
I've been driven off the road by thoughtless drivers on my bicycle. One ran over my strap light when I asked him to stop so I could retrieve it, the flipped me off. I was peddling to work.
The problem, like guns, is the attitude of the people using them. Unaware, not paying attention, falling asleep, air-guitar-playing, talking / texting while holding their phones, angry...Harry Hurt's report in 1980(?) documented that even police on motorcycles with lights and sirens were hit followed by "But Officer, I din see yum!"
5
Cars are part of our love affair with ourselves. You can bet that Trump supporters drive bigger more deplorable cars on average!
I was almost ran over when I was 8. I jumped over the handlebars to avoid being killed. The bike ended up under the car. Guy turning left just didn't see me. I was probably not in the best place per having my thinking cap on in regard to riding.
2
Every word is true.
I would love to ride a bike but people driving cars make it too dangerous.
My husband rides CitiBike every day and doesn't tell me about all his near-misses.
Drivers need to stop. In the City, take public transit. Take the bus. Take the subway. Walk. Stop killing people. Start caring, while you're at it.
Also: drivers who kill/murder with their vehicles need to lose their vehicles and their licenses then and there. They need to be charged with the crimes they committed. The police all drive, so I guess their sympathy likes with their fellow drivers. Maybe if they were required to live in the city with the people they "protect," they would get it. But that's another matter...
6
It's primarily a cultural problem. Our society simply accepts dangerous driving and mechanical absurdities.
If there were the will, we would clamp down on drunk, drugged, gadgeting, speeding, tailgating, and other very dangerous driving. The solution takes neither technical breakthroughs nor academic studies, merely a social agreement that we will not accept 40,000 Americans slaughtered each year.
We spend untold billions and huge inconvenience worrying about terrorists in airplanes, because 3,000 were killed on 9/11. We can afford a few billion to pay for more cops, prosecutors, judges, and jails to deter or take off the road those committing negligent assault (and murder) with a deadly weapon, because that is what it really is.
But, there is no will to do this. Instead, we raise speed limits (using significantly more gasoline) and pretend that the solution is a technical one. If it were not so serious, that would be a real laugh. Bumpers were put on cars for protection, to bump into each other, which originally they did. Now we allow bumpers of different heights, so they often function as crash enhancers. Many new cars no longer even have emergency brakes. As to focusing on driving, that becomes harder and harder as more screens, mechanical voices, and myriad forms of internet connectivity encourage anything but watching the road.
25 wrong-way collisions/19 dead in wrong-way crashes in the Bay Area.
The solution is right in front of us.
The problem is in the mirror.
5
It is much worse than Ms. Arieff says. We have put the insistent requirements of the automobile at the centre of our society, and in order to profit from its one advantage – mobility- we have sacrificed physical security, environmental health, neighbourhood society, urban and rural landscape, and we have made our economy its slave. This is insane. Not only do we assume that “it’s people who need to get out of the way of these lethal machines”, but we defer to them in every aspect of our lives. Until we change this thinking, automobiles will continue to crush us, physically, socially and emotionally, and will end up totally destroying our environment.
6
Imagine if police ticketed speeders and other reckless driving?
Speed limits in my neighborhood are a joke. People drive as fast as they want regardless of posted speed limits. It's not unusual for cars to be driving double the posted speed limit. Drivers know they're not going to get ticketed.
2
In this area, bikes have intermittent bike lanes but use the crosswalks and sidewalks while ignoring laws for drivers AND pedestrians.
You can't avoid what you can't see, and bikes move in and out of blind spots FAST.
I've gotten to where I believe bikes need to be licensed and plated. Bikes move too quickly to ignore laws with impunity.
4
The answer is to eliminate the need for cars. We concentrate upon more and more highways and systems catering to road traffic rather than other means of transit. Large companies with large staffs devote precious land to huge parking lots. What a waste, when an easy, convenient way to move from A to B could solve the clogged highways, the smog and the accidents. High Speed Rail, commuter lines, etc. could eliminate all this tragedy. Many countries do this, why not us?
7
Nice column and I mostly agree with one caveat. Proponents of self driving cars do not claim that they will be safer but rather as safe as what we have now, which admittedly is not very safe.
1
Mary D. was killed in town in 2017. Irma R. was killed here some years ago. My sister's friend B. was killed in a car crash. Two of my cousins were killed when a police vehicle plowed into their car; they were in their early 20s, so my aunt and uncle lost two young sons. Another cousin died after a crash. My aunt survived a severe crash. My father was injured when some twit plowed snow off an overpass onto his car. I was hit by a car in an intersection two months ago and I'm still struggling to recover; it wasn't a very serious accident, but I did have to go to a trauma center. I had to hire a lawyer to get $20,000 in bills paid, but I'm one of the lucky ones, as I wasn't injured too badly, though my head, hips, knee and back still hurt, and there's weird tingling which might be some kind of nerve damage. And so on and so on. Everyone you know has some horror story. All the times one has almost been hit, almost been killed, and everyone here has an SUV, there is too much traffic, too many parked cars for people to see you. I just hope the mayor or someone on the council gets hit, because they created this problem by taking parking away, overdeveloping and encouraging more families to move in. It's total chaos, but of course it doesn't affect them. Our leaders are completely oblivious to the problems they create.
1
In the Netherlands, a collision between a car and a pedestrian or a cyclist is blamed on the car driver as the default legal assumption. The underdog gets automatic preference.
It helps the level of responsiblity in car drivers. For pedestrians and cyclists, responsible behaviour is directly related to their survival; not so much for motorists.
5
Cross walks at intersection are often the only legal way for pedestrians to cross a street. But its chaos. Cars come from at least 12 directions and ignore pedestrian right of way. There is no physical protection for walkers.
And - get this - the center island, that is critical for pedestrian safety, DISAPPEARS at intersections. The family can sue when a walker is killed. That's it.
The safe place to cross is between intersections with a center island. Much less chaos. Traffic from 1 direction at a time. Predictable flow. But not legal.
You got to have physical barriers and walker safety built in to the road system.
But we will get physical barriers only when auto - drive cars become important - to keep them from jumping to the wrong side of the road and causing head on collisions. Then the barriers will protect cars, but probably not pedestrians.
2
Where we winter in Arizona, driving at night is unpleasant and dangerous for many reason and down and out pedestrians are a big one. The main road near our place is two lanes in each direction with a wide unpaved shoulder in most places, but the pedestrians prefer to walk on the pavement in the lanes with their backs to you, often wearing dark clothes including hoodies even on searing nights. I usually drive in the left lane to avoid them but have seen them ambling down the road in that lane as well. Awful lot of close calls.
1
Vehicles and bicycles, and vehicles and pedestrians, and even bicycles and pedestrians simply do not belong on the same travel ways. However, if they have to share then the best and simplest mitigation is simply to slow down - e.g. 25 mph for vehicles in cities and 12 mph for bikes riding with walkers and runners.
1
I don't disagree with anything said about cars, in fact I was in a serious car accident 20 years ago when the car I was riding in was hit by a guy fleeing the police.
However, I also have a disability that makes it painful and difficult to walk. If I didn't have a car, I would be a shut-in. All the discussion about pedestrians assumes that it's easy for everyone to walk. That means cities that are only friendly to able bodied, generally young people.
2
Some observations derived from seven decades:
There are many more, too many, vehicles on the road.
Yes, vehicles are too large, just to satisfy ego.
Jimmy Carter tried to institute common sense auto safety by
reducing the speed limits and limiting fuel and encouraging smaller cars. Look where it got him.
I thought up a concept decades ago called the "autocycle,"
which would be used for ordinary streets--small and a cross
between a golf cart and a small sedan. Would reduce fatalities. Regular cars could be used for longer trips on
highways and freeways.
It's another American psychological problem, though. Americans are ego-driven and basically, not self-disciplined
enough to do the best thing.
2
Another aspect of the damage cars do is what must be millions of wild animals that are killed by cars every year. In the last few weeks I have seen at least 10 raccoons, innumerable rabbits and squirrels mashed on the roads within just a few miles of where I live. People drive over these innocent creatures without a care. We are brutal self-absorbed lot we humans.
3
I was hit, decades ago, by a car in Berkeley. I was on a bike, the car got frontally into my lane, didn't see me; so I was riding on the right side of the street, and the car went on the left side. I flew 50 feet, got severely injured. It was 100% the fault of the car. I never rode a bike again... because I don't see how I could have avoided the accident, and was conscious that my survival was a miracle.
Speed bumps should be more frequent and speeds limited to 15 mph on residential streets, with the bumps enforcing this, among other things.
My accident, paradoxically, turned me into a systematic car driver, I want a big exoskeleton around me, a shield... but a cautious driver.
Technology can help, though. The car I have broke twice on its own, having decided that a collision was imminent, using its radar, optics and computer, when a car suddenly intruded from the left (once hidden behind a large truck). Intelligent car intervention was not needed in these particular cases, because I had seen the intrusions, but the braking was unreal hard, harder than a human could have accomplished. So I am happy my car can detect pedestrians... And it does alert me frequently, visually and loudly, and that helps. I receive several alerts a week of potential collision situations looming....
There are drivers who should NOT be on the road, and yet it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to take such a driver OFF the road.
My oldest son is such a driver.
By the age of 24, he had multiple speeding tickets, including a Misdemeanor Reckless Driving (85 in a 65, which means he was probably going faster). He had totaled 2 cars and ruined a third. He had his license suspended and then drove on his suspended license and got caught. He was a menace on road.
His insurance finally became SO expensive ($8,000+/yr, more than 8x a typical adult rate here) that it exceeded his meager income. In relief, his grandparents (who had always helped with his insurance before) and I said, "no." He was grounded. Now when he needs to go places, he walks, bikes, or I take him. In the place where we live, which does not have very good public transit, that's a tough row to hoe--for me--but it's better than him killing someone someday.
The moral of this story, and in almost EVERY one of those stories, is not that cars are deadly, but that DRIVERS ARE.
2
I could not possibly agree more with you. I'm one of the most extreme people when it comes to cars, I think they should be banned from New York. It's gotten to the point where drivers think they're somehow entitled to behave like enraged killers wielding what can only be called a death machine. I hate cars, they are extremely over rated and make nice city neighborhoods into nightmarish, loud, toxic streets that they are. God bless this article.
3
I feel much safer in New York - safety in numbers - than I do in my suburb, where too many parents in too many SUVs drive too carelessly.
1
I really don't know what people want from life. To be accident free? Then stay at home and cover yourself in bubble wrap.
Accident will always happen, because nothing is perfect. But machines, once they get the hang of things, will be better at anything human beings can do. And that certainly includes driving.
1
It's a bit excessive when almost everyone you know has some horror story involving a car.
One of my pet peeves is the idea that "slow driving causes accidents." No, aggressive driving causes accidents. America seems to have a bias in favor of always doing things faster. If someone is moving slowly around you, you have to drive slowly, too. If you aren't willing to do that, you deserve blame for any accident that happens.
2
The driver who hit me was only going about 25 miles an hour, maybe not even that fast. That helped me a lot. Only one fracture. No other broken bones. A head injury, but not a concussion. I did not lose my eye. I was able to return to work in two weeks. I'm still using a cane, but if she'd been driving fast, I'm sure my injuries would have been much worse.
2
Every one of these stories of death and injury and broken families is heartbreaking but we can't go back to the age pf horses and horse drawn carriages when a "horseless carriage' was preceded by an individual bearing a warning flag.
We take much too much for granted in the age of the modern auto. We need more awareness, better driver education. tougher laws, more stringent enforcement, better vehicle inspection and the like. They are all a small prices to pay. Work to reverse the "can't happen to me" mantra to one that recognises "it CAN happen to me."
Self-driving cars are coming -- and they will make a big and positive difference. If you don't believe that, research the statistics already amassed by Tesla in a few short years with drivers still at the wheel, but hands-off. And remember, more often than not it takes two motorists or more to make n accident. Notwithstanding, the numbers are impressive.
Of course people will still die. That's inevitable. Just as they will die falling off ladders, roller skating and in shark attacks. Ultimately, all we can do is work to make life safer for the common citizen.
2
A partial solution which would be so easy to implement, would be to put speed delimiters on cars. It could be hooked to the gps so no car could go over 10 miles over the speed limit. They already have speed delimiters on trucks, why not on cars. Of course nobody wants this. Everybody wants to cruise 90 miles per hour down the highway. However, it would save gas and save lives . Speed cameras all over the place would help too.
If everyone would just drive the speed limit, so many accidents could be avoided. However, we cannot rely on individuals to be responsible. We must put speed delimiters in all cars.
1
No. Most of us don't have a story about this. I have never been in an accident and I don't know anybody who has.
1
Yes, you do. Stephen King was severely injured by a reckless driver in Maine.
1
Thank you for writing this. It is amazing that a means of transportation that kills more USers than the war in Vietnam and, according to the UN, more people worldwide than war is acceptable to us. If there weren't so many moneyed interests I think we could figure out a less deadly means of moving people around.
And this doesn't take into account the additional fatalities from the pollution or the increased greenhouse gases released. it's been a disaster of a transportation solution.
3
Driver recertification and physical exams should be required at 5 year intervals.
Other heavy equipment operators are required to be recertified.
Why not personal vehicle drivers? Anyone have driver training since licensed as a teenager? Rules are added and drivers are not advised of changes.
Vehicles have much greater capabilities than ever before and human operator's skills decline and good practices are forgotten.
We need periodic driver training. We are not exceptional.
6
Amsterdam. Copenhagen. Yes, you *can* get rid of cars - or at least cut way back. Hordes of well behaved bicycles can be seen in those two cities in which driving a car is senseless. The government made it possible there. Pedestrians first, bicycles second, cars last - 15 mph.
4
@Michael Jennings Indeed. Just as we did with cigarette smoking, so too can we open up people and society's minds as to how strange it is...that we consider it 'totally normal' for so many private individuals to each own their own 2-ton vehicle, and be allowed to barrel it down our neighborhood streets at 25 mph. We consider it 'normal' for significant portions of our downtown and neighborhood shopping and leisure areas to be allocated specifically to these vehicles and their owners. We consider it normal for vulnerable pedestrians to have to walk within a few mere feet of these vehicles as they are actively in motion, and making a turn onto a street/crosswalk where pedestrians have the Walk light. We consider it normal that while we allocate so much of our Public Space to these vehicles, that for 90% of any given day, most of these vehicles are Not in use, and are simply sitting Parked. Talk about a colossal waste and misuse of resources, money, energy and public space!
Also, many people fail to realize that, when it comes to Amsterdam (and what most think of as a bike-centric city) that back in the 1950s and 60s the opposite was true, and similar to much of the US, cars ruled.
So yes, it can be done. The question is, do we have the will to make a change? And, are car owners willing to reconsider what is often a mere 'addiction' to their cars and driving? We know the excuses...'I have kids...my kids play sports, etc'. But so too do many Non-car owners...
4
Ms. Arieff,
I thought your piece offered several possibilities for engineering design improvements. As I commuted home from work today in a very congested route, I had another design idea that would reduce the number of biker and opening door crashes. I think it is possible to create door openings that are not hinged to swing out but could be designed to SLIDE on tracks similar to the equipment used on certain vans.
Also, government should develop methods to prevent incompetent drivers from driving. It does no good to arrest someone for drunk or drugged driving after they have caused a fatal crash. 31% of fatal crashes involve drunk drivers, 16% from drugged drivers – almost half of the total.
Solution. Give drivers a competency test before they can start their car, using a small screen only visible to and interactive with the driver, that measures response time and accuracy to changing stimuli. Can’t remember a set of numbers 10 seconds later? Can’t respond to a moving pattern? Can’t drive. Etc.
Small sensors on the wheel into which drivers would insert their fingers to measure alcohol and drug levels. A small camera would ensure that the person who took the competency and alcohol/drug tests remained behind the wheel and didn’t try to switch with someone else.
About 10% of total crashes are caused by distracted cell phone users. The government should require car manufacturers to install software that would prevent hand cell phone use when the car is moving.
5
My late brother Jim was 19 when the car he was a passenger in hit a bridge abutment. He was my hero- Deerfield and Berkeley- but suffered a terrible brain injury, and was never the same. Another passenger in their car had his leg amputated. The driver, who was drunk and had passed out, was the only one who escaped injury.
Thanks for this. Trains and buses are much safer, more relaxing, and easier on the environment.
2
It's primarily a cultural problem. Our society simply accepts dangerous driving and mechanical absurdities.
If there were the will, we would clamp down on drunk, drugged, gadgeting, speeding, tailgating, and other extremely dangerous behavior. The solution to such does not take technical breakthroughs or academic studies. It simply takes a social agreement that we will not accept 40,000 Americans slaughtered needlessly each year.
Cost? We spend untold billions and huge inconvenience worrying about terrorists in airplanes, because 3,000 were killed on 9/11. We can afford a few billion to pay for more cops, prosecutors, judges, and jails to take off the road and, more important, hopefully deter negligent assault (and murder) with a deadly weapon, because that is what it really is.
But, there is no will to do this. Instead, we raise speed limits (using significantly more gasoline) and pretend that the solution is a technical one. And that, if it were not so serious, would be a real laugh. Bumpers were put on cars for protection, to bump into each other, which originally they did. Now we allow bumpers of very different heights, so they often function as crash enhancers. Many new cars no longer even have emergency brakes. And as to focusing on driving, that becomes harder and harder as more screens, mechanical voices, and myriad forms of internet connectivity in cars encourage anything but watching the road.
The solution is right in front of us.
The problem is in the mirror.
7
I have read the article, and a lot of the responses. While I agree that cars are inherently dangerous, and have the potential to do a lot of harm. But nobody names the main problem : the drivers, and their training (or lack therof !) Here in the US, in most states, you can get a learners permit at 15 1/2 or 16, and your license, with minimal training at 16.. Take a look at the requirements for a drivers license in Germany for example. There, you have to pass a tough written test, and a driving exam after a minimum of 30 hrs driving with an instructor, before you can take the test. My kids had to take a really easy written test, and the driving test after 8 hrs with an instructor...Here in the US there are just too many drivers on the road, who are simply not fit to drive.. Throw in cell phones, or cars with bluetooth, touch screens, etc., and you have a deadly mix
7
I know a retired police officer who has seen it all and bluntly says cars and divers licences ‘are a licence to kill.’ The consequences for bad driving are far too low, especially when somebody else is injured. If it doesn’t appear a clear case of reckless driving, often there’s no penalty at all. Run a stop sign and hit a pedestrian, if you can demonstrate it was an accident perhaps black ice rendering braking useless). The driver gets a ticket. Victim gets lifetime of pain or death. Cyclist really need separate, off-road lanes. Meanwhile, i suspect self-driving cars will reduce accidents, though I think the developers are going about them in the hardest, least-likely way to succeed possible, attempting to build entirely autonomous vehicles. It’ll never work well. We’re not even close to truly thinking machines yet and may never get there.
5
Years ago, Barbara Tuchman, author of The Guns Of August, wrote that the automobile claims 45,000 lives per year which was equal to the loss of life in Hiroshima every year. That stuck with me.
2
As a society we are considering driverless cars. Bad idea. Anything that can be made by people can be hacked by people. Imagine, millions of driverless connected cars, hacked in some unimaginable way...it would only have to happen once to be catastrophic ....(And I KNOW how terrible a car can be to the human body, been there done that, more then once.)
3
I recently took up cycling where I live in Astoria, this after not cycling since I was in my late teens (and surely less concerned about safety).
Never mind Manhattan (where I'd never cycle!)... even in Astoria, I take extreme caution. And boy, did I learn a lot, and fast, about cycling on the streets. I go above and beyond to ensure my own personal safety.
As a cyclist who obeys all traffic laws, and who understands only too well the resentment that many drivers hold for cyclists and 'infringement' upon their lanes, loss of parking spots, etc., it angers me that so many scofflaw cyclists are adding fuel to this fire. It's in cyclists' own self-survival interest not to anger drivers (or pedestrians for that matter). Cyclists need all the public support they can get. The last thing a cyclist wants is to be next to/in front of a driver who hates all cyclists.
Cyclists on sidewalks. Riding the wrong way down the street. Going through red lights. Food delivery guys coming to a red light, and then taking a quick fake turn on the side street so they may now continue beyond the red light.
Law-abiding cyclists should be just as vocal about the scofflaws among us, if not moreso. And, cyclists: consider giving a wave of 'thanks' when cars voluntarily yield to you (which is what I always do). We have to get along.
But. Cars also need to stop double-parking, idling in MTA bus lanes, idling in bike lanes, etc. And our urban planners, DoT and cops need to do their jobs.
8
I have as many near accidents with cyclists as I do with cars.
1
We could also change the laws to make it the car driver's fault (and financial responsibility) in the case of a car-pedestrian or car-bicycle collision, unless it can be clearly demonstrated that the pedestrian or cyclist was at fault and the driver could not have avoided the collision.
1
@Lee Rozaklis
I can't count the number of times I've seen a pedestrian or biker enter a street without giving even a glance to check for traffic.
7
Statistics in town show that most pedestrians are hit in crosswalks in broad daylight, most often when crossing at a green light. Drivers simply don't look and don't want to yield to pedestrians. We have to look out for drivers all the time. You can barely cross the street here at a green light, since half the people want to turn left and the other half want to turn right on red.
1
Only immediate solution I see is to stop cycling and take public transportation. Extreme, but so is trying to eliminate vehicles at this point in time.
This solution seems completely unfair to the cyclist, but could very well save their life. Which is the preferred outcome.
1
Cars don't kill people, people do, both drivers and pedestrians.
I can't count the number of times I've seen a pedestrian or biker enter a street without giving even a glance to check for traffic.
I also think distracted driving, and walking, have a lot more to do with increased accidents, than the height of the car's hood.
The penalty for driving and texting should be as severe as DUI.
9
Here, most pedestrians are hit in crosswalks in broad daylight. I invite you to try to take a walk here.
Transit surveys by the local county system asks us whether we want more frequent service on busy bus lines, or more lines with less frequent service; whether we want to walk more blocks, or have to wait longer between buses....30 min, 40 min, an hour. I wrote on the survey...y'all don't get it...I want more frequent service on more lines; and I want it to be free. We need a really first class transportation system paid for by the folks who will benefit the most. Rider fees and sales taxes, traditionally used to fund transit projects, are regressive. Infrastructure like this should be paid for with progressive taxation by the wealthy corporations and individuals benefit most from infrastructure. Not sure what that taxation looks like, but I am sure we could figure it out.
3
This would gain some more supporters if we referred to them as "military-style, assault cars."
4
I too have been hit by a car - although luckily for me, I was able to stand up and walk away from the accident.
In NYC, the bicyclists routinely ignore any traffic regulation - riding the opposite way of traffic, not obeying red lights, riding between cars (on the sides and in front of them). In addition, cars and pedestrians everywhere seem to pay less attention to traffic laws.
What is needed for starters is stricter enforcement of these laws for all concerned.
5
The title of the article is:
“Cars Are Death Machines.
Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That.”
There’s a lot about cars being Death Machines. But the entire argument in support of the premise that “ Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That,” is
“There are many who say that autonomous or smart cars will solve this. So far, I’m unpersuaded.”
Yes, cars are Death Machines. As for the notion that self-driving tech won’t change that: so far, I’m unpersuaded.
1
@Unbalanced and you are basing that on all the self-driving cars that have yet to appear on the roads?
Oh yeah, there's an app for that!
1
The basic fact is stark and simple: we, as a people, are willing to shrug and accept the killing of over 4,000 children a year (not to mention the slow killing of the planet itself) as the price of supposed "convenience."
2
Driverless cars may make things better but they are not the only tech solution to the danger of cars. Much of the reckless and dangerous driving that human drivers are involved in can be checked by computer systems. Vehicle computers can also generate reports that show patterns of dangerous driving, both to law enforcement and to the insurance companies. This would massively reduce the human costs of dangerous driving and would save billions in insurance costs.
1
Cars are essential where I live. Public transportation is essentially nonexistent and towns are far apart. Walking is not a viable option when ice and snow cover sidewalks and roadways and the windchill hits 40 below. Call driving a necessary evil. I also prefer big vehicles, which are safer in an accident.
6
So, so glad to see something written about this. I've never owned a car; have zero interest in owning one. I'm a pedestrian, a cyclist, tax/uber rider, and a user of public transit. I agree with the author that...while our 'car culture' is rather perverted, particularly in a place such as...New York City(??!!) that, we're never going to get rid of private cars. But we CAN make changes to make our streets safer.
I think SUVs are one of our biggest new problems. They are street/space hogs. They block the views of other drivers. Intimidate smaller cars, and especially intimidate (not to mention pose a very real, and greater threat to) cyclists and pedestrians. In small, tight intersections and side streets throughout NYC, turning SUVs (due to the drivers being up higher) often fail to see pedestrians just BELOW their field of vision, and who are in the very crosswalk onto which they want to turn. As a pedestrian, all my close calls with SUVs were when they were TURNING into the crosswalk where I had the right of way. (Now when I cross, I must always look back over my shoulder for cars that fail to slow down when making a turn.)
In NYC, non-car owners (who make up the majority of the population here), have relinquished far too much public space to privately-owned 2-ton vehicles which typically sit parked (not in active use) 90% of the time, on any given day. Family members no longer 'share' rides. Everyone must have 'their own' car, and a massive SUV at that. (?!)
7
I live in what used to be a quiet town. Now, with gentrification, the population is soaring, and so is the number of vehicles. Congestion is worse here now than in the city, though in the evening, the speeders gleefully take over. Since I don't drive, I have no choice but to walk (no public transit here yet), and I have had many close calls in the last few years. I would LOVE to see far better transit systems and a sharp reduction in the number of cars on the roads. Less CO2, less noise pollution, less other pollution, and of course, fewer injuries and fatalities.
4
To illustrate how far we have to go in terms of bicycle infrastructure, I live in Boulder, CO, a city named the “top overall city” for bicycling in the US, and I routinely feel unsafe while commuting to class. A bike lane with only paint separating a rider from a vehicle is simply dangerous — and that’s how the majority of bike lanes in Boulder, and the entire US are setup. We need dedicated bike lanes that are physically separated from vehicles if we want bicycling to become a safe option for all of a city’s residents.
3
@Noah I'm too busy dodging cars in Boulder to see any bikes there
1
Is there anything much worse that death by car? Spend some time walking near cars that are always going 20 mph over the speed limit while eating, talking on phones, texting. Automated cars will need to follow the law or the cars should be shut down. There should be not alternative.
People should be able to exercise; biking, jogging and walking are good exercise. But regardless of their right to walk, jog or bike, common sense should obtain and they should be careful exercising their rights in obviously hazardous venues.
Not a day goes by when I do not read of pedestrian, motorcyclist or bicyclists being killed or injured in my area.
I live very near a four lane non-divided highway where heavy traffic moves at relatively high speed. Regularly, I see obviously recreational bicyclists braving death to get their pollution filled cardio workouts.
They have their rights, but common sense should dictate their exercise their rights in safer places...or they'll wind up 'dead right'.
I know this will offend joggers and cyclists, but I really am in favor of sharing the roads with them. Unfortunately, while I support their right to the road, if they can't distinguish between relatively safe areas and times of day, they are putting their lives at risk.
The comments by those using the roads for walking, running, cycling or motorcycling on roads suitable for the activity are very sad, and the local governments should work with recreational clubs to encourage safe use by drivers and cyclists to improve safety.
Everyone should try to use our roads safely. Remember, if you expose to yourself to danger by demanding the right to share the road with big heavy machines, your loved ones will miss you and collect the damages they do not want.
2
@bill I'm a bit confused by what you wrote and where you seem to say at times that cyclists and pedestrians etc have just as much right to share the road with vehicles, and at other times you seem to suggest that any such desires to share the road with vehicles are 'foolhearty'.
Either way, what we need to all remember is that roads (public space) aren't automatically owned by private vehicles and their owners, but rather that, over time, society as a whole 'agreed' to more or less relinquish a certain amount of public space to these large, heavy, privately-owned modes of transport. That doesn't mean we (those who do not own vehicles) can't now demand back some of our public space, for less deadly modes of transport.
3
@bill , did you see the note that more than 100 motor vehicle operators die on US roadways every day? More than a few of the crashes are solo. Where should they have been instead? What sort of purpose should they have contemplated before setting out? A trip to the beach?
Should they have considered that air pollution finds little boundary? Few motor vehicles are air-tight. And because the operators are not "working out", the long term health penalties they face possibly won't be compensated for by having not breathed the polluted air so hard on their way.
There is a lot of work governments should do about the death rate. Much more stringent drivers ed and licensing exams and application of penalties worthy for neglected responsibility are just a few.
Some people don't have cars and don't have a choice. The cost of living and taxes here are so high, adding a car to my budget would impoverish me.
When I lived in the States cars were a part of life and so were accidents. I was in a total wreck (walked away with a sore neck) and I hit another car (very low speed, no injuries, fender damage).
When I moved to Japan I saw how much much much better trains are!! The trains make cars totally unnecessary and trains are by far cheaper and more relaxing and much much safer. Sure I have to walk the last 15 minutes to my house from the station but that's just good exercise. America, build trains and watch your satisfaction with life improve 1000%!!!
4
Lost in all of this passionate hatred of cars are the number of cars driven across millions of miles of roads, inherently innocent cars that have done so safely, without killing or injuring either driver, passenger, or anyone else. Proof by anecdote proves nothing. If it did, consider me. I am 75 years old, have been driving since age 16, have never hit anyone, or anything, and am not dead yet. Cars are not inherently death machines. Cars don't even move until people move them. Like any other machine, a car is by itself neutral, neither vicious nor virtuous. It all comes down to how people use them, and how pedestrians with their eyes glued to cell phones use their respective, and otherwise innocent communication machines. Ultimately, people are responsible for deaths, machines are not.
4
@Eddie Of course, if you were right that machines aren't responsible, then the switch to SUVs would have made no difference.
Using the same reasoning, automatic weapons and bump stocks aren't responsible for increased deaths either...
1
I was not on a cell phone when I crossed the street at a green light in an intersection and was hit from behind.
1
@Eddie Cars don't kill people, car drivers do.
1
Maybe we should all go back to a world were the only way to get someplace is to walk . And all the risks to one’s life that existed in those times .
If one is to talk about mortality rates one should look a little bit to history .
I have been hit by a car twice in my life and luckily I am alive to talk about it . But statistically I would be dead by now if I had lived 150 years ago .
1
I'm sorry to hear the author's niece was hit by a car, but that doesn't change the reality that both the headline and the majority of the article are simply wrong. The primary *point* of autonomous vehicles is preventing the types of tragic accidents described herein, nearly all of which were caused by human error (including distracted driving) or reckless disregard for traffic laws.
I completely agree that we should be thinking about how to create a world with fewer cars. I also realize, however, that the majority of the country we live in -- most of all its southern half (from coast to coast) -- was developed in the postwar era, and almost entirely around the concept of travel via automobile. We can't snap our fingers and change a core element of American society overnight, but we can certainly eliminate a huge percentage of the roughly 40,000 annual vehicular fatalities in the U.S. alone -- via vehicles that can detect objects in their paths and stop in literal milliseconds, and that don't wantonly ignore traffic laws at whim.
Yes, autonomous vehicles are still a long way from fruition. No, that doesn't change the reality that they can -- and, if perfected, almost certainly *will* -- save tens of thousands of lives each year.
4
I am so glad to see this article. I live in the NJ suburbs and am shocked by how dangerous drivers have become and how it appears to be getting worse by the day. In essence, I do believe that the relationship people once had with their cars has changed. Drivers no longer signal, blow through lights, go around cars that stop to allow pedestrians to cross in a crosswalk (endangering the pedestrians) and so much more. At the crosswalk I use to return home from the train, cars blow through the red lights every single time I cross the street.
I believe that severe steps need to be taken by law enforcement. Think about it. Have the cost of tickets risen in relationship to the cost of living? A $75 ticket today, might have sounded significant in 1980 but in 2019 the whole scale need to be adjusted. Let's try $500 tickets for speeding, blowing through red lights, stop signs, unsafe driving. Let's get red light cameras going at all major intersections. Let's suspend a driver's license and insurance coverage for six months for texting and revoke the license for a second offense. If we want to protect lives, we need to get really serious about how to enforce safety.
5
In the US, and probably everywhere else in the world where privately-owned autos are common, a car is a fashion statement, a personality statement, a status symbol, a symbol of masculinity, sometimes even of femininity, and, I suppose, a way of getting from here to there. Otherwise, we'd all be driving plain-vanilla sedans, subcompacts, minivans, and walking more, and that's why a rational, clear-eyed view such as Ms. Arieff's is so rare.
3
I like the opinion expressed here, and it is ironic to me that we don't have the same conversation about guns. Many of the same premises apply - we could do well with less of them, by a long shot. We can make them safer - and despite some of the author's good points about cognitive overload, automakers have done great things to make driving safer for occupants and pedestrians. Cars still do not "see" bicyclists well, but the tech is improving.
Not so much the case with gun manufacturers, though I don't think it is all their fault. We can make a gun with RFID or other recognition devices that only lets the owner shoot it. We can have that chip respond to pings that let the local citizens know that there is a gun within a specified distance, say 50 or 100 yards, with increasing urgency as the gun moves closer. Those guns could be identified as police or military, or privately owned. We can invent better deterrents to physical violence that are non fatal, and maybe like the bankers exploding dye packs, leave a trace that is not easily removed. All bullets should be microetched for identification if one of them goes rogue and kills someone "accidentally" or is "misfired", so all "Stray" bullets can be traced to the original owners.
We could invent Star Trek Phasers that stun. But for some reason, the evolution of tools for self defense has stopped with the explosive projectile device, the King of Death Machines, now overtaking vehicle deaths for the first time.
2
Tokyo has a train called the Yamanote Line, which circles the dense eastern core of Japan's capital prefecture. Each train is 13 cars long and comfortably holds 2000 people (and more at max capacity, though less comfortably). It runs every 2 minutes in both directions at peak periods. In other words, it easily accommodates the rapid movement of 1000 people each way every minute.
Compare this with cars on a freeway. A single lane of cars moving steadily at 60 MPH (a mile per minute) evenly spaced at 1 second intervals (about 1/2 second following time behind each car) would accommodate 60 vehicles per minute, but no stopping, slowing/braking, or changing lanes...no freight trucks, or cars entering or exiting ramps. Say every 3 cars carry, on average, about 5 passengers (being generous), this is about 100 people per minute.
So...you would need 10 lanes on each side of a freeway, with no slowing or braking and everyone moving steadily in lock step, no one getting on or off, no passing, etc., to begin to match the comfortably carrying capacity of the Yamanote Line. At max capacity, during rush hours, you would need 20 lanes on each side of the freeway.
You can do the math yourself, cars are terribly inefficient compared to well-run trains. Some time stop and take a minute to count the number of cars that passes in a single lane on a freeway (in a one minute interval)...you'll find that it is never as high as 60, and that I've over-estimated the capacity of cars.
5
Wow - this is emblematic of why we need better science education in the US. Asking for tweets is not "conducting an experiment" and most accidents are caused by human error. As a driver of a Subaru with EyeSight (collision sensing). I suspect many of the accidents described would have been much less severe or avoided with front collision avoidance technology.
Japan’s Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis, found that cars with EyeSight had 61 percent fewer accidents resulting in injury or death per 10,000 vehicles. EyeSight has been upgraded since that time - I suspect the data is more impressive now.
I support driving less, cycling more and the rights of pedestrians, but collision avoidance technology can and should save lives. Sadly, Americans and the Trump administration have been slow to acknowledge this fact. The Obama administration had requested a 1- to 5-star pedestrian safety rating by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration for all new cars which Trump has dropped.
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Bottom line - Cars are by definition potentially dangerous, as well as one of the major causes of severe environmental damage. The future does not need added risks and pollution. Use the tech to solve the problems with the emphasis on safety and shutoffs in high risk situations. Self driving cars may have one value a driven car can't have - An off switch.
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Well done. Imagine of we add in the horror caused by drunks and impaired drivers. Americans were sold a bill of goods by big oil and the car makers long ago. The culture embraced it as providing "freedom." Sadly, we haven't learned much in 100 years, have we?
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Blame "smart" phones certainly but the majority of people shouldn't be driving under any circumstances.
Most Americans would have difficulty qualifying for driving licenses in countries like England or Germany. Yet, like guns, many people link their identity closely with owing not just one car but two cars, and not just a car but an SUV or a truck, of all things.
And it's not just a cultural issue. Not only does our economy depend on this but our third world public transportation infrastructure demands it. Thus, calling cars death machines might get you more clicks but it misses the point...utterly.
2
In Germany streets in towns and cities generally have sidewalks. There are streets without sidewalks where pedestrians have the right of way over cars. There are other streets where bicycles have the right of way. Cars are allowed to use these streets, but only at pedestrian or bicycle speed. In residential areas generally the speed limit is 30km/h (~18mph). At unmarked intersections without traffic lights, etc. pedestrians walking straight down the sidewalk have priority over cars turning into or out of a side street and crossing their path.
In Germany, unlike in the United States, everybody is a pedestrian. In the center of all larger cities, there are pedestrian areas where cars are not allowed at all. That's were the stores are. Basically these pedestrian areas are just like shopping malls, except the streets aren't roofed over.
All of this means that drivers are accustomed to respecting pedestrians. And I guess it also explains the statistics:
According to Wikipedia in the United States there were 14.2 road fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles (in 2016); in Germany 6.4; Road fatalities per one Billion vehicle kilometers: United States 7.3; Germany 4.2;
Those numbers do include accidents on the speed-limit-less German Autobahn. Actually there is a speed limit: you are allowed to drive only as fast as you and your car can safely go. But then maybe the Autobahn helps to reduce accidents, because it teaches drivers to pay attention and respect other road users.
2
I wonder about the representative character of her sample. I'm 85 years old and have never known anyone killed or injured in or by a car.
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Walking is a right. Driving is a privilege. Remember that when you’re behind the wheel.
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Several years ago I reviewed US Department of Transportation motor vehicle safety studies. I was struck by a category of fatalities involving ice cream trucks, usually children. It was a large number, in the hundreds.
It immediately made sense. An ice cream truck comes down the street, rings its bells, and children from around the neighborhood come running to buy ice cream.
I also immediately understood why Good Humor was funding a "school safety program," which gave crossing guards white belts with shoulder straps.
This was a classic industry blame-the-victim pr campaign.
I was also not surprised to find out that insurance for ice cream trucks was enormous.
Several localities later banned ice cream trucks. There was some debate in New York City.
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Cars have also liberated people by giving them control over their own transportation. People adopted cars so rapidly because, well compare that to getting around by horse. Yes, we should be concerned about pedestrian deaths, but life is dangerous and this column is another example of how the left is goign off the deep end.
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@Dave Right. Life is dangerous, so let's not do anything to safe lives/injuries, or lessen the amount of pollution on the planet.
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Cars have not liberated people - they have made them dependent on cars. The USA used to have a public transportation infrastructure, but General Motors was permitted to buy it up and destroy it. What other country in the world is controlled by private industry? Read Lars Eighner's Travels with Lizbeth if you want to find out what the pedestrian's point of view is. The Southwest got his thumbs down.
1
As a car owner and as a longtime cyclist in NYC who has been hit by a car and sent to the hospital (Trauma Nurse, " what do we have here?" as the ambulance brought me to the emergency room, "Car vs Bike", answered the EMT. "And car wins again", replied the nurse), I have seen all sides.
The automobile has become too automated already, and it insulates the driver from what's going on around them.
Quick fixes (which will never happen):
1) Bring back manually shifted cars (ya can't text if you have to shift.
2) Force cellphone manufactures to make it impossible to text, or send calls (except for emergencies) in a moving vehicle.
3) License bicycles, as vehicles,so they follow the rules of the road
4) As more and more electric cars come onto the roads, add features that force the drivers to pay attention (like adding artificial manual shifting,etc.)
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@AWG It is perfectly safe to text and send calls from a moving vehicle if you are not the driver (ie., a passenger). One of the things that makes my too long commute in a taxi or car service tolerable is that I can catch up on email, make phone calls, etc.
I was hit by a car crossing the street when I was 8. I was in a coma for 6 days.
The author should know that current self-driving car tech in a Tesla does detect both bikes and pedestrians.
This video is nearly 3 years old, but it does show how a Tesla stops for a standing or walking pedestrian, and Tesla has been moving forward aggressively with the technology so it's even better now.
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@Astrochimp Here's the video: https://youtu.be/4E4qbeFb12k
When I was in grad school, I was "doored" by a driver who opened his car door while not looking. I probably could have been paying more attention myself ((I was stressing about an important exam I had the next day), but I think we can all (drivers/cyclists/pedestrians) strive to be more aware of our surrounding environment and the individuals and vehicles in it. We can also remember the rules of the road and that cyclists and pedestrians have a right to be there as well. It may not be fair that cyclists and pedestrians are more vulnerable and therefore perhaps need to be more vigilant, but that's just physics.
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Accidents involving pedestrians up 41 percent since 2008. That would sync nicely with increased smart phone use. Distracted drivers and distracted pedestrians. Accidents involving bicycles up? Bicycle commuting is much more common now and, based on my experience, many cyclists do not follow any rules of the road themselves while expecting motor vehicles to flawlessly adhere to the rule of law. Also many would rather be hit and be in the right than concede defeat to the larger foe. I drive, cycle and walk in the city and have done so for almost 30 years. Skate board too, but not recently alas. When I was younger I was wild as were my fiends. A different time. I was in many motorcycle accidents and auto accidents. I was never hurt seriously. Hardly hurt at all actually. Cars and bikes with no safety features. I gave that all up when still in my early 20s. Quit while I was ahead. But I remember and still have the reflexes. People take too much for granted now. They are distracted and expect equipment to protect them. They expect others to pay attention and follow the rules. Bike lanes are a classic example. They make cycles less safe in my opinion. Better to mix in and follow the same rules. Better for motorist to be used to sharing the road with cyclists than expecting them to stay in their kiddie lanes. Pay attention and expect the worst and you will be much safer. As for automation, you are wrong. It will make cars much safer. The weak link will be the human not the machine.
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I could add my own story here. When I was 14, I was coming home from the schoolbus stop some blocks away. As I waited to cross the busy road in front of my parents' house, I looked first to my left. There were a few cars coming. As the last vehicle (a truck) passed from that direction, I turned to the right. But the truck that had just passed obscured my view of the VW Beetle that was coming from the right at somewhere between 35 and 40 mph. (I should have allowed the truck to have passed further). So I darted across. I can distinctly remember a neighbor who was with me screaming, and then I saw the oncoming VW Beetle in my peripheral vision. When I realized I was about to be hit, I had one thought: I did NOT want to go under the car under any circumstances. And so I had the presence of mind to jump up just as the car was about to hit (it's amazing how quickly the mind can process and act on information when it needs to do so). I collapsed the VW's trunk (which was in the front), cartwheeled some 40' through the air, losing my shoes and socks in the process, and landed in a sitting position directly in front of my parents' front door. I was very lucky -- no injuries other than some bruising on the thigh and hip on which I landed!
But you know something? That wasn't the driver's fault, nor was it the car's -- it was mine. So maybe it's a bit simplistic to talk about which group needs to get out of which group's way. Maybe we all need to be more careful.
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@Mark Kessinger It was lucky the car was small enough that you were literally able to jump to get out of the way. Thats certainly not the situation anymore with the size of vehicles today. The same mistake would be far more serious.
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@Catie Gould -- No doubt. But it still would have been my fault, and not the driver's or the car's.
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@Catie Gould -- Actually, I'm not so sure it is all that different. That was in 1975, and there were plenty of big cars on the road at that time. It was just luck of the draw that it happened to be a VW Beetle that hit me.
There are huge logic problems in this argument. Today a car requires a human to decide when to make it go and when to stop it. Humans also decide when to walk out into the road or where to ride their bikes.
Today, humans make mistakes when they make those decisions, and people die because of it.
We don't make these mistakes commonly, but when they are made billions and billions of times a day, some of them are going to be wrong.
Trains don't kill many people because of any particular magic, it is just that there are simply fewer ways for human beings to make bad decisions in the operation of a train.
What these new driver aids are doing is reducing the opportunities for humans to make bad decisions that get people killed. In other words, they are making cars work more like a train.
Why would anybody in their right mind be opposed to that?
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Cars *are* "death machines"; and many of your analytical comments are sensible (pedestrian statistics, need for smaller/fewer cars, etc.). But the anecdotes are sentimental claptrap that hinder what is needed: a rational discussion of causes and possible remedies.
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there are some decent points buried in here but wrapped in an unsubstantiated predicate. if the article had just talked about potential solutions to the problem without suggesting that there will never be an adequate technological fix or without relying on anecdotal information (a lot of anecdotes are still anecdotes), it would have been just fine. sometimes i wonder if the reason these types of things are written this way is because otherwise they won't get published.
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Consumer reports just published a study this week on pedestrian detection braking. In the best case scenario it worked 40% of the time. In some conditions, like at night, it worked 0% of the time. Don't depend on this technology to save your life.
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I have operated on many car accident victims. The injuries can be horrific. In Australia more and worse accidents are happening despite all our rules and safety measures.
Auto cars would help.
Better to use public transport as much as possible.
Air bags also fitted on the outside of a car to cushion collision would help.
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Every day, I bike 10 miles on urban streets to get to and from work. Every day, I encounter a "close call." A car that chooses not to stop at a stop sign. A driver pulling out of a parking lot without looking. Cars turning left across my path that don't see or notice me as a moving vehicle. Texting drivers veering into the painted bike lane, then swerving back when they see their mistake. Each time, so far, I've been able to avoid the collision. Each time a driver notices his or her mistake, he or she gives me a wave or an "oops" shrug. But a shrug won't save my life. I shouldn't feel like I'm taking my life into my hands every time I bike to work.
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Technology is addictive and distracts people from the activity they're engaged in and from what is going on around them. As long as drivers and pedestrians are distracted there will be tragic stories.
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Amen, sister! We should all be bikes, e-bikes and, at most, something akin to electric golf carts. That's all people need to do 98% of their driving. I actually plan on making it my life's work asap - which probably means after I retire because I can't support my family pursuing this goal. But boy would I love to see the day.
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@Bjh -- About 15 years ago, I was much more seriously injured when I was hit by a bicycle messenger than I was when I was hit by a car as a teenager. I was walking southward on Third Avenue here in New York. I was crossing East 55th Street, and had the "Walk" sign. As I crossed, I was very aware of the possibility that a car might suddenly turn onto 55th Street from Third Avenue and hit me. What I was not expecting, and had no reason to expect, was a bicycle messenger traveling full bore from my right, _against_ traffic! I was hit, then slammed down on my left side onto the pavement. The cyclist stopped briefly, told me _I_ needed to watch where I was going, and then sped off. I had the wind knocked out of me (along with several cracked ribs), and so was unable to respond!
I see cyclists ignoring traffic rules far more often than I see cars doing it. And a carelessly operated bicycle can also be quite dangerous to others!
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@Mark Kessinger I'm sorry to hear that. It's not that a world without cars would be perfectly safe - it's that it would be much much safer - and cleaner - and better for peoples' physical and psychological health. And if bicycles had a safe place to operate and the run of the road, they would operate more akin to cars - even currently-rogue NYC messengers.
@Mark Kessinger I was hit by a bicycle messenger just a few blocks from there, crossing 56th Street while walking south on Park Avenue. I was in the crosswalk and clearly had the right of way; the cyclist, going east on 56th Street, had just ignored a red light.
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If I could, I would absolutely love to give up my car. But there is the small detail of my job being 20 miles away, and the virtual nonexistence of regional public transportation where I live. If I were to take a commuter bus, I would have to drive miles out of my way from my home and hope that buses were still running if I had to leave work late — which, in the winter, is almost all the time.
If you want people to stop using their cars, then make other options more affordable, available, and attractive — especially to suburban governments that are leery of connecting themselves to urban centers, either from cost or other concerns. In my community, I just watched with dismay as miles of perfectly good railroad track was taken up, which could have supported a train to and from the metro area. Such an idea was never considered here. A bus service that was popular for many years died because of lack of matching city funding.
Cars are the sole means of transportation for many of us, and it’s not because we feel entitled, or that we’re lazy, “car-centric,” or that we just don’t care. Truth is, we have no other option.
In the meantime, I will be a careful driver and expect that pedestrians will do their part too, such as by using sidewalks, crossing at designated crosswalks, and paying attention to their surroundings.
Sorry, but I’m getting just a tad tired of being blamed for a problem that I, too, want a solution to.
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@MDB I agree with you that sometimes there is no other option, and that's terribly frustrating for both drivers and transit advocates. Many suburban municipalities do not consider what you speak of as high priority, and I see it where I live also. But I believe the criticism is not for people such as yourself, but for others where there are other options, yet many people do not use them. They can be expensive also, and transfers are not very seamless. Much work needs to be done in areas that are not essentially urban, but more people have to show interest in it. And thank you for looking out for pedestrians. Most do, really. I walk a lot and most do.
@duvcu — Unfortunately, l’ve rarely seen
your nuance from the anti-car crowd. I drive; therefore, I am the problem.
Most of us are on the same side of the argument. Give us options other than the automobile, and I think everybody would be surprised at how quickly the cars are parked.
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As someone who investigates auto accidents, I am often amazed how little the lay citizen knows about the physics of accidents. Sir Isaac Newton lived more than 400 years ago. Yet his work in this space remains relevant (e.g., someone driving 60 miles per hour is actually covering 90 feet per second).
The failure to teach such basic concepts in school and or in Driver Ed have caused me to often exclaim, "Newton is spinning in his grave."
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I love cars and I love driving. I also support mass transit wholeheartedly. It's just more efficient in cities than cars ever will be. Cars should be banned from city centers entirely and replaced with last-mile transit solutions.
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How does this prove that autonomous vehicles won't reduce fatalities or injuries. The author simply states we should get cars off the road and that is the end of it. Where are the actual arguments against automated vehicles?
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A long time work mate and friend moved to Florida 2 years ago and was killed cycling. A driver speeding around a curve crossed the double yellow into the opposite lane and hit him head-on. My friend died shortly after at the scene, leaving behind a wife and two teenage daughters.
Just yesterday after I left work, I was crossing 5th ave. at 51st street. As I approached the crosswalk the sign switched to 'walk' and I proceeded but stopped short as I saw a car out of the corner of my eye speed through the red light, between to other stopped vehicles and drive a few feet in front of me. I don't even think the driver honked their horn.
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Nobody cares.
It is actually a bit odd to see an Op-ed on this subject, since it is so far down the list of public concerns. Politicians, pundits, celebs never mention auto fatalities because no one is interested. When was the last time road safety featured in a presidential or candidates debate? There are about 100 deaths a day on the roads in the US and for the average person that is of no consequence at all. It just doesn't matter.
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Motorists crash 6 million times per year, causing 3 million casualties, 35,000 deaths, and hundreds of billions of dollars in property damage, medical expenses, and lost wages. This happens because it's allowed to happen. Lawlessness, such as speeding or running red lights, is a factor in nearly all of these crashes, yet even the most irresponsible motorists are rarely held accountable when they maim or kill. How many drivers would casually speed in a school zone if getting caught meant a $10,000 fine and 90 days in jail? Nothing will change until the penalties for irresponsible motoring better reflect the extreme danger to the public: start prosecuting aggressive driving as criminal negligence and stop excusing its inevitable result as an unavoidable accident.
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A solution that was overlooked is reducing DUIs. We are much too lenient with DUIs!
Not as extreme - but still important is that bicycles have to obey the rules of the road too and use lights at night! So many times bikes blow through stop signs and red lights. Now I expect that they won't stop - and when I hesitate - they normally blow through.
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The great majority (like 85%) of car-related deaths are of people in cars. Cars hitting other cars or cars hitting solid objects. That number can indeed be reduced with smarter cars, notwithstanding the authors unsupported skepticism.
The minority of car related deaths that are pedestrians or cyclists probably can also be reduced with smarter cars. A car that can see a pedestrian or cyclist is less likely to impact them. But we also need improvements to the interactions between cars and people. Our streets and intersections are not well designed to keep them separated. On the other side of the equation, pedestrians are a menace to themselves. I've come within inches of striking two pedestrians in the last 3 years. Both walked into a street with no right of way (red light in one case, wasn't even a pedestrian crossing in the other) heads down in their "smart" phone. In both cases I was within inches of having been too close when they did this to the crosswalk to be able to stop in time. That's neither car nor drivers' fault.
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If only we could separate the various forms of traffic: trucks, cars, bicycles, scooters & pedestrians.
They all pose their own set of risks and rewards, but when all thrown together in cities that haven't really evolved in 10,000 years, we have a serious and costly problem to solve.
I'm sure we all have our own pet solution. That's a problem, too.
And the people who drive the cars, or leave the doors open?
Did a still car in a show-room, ever injure anyone?
Guns do not kill without shooters - Cars don't kill without drivers.
It requires both.
I put lots of bright-yellow reflective tape on the back of my cell phone. When crossing streets, I prominently show that phone to motorists, so it looks like I am video recording them. 95% of the motorists slow down and give me more room to cross. The other 5% either behave no better or -typically males in high-powered cars- curse me out.
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I was hit by a car in February. I also door-ed a biker who decided that the cab that had pulled over 20 feet ahead of him with blinkers on was ok to zoom past on the curb side.
I'd love to have a bike friendly city, but I won't bike in this city.
I'm a victim, a perpetrator, and a driver. I have a car because my dog and I travel to places with no public transport.
Small cars aren't the answer everywhere. I have hit a deer three times (none my fault, apart from human-animal territorial conflict) and if I had not had a tall grill, two of the three times the deer would have been scooped up into my windshield. The third time, my car literally exploded and the big front end saved my life. I know a family who was laid waste by four deaths in a vehicle where a deer came in the windshield. It was after our first deer interaction that we traded in the little car for the big front end.
I don't think we should reject ANYTHING that could save a life even if it appears to make one party responsible. We should layer every technique or device onto every interaction: monitoring speed; equipping cars and bikes with alerts; training everyone, even those who may not be the responsible party in a given situation, to be careful and do more to make sure something doesn't happen. Do it all.
I don't know if it was my fault about door-ing the biker who ignored the stopped cab -- but I do know I can prevent it the next time. Why? Not because I'm responsible. But because I can.
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@Lucie You shouldn't be allowed to drive so fast that hitting a deer (adult weight of a white-tailed deer is approx. 150 pounds, similar to an adult human) would kill a family of four.
ANY activity involves risk. Getting into a car is no exception. The reason there has been a spike in pedestrian fatalities is that the government (cities, counties, etc.) have in a large part (not all of them, but in big cities for sure) stopped enforcing traffic laws. And, drivers are driving more aggressively as a result-- they speed, they ignore stop signs, they run stop lights, etc. Given this situation, that incidents (both with pedestrians and otherwise) have increased is no surprise.
That said, cars are not "Death Machines". They are dangerous if not used properly and we have a responsibility to: 1) train drivers properly; and 2) enforce traffic laws. Do those two things and you will have done a lot to reduce the risks and I can almost guarantee will reduce fatalities.
Can we reduce the count to zero, probably not. But, we can make it a whole lot safer if we take the steps I outlined above.
I fully agree with all the suggested measures and their rationale, but I feel strongly that pedestrians in general are not attentive enough to their own safety. I do a lot of walking, and my invariable rule of a left, right, left glance has saved me over and over. As a driver, I often see pedestrians making dangerous assumptions about how well they can be seen.
Cars are death machines for people, and for birds and animals. I was riding my bike on the shoulder when I was hit by a car which didn't even stop. After the accident I was lying on the ground in the middle of the road, and couldn't move at all. Fortunately, two pedestrians found me. The road was empty. I was riding on the shoulder. The car and I were the only vehicles on the road. I think I get what the writer is saying. There is a lot that is wrong with cars. Self-driving technologies won't address a lot of that. Moreover, the trends are all wrong. General car design is getting more dangerous in some ways. And pedestrian and biker deaths caused by cars have gone up a lot. All the same, I do believe that technology, self-driving or otherwise, can better protect people and animals. I know. They're not people. But every time I see an animal that has been hit it breaks my heart. Our cars are so brutal when it comes to wildlife. I will never forget the time we saw an injured flicker on a busy road and could nothing at all to help it.
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It will be quite a while before human drivers are replaced by machines. In the meantime, enforcement of traffic laws and penalties for violating them need to be increased enough so that drivers become much much more worried about the consequences of a violation. Sensors to detect speeding or running red lights are simpler than autonomous driving technology and could be widely deployed. Fines should be steep and should scale with the income of the violator. For reckless and/or drunk driving, one strike and you're out. Some people need to be banned from driving. Violations which cause death or serious injury should result in jail time.
To complement more severe enforcement of traffic laws, automobiles should be banned from many areas of our cities and vastly more resources should be devoted to mass transit, bicycle, and pedestrian infrastructure.
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Oh how I miss NYC with the pavement warrior seniors and their shopping carts. I now live out of state in the "urburbs" and seniors insist on driving here until they can barely distinguish between a gas pedal and brake pedal. And sometimes they don't. I was about 15 feet away from a senior driver who did just that, and if I was a mere few seconds slower, I would have been pinned between a brick wall and said car.
Supposedly driving the hardest thing for many seniors to give up, being that their independence is identified by the freedom of a car. I drive rarely, and I still take my own shopping cart to the market, walk and take mass transit. I am also a lot healthier than most seniors my age who drive, but I am a bit of an anomaly here.
My father in law is now one of those seniors who we need to care about not harming others with their driving, and my husband's family has their work cut out for them, as he lives near no one. I am so happy that my stepmom, who will be 98 soon, still takes the bus from her assisted living home in NY to flutter about town. Has never driven since I met her 50 years ago, and she has legs of steel.
Yes, driving is complicated, but initiative must be taken on all fronts, including not doing so much of it.
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@duvcu Yup. Just as we have minimum ages for driving, so too should we have a maximum age...or at the very least, a requirement that everyone over the age of 75 must be re-tested every year for reaction time, eyesight and hearing.
Indeed, we do often hear that seniors fight tooth and nail to keep their cars and their drivers licenses, even when everyone around them knows them to be a danger to others. This is yet another reason why I'm so glad I've never owned a car, and never will. I rely solely on walking, public transit, my bicycle, and the occasional taxi/car service. I'll never live in a city/town where I can't accomplish what I need without owning a car.
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My grandfather, Pyke Johnson, was a transportation safety expert—pres. of Highway Research Board and the Automotive Safety Foundation; in charge of highway safety in the construction of the Interstate Highway system in the 1950s; consultant on construction of the Autobahn, Pan-American Highway, etc.
Of his eight grandchildren, three of us do not drive at all. Significant—probably. Glad to see this article. Thanks.
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This sums it up: "This may be the worst outcome of the automobile-centered 20th century: the assumption that it’s people who need to get out of the way of these lethal machines, instead of the other way around." We need to realize that walking, biking and driving are community activities involving shared spaces. We all need to follow the rules of the road, drivers included. Until there are consequences for bad drivers, who don't stop for people in cross walks, signal when turning or think that bike lanes are an extra lane for parking or driving, nothing will change.
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Driving a car is handling a lethal weapon. But to many people today a car is more akin to a phone booth. Recently I've been hit twice from behind at red lights by people texting.
People need to be retaught how to drive. It requires one's full attention at all times. The technology such as "self-driving" is the exact opposite of what we need. The more you make people feel that they don't need to focus 100% the more accidents will happen.
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I almost got hit twice in the last week. I am a careful and attentive pedestrian and a driver. I wonder how much luck I have left.
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As a transportation engineer, I have to spending billions on highways and the automobile industry seems to be a mistake in hindsight. While it was good for the time and definitely necessary about 100 years ago, in America we have a tendency to overdo things. Public transportation should be invested in far more and would move more people and goods and not to mention have a better impact on the environment. Of course, you would have to get all the lobbying out of the automobile industry first and we all know how that goes.
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I'll take my chances with self driving cars. They will be imperfect, but less so than human drivers.
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I do not understand, in any way, all of this hyperbolic talk about cars being "death machines". I understand that expressing outrage is "all the rage" today, but vehicles today are safer than ever. The issue is irresponsible and unconfident drivers. With the amount of people that I see driving with a phone in their hand I'm surprised the accident rate isn't 100% worse since 2008; is there any shock that this is exactly when the iPhone started to go mainstream? In NY I even see people on bikes with their phones out.
Yes, the sensory technology in cars has made people over dependent and given bad drivers the technology to parallel park for them, but the SAFETY features in cars that save people in true "accidents" with other cars (that happen from time to time) are far superior to what they were 40 years ago.
We humans want to blame everything, but ourselves. Modern cars amazing machines (excluding the pollution issue with gas guzzlers). If cops started dishing out $100 tickets like tic-tacs to drivers on their phones the accident rate would drop next month. Anyone who thinks differently is blind.
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With all the anecdotes on people hit because humans behave badly, and complaints that new tech distracts drivers, I'm baffled by the conclusion that removing drivers from the equation to improve car safety is not a reasonable approach.
I live ~4 miles from my work. Let me break down my logic for commuting.
That's too far to realistically walk twice a day. I'm in shape enough to make that walk, but at a walking pace it would take about an hour+ to get there, and a lot of it would be unsafe.
Biking could be an option. Except I work white collar and as a woman that means no sweat, full makeup, and skirts. I could, I suppose, throw that all in a gym bag and change at the office -- but that runs into thorny issues of acceptable bathroom behavior. Also I would need to shower and there's no facilities for that.
We have a city bus! I could take that except it would take four bus changes (Google maps tells me 34 minutes ride) and cost 12$ each way. The city offers no passes.
I'm open to not driving. I would like to not drive. The how-to is why cars will be around for a long time.
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It's not just traffic crashes, air pollution kills too. We really screwed up by building highways into cities. Sometimes I feel like moving to Europe where they take walking and biking seriously is the only option.
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All self-driving tech will do is let Wall Street buy immunity from liability, that I have to insure myself every year.
Aside from that, the headline for the op-ed is absurd. By the same logic, anyone who has been in a commercial airplane crash could call airplanes "death machines." Nonsense.
Cars have become significantly safer since the 1970's. The death rate is way down since then, to the point where the new "death machine" is opioid overdose, killing at least as many people as cars used to.
The real crime here is allowing Tesla to call a feature in their cars "autopilot" when it clearly is not. Ignoring human factors, Elon Musk has induced more than a few people to commit suicide. NHTSA shouldn't be allowing this. If I did it I'd be sued to oblivion, but the Golden One can do no wrong.
Who what's the real death machine, opioids and all the rest? Wall Street.
I am disappointed in the NYT for allowing this article for being published. It does not meet the usually high standards for the paper. It is a personal tragedy article, usually found in the tabloids, dressed up as sophisticated opinion. The enitre crux of the writer's essay is 'cars = bad'. I got more from reading the linked article which succinctly makes valuable points.
3
Is "cognitive resources" a high tech subsitute word for "attention"?
1
Hyperbolic statements are fun to use, as are colorful metaphors. One must understand, though, that both are lies. One must take care to construct the remaining narrative accordingly. Apparently, the author missed that point.
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I've been hit by cars three times while cycling. All three drivers were cited for inattentive driving. I can't tell you how many times I've almost been hit, saved only by my own compulsive wariness. I just automatically assume every car and every driver is going to do something stupid or aggressive. It's a fact of life that cyclists and pedestrians have to take responsibility for their own safety, because the average driver just isn't going to do it.
That said, any driver that kills or injures a pedestrian or cyclist should GO TO JAIL. For a long time if they were drunk, speeding, running an orange light, texting, eating, putting on makeup or doing any of the other things people seem to think are OK while piloting a two-ton machine. Passing such incidents off as "accidents" and letting the driver get away with a traffic citation just encourages more stupid driving.
6
@Richard Adam Richman on the tv show Adam Ruins Everything makes that exact point, that negligent driving involving injuries deserves more than a ticket, that they are not accidents but crashes.
I predict distracted driving will outpace impaired driving as the main contributor to auto/pedestrian accidents, if it has not already done so. I'll plead guilty to this. I reached to answer my ringing cell phone and ended up bumping the car in front of me in rush hour traffic. No one hurt. That was many years ago, and it taught me a valuable lesson.
Last year a young woman in opposing traffic turned left in front of me. We were close enough that I could see her eyes, and they never left her lap. She was looking at her cell phone even during the turn. It could have easily ended badly.
I don't know the answer to this. As we have all seen before it's impossible to legislate behavior. Self driving vehicles may be part of the answer, but they are many years from being proven, and affordable. As a whole we all have to be smarter out there.
Let us not omit the "innovation" of the mobile phone. It is largely responsible for he upsurge in pedestrian deaths and auto accidents.
3
Absolutely, we do not need better cars, we just need fewer cars. Cars are pure human carnage.
The automobile requires sun-setting, not R&D.
3
This is an incredibly backward column.
Driving objectively become gotten much, much safer over the previous decades as technology has improved. This is an indisputable fact, numbers don't lie. Americans are driving more miles than ever, while highway fatalities per mile driven continue to decline. There is no reason to think driving won't become safer still as humans are engineered out of our transportation needs.
Case in point: human drivers can expect to be involved in 1 collision per 400,000 miles driven, on average. The experience of Tesla cars driven semi-autonomously on autopilot is 1 collision per 2,800,000 miles driven. This is a 7 fold reduction in risk, and will save tens of thousands of lives per year when autonomous driving becomes commonplace.
3
@Mark
Apparently you didn't read the article. It's about cars killing and maiming pedestrians and cyclists:
To review:
Pedestrian fatalities in the United States have increased 41 percent since 2008; more than 6,000 pedestrians were killed in 2018 alone.
I have never been hit by a car or even come close to being hit by one. However, I have been hit by a bicycle and had more close calls with bicycles than I can remember.
Of course, a car's greater weight and speed mean that being hit by one is likely to produce much more severe injury than being hit by a bicycle. However, if you are looking for out-of-control, lawless drivers they are more likely to be found on a bicycle than behind a steering wheel.
2
Cleveland has almost no traffic congestion. Very few people I know have been affected by bodily injury from motor vehicles, unlike almost everyone I know from coastal California and New York City . A lower density of vehicles my be effective in reducing injuries.
2
I live near a major road leading into the city of Washington, DC. There has been huge increase in pedestrian deaths along this 4 to 6 lane artery in the last couple of years. I can see how the efforts to increase the traffic capacity have added to the risk. My opinion is that the pedestrian accident problem is growing from state and local road design and not so much from pedestrian or driver behavior which has always been problematic; nor, is it from automobile design which has been be improving.
A car hit me and I slammed into a pole. If a child had been in front of that pole, I would have killed him or her. It was the last time I ever got behind a wheel. Yes, it is inconvenient not to have a car, but the other side of the coin is inconceivable.
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This article has me chuckling.
Americans can't even be bothered to sacrifice a penny for the sake of climate change. You think this country cares about the few odd thousand that die in vehicle fatalities?
1
I think not to be overlooked are pedestrians crossing streets absorbed with their phones, and not paying attention to their surroundings. Drivers on phones, terrible..pedestrians on phones, equally so.
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@NBRUD No, it's not equal. The driver is operating a large metal object that can kill other people. That makes the equation extremely unequal. Driving a car is a privilege and a responsibility.
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@NBRUD In the Netherlands, drivers are automatically assumed to be at fault for accidents involving non-motor vehicles. They are the ones driving the lethal machine after all, it's the driver's job to watch out for pedestrians and cyclists. Sure it can be annoying when a distracted pedestrian steps out onto the crosswalk when you have a green light, but running that person over is much, much worse.
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@NBRUD When two pedestrians on phones hit into each other, nobody dies. Cars kill. Pedestrians don't.
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America is the only G8 country with almost no red light traffic cameras, it is probably the best way to reduce the bike/pedestrians fatalities at the traffic light (it worked in Europe). In the US, drivers cross red lights with no problem and there is never consequences, the only way to be stopped by a police car is speeding...
It is just one simple example of why biking or even walking (crossing street in fact) is so unsafe in the US. I am amazed by the driving school program and the average drivers distration at the wheel. You can kill someone and drive again few months later....
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If pedestrian fatalities have increased by a whopping 41% since 2008, what has changed to cause this increase? During that period the number of cars sold remained constant or actually decreased. I would guess the increase is most likely linked to the rise in the use of digital technology both by pedestrians and drivers resulting in distracted walking and driving. Numerous times I have almost hit pedestrians who were crossing the street looking at their phones rather than concentrating on their own personal safety. It is not necessarily cars that are "death machines" but our phones and digital screens.
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@JohnH
The article pour out that it's also due to the increase in SUVs, which are deadlier.
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@JohnH No, it's not that. Studies have consistently concluded that drivers are at fault in the vast majority of incidents in which pedestrians and cyclists are killed. This is not something that can be both sidesed.
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@dporpentine I disagree, this can absolutely be "both sidesed." Indisputably plenty of bad, dangerous drivers out there, but I see plenty of bikers whenever I'm in NYC routinely doing things like driving the wrong way, running red lights, and, incredibly, although today really nothing is incredible I suppose, biking and texting on rush hour Manhattan streets. And the % that wear helmets is minsicule. A miracle that more people aren't injured. While yes their bikes are less dangerous then cars, studies have concluded that there would be far fewer injuries if bikers followed rules of the road and wore helmets. People on both sides of this each can act in impactful fashion to reduce these accidents.
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I was crossing legally at a crosswalk, when a car making a left turn came flying around the corner and stopped just in time. I yelled and screamed at the driver who just stared blankly and drove away. But to me, the effect was like having someone pull a gun on me and try to shoot but by some miracle it jammed. No law was broken, but in my mind, the driver should have been charged with reckless endangerment or attempted murder. In what other area of life would we accept being threatened in such a way? Why should we have to worry every time we cross a street that someone could kill us? We need tougher laws for near-misses, which should be treated almost the same as actual collisions. Folks who drive in threatening ways should be treated the same as people who make terroristic threats.
This article has opened my eyes. I didn't know realize how frequently people on bicycles and in the street get hit. What if we all encouraged our local governments to build bike lanes and intersections the Dutch way? It's kind of brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA
I can’t believe how the discussion seems to be centered around whether or not self-driving cars will make everyone safer. Obviously they won’t, but the bigger problem is the existence of cars themselves and the pathetic lack of any decent long-distance or citywide transit systems. Wake up people! Sixty years ago China was a laughingstock with their failed 5-year plans, etc. and now they have a wonderful transit system which serves the whole country very well. If we can throw billions of dollars at ridiculous military adventures and cruel and stupid drug wars that criminalize ordinary people, then we ought to be able to catch up to a country that was considered third world not too long ago. Please let it happen in my lifetime!
4
A bicyclist recalls "Two right-hooks, one road-raged me into a row of parked cars. " This is not about cars, this is about angry, overwhelmed and distracted people. Walk around in NYC a bit and you will notice that bicyclist here behave similarly to each other and to pedestrians. Granted, cars are deadlier but there is something else going on. If I were to hazard I guess, I think some factors are: stressed people who don't feel secure(future, finances, etc.), overcrowding, poor infrastructure (roads, public transportation), distraction (esp. digital) and a diminishing sense of community (possibly due to increased participation in the digital world).
Yesterday, I was got on an elevator at a theater, about 15min before curtain. It was, by NYC standards, about 2/3rds full. As the doors closed a glimpsed someone just outside, trying to make it in. I jabbed the door open button and 2 women entered, one walking unsteadily with a cane. A man on the elevator was outraged that I would do such a thing. Civility is dead.
1
Thank you for this.
According to the world health organisation 1,350,000 died in traffic accidents in 2016. So cars are deadly. They destroy whoever gets in their way. It is by far the greatest threat to your childs life. And to your own. In our affluent western society nothing compares.
Better public transport and toll barriers. Your car in our city is no good for us who live here. We don't love it like you do. And your stink machine is poisoning our children and making our streets unsafe. This neurotic need for speed only gets us to our own or someone else's funeral early.
And we need bike lanes.
And that's just for starters.
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Examples from NYC, LA and San Fran. - a little bit skewed in your thinking, don’t you think? Even though it is an opinion piece, broaden your research. And, what are you advocating for? Driverless cars? People will still get hit, we are humans and make errors. People died by horse and buggy too - look it up
Yes, yes, yes. Let's save lives, let's save pain and injury. Please.
1
Sad to hear all this. Truly.
BUT:
Biking in a big city is suicidal at best. So just STOP, OK?
PHONES. seldom peds even look up from the screens.
It is all on the driver now.
1
This article is tremendously misleading with the technology aspect. "There are many who say that autonomous or smart cars will solve this. So far, I’m unpersuaded." - then the author goes on to list things that have nothing to do with autonomous or self-driving cars, as proofs that those advances will not solve anything.
What have pedestrian RFIDs, larger screens or "connected cars" (which today only means connecting the car to the internet or connecting phones and other devices together) to do with truly autonomous self-driving cars?
Fatal and non-fatal accidents are terrible, so is fear-mongering about a technological path without just slightly understanding it. How about, as an addition to raising this important issue, we put effort into getting a grasp of the different alternatives other than "no cars".
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@Peter I agree. I recently got a new car that senses its surroundings and slams the brakes if there is a threat of collision. It has saved me from an accident in the past 10 months. Cars are becoming safer (and more fuel efficient). From now on, I’m leasing my commuting car which gets me access to the newest safety features every 3 years.
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@Peter Yes, this is fear-mongering. There is no explanation that motor vehicle deaths are down for decades.
In 1960 vehicle-related deaths were about what 2018 were. In 1960 the U.S. population was 180,671,158. In 2018 it was 326,213,213. Do the math.
Statistics don't lie. You're far less likely to be killed in a vehicle accident no than in past decades and, barring the current administration meddling, they will continue to decline.
Cars are not death machines. They can, with a poor driver be deadly. It also happens because of jaywalkers, the guy on the motorcyle who can't process that a large truck mirror is directly behind him and when the truck moves will hit him isn't the truck's fault. It's lack of attention on the part of the motorcyclist.
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@Peter
I believe that self driving cars will save a tremendous number of lives. It won't happen immediately, but as the cars get better algorithms for detecting and avoiding pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicles, the number of injuries and fatalities will plummet. Why the skepticism that the technology will fail? The reaction times of the AI systems will be much swifter than any human, and the AI system will never be distracted.
Humans behind the wheel make TERRIBLE decisions.
Would reducing the number of vehicles lead to fewer accidents? Or would the remaining vehicles just go faster?
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In many parts of the country, a car is a lifeline and public transit is not cost-effective or feasible - or always convenient.
Even if available, I'm not riding public transit. It has become a haven for the homeless, is dirty and often not on time. My commute driving is 1/5th the time it would take on public transit, so no thanks.
Also, you seem to be totally uniformed about self-driving cars and the associated technology. Tesla and Volvo are just two examples where the car will brake to a stop for cyclists or pedestrians on city streets.
2
As a sustainable transportation planner for an US Army garrison a dozen years ago, it became obvious that all kinds of highly efficient devices, like electric bikes and scooters, etc - and Personal Rapid Transit systems could combine to actually provide safe and sustainable alternatives to cars and highways, but that each needed their own right of way.
In other words, what I called "low-impact" vehicles like electric bikes etc - low impact on Earth but obviously also on people - would be going too fast (19 MPH or so max) to be compatible with peds, but too slow to be with cars/trucks. And only through PRT systems could people be moved around with the same convenience of cars in safe lightweight vehicles attaining 600-800 passenger miles per gallon - with "lightweight" being a key to being efficient - since they'd never enounter a semi-truck or SUV.
It is this type of whole-system planning that's imperative for human safety from each other, and climate chaos.
1
With all due respect I think the opposite is true. As self driving systems evolve it will be far safer than human drivers but yes cars will always be dangerous things.
I visited Amsterdam last December, and while it was a great pedestrian city with a fabulous mass transit system, it was surprisingly packed with cars, even in Centrum, the old center of the city.
Given that European cities are often heralded as the model for how Americans should be doing it, this surprised me and made me reconsider whether the "anti-car" movement can really achieve what it wants in the US. If there's still a lot of vehicle traffic in Amsterdam despite all that city's overwhelming non-car advantages (public transit, density, walkability, bike paths, etc), how far can you really get in the US?
It kind of makes me wonder whether the anti-car movement (like so many US civic movements), while well-intentioned, doesn't suffer from two big problems.
One is the tendency for all American civic goals to cast itself in moral terms. People who drive are distracted, selfish, lazy, etc, basically suffering from a principally moral defect of character. I doubt this helps the movement and galvanizes opposition.
The other is over-reach -- not even Robert Moses with the budget of the defense department can reconfigure 100+ urban areas to be much less vehicle dependent. Outside of a few cities, mass transit is a dismal mess. Half the country has too much snow and cold weather for long commutes in winter. We have far too much geography to cover, especially given our poor transit.
"Car-free" is a noble goal, but even Amsterdam can't do it.
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As someone who was hit by a driver while riding a bicycle in a bike lane, I welcome the advent of more computer control of cars. The driver in my accident happened to be in his 70s, but I can’t say for certain if that was a factor. That having been said, I’ll take my chances with a computer over a texting teenager or a slow reaction time senior citizen or a hamburger eating driver any day.
Computers won’t be perfect, but they’ll likely be far better than humans.
Thanks Allison,
I beg to differ with your headline. What we don't do is so often the path to success; another name for self-driving tech is drone, an aerial one, or perhaps millions dotting the sky, a 21st century peleton.
The good news is that instead of getting in or sending 1,000 lbs of mostly stored (95% of the time average USA, ie, the 8,325 hours per year they sit, forlorn chez garage) internal combustion or even electric vehicle to pick up a pound of liquid or ounce of tobacco, sugar, butter . . .
Not every trip of course, but many, and the spreadsheet will be poised on the percent of those 'trips' that can be better served, two orders of magnitude better, by sending over 10 lbs of electric drone -- a self-driving tech that will make the roads safer and the death count fall, like a stream of insurance premiums.
To quote a friend: "Those aren't the drones you're looking for."
Pedestrians in distraction (eyes fastened to their smart devices) and irresponsibly walking, doing it on purpose. They know very they pose great risks of bodily injury from any angle. They feel as if it's OK. There is no excuse for their actions and decisions to put others at risk, especially the weak and young being around and about.
They create hostile environments to everyone around it, so there needs to be proactive law to restore order. It's only going to get worse.
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More people and cyclists are getting hit by cars because more of them are ignoring the laws of physics and difference in mass between a car and a person and more people are "asserting their rights" to use the same resource (the road) at the same time.
In a 20-minute period of driving, I encountered a) teenagers skateboarding on the middle of the road, in the opposite direction of vehicle traffic b) a couple walking in the road with their backs to traffic when there was a good, clear sidewalk next to them, and c) a cyclist run a stop sign at a junction where I had arrived at first and was starting to cross.
Advocates for alternate means of transportation are throwing all users into the same road together and just letting them sort it out and, when accidents happen and people get hurt, they presume the driver of the car to be at fault.
There are sad stories presented here. But where are the stories about the people who weren't paying attention and stepped into the street or the ones who thought they could get across before reached them?
Where are the stories about bridges being death structures because so many people commit suicide jumping off of them?
Where is the science to put the numbers in complete perspective rather than cherry-picking the stats that are presented to make a point?
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The problem here in Portland, Oregon, is that the conversation about bicycle and pedestrian safety is primarily driven by ideology instead of engineering. Buried deep in one of the City of Portland's policy documents is an admission that the level of skill, safety concerns, and sobriety on the part of cyclists cuts across the entire spectrum of human behavior, ranging from excellent to terrible. But that hasn't stop drivers from being routinely demonized, as if every accident was the fault of the person driving a motorized vehicle. And pedestrians are equally culpable. I think NHTSA, the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, has done some excellent surveys that attempt to identify the precise factors involved in every bicycle and pedestrian accident. Studying those surveys should be the starting point for any conversation about how to improve safety.
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Bike riders are equally bad. They dodge in and out, into and out of pedestrian paths, run red lights, follow no rules of the road, and so on. Do not equate them with pedestrians.
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I understand my city is particularly notorious for reckless driving: speeding, red-light running, crossing the center line, generally taking the rules of the road as the merest suggestion. I blame New England's hurry sickness plus our quaint, narrow rights-of-way that don't always allow for new cars to operate the way they're designed to. Winter weather that requires heavy use of road salt plus a compressed construction season which makes it hard to keep potholes filled plus a high percentage of SUV's for our rural roads don't help either. Sometimes as a pedestrian I fantasize about a spike mat I can roll out as needed. It seems nothing else will make some drivers respect other modes of transportation.
This is fantastic and long overdue. As a car owner, I would be THRILLED to never drive again. But the dominance of car culture destroys other methods of transportation. How I wish I could bike my son to school in Brooklyn! Of course, I'm unwilling to risk his life.
Recently, there's been fantastic conversations about selectively reducing on street parking to create safe bike lanes, bus only lanes, and even widen sidewalks. Free on-street public parking, at $400 per space per year to upkeep, is a massive misuse of public land and funds. Of course, drivers are up in arms.
Car drivers are like gun owners: when people attempt to make our lives safer, they freak out about everyone taking all the cars away. Evolving public infrastructure will require adjustment. But we've got to make it happen. The current dynamic is unacceptable.
1
Moving from a bike friendly city to one with a horrible track record for auto fatalities has affected how much I go out on the streets as a pedestrian. Forget about riding my bike. I went from a daily rider to never-rider. Multiple times while walking I have had impatient drivers pull their vehicles in front of me in the cross walk to turn, nearly hitting me. I feel paranoid as a pedestrian because I have seen so many people die from being hit by vehicles (I worked in trauma surgery for some time). Our society should not be putting the onus on pedestrians and bikers for safety. We need more public transit options!
The headlights and tail/brake lights of recent cars are so over-bright that they make it difficult to see pedestrians on the side of the road whenever there is an oncoming car or a braking car ahead.
7
Cities are death camps!!! Almost all of these crashes occurred in cities. Ergo - Cities are death camps. Ms. Arieff is quite dramatic in labelling cars death machines with no analysis other than car crash equals car death machine. No consideration of any of the benefits to humans of auto travel, e.g. ambulances to take humans for life-saving medical treatment, fire trucks to extinguish potentially fatal fires, ability to travel to see family and friends, ability to deliver paper versions of the New York Times with this editorial! I think the Times should focus on finding guest editorial writers with more thoughtful and nuanced opinions about automotive travel.
2
Great article. Less cars and separate the cars/bikes/people per the model in Europe. Our cities are designed around vehicles; hopelessly so.
I practice personal injury and just my firm alone has hundreds of auto related cases at any given time...when my rough math puts together our case load with the other firms locally, there has to be thousands of cases (injuries) significant enough to warrant attorney involvement occurring at any given moment. Think about that. Sickening.
The author of this piece neglected to point out that a a majority of American pedestrians who are victims are people living in impoverished neighborhoods.
When I was 9 years old a friend left my house got on his bicycle and I heard a *boom*. That was a car hitting him and throwing him 100 feet. We (the kids) made a ritual of visiting his bloodstains in the road every day for weeks, until they faded. Whenever I hear a *boom* I go tearing off expecting to find somebody.
When I was 12 another kid I knew was hit and killed while delivering papers by a woman who was swatting at a bee in her car.
When I was 16 a cousin was hit and killed at night by a driver going the wrong way with his lights off (hit and run). ANother friend died driving his own car into a telephone car fleeing a police car he thought was chasing him. (A troubled kid).
Every cat I ever had "got run over" by a car. I thought it was normal. I thought everything died by car.
For a while I lived in a beautiful place in the catskills. I had to drive a lot I hit an owl, a cat, a rabbit, possum, and a deer that I remember. A bear got hit and killed by a truck on the road near me. I also lost my own cats there. I moved partially to drive less and kill less things. I also got a house on a side road with a long driveway to protect my cats. Now they are fat and old.
2
The public knows what reckless driving is, but too many car drivers do not know what careless and AWARE-LESS Driving is. Two wheelers and pedestrians know: we are being hurt, maimed and killed by CARELESS and AWARE-LESS Driving. These are not accidents, they are preventable. There is Mindfulness and there is MindLESSness.
3
I'd go with a self driving—and self braking car—any day.
1
Thank you so much for these thoughts. If only our elected officials would spend 5% of the budget they devote to smoothing the way for cars to helping out us cyclists and walkers it would be huge. As it is now, in most areas of the country only cars and drivers count.
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We are simply brutes who live in a brutal world. To read all these stories is terrible. My brother was killed in a terrible car accident on a summer day, clear visibility, but a man in a Buick who had been drinking came out like a shot on the highway and hit the car he was driving; the accident almost killed my father and another brother. Death by car happens every day, everywhere. We move toward cars w/no drivers. Why? Traffic is continually snarled here in Austin to try and accommodate the population growth. Some bus and rail growth, but not enough, not extensive enough to territory where needed. The huge state should invest in rapid rail a la Japan and Europe. There are political reasons for this and powerful lobbies that have kept things as they are, not as they should be. The outcry about climate is changing some of this folly, but slowly. The gun lobby is powerful in spite of the tragedies that occur. The car is in this category as well. We are primitives and have misplaced feeling and common sense in the ways we live.
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@Katalina I'm a fellow Texan, but also one who's spent enough time in places such as Japan & Europe to understand why the types of high-speed rail commonplace there simply aren't viable here. Texas is over 1,000 miles wide - and over 4.5 times larger than Japan in terms of land mass - but has only 20% of Japan's population. It would cost tens of billions of dollars to develop a high-speed rail network just in this ONE STATE, an expense that could never realistically be recouped via fares alone.
The only "political" aspect here is a simple lack of funds for such endeavors, particularly considering the number of competing infrastructure needs (on a local, state and national level). Might I suggest starting locally -- adding light rail service in Austin, which has none, and expanding it in places like Houston (which has far too little, given its size) -- and then tackling macro issues like intercity transit?
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A lot of people get killed by trains, too, often because the crossings are faulty.
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@Katalina All this fear of death machines yet we have more people and longer lives than ever before in history. That free speech causes stupid people to believe stupid things is similar to other liberties, where a stupid person tends to make it seem we all must suffer due to their actions.
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Self-driving tech won't change anything??? That seems dubious after reading this piece, which is full of examples of people being hit by bad drivers. I've been hit by cars twice while cycling because of driver error, and I'm confident that even with the current state of the technology self-driving cars wouldn't have hit me in either instance.
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@Max Brown I'm relishing the thought of cyclists and pedestrians just freezing all of them in their tracks in urban areas, locking down the whole area for free moving people. The other problem with self-driving cars is that they have to drive continuously - meaning more on the road at a time - and they are being touted as an "alternative" for transit. 24-7 Gridlock without rage would be far safer.
10
@Multimodalmama Silly. Pedestrians and cyclists could do that now to human-driven cars (albeit with more risk). As far as self-driving cars needing to drive continuously, that is not true. The would be on the road only when requested for pickup, or when carrying a passenger.
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@Max Brown
You are confident that current technology has self-driving cars that won't make mistakes? Imagine the internet goes out. Imagine you need to reboot your car. Imagine interference on the data stream. Imagine snow, ice, rain, leaves. Imagine bird poop taking out a sensor. And then imagine a driver who no longer knows how to actually drive a car. Sounds like a Boeing 737 Max.
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My husband and I drive a four-door sedan. We drive defensively, and maintain a vigilance for card, trucks, motorcyclists, scooter riders, skateboarders, and yes, pedestrians, who are not paying attention to lights, signals, stop signs and all the other moving things and people around them.
I never talk on the cellphone while I'm driving, regardless of the hands-free and Bluetooth tech available to me. It's not the same as having a conversation with someone in the car. It's distracting. I see so many people with eyes and ears glued to their phones, whether they are drivers or pedestrians.
Everyday I see an insistent minority of NYC cyclists intent on biking at high speed in our streets, trying to run lights and dodge cars. I see people walk into the street against the light, unaware the light has just turned green because they're jacking aay. Granted, the big bully SUVs are particularly dangerous, as this article points out, but...
I think everybody needs to slow down and get off their devices, whether they're driving, cycling, or walking. Let's get rid of the SUVs, Detroit, and go back to the station wagon, which I really miss. Remember the way back!
2
Hmmm. . .what's been happening for the past 10 years to cause such an escalation in pedestrian fatalities? SMARTPHONES! Research tells us that a driver just talking on a smartphone has his/her response time diminished to the same level as somebody driving with a .08% blood alcohol level. And pretty much every driver has at least one story about a pedestrian walking out into traffic without looking while talking on a cellphone. Last, the number of bicyclists using cellphones while riding is no longer an uncommon sight either.
The much more cost effective approach to minimize pedestrian traffic deaths is to enforce laws which restrict cellphone use while driving and enact further laws which restrict pedestrians and bicyclist from using cellphones while riding and crossing the streets.
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I wonder how much of the increase in pedestrian fatalaties is due to an increase in bike riders. I won't ride a bike where I live because I think conditions far too dangerous.
Cars are not "death machines". Bad drivers are responsible for how they use their cars.
And sometimes there are also bad pedestrians, and bad cyclists. Actually there are a LOT of bad cyclists - how often do I see the arrogance of cyclists who speed through red lights, squeeze past buses at lightning speed, cut across queues of stationary cars... I wish cyclists stopped being so sanctimonious and started observing the same traffic rules as everyone else, then perhaps there would be fewer accidents.
2
36,750 people were killed in traffic during 2018 in the US. Just let that sit in your mind for a moment...
That's the size of:
The entire city of Poughkeepsie, NY
All undergraduate students at NYU (and half of the grad students)
1.5 x the capacity of Madison Square Garden
If these deaths occurred as concentrated events, they would be considered national tragedies. The dispersion allows us to assign individual blame, rather than understand that our transportation network directly causes this to happen every year. Other countries do not have similar rates of traffic fatalities.
Thanks for elevating this important issue, NY Times.
1
How about creating a culture of safety (rather than a culture of speed) that is accepted as the norm? We were able to change behaviors around smoking, recycling, and picking up after one’s dog. The ad agencies - and their clients, the car companies - have a key role to play here. Too many ads celebrate speed and autonomy rather than safety. (Subaru excepted).
1
We have the tools, now, to help fix this problem, which is rooted in the American practice of treating driver's licenses as rights as opposed to privileges, regardless of what DMVs say.
Already, we technology that can show when someone is speeding. When someone strays from their lane for no good reason, perhaps because they are reaching for another beer or are distracted by their cell phone. When someone repeatedly makes panic stops because they are not paying sufficient attention, or tailgates like there's no tomorrow.
Why, given the technology we now possess, do we allow bad drivers to drive, especially given that driving is supposed to be a privilege, not a right? A digital/GPS/radar system aimed at getting bad drivers off the road after data shows they are bad drivers would, I think, work wonders and be cheaper and more effectual than fooling with self-driving cars.
1
We in the U.S. are addicted to sprawl. The population of Saint Louis, where I live is about the same as Cali, Colombia, where my wife is from. Saint Louis has about 2.8 million people and spans 21,900 sq km. Cali has about 2.3 million people and spans 560 sq km. That's about 39 times smaller.
You can walk or bike almost everywhere in Cali. You can't walk anywhere here.
Your dream requires a change in how we view density, land ownership and property value. You can't commit to not driving and expect to live a normal life.
3
If I may. Born and bred NYer who owned his first (and current car) when he was in his late 40s. I love driving, but confine my auto-time to getting out of the city on the weekends. Commuting by car or using my vehicle (interborough) when I can easily take a bus, subway, or bicycle is a non-starter for me.
I'm also a motorcyclist. I don't view cars as the enemy, so much as I do bad drivers. And there a lot of them out there. Pricing all drivers out of the act of using their vehicles is like salting the ground because one doesn't like a particular plant. My take is strict enforcement and enhancement of road traffic and safety laws and making fines and penalties that will cause people - especially bad drivers - to think twice before broadsiding a pedestrian, swiping a motorcyclist, breezing through a stop sign, or texting while driving. And vehicular manslaughter should automatically be charged as vehicular murder and come with the appropriate punitive measures.
1
2,977 people died in the 9/11 attacks. 42,196 people died in traffic fatalities in 2001 - not counting all the people injured and maimed for life. Every year we remember the people whose lives were cut down by airborne terrorists. But the world of human suffering that occasions the carnage on our streets goes unremarked, except for the few roadside memorials.
Assuming there is still a human species in five hundred years, people will look back in wonder at a society that blithely accepted such a massive death toll whilst building memorials to the deaths of a handful.
152
@Gary FS the US population in 2001 was 285M. The number of people who died in auto related accidents based on your numbers would equate to a .0001% fatality rate that year. That isn't exactly huge and comparing it to 9/11 deaths is a false equivalency.
Accidents happen. People died being thrown from horses or when run over by buggies or carriages or even bike accidents when a car isn't involved.
6
@MNNice
42,196 (annual US fatality from auto accidents) is .015% of 285,000,000 (population of US in 2001). .015%, not .0001%.
Of course that number doesn't include the 200,000 people who are permanently disabled (annually) from car accidents.
People don't like to think about the true cost of driving.
33
@M S J -- You are correct, but that's still only 1.5 one-hundredths of 1 percent. Still a very small number.
1
While (distracting) cell phones are probably behind the recent surge in accidents, it’s likewise going to take innovative technology to solve this dilemma. I don’t see any other way—people aren’t going to give up their cell phones or their vehicles. Resources should be directed toward this endeavor.
2
Human error is at fault for over 90% of car accidents, airline crashes, train crashes etc. Take the human out of the equation and accidents will plummet.
2
@Ed Mahala You presume that there is no human error in the system that manages the driving. This shows an egregious lack of knowledge about coding and engineering, both avenues where human error not only exists, but its impact is drastically magnified and MUCH wider spread.
A poor driver behind the wheel will cause a handful of accidents over the course of months or years. A poor system driving the car will cause a handful of accidents over the course of days or months, and they're more likely to be catastrophic accidents.
The percentage of drivers out there who think texting-while-driving is somehow ok, has gone from occasional to multiple examples seen reliably every day on one's commute. Its how drunk driving used to be seen and frankly, I'm not sure what's worse.
So, self-driving cars are just in time, IMO.
5
Ignornace often stops progress. And ignorance is displayed in this article.
An autonomous car can process thousands of variables simultaneously and react 10 times faster than a person. Autononmous vehicles also do not drive drunk. Since these autonomous cars are also electric, their carbon footprint is small.
This is one case where technology solves most of the problems but the ignorance held by people like this writer will stand in the way.
1
Ban SUVs. Anyone who needs extra carrying capacity can go back to the older solution--the station wagon.
3
Cars don't kill people; people kill people. People driving while texting, smoking, vaping, eating, and even reading the newspaper! People who speed, disobey traffic laws, and drive while under the influence of drugs and alcohol, or while short on sleep.
I'm not surprised fatalities have increased in recent years; so has lawlessness and carelessness.
2
I have been driving for many, many years and have never had or caused an accident. I've known, in my long life, exactly one person who was injured seriously enough in an auto accident to warrant hospitalization.
I have, however, had several very close calls with cyclists, on the roadways and on the sidewalk. I see cyclists going the wrong way on one-way streets, blasting through red lights, etc. Usually with their earbuds socked in nice and tight.
"... it’s becoming the pedestrian’s responsibility to avoid getting hit." It was always their responsibility. I was told in elementary school to stop, look in both directions, and listen carefully before I crossed any street. Problem with this tried-and-true safety measure is that bicycles are virtually silent, and they can come at speed from virtually any direction. Cars may be killers, but so are bikes.
Now that I live in the country, I've encountered a new species arrogance, cyclist who do not stay close to the shoulder of the road but ride 2 and 3 abreast. The roads are hilly and curvy, and it's very dangerous to pass in the oncoming lane. The cyclists generally seem aware of me and that I would like to get past them. If I toot my horn (and it's always a toot, I don't blast) it's pretty much guaranteed that I'll get the finger from one or all of the riders.
I'm perfectly happy to share the road, but prefer to do so with someone who's willing to do the same.
11
@Binne I ride a motorcycle, often in the city. It's rare that I can go a week without having to take evasive action to avoid being hit by a bicyclist blowing through a stop sign or stop light. If they hit me, I'll go down just as quickly as if I was being hit by an Escalade. Without any enforcement of the rules of the road for bicyclists, these threats will continue.
3
Cutting down on the number of cars? Huh! Next people will want to infringe my right to bear arms!
The author should visit Tesla to see what they are doing and working on for the future. Then write a piece on "How automotive technology will save the environment (and your bacon)."
Editor please note: Could you approve funding for this trip? Maybe also fund the purchase of a new Model 3 and ask Allison to drive it home to NYC.
Horrifying.
Something must be done to stop this carnage in our streets.
You shouldn't be able to drive a car without proving that you have had training, and being tested and licensed.
You should be required to carry insurance in case you do wrong - the price alone would probably prevent risky drivers from driving.
And cars should all be registered. All of them, even small ones that are less likely to cause injury.
Oh, wait. We do all those things. And people are still being killed helter-skelter [pardon the reference].
Maybe some sort of limit on their capacity to cause harm, like a speed governor... but that's easily defeated.
Well, then ban them. There is no Constitutional right to having cars. Really, only emergency services should have them. Sure, those rubes in the Flyover will howl, but it's their own fault for wanting to live where there's no public transportation. If we force them to do it our way, they'll see the light eventually and understand.
What's that I hear on the wind? Oh my goodness, it's the sound of Trump's 2020 inaugural address. So nice of all of the people in the big cities to have greased the skids for his reëlection...
4
@Eric — Not only did I enjoy your comment, but also your use of the umlaut on "reëlection." As tediously bien-pensant as The New Yorker magazine usually is, I like that aspect of its internal style regimen.
1
Thank you, Cyclist.
I learned these follies in my youth, and am endeavouring to carry them into my dotage.
Life is dangerous. Back in the day we had wolves and other large creatures stalking us. We were dinner.
Population control is what we really need.
3
The headline, that self-driving tech won't make cars safer is supported with no evidence, and is not even argued for in the article. The author only gives a number of anecdotes about people and cyclists being hit by human drivers. The author describes writing a twitter post as an "experiment," surely the loosest use of the term I've ever heard, even in these anti-rational times. I continue to be very dismayed by the declining quality of the NYT.
3
@Phil — I agree, though I'd argue that The Times's quality isn't declining everywhere, but only in pieces like this. In some respects it remains an excellent newspaper.
I ran for ninth grade student body president. I believe I won (it's embarrassing that I can't recall precisely). But I didn't have the best campaign speech. That went to the candidate who promised a Coke machine that would dispense free Coke if he/she were elected.
This op-ed is about as dreamy and as far removed from practical realities as that campaign effort was. We never did get the free Coke machine, needless to say.
1
As a driver in the outer borough of Queens, NY, I can say all this is true. Just the other day I saw a bike make a right turn at the same that a car came barreling down the street he turned into ..then I heard a huge bang. I knew what it was and ran to help. But here's the problem...the bike didn't stop at the stop at the stop sign he had on this street before turning - he zoomed into the right turn without looking - and he SUV that hit him didnt have a stop sign at all at that corner.... the result was not good.
I have had multiple times that bikes have served in front of my car from the sidewalk onto the street as if they could beat me into the traffic, then given me the finger even though
I had the right of way. Mu cars sensors beeped and caught it most times. Same for pedestrians who cross in the middle of blocks while reading their phones, or cross in front of me when I have a green light also while reading their phones. I am careful to look for all this now knowing I can't control the actions of bikers pedestrians, but there have been rules in place for years and no one is following or enforcing them,,, but they are there for everyone's safety, so as driver you have to be extra cautious these days.
It irks me most as a careful driver when I see people cross in the middle of long blocks with strollers and kids especially, trying to beat the traffic. Sanity is not prevailing here.
3
We need some analysis of the circumstances where bad accidents tend to occur. It will probably be better to have even a first generation autonomous car driving instead of a stumbling drunk. On the other hand criminal activity will probably have manual driving, since the auto-drive won't speed. I suspect that early model autonomous vehicles will have a higher high-cost error rate than human drivers....so, a net negative outside of inebriation cases.
It's not cars... it's the people driving them. It's the same sort of bubble and sense of anonymity, similar to social media, that can amplify aggressive tendencies in people.
It would be nice if everyone could have the experience of being a pedestrian, cyclist, and a driver. Then maybe everyone would have more foresight to prevent more accidents and we could stop demonizing each other and work together to share the roads. In fantasyland, that is.
2
@K
I use all forms of transportation and have often had this thought. You can understand how you are seen/not seen, and what you may see/not see when you use different modes. Too many driver-only rider-only walker-only perspectives, too little recognition of the social contract we're all in to live together.
2
As someone who drives rideshare at night, it would be helpful if bicyclist (and especially skateboarders) had lights on their vehicles at night. In Portland, At LEAST 25% of the bicyclist do not have any light on their bicycles at night. Even less have helmets. There are almost no lights on skateboarders at all. The "e-scooters" have lights, but the drivers never have helmets, don't follow the rules of the road, and often are inebriated.
All of these issues are made worse by a transporation department that thinks that making the streets more complex and difficult to navigate is somehow easier for the newer, transplant, tourist and uninformed drivers to understand. Moreover, in many cases the solutions are regressive, hitting working class people who are forced to the exterior of the cities, harder, while benefiting the inner city educated classes -who are the ones bicycling.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't make the cities as safe for bicyclist as possible. What it does mean is putting aside ideological thinking and using critical and inclusive thinking to develop realist, but important improvements.
7
I know multiple people who've been hit by cars as pedestrians with serious repercussions. I know avid bikers who've been hit by cars and and in one case a truck and are lucky to be around to talk about it. A nearby town has had several fatalities where people crossing under gates were killed by trains from an unexpected direction-these were not though to be intentional. I absolute support efforts to minimize and reduce fatalities through laws, enforcement, and technology. I also can't help but watch in wonder as I see countless pedestrians daily in the city put them selves in harms ways deliberately or through inattention. There are massive problems on the many sides of this equation.
1
Thank for this. 'Death Machines' is exactly what I have been calling cars the last 30 years.
I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world with extensive public transportation and a brand new metro city ring line, yet cars, driving, and parking take up, I don't know, 85 % of public space. And, even here, hardly anyone seriously questions it. That's not just insane, it's sad.
The way I see it, that space belongs to everyone (depending on the laws of the land obviously) and drivers of private cars take up a disproportionate amount of that space in most cities. Maybe that's a place to start. By setting caps on the relative amount of public space (in congested, highly populated urban and suburban areas) allocated to infrastructure for transportation by car I believe it would be possible to revolutionize our relationship to the city and maybe even each other.
Just imagine what could be created in just a little part of that shared space.
3
The majority of drivers are borderline competent, at best, and ours continues to be very much a car culture. Being a pedestrian is a challenge enough but those who ride bikes in our densest cities must have a death wish. I was hit by a car on bike when I was 12. No more city biking for me.
2
I am a cyclist, and also I am a driver. On the bicycle I've logged in excess of 10,000 miles in a single year, and in the car more than twice that. Bicycling is very dangerous. Automobiles are a large part of the risk. None of the proposals will eliminate risk of collisions.
However I am appalled, absolutely appalled, by the number of cyclists in dark garments, without lights, contributing to their own risk. When driving, I have difficulty seeing them. The same hold for pedestrians in dark clothes on poorly lit city streets nighttime, challenging for drivers to spot.
I only wear bright colors, from helmet to jersey, socks and shoes. My strobing lights are on at all times and are visible for more than a mile in bright sun. Consider their high cost cheap life insurance.
And my very powerful strobing daytime running lights (DiNotte, from New Hampshire) are meant to make drivers look at me. The eye and the brain's optical cortex can easily resolve the image of a pedestrian or a bicycle, but too often cognitive functions filter any image not perceived as another motor vehicle.
5
Cars encourage the worst behavior in people as this article points out. Last weekend a cyclist was struck and almost killed at an intersection near my house.
I don't understand why traffic laws are never enforced? Especially in my town of Baltimore. I can stand at any busy intersection and plainly see who is on their cell phone while driving. Which is illegal in Maryland, but it's never enforced.
2
Amen.
2
I was hit by a speeding bicyclist. He ran a red light at a three-way intersection and continued on with his head down. I was crossing the street to get a cab.
I was knocked over, knocked out, and my body sent along the road for many yards. While I was unconscious, pedestrian bystanders lifted me to the sidewalk so I wouldn't get hit (maybe not the right thing to do), and called 911.
I woke up just before the ambulance arrived, and was taken to the ER, where I was diagnosed with concussion, had four big stitches in the back of my head, and "road burn."
I was told the bicyclist waited on the other side of the street until I came to, and left. Hit and run.
It is not cars, it's the drivers. States should require much higher scores on written driving exams, and cyclists who ride in the street should be licensed, with large visible plates.
13
@dr. c.c. Could not agree more, hope you have fully recovered. Cyclists need to be licensed and each bike needs a LARGE license plate — that’s the only way they will be held responsible, and only then will the actions of some cyclists change. Cyclists in our flat region are too often a menace to pedestrians and auto drivers, too.
1
May I suggest you buy a donkey?
I would have said bicycles, but the current bike drivers in the city are worse than car drivers. Just last night a big dude on a bike got off his bike to scream and threaten physical harm to a woman who was walking on the bike lane.
Had he tries the bunch of people who rallied around her would have pummeled him.
So I guess bikes are out.
I would say banning all cars, is like banning spoons for making people fat. Wrong solution.
7
@AutumnLeaf Do you have a better solution? Sounds like you are saying to stick with the status quo, which is clearly broken.
@AutumnLeaf Not sure if you're someone who cares about facts or not, but the truth is you are far, far, far less likely to get by a bike than by a car, and far, far, far less likely to be killed or seriously injured if you do get hit by one. So bikes aren't worse, and they definitely aren't "out." More people on bikes instead of cars would make everyone much safer.
People are more used to dealing with cars than bikes in the U.S., so they don't really notice how often cars run red lights, almost hit people, do hit people, cut off pedestrians, etc. But people are terrified of cyclists even when they're going a fraction the speed of the cars around them, in a bike lane, with a green light. It's a perception problem. There are some crazy cyclists out there, but there are way more crazy drivers.
1
Any machine put into the hands of a human becomes a potential death machine, and that includes a bicycle. The one sure way to reduce the number of deaths on our streets and highways is to improve training for both drivers and bike riders and pedestrians. Drivers are clueless as to the rules of the road. Pedestrians do whatever they want wherever they want and bike riders operate with a certain arrogance that is at times frightening.
Motor vehicles are fast, heavy and have limited mobility compared to bikers and pedestrians, yet it is the motor vehicle that has to yield. I still don't quite understand that. If someone pointed a gun at me I would sure as hell duck. Maybe not the best example, but you get the idea.
Train drivers the way pilots are trained and the rules of the road were enforced with safety in mind and not treated as a revenue generator, highway and street deaths could be reduced. Training should be followed by periodic retesting to check aptitude and skills. Driving is treated as a right when it is actually a privilege that has to be earned and maintained. If you can't meet the standards, there's always mass transit. If you want to ride a bike on a city street, there should be training and licensing as well.
I'm sorry if you or your loved one was killed or injured by a motor vehicle. I hate to use this saying but, cars don't kill people, bad drivers do. Perhaps we can make cars fool proof, but we can't make them idiot proof. We need to weed out the idiots.
2
For anyone in favor of autonomous cars, consider "The Trolley Problem."
Your car needs to choose between hitting a 4 year-old who darts into the street from between parked cars, injuring the child, or crashing into a parked car, injuring you. Which would you prefer?
My preference - make the collision as safe and survivable as possible for all involved. An SUV striking a four year-old will kill her. A car that rides lower to the ground presents greater odds of survivability.
To those proposing RFID chips for cyclists and pedestrians - do YOU want to be chipped? Do you want your child to be chipped?
Every driver should keep in mind that, at some point, they will be a pedestrian - in a parking lot, a parking garage, on the street. You have to leave your car at some point. So, if pedestrians and cyclists need to be tagged, then YOU need to be tagged.
5
Anecdotes aside, increased autonomy versus maintaining human control - and responsibility - becomes an example of the trolley problem. Do you keep humans behind the wheel, knowing the existing (and possibly increasing) problems with human error that the author mentions, or increasingly include autonomous functions that may still cause injury or even death, but ultimately saves more lives? The jury is still out on actuarial statistics, so I'm withholding judgement.
Let's do what's achievable. We need smaller and even more efficient electric cars with a top speed of 62 miles an hour, except for emergency vehicles. We need people to put their damn cell phones in the glove compartment when they drive. We restrictions on licenses up to age 23, and again after age 75. We need inner-city high density driving permits. We need insurance costs to be on a per mile basis. None of this is impossible.
2
@Snowball — With one exception, everything you advocate is impossible, and for good reason. We live in an increasingly overbearing nanny state, but nowhere near the nightmare scenario you wish for.
The exception is per-mile automobile insurance. That is already available.
2
I've been hit by cars, almost doored by cars, sworn at, threatened, screamed at, and all because I choose to ride a bike instead of owning a car or riding the bus.
Anyone who doesn't own a car is treated like a second class citizen because they either choose to not subjugate themselves to a car or can't afford one.
Cities dismantled transit networks and defunded transit networks in exchange for highway subsidies, bigger and nicer roads, but everyone else gets trash infrastructure. Sidewalks falling apart and uneven, not ADA accessible, crappy bike lanes full of trash, glass, car parts from crashes, potholes, uneven surfaces. Don't worry though, we'll repave that highway, build that 6th highway lane, build that overpass.
The conflation of the car with freedom is what led to this. Remove cars from cities and urban areas. Rebuild good pedestrian infrastructure.
27
@M Absolutely! It is the only way to truly save lives and the planet!
2
I worry so much for my daughter who is blind. I work in a metro area and every day witness drivers who seemingly care only about themselves.
89
Easy to tell Ms. Arieff is a big city resident.
Never once does she mention how useful and safe vehicles are in rural areas. I have driven for long periods of time in the back roads of far western Kansas without seeing another vehicle or even another person. My biggest danger was rolling tumbleweeds. There, they make perfect sense — and covered wagons are just too slow!
I do agree that they can be dangerous when they're mixed with people, bikes and the like and the operators are not skilled and always sober. Asking for those two traits, if appears, is too much.
So ban them in cities. But let's keep them were they really are practical: in small towns and rural regions.
7
In 30+ years of riding bicycles on streets almost every day i have had 6 car strikes including one where I did a flip over the hood of a car with the bike still attached to my feet. Still i think this article is wrong in some important ways. Most importantly, asking pedestrians and bikes to wear things that help vehicles detect them is not the same as making them responsible for not being hit. Second, self driving cars are far from perfect but are already better than the average driver.
3
I agree with the author. Cars are an abomination but they are just like the economic system that produced them - capitalism! If it weren't for the production of the private automobile the system would fall on its horrid face. Numbskulls will argue about 'job loss ' the holy of holies of the capitalist system but what such an argument boils down to is the indoctrinated notion that we live in the "best of all possible systems" - the exploitation of the working class for the profit they produce, and cars are an extremely profitable commodity with long chains of dependent industries - parts, insurance, repair, etc. The private automobile has led to unsustainable sprawl, crippling pollution, global warming. Production for use not profit is the solution. Go to www.slp.org for sanity.
3
If there's something I can do as a pedestrian and cyclist to reduce my odds of getting run over, I'm going to do it. The author lamenting the pedestrians responsibility to avoid being hit is understandable, but I don't care if I'm right and dead. That it is the drivers responsibility doesn't unbreak my bones or bring me back from the dead.
1
I'm sorry, but what evidence did you just provide that says autonomous vehicles are less dangerous than human drivers? You seem to allude to this as fact, when evidence points the other way...
As a lifelong biker, I would be happy to install an RFID tag on my bike/ person if it made me less likely to be hit... again...
2
Thanks so much, Ms. Arieff. I was completely unaware of just how dangerous America's roads have become for pedestrians. Please submit a related question to the Times, which will hopefully be selected and asked of the democratic candidates at this month's debate. And ask Steven King for his help in making pedestrian safety a priority for all lawmakers. His piece about his accident is all the proof they'll need that he's speaking from experience.
1
The only thing needed is a mindset change from "me" to "we" by following and obeying existing traffic laws.
2
@James B
Succinct & right on, James. I'm a driver and also a pedestrian. I see a tremendous increase in the "get outta my way!" mentality both when driving & walking. Cyclists fly downhill the wrong way on one-way streets, turning the wrong way onto avenues without so much as slowing down. I encounter bicyclists at night in all dark clothing and with no lights. I see drivers talking so animatedly on their phones that they're looking one way, but turning their car the other way. And don't get me started on texting, which to many drivers has become more important than looking. I was about to tell a cyclist speeding toward me yesterday on the sidewalk that he's supposed to be on the road. But with two other cyclists also hurling toward me, I felt outnumbered & instead just ducked out of the way.
Let's start by licensing bicyclists over a certain age. And let's actually apprehend & penalize distracted drivers. It's just common sense, & it's within our purview to make it a lot more common.
2
Allison Arieff would be more honest to call the smart phone a death machine. IThe link on increased deaths since 2008 refers to drivers using smart phones while driving. I imagine pedestrians glued to their phones is also a contributor.
Allison used Twitter to conduct an "experiment" where people tweet if a car hit them. This is not scientific, as it will tell you every time someone had an accident, but neglect the times that people got home safely or nearly avoided accidents by paying attention and defensive driving. This is how social media works. If you constantly look at models on Instagram, then everyone is thin and fit and you are hideously overweight. Some teen girls commit suicide due to this and cyber bullying. If you ask people to tweet whenever they're hit by a car, then cars are "death machines". It's a distorted world view.
Allison would have more integrity to suggest everyone leave social media and use smart phones less. But then she wouldn't have anecdotes for her article.
Allison might as well say candy is a death food due to heart disease. Cars, like candy, are safe done wisely. Driving isn't about being perfect, its about using good habits and defensive driving to avoid accidents even when something goes wrong. Most cars have safety features and crumple zones. Cars are perfectly safe... if you know how to drive.
My big concern about smart cars is bosses will require us to work more hours during commute while the car drives itself.
2
"This means it’s becoming the pedestrian’s responsibility to avoid getting hit."
Hasn't it always been their responsibility? Listen, you can write whatever laws you want, but the laws of physics say it's a bad idea to be a 175 lb person biking next to 000s of pounds of machinery. Don't outsource your safety to others you know are distracted.
5
@Tim Mosk
No. It is not a 10 pound baby's responsibility to make sure its 150 pound mother is feeding it. It's not a 100 pound actress's responsibility to make sure a 250 pound director doesn't sexually assault her. The responsibility lies with the more powerful party, not the more vulnerable one. Pedestrians have the right of way. The responsibility to avoid accidents is the driver's.
This is an issue that truly makes my blood boil. Everywhere I go I see people driving irresponsibly. Nobody seems to understand the danger they are putting others in. People don't think they have to stop at stop signs. They think right on red means not even slowing down. They stop on crosswalks forcing pedestrians to walk around them. There is no respect. We need to declare a war on bad driving. Zero tolerance for blowing through stop signs or not yielding to pedestrians. Using a phone for any purpose while driving should be considered the same as being drunk. There should never be screens of any kind in any car. Go back to knobs and buttons to control the radio. Reckless drivers should lose their licenses permanently. Unfortunately, cocky drivers are mostly unaccountable. They have to be forced to take the lives of others into consideration.
2
The author gives no credit to the mind-boggling social and economic utility of motor vehicles, instead tallying up only their costs. This isn't a sound basis for advocating radical changes in the way American society moves itself around.
I say this as a cyclist who's had decades of unpleasant experiences around motor vehicles.
It's also a pipe dream to advocate that families with children and construction workers carrying equipment squeeze their loads into a subcompact car the size of mine.
Things can be done to further reduce car-caused carnage, but this op-ed is way off the mark. I should write my own and submit it.
3
Congestion pricing will generate revenue for local governments and therefore ultimately be a dis-incentive for fixing the problem.
The author talks about things like on-star as though they are the same as autonomous vehicles. It's oversimplifying, to put it mildly.
Also, talking about money spent on autonomous tech is misleading. Examining the percentage of these cars that are currently on the road, and their relative accident rate per mile would be more informative. (but there's that little problem that it would also undermine the author's argument, so it's conveniently left out)
1
Another factor, not mentioned, is that there is now much less visibility through and around vehicles. This is because SUV's and pickups have windows much higher that normal cars, vans are completely opaque, many vehicles have dark and opaque glass, and all the larger vehicles are higher at the corners of the vehicle. It used to be possible to see pedestrians through the windows of vehicles ahead and across hoods and trunks, not so much anymore.
3
I know this is published as "opinion" but this is so irresponsibly stupid it makes me wonder how it could get printed in a major newspaper. The basic statistic that would be the foundation of its essential assertion -- that autonomous vehicles won't change vehicle death rate -- is entirely absent from the article, and the author doesn't bother to even address the arguments that autonomous vehicles will save lives (namely, that most car crashes are caused by human error). Instead, she spends all of these column inches demonstrating how bad car crashes can be. Yes, they are horrific, and if there's a way to reduce them via technology, we would be morally deficient not to do so.
7
Anecdotes don't really tell us much. Nobody in my family has been injured in a car accident, I am in my 60s and have ridden bicycles, motorcycles, walked, and driven more than 20,000 miles a year since I was about 16. I've never been in a car accident. Most accidents are preventable and avoidable.
7
Cars should have speed limiters (speed governors) that prevent the cars from speeding. With the advent of GPS and databases such as Google Maps, it is technically feasible for a car to know what the speed limit is on the current section of road or on roads in the vicinity of the car. If the local speed limit in the neighborhood is 35, but the driver is attempting to drive 60 mph, the car should refuse. Speed limiters have been technically feasible since the car was invented, but unfortunately they have been blocked and eliminated by the car lobby. If we're not willing to limit the speeds of non-autonomous cars, what hope is there that we'll limit the speeds of autonomous cars?
1
While my daughter borrowed my car for the summer, I commuted by bike and light rail to my job 8 miles away, light railing in the morning and cycling home. It’s been so great that, even with my car back, I’m riding until it gets too dark to be safe. I feel like I’m 12 again when I get on my bike, my work goes better, I’ve lost weight, I’m reducing my carbon footprint. I’ve never had a biking accident in all my 60 years on this planet. Before I proceed, I always make eye contact with people who might hit me, I use many blinking lights on my bike, reflective clothing. I am blessed with many miles of dedicated bike trails and buffered bike lanes now in San Jose, albeit, some lonely trails for this older woman, but no problems.
There are still some areas I could easily get smacked, however, and this article serves to make me more vigilant. Especially after last Wednesday when I almost became a casualty of a car careening out of control around I curve that could easily have hit me and which I could, in no way, have avoided. Between a bike or a pedestrian and a car, the ‘law of gross tonnage’ always applies. So, if self-driving cars will not allow young idiots (of which there seems to be an unending supply) to gun it thru a yellow light, bring them on! But really, the best thing is the rest of you get out of your cars and onto your bikes and into public transit as well. Fewer cars, yes!
168
"Pedestrian fatalities in the United States have increased 41 percent since 2008; ...".
From 2008-2012 I worked in Boulder and biked to work.
Once I stopped by a freeway off-ramp and counted drivers who were looking at their cell phones while driving to a stop from the ramp. About one-third.
IMO texting and other less profoundly distracting cell phone-related behavior has contributed to this rise.
I confess I know better but sometimes use my phone while driving, only when driving slowly. And not to text.
But I know this is not right, and will try to curb this.
3
@FilligreeM Agreed and the same holds true for pedestrians who blithely walk across intersections enrapt in what's on their phone.
1
> "Pedestrian fatalities in the United States have increased 41 percent since 2008"
And most of that is due to distracted driving, which reliably results in ~3000 deaths and 100,000 injuries per year. Yet it no longer makes headlines. Because it is not a politically loaded issue, it won't garner enough clicks.
Concerted effort at public awareness would help. It's dissapointing that distracted driving was not even mentioned here.
This is a much needed article in the NYT: we have been brainwashed to think cars are a necessity. Step two will be going from op-ed to an actual exposé on the societal backwards-ness that is the automobile (i.e., recognizing that the danger of cars is fact, not opinion). I rarely drive -- I have an old car for emergencies -- but I am going to make the switch to going car-free. I have been in constant touch with my town hall to encourage more bicycle&pedestrian safety infrastructure and it is tragic to see that the response I get (if I get one at all) is "we won't have federal funding for this until 2030". The sad part is that the town of Lexington, MA is well-off -- what hope is there for towns that have even fewer funds? The pressure needs to be kept on, and cars need to be de-normalized by constantly reminding people about the death machines they operate on a daily basis.
1
I was involved in a vehicle against pedestrian accident 12 years ago. I was the vehicle driver. It was my fault. Fortunately it occurred at low speed when I was starting from a stop, but it did cause injury to the pedestrian who was diabetic, complicating his recovery. It was a horrible experience I will never forget. It improved my driving habits. I have been much less keen to drive ever since and am happy that I can use public transit for most of my in-town journeys, now being retired.
Having said the above, I do think that the 41% increase in these fatalities rests to a notable degree on changed behavior at the pedestrian level. In my part of Los Angeles I see an extraordinary proportion of pedestrians who are examining their smart phones or--not quite as bad--listening on ear buds. I conservatively estimate this at 50%. I also enjoyed listening to music on ear buds when walking, but I quickly realized that with ear buds I could not hear vehicles and bicycles approaching me from behind after a few near misses. Now I just walk--no music and phone in pocket.
I am a person who definitely knows that there is an asymmetrical risk between drivers and walkers and bicyclists. But cyclists and pedestrians need to realize that drivers do not have ESP nor can they react as quickly as superheroes. You are the more vulnerable person in the situation; you must take responsibility for yourself and walk or bike with care. Stop pointing fingers and examine yourself.
2
"We need to be thinking about how we can create a world with fewer cars." - no, we need to be thinking about how we can create a world with no people. If we solved the problem of human reproduction then this and most of the world's other problems would also be solved.
3
I totally miss the point of this article. If the argument is cars pollute, then write about car pollution, not about cars killing people. Emotional arguments make for poor arguments. I lost my own father to a car accident. I've blamed the seat belts, which the car did not have, I blamed the other driver who didn't pay attention, I blamed the roads, which should have been better, but I did not blame "cars".
5
@Themis One of the single biggest reasons for the jump in traffic deaths is the huge surge in the number of SUV's and pickup trucks on the road in recent years. They all have tall profiles that plow into pedestrians, unlike smaller cars where a bicyclists and pedestrian will more likely be "saved" by a lower front end that hits legs only--not their entire body. So, yes it most certainly is the "cars."
I work as an exposure therapist that helps people recover and face their fears after automobile crashes. While I understand the emotion behind articles like this the public needs to be reminded that being involved in an injurious crash is very unlikely indeed--especially if you are a road-user that pays attention at intersections. It is easy to see past the statistics that show this, and show a consistent reduction in crash frequency per capita as well as intensity since the 1980s. There have been a few minor blips (introduction of texting for example) but overall North American roadways get safer every year.
The introduction of autonomous vehicles that communicate with one another should change the automobile industry about the same as autonomous flying did in the 1970s.
In the meantime Driver Attention remains the single biggest indicator of crash-risk. Keep your brain on when you're behind the wheel and your crash risk will stay low.
3
I used to love bicycling but am too afraid to do it anymore. The increased density of motor vehicles on the road, plus distracted driving, make bicycling on a motorway seem like a death wish.
I do still walk and jog on the roads. This seems less dangerous since I'm facing traffic and can dive off the road if I see a distracted driver veering towards the shoulder as he approaches me.
3
Since pending time in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania I feel like drivers here think pedestrians are nothing but a nuisance. However, watching some pedestrians it is plain they aren't helping matters, either.
7
I'll preface this by saying that driving inattentively is inexcusable, and the damage, death, and destruction inflicted by automobiles is tragic and largely preventable.
That said, from my observations in urban and suburban areas, people are *terrible* pedestrians. I live in a college town where students epidemically cross the streets without looking up from their phones at all, let alone looking both ways. Headphones block sound and isolate people from the world. Pedestrians cross as soon as they enter the intersection, without letting cars pass.
In cities, people jaywalk incessantly without regard for the flow of traffic - foot, vehicular or otherwise. The general lack of awareness is stunning.
I was taught from a young age to 1) look both ways before crossing a street, 2) make eye contact *with the driver* before crossing, and 3) as a cyclist, to be hyperaware of the threat of being 'doored.' I cross the street so as to minimize traffic interruptions to traffic. In 30 years I've never even had a close call - sure, some of that's luck, but a lot of that is due to situation awareness.
This is in no way an attack on any of the victims who shared their stories here, or to cyclists who might be hit from behind without warning or provocation. But there's other elements worth considering that are not addressed in this article.
It's hubristic to think that vehicle operators always have the right of way, but this whole thing only works if we're *all* in the game together.
14
I noticed that the anecdotes frequently mention parked cars as an additional hazard for bicyclists and pedestrians, both obscuring driver visibility and causing additional injuries in an accident. This caught my attention in the discussion of self-driving vehicles because of course autonomous vehicles won't park. They drop off their passengers and return to base. Even if you don't trust the ability of AI and LIDAR to detect pedestrians, the absence of stationary vehicles scattered all over the landscape would be a benefit of self-driving cars.
I've seen this or a similar article before.
I believe the problem will be solved in the near term as we, the humans, do ourselves in environmentally. Then the secret AI world will come out of the dark and show who the true master of the planet is keeping some of us for pets.
BTW I used to bike a lot both bicycle and motorcycle. Yes there are a lot of careless drivers and more so now who look like they are eating pizza (talking on their cells) while driving. I was hit by someone who didn't want to wait for a light to turn green and backed up over me and my motorcycle. I was trained as a motorcycle safety instructor. I was doing all the right things except being at that spot, just then.
That being stated, but by god there are even a larger number of dumber bicycle riders who seem to enjoy putting themselves in harms way on single lane roads and who apparently have no concept of physics and mass.
2
I wish that lowering the speed limit would help. Here in southern Wisconsin whenever I drive at/below the speed limit- on any speed limit from 25 to 70 mph- I am among the 5% slowest drivers. Practically everyone drives above the speed limit, no matter what the speed limit may be. Just saying.
@Marshall Onellion I agree. When you have the open roads of say Nevada, the speed limit is 80 mph meaning 80 mph. After Kansas in the Midwest and East Coast, the speed limit is 75 mph meaning 80 mph. Also, I've driving in many areas where the posted speed is 30 mph and everyone goes 40 mph and its completely safe. Artificially lowering the speed limit say from 40 mph to 30 mph because "lower speeds are safer" won't really change driver habits, it will just create speed limits that everyone ignores and could cause more accidents.
FYI I don't know what Wisconsin is like. But if you are in the 5% of slowest drivers it might be more safe for you to drive faster, aka speed. It's generally safest to drive the same speed as the traffic around you, gives you more control to avoid accidents. Driving below the speed limit is quite dangerous unless the road conditions really require it.
1
No one is going to argue that self-driving tech is advanced enough to self drive cars, but the tech is advancing relatively quickly, and it will be here faster than we all think -- and contrary to Ms. Arieff's opinion is probably a very good thing.
First, the tech that has made it to production -- from automatic emergency braking to side collision warning to lane keep assist systems -- have made cars safer in and of themselves. Safety stats prove this.
More importantly, once the tech is advanced to support full self-driving, I personally would sooner trust a car with a suite of 100% attentive advanced sensors to most humans, who are easily distracted and prone to error. No, no machine will be perfect, but when Elon Musk predicts self-driving cars to be twice as safe as the average human driver, I find this easily believable. All Teslas, for example, now include 8 surround view cameras, a radar unit, 12 ultrasonic short-range obstacle sensors and a fully redundant CPU.
Moreover, Ms. Arieff argues for less driving, to which I say, good luck with that. Americans love their cars. Unless or until a more compelling transportation alternative exists, people will continue driving their cars. Frankly, our goal should be to promote less driving, but at the same time, more energy-sustainable transportation (electrification) and more advanced safety systems on a path to full self-driving.
1
No amount of technology will solve this problem, but a much more rigorous driver education and driving test will. The UK is one of the safest countries in the world in which to drive, the US is one of the most dangerous. My husband had driven in the US for 35 years without an accident, yet was not given a UK license when we moved here until he had taken lessons and passed all the components of the driving test. He was shocked to realize that he could not have passed the UK driving test upon arrival. On a recent trip back to the US he said he was “terrified” by the level of distracted driving, discourtesy towards others sharing the road, and lack of car control.
2
Self driving cars with 360degree monitoring and constant computer awareness might have avoided many of the accidents in this article. If not, self driving cars won't be adopted en masse.
1
As a cyclist for most of my life, I've had many close calls, one actual (light) hit in which I managed to stay upright. I've been threatened by drivers, shouted at, had them try to run me off the road. And I always was on the side of the road, following all laws. I've seen plenty of cyclists not following the laws though. However, I was fortunate and most of the time I've gotten out on back roads and enjoyed cycling or found neighborhood routes in which I wasn't harassed. A year ago I moved and any route would include very busy streets so I've not gotten on my bike since. I no longer feel safe on a bike. I have enough to deal with keeping myself safe in my auto because traffic is heavier and people are more impatient. As a cyclist for most of my life, I've had many close calls, one actual (light) hit in which I managed to stay upright. I've been threatened by drivers, shouted at, had them try to run me off the road. And I always was on the side of the road, following all laws. I've seen plenty of cyclists not following the laws though. However, I was fortunate and most of the time I've gotten out on back roads and enjoyed cycling or found neighborhood routes in which I wasn't harassed. A year ago I moved and any route would include very busy streets so I've not gotten on my bike since. I no longer feel safe on a bike. I have enough to deal with keeping myself safe in my auto because traffic is heavier and people are more impatient.
2
Allow Kei cars (max. 63 h.p.), like in Japan. Because they are cheaper, people would buy them. Fuel consumption will go down, people would drive more responsibly in smaller cars, the race to build large trucks and SUVs will slow down.
2
"If wishes were horses then beggars would ride." This is a pipe dream. Maybe in downtown Toronto a few people would buy these cars. They would be in a tiny minority. They can buy a Nissan Leaf now. How many do?
1
@Cyclist A Nissan Leaf is expensive and large compared to a Kei car. But I know what you mean.
Changing the roads, with speed bumps and bump outs is the only way of changing driving behaviour.
I have never understood why there is so little recognition of the dangers of cars and so little public demand for public transportation. I have always regarded driving as by far the most dangerous part of my life, a fear that became reality last year when my car was rear-ended by a cement truck (ruining my car but leaving me without serious injuries). After saying for years that the most dangerous part of flying is driving to the airport, I barely escaped death or serious injury on my way to the airport once when a ladder on a truck in front of my car hurtled toward my vehicle, shearing off the rear-view mirror on the driver's side and missing me by inches. One of most frightening experiences of my life occurred when I nearly hit a pedestrian because the brakes failed for a few moments on a rental car I was driving. This was many years ago, but I still shudder when I think about it. I feel very fortunate to have experienced twelve car-free years, three in the Boston area and nine in Manhattan. Since moving from Manhattan to Birmingham, Alabama I have often been asked if the transition was difficult. My reply has always been that the only hardship has been having to drive a car again. I have managed to structure my life here so that I drive an average of only about ten miles per day. My favorite commentary on the automobile is found in W.H. Auden's poem, "A Curse," in which Auden described the automobile as the "bale and bane of our civilization, chief woe of our commonweal."
5
"...and rethinking land use to encourage walkable development rather than sprawl. "
That would be evil gentrification.
2
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
And in NYC that won't EVER happen.
Accidents, injuries and death are a fact of life when hundreds of millions of people are being transported to their homes, jobs and recreation. These incidents happened with the horse and buggy in the streets. Autonomous vehicles are the future for transportation in this country. Other than SF and Manhattan, the rest of the country is too spread out and suburban for mass transit to truly work effectively. The 21st century requires new solutions not old ones like mass transit. Ride sharing and autonomous vehicles will be the future.
1
@Iconoclast Texan
When "autonomous" cars are a reality, car companies will push to make walking and biking illegal.
1
@Iconoclast Texan "Ride sharing and autonomous vehicles will be the future."
Over my dead body.
I'd sooner join a riot against autonomous vehicles than buy one. Autonomous vehicles are the devil and will make us so very much worse off and miserable. We'd lose the fun of driving. We'd all be forced to work during our commute. There'd be more cars and thus more accidents and more deadly ones.
Silicon Valley is pure evil. We'd be better off to ban all social media, autonomous vehicles, and all similar technology.
This is very thought provoking. I work in Employment Insurance and I cannot believe the number of claims we see that are tied to motor vehicle accidents--for personal injury, to grieve the loss of a loved one, or to take leave to care for a family member injured in a car accident. It truly is jarring.
I do not drive and travel mostly by rapid transit and foot and the longer I stay away from cars the more I realize the level of responsibility tied to driving them. We often forget how dangerous cars truly can be. Because so many people require them for their travel needs, redesigning them to be less destructive would be a really great way to ensure the needs of all people who utilize the road, either by foot, bike, or automobile. Great piece!!
7
I am surprised that Allison Arieff does not mention the pervasive scourge of cell phones while driving as a major cause of concern and accidents. People are just not paying attention. Another simple thing to reduce fatalities is lower the speed limits.
Ultimately, the viability of self driving vehicles and putting your entire family in one of those vehicles comes down to trust in the digital network and technology. Knowing what you know about software development, cyber security, and the trustworthiness of Silicon Valley to put always put people before profit, what do you think the chances are of ubiquitous self driving cars in the near future?
3
@JeffB "I am surprised that Allison Arieff does not mention the pervasive scourge of cell phones while driving as a major cause of concern and accidents."
I'm not. She simply hates cars. She dresses it up to be about safety, but it's just hating on cars. Also, without Twitter Allison wouldn't have anecdotes for her article. She's only going to condemn the technology she dislikes, not the technology she is addicted to. How can you be surprised that she didn't condemn smart phones?
Agree with you about not trusting Silicon Valley. They make social media apps deliberately addictive and make a profit off of the ensuing chaos. But we can trust them to make a car?
1
If you want to take cars off the road, you have to provide alternatives. Ban cars in dense urban areas, and have a good public transportation infrastructure and protected bike lanes. The first seems impossible in this country, and the second is taking too long. Given that around 95% of accidents are due to human error, it makes total sense to work on autonomous vehicles. An AV is never distracted by its cell phone! Besides AVs could eliminate many cars since car sharing could become much much easier. The road to full autonomous cars is long, and the cross-over between human drivers and AVs will be interesting, at least there's a lot of investment in it, as opposed to anything else that could make it a safer environment for all road users.
4
@Jeroen Vanbaar Great. Let's make 95% of accidents due to mechanical error. AV never has a programming error or sensor malfunction.
@James There are still many (hard) problems to solve before we even get close to fully autonomous cars. Programming errors can never be ruled out, and the AI will have to be robust to sensor malfunctions. Nevertheless, I'll much rather take my chances with mechanical errors and malfunctions than with a drunk and/or distracted driver!
@Jeroen Vanbaar You don't get it. Machines are fallible. That's not a "hard problem" to be solved, that's reality.
Also, we already know how Silicon Valley works. It's a bunch of jerks who believe in some technological utopia, while also making money off of it. They tried to connect the entire world using slot machines. What makes us think they can be trusted to make a car? We know its going to be more cars on the road, driving even faster, with everyone distracted or working overtime during their morning commute, paying dearly to our Uber overlords.
Have you guys even figured out how to program morality and empathy into a machine? When an automatic vehicle kills someone, does it go to jail or feel guilt? A big part of driving is judgment. Computers execute programs. Humans exercise judgment.
If I had to chose between Big Tech and distracted drivers, I'd choose the distracted driver.
Also, I actually like driving my car. But I suppose that's just a "hard problem" to be solved. I'd choose myself to drive my own car thank you very much.
I hope it takes you centuries to solve those hard problems. I'm never buying those blasted autonomous cars in my lifetime. Bad enough I bought a smart phone.
I lived in Manhattan all of my adult life until now. I drove a cab to get through CUNY graduate school for tree years. I have been a recreational biker mostly in Manhattan by the rivers or Central Park for since about five years after graduate school. The one lesson (of many) I learned while being a hack, was that you had to be nuts to ride a bike in Manhattan to get from point A to B. Of course bike messengers are superb athletics. But regular people who think that it's safe to ride around Manhattan while half the drivers (these days, at very least) make their living by getting their quick. In my mind there was no space for bikes during traffic. Now they've made all the bike lanes, but at the same time cars are faster, many harder to see out of, and the biggest reason why the number of bikers are killed by cars, is distracted driving, hateful ignorant impatient drivers, and the exponential increase in the number of vehicles on street..
6
I've been commuting by bike on/off for the past 40 years. I've commuted in three major cities. While I agree with many points made by the author, I object to these kinds of articles that vilify car drivers while making it seem like pedestrians and bikers are innocents. Of course there are many incidents where careless drivers are at fault, but the biggest problem is not cars, it's lack of being present. The real culprit is our screen addictions and tethered phones.
More people are biking, scooting, walking, etc. and that probably feeds some of the accident statistics rise since 2008. Many of those people are also on the phone or interacting with their device while they're on the move. That makes them act as if they are in a dream. I see riders and walkers put their lives at risk doing something oblivious multiple times every day - and I can tell from 100 feet away if someone is actually really HERE.
I find this kind of writing where the cars (or the bikes or the scooters or the pedestrians) are the bad guys and I don't think it's productive. We shouldn't be thinking divisively that one or the other of these things is problematic. The real issue is that we don't know or follow traffic laws, don't use common sense (look before crossing), narcissism (everyone should see me/not be in my way) and distractibility that need to be addressed.
We ALL need to learn to respect the social contract of existing together on the streets.
10
@Barbara , The problem is cars, period. In many ways we would be better off without them. How many times do people drive short distances when they could easily walk? How often are cities and suburbs designed around cars, rather than for other safer modes of transport? What about our dependency on Saudi Arabia for oil? Global warming? The fact that people are not getting enough exercise but would if they walked more? The automobile is not a sustainable form of transportation.
4
@Barbara : A careless car or truck driver can easily kill another person (pedestrian, cyclist, motorcyclist, or someone in a car) but a careless cyclist or pedestrian cannot easily kill another person. Therefore, car and truck drivers are far greater risks to others than cyclists or pedestrians are, particularly when the former are driving fast, or driving a tall and heavy vehicle such as an SUV or truck.
@Charles Justice "In many ways we would be better off without them."
Um, come again. Speak for yourself. I am better off with my sedan.
"How many times do people drive short distances when they could easily walk?"
Where are you driving to? Most of my 5 minute drives would take 15-30 minutes to walk to, never to mention walking back possibly with groceries or other belongings. What you are suggesting is grossly impractical in the USA.
2
I don't want to blame the victim here, but a lot of pedestrian auto accidents I've witnessed have been from pedestrians not paying attention. They've been too engrossed in their personal technology, usually with headphones on, and not paying attention to their surroundings. I've seen them step off curbs without even checking if cross traffic has stopped.
I've seen bicyclists run red lights and illegally split a lane near traffic signals.
There is a myriad of causes and to blame one thing or another is not going to create a magic bullet solution. None of the suggestions the author makes are practical in total. Eliminating right-on-red will lead to much-increased congestion which may lead to additional vehicle/pedestrian impacts. Speed limits are meaningless -- nobody can comes even close to the limit in heavy traffic or on downtown streets. Speed limits in residential areas are already low, making it a driver impatience issue. Lowering the limit to 15 will not solve the problem because the issue remains on the enforcement side of the equation.
I don't want to blame the victim here, but a lot of pedestrian auto accidents I've witnessed have been from pedestrians not paying attention. They've been too engrossed in their technology, usually with headphones on, and not paying attention to their surroundings. I've seen them step off curbs without even checking if cross traffic has stopped.
I've seen bicyclists run red lights and illegally split a lane near traffic signals.
9
I'd like to see car accident data about car damage and personal injury, as well. All those SUVs, and huge pickups, on the road are causing far more damage in accidents with other, smaller cars, than would occur if a SUV driver was driving a smaller vehicle.
It leads to a car-size race: Having a bigger car is safer for you in an accident, but worse for the smaller cars and their occupants if you're in an accident with them.
When what benefits an individual (having a bigger vehicle for personal safety) is harmful to the community (increased car damage means more money spent on repairs and total wreck claims and higher insurance costs, and more fatalities and injuries means more health care costs), there's a collective action issue and an urgent need for more regulation about car sizes and features.
8
@AnotherCitizen
Lane splitting is one practice that should ticketed when done be motorcyclists or bicyclists. Dangerous for everyone present
1
As expected, this comment section is filled with drivers blaming pedestrians, cyclists, and everyone else except themselves for the problem. They cannot grasp the asymmetric nature of an encounter between a car and anything smaller. Even in a situation where the pedestrian or cyclist is to blame (the vast minority of cases), no harm whatsoever comes to the driver.
All of the drivers' comments on this article can be boiled down to this: my rights as a driver outweigh the rights of those who are not.
12
Excellent piece.
Every proponent of autonomous vehicles cites the same statistic as the author - about 4,000 traffic fatalities per year. or about a dozen per day! I guess that seems bad. But that number by itself means nothing.
That's why none of the proponents ever cites this statistic - there are about 990 MILLION vehicle trips per day.
That translates into a crude rate for 'really bad' driving errors (bad enough to be fatal) of about 0.000001 %, a level that is astonishingly LOW, especially when you factor in the number of drivers who are impaired or distracted.
By comparison, anyone working in machine learning is excited to have an error rate (say for classifying medical images) of 1%, and lots of published works show error rates much higher than that.
Autonomous driving is a fascinating problem from the view point of computational science - it is really difficult and challenging. I fully understand why so many talented people are happy to be working in this area.
But in point of fact, the 'problem' of driving a car has already been solved, and to a level of performance that is unimaginable for current computer science, by the primate you see behind the wheel of that big fat SUV. So far, tens of billions of dollars of research and development has not replicated the abilities of that ape, let alone improved on it.
Autonomous vehicles are not about safety - they are about making money for some people, and taking it away from others.
9
@zauhar
You have it right. But there's more to it and darker than just money. For one thing, anyone with access, which will be governments and tech companies and criminals and marketers and hackers, will know, absolutely, were a rider has gone and is going. The other thing, which I mentioned in a comment, is assassination by remote control or arrest or kidnap.
1
Much like guns, automobiles are a social problem, and the feeling of entitlement runs deep. Taking guns away is probably not the answer that will stick, and it probably won't work the same way for cars either.
Licensing needs to become something other than what it is today, which is a birthday present. Much like breaking the law needs to have real consequences, the law needs to reflect the danger to society automobiles present. Today, there are parallel laws that make the same crime committed inside an automobile something of a lesser crime, or no crime at all. It's absurd.
Personally, I don't have any hope that any of this will change, because if you think the gun lobby is powerful just try to tangle with GM!
7
Thank you so much for this essay, Allison. I also call cars death machines, and isolation machines. There is no technological answer to the inherent problems with cars. They are space hogs that utterly dominate any human habitat in which they exist. We must start moving away from the use of cars in our cities and towns and turn to walking, transit and bicycling in mixed use places that offer a vibrant human life.
2
As a long time car driver, pedestrian and cyclist, I agree completely with the author. Several of my friends have been killed by cars, all not in the road (off on the side of the road fixing a bicycle, or walking). Cars are dangerous, and this article does not even bring in the fact that by driving, rather than walking or bicycling, people get less exercise, are more obese, and have more heart disease. That probably kills more people than the accidents with pedestrians and cyclists.
5
Blame over-population, particularly the crush of people in popular urban areas, for the increasing danger on our streets. This crush is exacerbated by out-dated transit models and habits, and a lot of inept, untrained, and/or distracted drivers. That's another story.
My city of 800,000 has 40,000 gig economy drivers, e.g. Uber and Lyft. They're not exempt from traffic jams, while many of the city's public transit lines use dedicated routes that bypass traffic. They have the capacity to transport all the people who choose cabs for inter-city travel, saving them money without adding impractically to travel time.
Regarding wait time, consider that public transit often takes you near to where you want to go, whereas when you drive you must find parking and then walk to your destination. That can take as much or more time than waiting for a bus.
Automobiles, despite their ever-more sophisticated design, are an out-moded form of local transit. The urban future is not more private vehicles but public transit -- trolleys and buses or free-roaming on-call autonomous vehicles for hire. (Find a vacant one parked and waiting, jump in, speak your destination -- your credit or transit card is automatically debited -- and off you go.)
I have a small car but use public transit whenever practical. When the purpose of my trip doesn't require a car's carrying capacity, buses and subways are practical options, and, according to this article, much safer and less stressful.
2
Relative to the title of the piece; yes self driving systems will produce a profound change in the deadliness of cars. There will be the real accidents and failures of course, but what will be new, is the possibility of using cars, by remote control, as instruments of assassination and of hiding the reality of what has happened behind a screen mechanical failure.
3
Building protected bike lanes, contrary to what Arieff says, is not a "quick and easy fix," because cyclists don't follow the traffic laws, they go down the bike lane the wrong way, etc.
2
@Mark And most bike accidents happen at intersections anyway, where bike lanes don't help.
1
@Will
There should be stop lights for bicycles and cars and bicycles should have the right of way. Slow the cars down in these traffic areas and ban cars in the inner city.
I've seen studies that show the increase in pedestrian fatalities from cars over the past 10 years has more to do with an increase in miles driven than in any inherent new risk from cars. During the great recession, unemployment meant people drove less. As the economy picked up, people drove more miles, either commuting or taking trips.
One thing not addressed by this column is the recent increase in accident avoidance technology in cars, such as automated emergency braking which hits the brakes when the car detects a pedestrian or other car in front of it. Because this technology is relatively new, and it takes a while for our passenger car fleet to be updated, it may be a few years before we start seeing statistics about the benefits of this technology.
There are too many people.Cars and guns and disease and floods ,hurricanes earthquakes can't make a dent in over population explosion . Most people are distracted and not paying attention,they are walking ,biking and driving targets,intentional statistics. The others are hyper agitated drivers and bikers who think they are the only ones on the road and determined to kill anybody in their way. When a road warrior driver with a gun enters the picture and another owner of the road becomes the target there is a deadly combination that is not unusual in todays' modern society. A complete disregard for human life is the outcome for the "king of the road".
1
I commute to work on a bike. A few weeks ago I switched bikes and didn't have time to transfer all of my extras to it. One of those was my rear view mirror, which I had not realized that I was incredibly dependent on. They should be required.
As a driver I'm often shocked by the complete lack of safety awareness other bicyclists show. Helmets, lights, reflectors, and, yes, rear view mirrors are things I would never be without. Drivers need to share the road with bikes and pedestrians, but it's a two way street (pun intended but not trying to be funny).
5
If we would only get rid of all technology and return to being hunter gatherers the world would be a much safer place. No one is giving up their cars because of pieces like this. Honestly the biggest safety issue I regularly see is the complete disregard for traffic rules by bicyclists.
38
"If we would only get rid of all technology and return to being hunter gatherers"
that's a " yikes moment " if i've ever seen one
7
@Todd Try being a cyclist then decide who is more negligent. Intersections are the most dangerous for cyclists because cars turning right rarely stop before the crosswalk at red lights. Then you have the drivers on their phones, so many drivers on their phones. That's total disregard for traffic rules by drivers and I've been both a driver and a cyclist. Drivers are the problem. I say bring on the technology.
28
@Todd Really? I honestly find that hard to believe, living in a cyclist heavy city. Maybe I'm just used to it, though.
Before assigning blame, you should try riding a bike through a city and tell me if you feel safe. Your perspective might change when the grill of a truck is hurtling at you at 30mph after they ran a red light (happened to me yesterday, but they thankfully had enough space to stop before hitting me). It doesn't matter if you followed the rules then.
The way I see it, when a driver hits someone, the victim is seriously hurt or killed. That's the point of the article. Something definitely needs to change. Cars are deadly weapons and that fact needs to be something everyone considers when they use the road, most of all the driver of the vehicle. That would be a step in the right direction. We're all in this together, even if you hate cyclists.
32
Drivers aren't always to blame.
I'm amazed by how many pedestrians I see crossing busy streets while looking at their phones and/or wearing earbuds,effectively knocking out 2 very important senses. It's quite a leap of faith,to say the lest.
9
Maybe if we never left the house we'd all be safer.
15
@MIKEinNYC I'm sure the NYT would find some way to make that a killer, too.
1
In Mid-town NYC I was struck by a livery cab driver, which sent me flying through the air slow-motion (from my perceptual view anyway). While I was on the ground he said I should be thankful he started to break. I had the right of way. That was years ago. Last week a pregnant woman was run over by a truck around the corner from my office. Both the woman and fetus died.
3
Take away everyone's freedom because you have compiled some victim stories? Not in my America...
For every person or bicyclist who has entered the road without being alert to oncoming cars or buses and been struck, 10 have never been impacted.
Hold the little ones' hands when they are excited to get ice cream and dart into traffic, even a 9 year old, if needed. Bicyclists: stop at every stop sign and wait until the intersection is clear, keep aware of those turning right as well as left.
Take off the ear buds, lift your eyes and yes, be defensive. Not everyone gets hit. My sympathies to those struck if a car jumps the sidewalk. Others need to understand no matter how small the car, it will win in an impact with a pedestrian. Yes. drivers break rules. It's on us to protect ourselves and stay safe, defensively. There is no Big Government fix that is not punative to all drivers. Get smart out there, as it will only get worse, I suspect, with more and more unlicensed drivers coming into America daily and needing to drive.
13
@Midway Your freedom does not trump others' lives. Period. Never has, never will. That's called morality. There's no point in having a civilization, society, and governments at all if you can't protect the lives of children, even if it involves restricting some of adults' freedoms. And the author never suggested taking away everybody's car, just practical measures to make the streets safer.
17
@Midway That's an attitude problem, "everyone's freedom". Shutting your car door, turning on the ignition key and blasting your favorite music is not "freedom" protected by any law. The car driver is riding a murder vehicle and the burden is 99% on the driver to avoid any accidents, because, yes, while annoying, pedestrians will not kill you, but not vice versa. It's an ability to think of something beyond yourself lacking with many licensed drivers who were born in America who choose to drive two blocks to the supermarket.
6
@NJW
Nope. Watch your children better. We cannot and will not babyproof society.
We don't all want or need little lightweight vehicles. Your fix will cost other people's lives, in different climates and driving conditions.
Choice and responsibility. Period. (Do you really want to outlaw buses and trucks? Think it through...)
1
This article is ill-conceived. I too am opposed to autonomous vehicles for the reasons the author sites, but it is incorrect to refer to cares at "death machines." A car is a transportation machine. Planes, ships, trains and even bicycles could just as easily be called "death machines."
We need to step away from the cars-vs-pedestrian-vs-cyclist paradigm, and stop imagining a fantastical world in which everybody just decides to stop driving. Instead, we need to focus on efforts to share the road- and the responsibility- of safely traversing multiple environments.
As a cyclist, I stop at red lights (at least when there are on-coming cars, or pedestrians), signal when I turn or change lanes, use lights at night, scan the parked cars for opening doors, and always always yield to pedestrians- even when I have the right of way. I exercise even more caution when I drive.
As a pedestrian, I avoid looking at my phone, make eye contact with on-coming drivers, stay at the curb until rolling vehicles come to a stop, or at least are clearing slowing.
Instead of pedantic arguments of who should be responsible, we should all agree that we are all always responsible.
2
Thank you so much for publishing this eloquent piece!
It is very, very important to absorb this message. Eighty Billion Dollars spent to develop autonomous vehicles, when in fact we need fewer vehicles, period!
That money could have been invested in medical research. How about a non-habit-forming painkiller? Better understanding of gynecological processes, including birth? Or simply scholarships for deserving students from disadvantaged backgrounds?
To think we are spending all this money just so people can travel in a rolling cubicle that is at the mercy of the power grid! Does your computer or smartphone never fail you? Have you never experienced a blown fuse? Do you not worry about that happening to your kids in a self-driving car?
Utopias always fail us. The autonomous vehicle is just another Utopia, for people who love motoring down a road.
I love driving, too. I have lived without a car for years now. No regrets. It's cheaper; it's healthier; it actually saves time.
Please remember, besides all the casualties, cars wind up as big clunky pieces of non-biodegradable junk. Multiply by several billion. Think landfills. Think mountains of old tires, that someone eventually tries to burn... Consider the harm to our environment.
We need fewer cars. We need to drive less. Make realistic, incremental adjustments to your lifestyle, but, please, don't make things worse!
4
I was leaving a familiar parking lot in my small pickup the other day, looked both ways and saw nothing as usual because it's on the edge of town. Made my turn, looked in my mirror and I had almost hit a bicyclist who was riding right beside my right rear. Fortunately I had turned into the part of the lane closer to the center line of the road. He must have been obscured by the strut at the side of the windshield, or I must have simply been visually blind to him because he wasn't moving very fast and had a bunch of trees behind him. We all rely on routines and motion detection and need to form a clearer picture of what is there, not just of whether there's something we'll collide with.
1
Cars are not death machines. The careless or reckless humans who drive them are.
2
Please. At the risk of sounding all NRA and stuff, cars don't kill people. Dumb people kill people, often themselves. Without cars (or motorcycles, trains, buses or horses), human civilization would stop. That increasing life expectancy we all enjoy? Partially a result of technology like cars making life easier and safer, especially when somebody has to go to a hospital or doctor quickly. 400,000 people a year are killed by medical mistakes. So let's outlaw hospitals. Yeah, that's it.
2
Something is very few people seem to pay attention to is the fact that the average dashboard and automobile the day looks more like a computer screen then a dashboard. In order to adjust things you generally have to take your eyes off the road and look at the screen to see what you're supposed to be touching to get the result that you want. That's dangerous. I would like to see us go back to that sort of controls that required knobs that we can adjust without having to look at them. Frankly I need a digital readout of my cars temperature about as much as I need a hole in the head.
5
The stories in this piece are both awful and heart rending, and the author's sentiment is understandable but, I think, overstated. As with firearms, cars alone are not death machines, but the people who drive can make them so.
I'm an ex-motorcycle rider with over 75,000 miles of scratch-free seat time. Many of those miles came during commutes in L.A. I've witnessed many almost-accidents and a handful of actual accidents, some just stupid, others involving people who weren't paying attention--e.g. putting on makeup, texting and, my favorite, a priest rehearsing the his sermon, reading from 8.5x11 paper.
Now I'm a car driver and frequent, dog-walking pedestrian in an urban environment, and I've seen lots of lunatic, rule-breaking, almost sociopathic driving. My conclusion: you're never really safe. Conclusion #2: the best (but not infallible) way to avoid potentially catastrophic encounters is to assume that a) you are vulnerable every step or mile, b) no driver cares about you, c) the worst will absolutely, positively happen if you are not hyper-attentive, and d) every other driver out there is crazy or not paying attention. More briefly--walk, ride and drive very, very defensively.
The road is a brutal place and that's not going to change anytime soon, self-driving cars or not.
3
Electricity is a death machine! It has killed millions. BAN ELECTRICITY.
1
Traffic violence is the largest blind-spot in our society. If anything else was killing 4,000 children per year we would have an enormous public outcry.
3
Sure they're death machines cause they are designed like tanks.
Carbon fiber tech and collapsable design made to absob and still protect the driver would fix this but the big guys will not retool and the public is unaware bc those same biggies squelch the bad PR.
It's the very great weight of all metal and force of impact greatly augmented that kills us everyday.
1
Similarly to the gun debate, there is a shrinking minority of people who are irrecoverably attached to their cars as some kind of totem of freedom or social / economic status. They react with incoherent rage to the smallest compromise on their lifestyles, even if it would literally save thousands of lives - just look at what happened at a recent community meeting about the 9th Street bike lane in Park Slope. The good news is these people are quite literally dying off, but the bad news is the rate of climate change and the totally sclerotic nature of public change means that perhaps the climate and any hope for a sustainable future will die even sooner.
3
Good article. The best way to fix all global problems is less people, including less driving.
There's no evidence that "self-driving" cars would be any safer than human-piloted cars. Given the pitfalls of weather and road conditions, computer and sensor failures, hacking and sensor sabotage, the dulling of reflexes in "back-up" human drivers, and the impossibility of programming the nuances of pedestrian, cyclist, and human driver behavior into computers, it is possible self-driving cars would result in more accidents. It would take trillions of dollars and decades to find out. And people will never accept having tech companies decide who will die. There are better ways to spend our money to advance road safety.
My self driving Tesla has already saved me a few times from irresponsible drivers on the road.
58
Better bite Lane Alex I drive a Tesla also. It sees pedestrians and bicycles quite well. It has alerted me many times the author just isn't cognizant of the next-generation cars. The new software is going to start reducing automobile-related allergies within the next 10 years. Meanwhile, better bite lanes and better driver education are what we need.
11
@Stuart Phillips horses baby! Back to horses— it’s a winner in every direction!!
2
@Alex
Your description is at odds with Musk's re "AutoPilot."
We can only hope you don't rely on it.
3
The big problem with this technology is that the cars will only go the speed limit and cars that are being driven by humans won't.
I drove on the autobahn in Germany this past summer. The roads are perfectly smooth and the drivers highly professional compared to here. I felt completely safe driving at 130 mph in the left lane. We need to improve our disgraceful roads and greatly improve driver education.
1
Fascinating that the story of the nine-year old niece hit by the car neglected one small detail: was the driver at fault or is this one of the classic and unfortunate child "dart out" cases where I child runs in front of a moving vehicle? And few of the accompanying anecdotal stories also provide this information. Which suggests that the write thinks it is irrelevant to the issue.
The most commonly violated traffic rule is pedestrians STARTING to cross after a pedestrian signal changes from all white to flashing orange. Who reading this has not tried to rush across a crosswalk, starting AFTER the signal is flashing orange? That is a violation. While drivers can be faulted many times, it appears that pedestrians (and cyclists) are resistant to accepting responsibility for their own violations or even to admit that they are violating the law when they ignore traffic signals.
The problem is human error. Humans make mistakes and they can be fatal. We need to change the system. The law is arbitrary and punishment changes nothing. A friend of mine was hurt while working and was just making the turn into the hospital when he lost consciousness due to pain and bleeding. His vehicle continued across the intersection and struck a motorcyclist, who was killed. My friend was charged with vehicular homicide and has not seen his family in almost a year. Two families destroyed. how will this make our streets safer?
I live in a small college town and get annoyed by cyclists when I'm driving and by drivers when I bike. Please, both parties--pay attention to each other.
Motorists: When I bike, I can't always stay close to the curb. There may be a dead squirrel or a sewer grate with openings running parallel to my tires I need to avoid. Sometimes I walk my bike facing traffic across a busy intersection which annoys drivers making a right-hand turn. I then ride on the sidewalk against oncoming traffic to where I turn left into my development because drivers won't let me cross the road if I stayed riding on the right side of the road.
Cyclists: Don't ride the wrong way on a one-way street. Use hand signals so I know what you're doing. Don't wear earbuds while riding. Don't wear dark clothing at night, riding with no reflectors or flashing lights.
Also, humans can avoid accidents by paying attention to what's around them and ignoring their cell phones.
Let's hope smart cars will be lots smarter than those of us who are now driving ourselves.
1
Self-driving and computer-assisted cars will, actually, prevent the vast majority of accidents, including those involving pedestrians and bicyclists. The fast-evolving technology of radar, photo and laser sensors, along with sophisticated computers, has lowered the rate of serious injury and death in, and caused by, Volvos—at one point the carmaker stated that there would be zero deaths in new Volvos by 2020. They have pulled back on that claim, but the trend of statistics bear out the fact that cars are getting safer over time. Volvo is not unique: they are just leading a crusade that will, in the next few years, reduce the accident and fatality rate of automobiles dramatically.
I do believe that you place too much of the blame on the person behind the wheel. I have personally witnessed gross negligence on the part of pedestrians (jay walking, crossing against the light, all while staring down at their phones). Just recently, a jay-walking car salesman darted across (without looking either way) as if there were no cars on the road. He's lucky I was alert. Folks riding their bicycles are the worst offenders, they do not know if or when they should consider themselves to be pedestrians or vehicles. Is it prudent to pass a line of cars on the right or wait in line like every other vehicle. This war against cars is misguided. I actually observed two pre-teens riding their bikes through our quiet neighborhood staring at their cell-phones mounted on their handlebars. I also observed and avoided killing a young lady walking across the street (against the light) staring at her cellphone (she darted out at dusk from behind a poll). If any of the incidents listed above resulted an injury, it would have counted in the wrong column statistically. We have an entire population out here distracted by their cell phones, not paying attention to the world around them. Place these distracted people (and crazy bike riders) in a densely populated area, well...you get the point. You cannot place all the blame on cars. In fact, your diatribe against driverless cars is false, it would let the distracted passenger become a non-entity.
1
This is similar to the gun debate. People who own guns and fetishize guns are willing to allow human sacrifices in mass shootings, run-of-the-mill shootings, etc., in order to allow the proliferation of every kind of weapon, including machine guns, which are not necessary for self defense.
Car drivers and owners, like AR-15 rifle owners, prefer the more dangerous-to-pedestrian/bicyclist SUV's because of the sense of power and dominance it gives the driver. Yet neither the AR-15 nor the SUV is necessary for protection or transportation.
The problem is the people who fetishize AR-15's and SUV's are of a certain type: right wingers who don't care about victims, nor climate change, nor any externality-type issue which affects others and not themselves. You'll get no sympathy from these folks and they'll fight tooth and nail if you try to take away either. They'll frame it as a fight for their "liberty".
1
I personally don't listen to the radio when I am driving. It's a distraction that most people don't consider. I wonder how many drivers involved in accidents were listing to anger inciting talk radio at the time? It's possible to collect such statistics nowadays considering how cars are wired to computers and vehicle black boxes. My SUV has an automatic reporting feature that sends monthly driving reports to my insurance company. Santa Clause (Geico) knows if I have been a reckless driver.
Rounding the numbers off, guns kill 40,000 people a year; drugs, 47,000, cars, 330,000.
We howl about guns and drugs, and attempt to discourage driving drunk or playing with devices while behind the wheel, yet never actually demand that the entire culture of the automobile go through a quantum shift. And that shift may not be to simply ride around inside a computer. Were the computers we already live with fool-proof it might sound more promising.
I agree with Ms. Arieff. It could be time to rethink Henry Ford's vision of the world.
3
.
Cars are big, hard, don't always stay in their lanes & can go plenty fast. Especially in areas where bike riders & pedestrians are present, cars are too often lethal.
For many highways leading in to cities, autos can only inch along on clogged roadways ... these "arteries" instead turn into giant slithering parking lots.
Buses, subways, trains (& licensed taxis) must be made reliable & convenient. Bicycle paths must have barriers between the cyclists and the big iron.
Plan A needs to get cars OFF of city streets PERIOD; self-driving vehicles are no improvement!
4
Mopedbus is my commute alternative that would reduce congestion on roads. It's a bus that pulls a trailer. The trailer is modified to carry mopeds, bicycles, and other personal transportation devices in a compact form, but in such a way that they can easily be stored and retrieved at Mopedbus stations. These stations are about 5 miles apart, and Mopedbus only travels on highways, not on city streets. So, in a typical commute, a driver leaves home on her moped, travels on city streets to the bus stop, gets on the bus with her moped, travels on the highway, in the HOV lane, to near her job, and completes her commute on city streets on her moped. Google 'mopedbus' for a youtube video of this idea.
Cars = Death machines? No, my dear. I can promise you no car will harm you of its own volition. If you are killed by a car, it's the fault of a human - either the driver, or you. The physics of stopping a moving vehicle don't compute when a child suddenly appears from out of sight 15 feet in front of a car, or when a phone-focused walker mindlessly steps out without looking both ways first.
Automation to detect pedestrians still can't prevent all collisions; again, it's the physics. Thousands of pounds of moving mass can't stop on a dime. And the automation itself is still flawed; drivers and pedestrians who assume that it will take care of everything are misinformed: https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Research-finds-automotive-technology-failing-to-protect-pedestrians-562092821.html?ref=821
As humans, we are responsible for our own safety and the safety of others. Drivers must obey traffic laws (why do we have them if we choose to ignore or not enforce them?) and walkers must be aware of their surroundings and not blithely assume that a pair of painted lines on the pavement can magically stop a moving machine. If both drivers and pedestrians would simply pay full attention to their task at hand instead of to their phones, the vast majority of collisions would simply not happen. Smartphones, not cars, are the true death machines.
@JWB
Just like guns. Maybe we should institute a car buy back plan...
In college, I was run over by a bicyclist while crossing a bike path. I'm still not sure if it was my inattention or the fact that he seemed to be going way too fast. He screamed at me while I was prostrate looking up at his tire. I dusted myself off and walked on leaving him behind ringing in my ears.
1
What is the kill rate per population? That's what's relevant. If population doubles and deaths go up by half then things are getting better. Numbers please, not just rhetoric.
Bring back stick shifts. You have to pay more attention driving stick than you do automatic. Anything that keeps people alert is better than nothing.
3
You forget to mention - the BILLIONS OF AMINALS (deer, opposum, fox, hedgehogs, mice, raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, bears, elk, mountain lions, dogs, cats etc. etc.), BIRDS (of every kind, including raptors and water birds), and AMPHIBIANS (turtles, snakes, frogs) KILLED by cars and other vehicles on US roads every single year. And the numbers are growing. Come to my neighborhood, and I'll give you a GUIDED TOUR OF THE CARNAGE. Roads also divide and destroy habitats, further killing our fellow creatures. Cars are most certainly killing machines and vehicles of environmental destruction.
6
This isn't about cars, it's about criminal drivers.
2
The article's title attacks self-driving tech as a solution with zero rigor by the author on the solutions actually being developed. It is not about moving responsibility to pedestrians, and it is the best hope for taking aggressive and inattentive drivers off the road. Watch Tesla's autonomy day on YouTube, Aliza.
2
As a person who commutes by bicycle to work, it's clear that in my community, enforcing existing traffic laws is not a high priority. The posted speed limit is no higher than 35 MPH on my daily route, but I routinely see drivers exceed this speed, usually egregiously and always dangerously. Drivers constantly blow through red lights at intersections, drive while distracted by their cellphones, don't pass me safely when I have the lane -- hey pal, those double yellow lines in the street mean passing is prohibited!, etc. And the second-to-last time I had a close call (the last time I had a close call was yesterday when a driver almost hit me while I was riding in a bike lane!) and a police officer was nearby, the officer claimed they couldn't do anything because they didn't "see" it -- if I was stabbed or shot, would they need to see that happen in real-time, too?
To add insult to potential injury, my community recently passed an inane "pedestrian ordinance" which potentially infringes on free speech, while also being completely unrealistic (many major roads within Louisville's core do not have crosswalks within 200 feet of another):
https://www.wdrb.com/news/amended-pedestrian-safety-ordinance-passes-louisville-metro-council-avoiding-threat/article_a5e363b4-ba54-11e9-92fc-ff414de600e0.html
while at the same time the city's plans to make the city's streets safer for car drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians has languished, with many projects probably never to be completed.
1
One of the incredibly ridiculous aspects of this article is the personification of cars as "hitting" people. The car didn't hit you, dummy, your fellow human being did.
With that in mind, why can't driverless cars be the answer? Reading through these tales of woe, it's mostly about the fallibility of human drivers - not seeing bikers in their blind spots, running red lights, not looking behind them when backing up, etc. A computer system that isn't scrolling instagram and that uses radar rather than eyes to avoid blind spots would in fact be a huge step forward.
Furthermore, safer streets requires a communal approach. The author of this piece lost all credibility when she went on a rant opposing the use of RFID chips for bikes to make them more "visible" from a technology standpoint to cars. To equate that with "criminalizing" biking is like opposing safety rails in train stations.
Additionally, part of the problem here is the liberal soft on crime approach. The police have been rendered effectively toothless. Without the threat of incarceration we have no means of getting bad drivers off the road. In Brooklyn our DA doesn't even prosecute half the gun crimes that occur. How are you going to justify throwing the book at someone for being careless when you aren't even prosecuting obvious violent intent?
1
The best way to make everyone safer; fewer guns.
1
Treat cars the like unavoidably deadly tools they are. The current bar for reckless or negligent behavior in an automobile is too high in most jurisdictions. Cars are inherently deadly. If you are in any way impaired or distracted, you are a disaster waiting to happen. There is virtually no such thing as an "accident." Treat them like legally-owned firearms.
Deaths caused by motorists should be taken with the utmost seriousness, because as it stands, having a driver's licence seems to be the easiest way to get away with murder.
And every instance of distracted and impaired driving should be treated like the dice roll with people's lives that it is. What would be the charge if someone fired a legally-owned weapon in a crowd without cause, but didn't hit anyone? That should be the charge for every provable case of reckless, negligent, and impaired driving. I don't care if you're drunk, texting, or looking in the bottom of the bag for the last french fry, you're one unlucky break away from ending someone's life and should be treated that way by the law.
177
@Polly If you believe that impaired or distracted driving is the leading cause of accidents, then you must also recognize the potential of computer driven cars to eliminate most accidents.
13
@Andrew Or kill more people, because computer driven cars--like the one in Arizona that killed a pedestrian--are programmed by people.
7
@Polly The law does have a way of approving car crashes as accidents when it's almost universally due to poor driving. If you were to shoot your gun periodically while walking the streets, we'd recognize it as reckless. But when changing the radio station, eating a burger, drinking a soda, looking at your GPS, talking to the kids in the backseat, adjusting AC/heat, shaving, putting on makeup, being tired or angry, and of course texting/googling/emailing/mapping/social media posting are not assumed to be reckless.
34
We need better public transportation. Efficient, spread out, inexpensive public transportation will reduce the need for cars at least in congested cities, but there are self interest groups that are lobbying against it, because they want more car production, oil and gas refinement generating profits. In Europe, where governments are more socialist (for the benefit of the people), transportation is much better and more widespread. Everybody takes the train or the bus. Cars are reserved for weekend getaways to the countryside. In America, people commute to work sometimes close to two hours one way; hard to avoid road rage and fatigue. There is also a lot less culture here of sharing the road than in Europe. Small changes can make a big difference, like between life and death.
1
The headline promises a critique of autonomous cars. Her case: "So far, I’m unpersuaded." How will Tesla, Waymo, and the others survive this journalistic death blow?
7
I agree that we can do better, but the increasing traffic (cars, bikes and pedestrians) and population density in all major cities is aggravating a problem for cities built to early and mid 20th century standards. Reconstruction of cities to accommodate increased centralization and population density will be very expensive and will probably be an imperfect solution as cities change. You didn't mention bicyclists. I have been clipped and almost knocked down walking the streets of San Francisco where I work by speeding, reckless bicyclists. As a student at University of California, Davis , I was run down and injured by cyclist. Therefore, we need an all around solution if there is one.
A lot of the comments here advocate better separating cars and other modes on the street. That would be great, and the only way to do that is take street space away from cars - usually in the form of free street parking or reducing car lanes on multi-lane streets. So think about that the next time you complain there isn't enough parking. There is, in fact, way too much parking.
I am 71. I am very healthy. I walk or ride my bicycle every where I go within a 10+ mile radius. I ride my bicycle because it makes me happy. I have a car for trips out of town.
1
One of the best columns I've read in awhile. Cars are death machines, and reducing the number, speed, and size of them, particularly in cities, is a good idea.
5
Autonomous vehicles are already statisticaly safer than human driven. Combine that with the fact that there will be less cars overall, since autonomous vehicles can service a greater number of people, there will be far fewer traffic deaths. Eventually we may need only a small percentage of the cars we have now. So most of them will be in use at any given moment, instead of sitting parked. Win, win, win.
1
Amen.
1
Stupid piece about a technology in its infancy. Come back in two years.
1
These NYT Op-Eds get sillier by the day
7
Let's start with smaller cars. They're easier to steer, easier to stop, easier to park and less polluting than larger cars. Most commuter commute alone, so room for seven passengers is rarely necessary. Government should strongly discourage the purchase and operation of lager vehicles via higher sales taxes, property taxes, tolls and gasoline taxes.
7
In my opinion, it’s too easy to get your driver’s license. We should treat it much more seriously. Let’s look to European example like Germany where they are much better drivers because you actually have to train a lot to pass the test.
16
@Peter
And make street safety something children are taught from a young age and get tested in.
Bad drivers. Bad cyclists. And yes, bad pedestrians. Also, accidents just happen even when everyone is doing their best to follow the rules.
I live in SF (SoMa to be exact), and my apartment overlooks a very busy intersections. I see it all. Cars, bikes, motorcycles, electric skateboards and scooters, rollerblades, etc. I've also seen multiple crashes and collisions and many more near misses. It's sometimes the fault of the car driver, but just as often it's pedestrians with their heads down in their phones, or cyclists who think the rules of the road are mere suggestions because they aren't behind the wheel of a car.
The truth of the matter is, people aren't perfect, and whether you are walking, biking, or driving, you need to take responsibility for your own safety. Don't expect that everyone is doing what they are supposed to do. I know that when I'm pulling out into the intersection described above, even though I'm hyper vigilant, it can be impossible to keep my eyes of 50 moving objects, 360 degrees around my car.
9
An elderly driver crossed over double yellow lines, making an illegal u-turn, and crashed into me on my bike. 3 ruptured cervical discs and 1 ruptured thoracic. Concussed. Over a year of vision therapy (blurry/double vision post-accident); vestibular therapy (balance affected); and neurocognitive remediation (suffer cognitive fatigue; word finding issues; I strangely invert syllables of words sometimes when I talk, and I no longer see homonyms when writing — using “I here you” for hear, etc).
Headaches every day. More irritable and tired all the time. Not the partner nor parent I was. Left my job. Feel like I left the person I was on the pavement.
The driver was 87 years old at the time of the accident. I’d start with mandatory testing of drivers above a certain age—it’s illegal but shouldn’t be, as it’s not age discrimination. Our faculties diminish with age (some more rapidly than others, especially after getting him by a car). This is a sad fact of life. Drivers who pose an inherent potential threat above certain ages should be tested. It’s crazy that we don’t. And it nearly killed me—and has forever altered my life.
The driver who hit me? She got a ticket—that’s it. I have no idea if she’s still on the road but Lord knows she shouldn’t be...
8
@Daphne
That's actually one of the reasons that, unlike the author of this piece, I'm all for autonomous cars. There really are a lot of drivers on the road who shouldn't be driving, but continue to do so. (My grandmother was one of them; she suffered from macular degeneration and continued driving far longer than she should have. Luckily she didn't hit anyone, and I do believe it was luck). In many rural and suburban areas, public transportation is nonexistent, so unless these people have a relative willing to play chauffeur, they don't have much alternative to driving. I think the elderly (and perhaps younger disabled people) will be a big market for self-driving cars. Autonomy preserved, everyone else on the road protected. Win-win. A self-driving car might never be as good as a really skilled, alert, healthy human driver, but it can definitely be better than many of the drivers out there.
2
Before I retired I worked in downtown Chicago where you need to be on your toes as a pedestrian at all times. But the most dangerous part of my commute was walking to the parking lot at the suburban train station at day's end. There were a number of times cars came within 15 feet or less of me after the driver turned directly into me and paid no attention to the fact I was crossing the street. At least a couple of times I got the finger for impeding their progress while I crossed the street and with the light mind you. I am lucky to have survived those years unscathed so I agree with the writer 100 percent. Lots of bad, nutty drivers out there that turn their cars into weapons. I feel sorry for all the victims out there.
2
I totally disagree with the premise that self-driving cars won't mitigate the problem of car-related deaths.
I have first-hand seen the capability of deep neural network based computer 'vision' systems -- these methods can detect pedestrians, cyclists, cars, trucks, objects on the road, and lanes often times far better than my eye can. Proper control systems would stop a vehicle at a faster rate than my reflexes would allow.
That's not to say these systems are error-free. Poor engineering plus edge cases can lead to major errors. But smart, diligent, and cautious people are working on this problem, and I trust that these systems will ultimately be very safe.
5
@Nina
I spent almost 5 decades in California, both North & South. In both N & S California, I have experienced power failures -- with lights out for almost 3 days & nights in the Richmond District of SF after one powerful winter storm -- as well as rolling blackouts, brownouts, transformer accidents, etc.
Nothing anyone is proposing today as a self-driving vehicle is immune to fluctuations of the power grid. In California, there are also seismic events to consider.
Any AI depends on a server. Any server relies on the grid. That is the fatal flaw in the concept of the "perfect" self-driving automobile.
Recent calamities with fires & landslides in which there was massive destruction, in California, showed once again how vulnerable people are. PG&E has had to commit to a massive payout because of its role in the devastating firestorms. Similar actions could apply to the manufacturers and developers of self-driving AI systems in the event of a disaster impacting the networks without which AI will not function as programmed.
1
@Maria Ashot I think your understanding is not correct.
Current AI systems for self-driving have to operate real-time. The learned weights for these neural networks do *not* rely on a server at all. The detections are done locally in real time at a high frame rate per second.
2
Tha article completely ignores the fact that autonomous vehicles will stop at red lights and stop signs, are not subject to road rage, and do not text while driving. To assert, without evidence, that they will not ameliorate the problem is irresponsible.
6
@Darth Vader
In other words, we need better, smarter, more responsible drivers.
That does not require an investment of Eighty Billion dollars. It requires better education and parenting, tougher driving exams, perhaps even an older driving age for first-time license applicants.
Throwing a whole ton of money away in pursuit of a pipe dream -- yet Gov. Newsom killing a high-speed train project that actually would do something useful.
Makes no sense.
@Maria Ashot
"In other words, we need better, smarter, more responsible drivers."
Ha! That's the biggest pipe dream ever.
Cars aren't the biggest part of the problem, drivers are.
5
Cars are death traps, the streets in our major cities were designed for horses, roads are crumbling and there isn’t any place to park, so let's have laws by 2025 that mandate no more SUVs and pickup-trucks will be sold in the land, except to 10,000 people in each state who can demonstrate a real need for them, with the final winners to be chosen among them by lottery.
3
Well said, excellent piece..Thank you, once again, Alison, for your clearly expressed perspective.
I have avoided cars my entire adult life, even commuting by public transport to my job in Fresno Ca..(I want an award for that)..
It is not rocket science..cars have brought out the worst in all aspects of our society - road rage killings being only one aspect of the disfunctional interactions car transport creates..
2
Distracted driving/phones make riding a bike or walking along a road Russian roulette these days. I used to love cycling but quickly abandoned road riding for these reasons. It may be your right to ride a bicycle on the road, but you are doing more than tempting fate - you are taunting fate. It seems ironic for people for are health/longevity focused.
2
It is time to require car doors that cannot swing out and kill a bicyclist. There is no special technology since it already exists on many vehicles.
3
@Gado The DOT should mandate Lamborghini doors for all cars.
One issue is people who think they have the right-of-way when crossing a street. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I've never been hit and I've never hit anyone. But to walk blindly out into a street, regardless if it's a crosswalk just because you've been given the right to, or, the middle of a block is insane.
My theory? Cars are made for the street, not people. If you decide to compete in the street, know what you're getting involved in and pay attention to what's happening. Will this resolve the problem all the time? Of course not. But it increases one's odd's substantially.
People do dumb things, drivers as well as pedestrians. To envision a future without reasonably high speed personal transportation I think is missing the boat. And, no way reality-based.
The very act of being alive contains risk. Learn to control your risk. There are zero guarantees.
A car used improperly can kill. So can a freezer and a chainsaw. None of the above are "death" machines.
5
I am an engineer and I am absolutely certain the autonomous cars will not cause accidents due to distracted driving (texting, eating, putting on make-up), drunk driving, and the many reasons that 90% or more of the car accidents are due to a careless driver.
Autonomous cars will be able to be know where all cars around them and have 360 degree continuous ability to detect objects day and night and react much faster that any human driver can.
This article is all about bad human drivers.
We need to eliminate human control driving of vehicles as soon as technically possible which will save thousands of lives in the future. It will happen and the sooner the better.
2
@Kirk Gray What if the power grid goes down? What is the internet goes down with it whilst all of these autonomous vehicles are cruising along? Does that mean that there will be hundreds of thousands of car accidents within seconds? Or will these cars be self-sufficient?
Having a hard time choosing a better country than what we have to move to. There are so many, I have a hard choice. Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland, Sweden, Japan, Canada, etc. etc. etc.
2
@Kirk Gray,
As another engineer I am familiar with the mindset. The trouble is that drivers will want to tinker: they will want the car to emulate their personality. Soon, we'll have tail-gating autonomous cars and aggressive car autonomous cars. Other robot cars won't be safe from these predators. The trouble is: we'll be along for the ride.
1
@john michel there will be designed-in power backup and safe shutdown systems to address these conditions if they should happen.
Power backup and software in the vehicle itself will be addressed by the vehicle safely placing it out of the traffic flow. It may not be perfect, but much more safe than human drivers and that is the path of technological development.
"Pedestrian fatalities in the United States have increased 41 percent since 2008" And what was invented in 2007? The iPhone, and the era of the distracted walker.
I personally am not willing to put all the blame on the drivers. I have seen too many pedestrians and bicyclists ignore rules of the road. While walking across the street, I was almost knocked down-- not by a driver--- but by another pedestrian who was far more absorbed with her text/tweet/email than she was in looking up and not plowing into someone.
The bicyclists who live in my community feel they have the right to make up the road rules that suit them and ignore the others that are inconvenient.
Get rid of the distractions first. And realize there's blame to go around.
7
@Claudia U. Maybe bicyclists should have to have a license just like motorcyclists.
@Claudia U.
I've seen a couple variations on this comment here. It's true that pedestrians can be distracted and that cyclists can disobey road rules. But since neither a pedestrian nor a cyclist are operating a machine moving two tons of metal around, their distraction poses minimal (if any) danger to others. Drivers, on the other hand, have much greater capacity for damage, and much greater responsibility for their conduct. Given this asymmetry, I don't think it's reasonable to simply say that there's "blame to go around."
1
The op-ed has no realistic solutions. We certainly cannot blame a slow news day for a pie-in-the-sky article like this one. The best that one can achieve as this point is risk / accident mitigation, and it's clear that advanced car safety technology is the answer. The truth is that there will only be more, not fewer cars on the road in the foreseeable future, and that drivers will have to give up their much-loved independence and autonomy for some of the technology to work at an optimal level. The technology is available right now to reduce automobile / pedestrian accidents. We should be focusing on making that tech standard across all vehicles.
2
For too many people the automobile is an extension of their ego. Because of their everyday life frustrations, they feel empowered and in control only behind the wheel. The car is their narcotic. That's why the bigger, the more powerful SUV, the larger the drug dose and the sense of personal power.
In my view, cities should be designed not for cars but mostly for pedestrian traffic + public transportation. Cars are for the countryside. Motorized vehicles are too dangerous to be in close proximity to walking and biking humans.
Data are staggering: "Cars are death machines. Pedestrian fatalities in the United States have increased 41 percent since 2008; more than 6,000 pedestrians were killed in 2018 alone. More than 4,000 American kids are killed in car crashes every year."
At the same time people seem to be more worried about becoming victims of nuclear power accidents, GMOs, cell phone radiation, etc. all of which are perfectly safe technologies. As the biggest polluter in the US, cars also kill people with the emission of nitric oxides and other chemicals.
3
As a lifelong cyclist I think the only way forward is to create bike only infrastructure, or paths that highly discourage travel by cars. Berkeley has many of these paths that use roundabouts, speed bumps, and mandatory turns for autos that allow cyclists to ride through.
I understand not everyone can ride a bike, I have to drive sometimes too, but if we make cycling infrastructure more safe and available (inviting) it will have the compound effect of removing cars from the road! It's win win!
4
@Some Dude; try riding a bike or walking a mile to the nearest bus stop during a Minnesota winter. More then a few residents expire from hypothermia and frostbite here.
1
Enough with all of the self-righteous indignation from non-motorists. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen cyclists obstructing vehicular traffic because they insist on riding on major thoroughfares during rush hour, often when they’re very clearly not commuting (head to toe spandex and nothing to carry a change of clothes). Even when there are dedicated bike lanes, cyclists often aren’t in them – they prefer the vehicle travel lanes because they have flatter surfaces and less debris.
I’m not attempting to excuse bad driving, but this is a matter of physics. We have 150-lb. riders who are attempting to occupy the same space as 4-5,000 lb. vehicles, and at drastically different speeds. Conflicts are inevitable, and there’s no question who will win that contest.
If we want to encourage the use of bicycles – and I think we absolutely should – we need to separate them completely from cars.
2
@Scott There is a concept of sharing the road. And anybody with any grey matter between their ears who is sitting behind 4-5,000 lb vehicle should understand that any wrong move on his(or her) part can carry a deadly outcome to that pesky thing in spandex, which is also a human being. So may be let that pesky thing do his (or her) maneuver and not assert dominance. That can be done when one gets home.
1) "We need cars" - No, we don't. Humanity survived for many centuries without cars. Whole continents were developed without cars. Cars are very handy and convenient but they are hardly a necessity.
2) "Roads are built for cars" - In most cities this is factually incorrect. Cars didn't become common until the 1920s. In many cities road grids were established decades before that so how could roads have been built for a vehicle which had yet to be invented? No city was that prescient in their planning!
3) It amazes me that people freak out and demand something be done about assault rifles but don't make a peep about cars which kill vastly more people.
4) "It was an accident" - No. Accidents are unavoidable. Almost all car related deaths could be avoided and only happen due to to driver negligence. There's a reason most police departments deliberately avoid using the word accident to describe car crashes.
5) Cellphone makers and auto companies should be required to develop technology to prevent their use while driving. Instead of pedestrians needing RFID tags instead use RFID chips in phones to disable them when in proximity of a steering wheel. The government would have to require this since there's no profit incentive in saving lives.
4
Self-driving cars are expected to be an order of magnitude safer for other drivers as well as pedestrians.
Raw fatalities is a very bad measure - what are pedestrian death rates per million vehicle miles.
How many pedestrian deaths are caused by the new fixation of staring at your phone as you cross a street?
How is auto-braking working out? Hint - GM stats saw a 50% decrease in all types of collisions for cars so equipped..
I could go on - but suffice it to say - cars are not death machines and they are getting safer every year.
2
@SteveRR Cars are getting safer for drivers, and worse for everyone else. The idea that our city's streets belong only to drivers, and its everyone else's job to get out of the way, is why pedestrian deaths are up 40% in the last decade.
Also, mobile phones have been ubiquitous for about 20 years now, not exactly new.
1
@Jemilah Let’s accept that reading and typing text or email is vastly different than talking on the phone. The data is revealing the smart phone is as impairing as drinking and driving ever was.
@Jemilah
Collision avoidance and auto-braking works for other cars and for PEDESTRIANS.
Pedestrian deaths are up but so are total auto miles travelled - if the ratio is similar then the danger is kinda the same - that is math.
Phones 20 years ago did not have the screen apps that phones do now - so - no.
I was walking through a well lit crosswalk with the right of way in my college town, when an 87 year old man drove into the crosswalk. He braked in the nick of time, though the bumper made contact with my right leg. I was lucky enough to walk away but if he'd waited a second longer to brake, I would've been in real trouble. Less cars than more would be terrific, but one precautionary measure that could make a difference, road test people who are in their later years and want to keep their driver's license. Also for the younger and more distracted, harsher penalties for texting and driving wouldn't hurt.
5
@K.P. After several auto fatalities caused by very old drivers, some states, including New Hampshire, changed their laws to require seniors to pass road tests before renewing their licenses, but I believe all those laws have been repealed. For which I believe we can thank AARP. And now it is up to relatives and doctors to do the tough work of separating our plainly too-old relatives from their car keys.
There doesn't seem to be a clear distinction made in the column between densely populated urban areas and suburban and especially rural areas. For most geographical areas in the country people have little choice but to drive and this is unlikely to change anytime soon, which means that continuing to make safer cars is an extremely important goal and will be for the foreseeable future.
14
"One of the easiest ways to make cars safer would be to make them smaller."
One way to reduce pedestrian and bike casualties *might* be to make cars smaller. But this would immediately increase driver/passenger fatalities which represent a far greater number of deaths.
The easiest way to reduce pedestrian/bicycle accidents is to figure out how to keep pedestrians and bicycles as far apart as possible.
5
During WWII, we rationed rubber (car tires) and gasoline. Resulted in a lot less traffic, and one supposes pedestrian deaths and air pollution. Yet we survived, prospered, & won the war.
1
@Preston In peacetime the way we ration is by increasing prices. A carbon tax and cooler relations with Saudia Arabia might do the trick.
1
I live a couple blocks from an intersection with a stop sign, and about 25 feet away there is a signalized intersection. Every single day I cross the street in front of that stop sign, drivers come flying up to the stop sign, fully intending to roll through to "make the light". I have been almost hit several times.
This is one intersection in one city. There are tens of thousands of these sorts of intersections in this country.
8
I live in Manhattan and walk about six miles a day to and from work, gym and chores. I am far more likely to be hit by a speeding bicyclist or electric delivery bike person than a car.
That being said, there are two things that could immediately help drivers to see pedestrians in Manhattan.. 1. Get rid of the ridiculous bike lanes against the sidewalk and the line of parked cars acting as a barrier to protect the cyclists. Most cyclists are using the lanes anyway and the barrier of cars does not allow drivers to see where people are walking. 2. Put red light cameras at every intersection and heavily fine drivers from the first instance they run the light or block the box. This would immediately change driver behaviour and make the city a much safer place for pedestrians and for the maniacal cyclists who ignore rules of the road.
11
@Bill You may get hit by a cyclist, but your likelihood of death is significantly reduced. It's still incumbent upon the cyclist to yield to you, and it's still incumbent upon you as a pedestrian to cross streets within the bounds of the law. Removing bicycle lanes will (inevitably) replace that portion of road with more vehicle lane space, which means more cars and/or faster traveling cars. That increases your likelihood of death.
Your statement "most cyclist are using the lanes anyway..." is not true, or at least requires citation. Most statistics indicate increased cyclist ridership when protected/green-painted bike lanes are installed as it increases the feeling of safety for wary cyclists. Yes, cyclist use the vehicle lanes, but typically out of necessity (when delivery trucks, rideshares/taxis, or personal vehicles block those lanes), not because they have a desire to join traffic.
Your suggestion for red light cameras blanketing the city (and other American cities) is great, and wide-ranging enforcement is truly the only way to change behaviors.
3
@Bill
Actually Bill, if you look up the statistics you'll see that a lot more pedestrians are injured and killed by people driving cars than are killed by people riding bikes.
3
The list of "quick and easy fixes" shows a certain naivete. NYC already has a city-wide no turn on red policy, for instance. Are pedestrians safer because of it? The mantra that "speed kills" does not reflect the state-of-the-art research on speed limits, either, as FHWA research has focused on how the type of road and the distribution of speeds in traffic are more telling as to what conditions are more likely to result in fatalities (e.g., why speed limits set at the 85th percentile of traffic speed have been considered for years now). Protected bike lanes are not an easy fix, as any department of transportation can tell you. They do take up space on the road and can be costly if more pavement is needed to accommodate them (including possible right-of-way costs).
I am also not sure what "passenger auto-driving vehicles" are or how that category could be banned without further definition. A Google search shows that this is a unique term only found in this article.
All that said, we have a country where roads and transit are in competition for funding. A more complementary approach to funding of the overall system would be beneficial for everyone (NY's historical comparing of MTA and NYSDOT capital program funding has always been a start, but it's still imperfect). If we could somehow remove the adversarial aspects of transportation funding between roads and transit, the multimodal improvements needed to unclog our streets could come to fruition.
3
@D. N.
It's funny about that no turn on red law in NYC, there aren't any signs at any intersections that say that and if you stand on a busy corner for a while you will see almost all the cars turn on red are from out of state because they don't know that it's forbidden here.
I agree with the premise of the article but the title is misleading. Self-driving automobiles have already been proven to be safer than human-piloted vehicles. Self-driving cars may not be the whole solution—or the best solution—but until we have a practical way to get cars off the road, it's a step in the right direction.
4
@Erin / Agree. There will be no "hunting for the green light" in the age of selfdriving cars. I also assume there will be sensors for human presensce so an accident will be almost 100% avoidable. Humans are lousy drivers and have always been, suseptible to stress, tiredness and distractions. All those factors evaporate in a machine environment. The task of creating very safe and autonomous driving systems is hard but it will be solved one way or another.
the safest and most practical solution is to not have pedestrians on the same roads/surfaces as cars.
Saying we should have fewer cars is a hipster 20-something fantasy solution that doesn't work everywhere, and not everyone enjoys that lifestyle.
5
@Matt So where do the pedestrians go? Some magical underground tunnel or overhead/elevated bypass? What do the pedestrians do while that (expensive) infrastructure is being constructed? You do also realize that, when you inevitably park your car (which you always do, and it stays parked well over 95% of its useful life), you then exit your vehicle and become one of those pesky pedestrians? Enjoyment of a "pedestrian lifestyle" does not jive with "allowing those who 'enjoy' cars to continue using them ad nauseum and killing over 6000 human beings per year."
3
@Matt
What about all the pedestrians who have been killed by people driving their car onto a sidewalk or into a park.
People who love cars and can't stand anyone bringing up car related deaths and seem to be worse than gun owners.
2
I lost a good friend to a car accident when I was 11 years old. It was raining and a tractor trailer rear-ended the family car at speed. I nearly lost my grandfather, who was working as a crossing guard, a short time later to a drunk driver in a hit and run (he thankfully had the presence of mind to jump on the hood and was dragged a quarter mile before being dumped). I've been hit by cars as a pedestrian and a cyclist, despite always being hyper vigilant and respecting the law to the letter. I've been threatened countless times and nearly killed by people's negligence more times than I can remember.
The number of near misses has risen significantly with the rise in smart phone usage. I see people behaving obscenely so they can text and take calls. It doesn't matter if they're using bluetooth or typing or talking on speaker; they're distracted either way, and much more than they would speaking with a passenger in the car. Despite the law banning this in many places, it's rarely enforced. Police should be pulling people over left and right for this.
Bottom line, people have decided that one of the globe's leading causes of death--one that is wholly avoidable--is acceptable. There's no reasoning with people like that. I'm sorry, but your freedom isn't worth anyone's life. You're an unreliable machine driving a weapon. The car is antiquated, barbaric mode of transport, and we should be happy when we can evolve to something that respects human life.
8
What this article fails to mention is that the death rate from auto accidents is down more than a hundred fold since the invention of the automobile (per miles driven). And cars will continue to get safer and easier on the environment as our technology improves.
The 40% increase in pedestrian deaths since 2008 is due to drivers and pedestrians paying attention to the phones and not the road.
How many of us have seen someone cross a busy road, never look up once and if it wasn't for us slamming on the brakes, they would have been hit?
8
@Dan Nice anecdote, Dan. Keep in mind that if the pedestrian entered the roadway and ran into your vehicle, you would suffer no risk to life. The pedestrian or cyclist, however, may be killed by your vehicle and the machine will experience a couple of dents.
A reduction in accidents is nice, but there is absolutely zero excuse for accepting the death of human beings so that a car can be driven.
3
@Dan
What's your point? Cars don't kill people, mobile phones do?
Cars are like guns, they are weapons. Car, truck, bus and motobike users have to recognize that they need to be more responsible when driving and even parking since they constantly park in bike lanes forcing bike riders into traffic.
More people die because of cars, trucks, buses and motorbikes in America every year than people murdered by someone with a gun so why isn't there more outrage about that?
1
@artman Actually cars are not weapons. A weapon is something intended to be used for injury. While cars can become weapons in the hands of people venting road rage, they are primarily tools. Or toys.
OK, I know this may sound like "blame the victim". I recently moved from a university town where biking was a prime mode of transportation. Over the years riders frequently came up alongside my right side when I was stopped at an intersection. Sometimes I was signaling for a right turn, but they either couldn't see that from where they were, or intended to charge the intersection at the first blink of green light (not an uncommon move).
I finally just pulled as far right as possible if approaching an intersection when I noticed a bike rider behind me. Bikers didn't much like that, but I feel like it kept us both out of trouble.
1
@Charles Murphy
I also live in a university community with many bike lanes. Right-turning cars are *supposed* to move into the bike lane at the intersection, so that a bike cannot pull up along side it.
@Charles Murphy Maybe bike lanes should have a separate light.
Those of us who live far out in suburbia, where there are no sidewalks, few crosswalks, and bike "lanes" are just painted lines on the street, know that you're taking your life in your hands if you walk or bike anywhere. Distracted, aggrressive, or impaired drivers are common. Unfortunately, public transportation isn't very practical out in suburbia either. At least autonomous cars, when the technology gets good enough, will not suffer from road rage, be distracted or get high. Pedestrians and cyclists will still need to be aware of the cars and avoid them, though.
1
This terrifies me to the core and I still use a car nearly every day. I have lost friends and family to car accidents, as others here and everywhere have. I'm recently started driving an EV and noticed a few things that might help others. First off the car is smaller and lighter with good visibility, so hopefully doesn't present as much of a danger to pedestrians. Second it does not reward you for quick acceleration or quick breaking, essentially constantly encouraging us to drive as smoothly and easily as possible. I have no data to verify that this will help reduce the risks we all face but my guess is that it is.
3
In China they use their facial recognition system to deduct points and apply fines automatically to people who violate traffic and pedestrian laws and regulations. I saw a video where a person reported having a fine deducted from his bank account because street cameras caught him J walking across a street.
1
China has instituted a Social Credit System that impacts every aspect of people's lives. It is a national reputation system. It is a mass surveillance system.
The reputation system will impact the following areas if you have a low score:
1. Travel ban for low scores
2. Exclusion from school admissions
3. Social status
4. Religious repression
5. Debt collection
6. Public display of your low score on large LED screens
7. Access to loans, denial of speedy paperwork on requests for home loans, lower internet access, denial of jobs and visas.
1
I have to drive to my work and the distance is quite far so it's primarily highways. Sometimes I do drive in New York City. A few suggestions that might make things a lot safer for both drivers and pedestrians. Digital technology, and by that I mean phones, create both distracted driving and walking, and creates danger for both parties. My personal issue is with those who "pop out" from between parked cars. They are invisible to drivers until they are almost right in front of you. It is most distressing when mothers push strollers or prams out from between parked cars. Cars are death machines and have been larger, heavier and drivers more distracted. But pedestrians also must remain alert to the dangers of distraction, too. Cyclists must use sensible rules of the road including stopping at lights and signaling turns. Finally, pedestrians must wear clothing at night that can be seen. Wear reflective strips on clothing or lighter colors. As a pedestrian, I always make certain that a car turning at an intersection can see me. I look them in the eyes to make sure. Safety involves changes of behavior on behalf of the driver and pedestrian. It's easy to blame drivers but the truth is that cars will be with us for a long time and anything we can do to increase of odds of remaining safe seems like a good idea to me.
@j like I always tell my niece, yeah it might be that guy's fault if he hits you, but you're still the one in pain!
While I cannot imagine penalizing responsible walkers or bicyclist, it would be nice if both followed their own laws. I nearly hit a kid who crossed ON HIS BIKE in a crosswalk. Fortunately for him (and me - that's literally my worse fear), I am wholly against even glancing at the phone while driving, so I saw him and stopped in time. The sad bit, I know he thinks he was doing the right thing.
Doesn't help when the driver is at fault, but definitely does when a conscientious driver is actively minding their business and yours.
There are so many streets without sidewalks in Houston, including streets with schools. Every street should have a sidewalk, at least.
9
@tanstaafl When I lived in Houston I attended classes at different campuses of Houston Community College, but didn't have a car. I rode my bike in the "bayous" (big concrete drainage ditches) or pedaled hard between blocks of traffic, then jumped off the road in the nick of time. I learned to literally jump off the bike at 20 miles an hour, grab it with one hand, and leap over the curb.
2
I have said for years that if cars were invented today, they would never be allowed on either safety or environmental grounds.
4
This is a superb piece with which I agree 100%. I am 84 and really afraid to cross a street because so many drivers have a huge and misplaced sense of entitlement, i.e., their cars are number one. A fragile human doesn't get a number.
10
@Barbara Well said Ms. B!
Have you ever looked at satellite photos and noticed that in urban and suburban areas, most everything is asphalt? Buildings are small specks by comparison. The land we devote to transport must be many times what we devote to our destinations.
How much do we spend as a society on roads, parking lots and garages, cars, insurance, accident related medical bills, fuel etc. each year? It has got to be a staggering number. And how much money do we spend on obesity related illness? And how much do we spend on depression due to social isolation?
Why is Disneyland the nation's dream destination? Could it have something to do with being able to walk freely there without fear of being killed by a vehicle?
Why are cities with pedestrian and bike friendly neighborhoods so popular that they are unaffordable to the vast majority of Americans?
I got to experience the German and Swiss transit systems. Absolute wonders to behold. My favorite mode is the gondola (the aeriel kind, not the boat). Gliding smoothly silently over the landscape and with a minimal impact on the land itself.
Why can't we have nice things like this?
9
@Katherine
Not disagreeing with most of your comments, but no one, in the world, is going to Disney anything for the walk.
Areas with places to walk are expensive because of the location. The walking areas are usually planned around the expensive place or added by wealthy people.
I have a vision problem that I've since managed, but when I lived in Denver I had to walk everywhere. The only people I met, until I adopted my dog, were dudes hitting on me. Yes, I was thinner and in better shape. Yay doctor visits. But that just increased the harassment. And sexual assaults. In an area where walking was common, lest you believe the lack of fellow walkers contributed to the assaults.
I think it's nice that unpopulated places with relatively little land can use their urban money to move around country folk in a pleasant way. I don't know what that has to do with the US though? Our cities are as dense as any European city, but our rural areas are... well, the whole of Europe is only slightly bigger than the US in terms of square miles.
But OK. We'll get right on your air boat across Kansas.
2
@Katherine Because we have a vast country that occupies half a continent and our population is widely dispersed over that area.
Disneyland is the absolute last place I would ever go to 'walk freely." I can do that anywhere in my suburban neighborhood (that urbanites hate and constantly fantasize in the NY Times about making 100 times denser) or many of the large parks and forests near my house.
Incidentally, my brother was killed by a drunk driver when he was 26. He was called by a trauma hospital at 2 am and asked to fix their MRI which had just stopped working. He drove to the hospital, did the job, and then was struck by a drunk driver running a red light on the way back. No "gondola" could have gotten him to the hospital or back in the middle of the night. But a 'smart" car could have prevented the accident.
1
@Kate A note to all readers: You can learn the walkability of your neighborhood easily: Log on to walkscore.com
Suburban sprawl is all about making cars happy, not folks who enjoy walking or cycling.
1
I walk and bus as my only modes of transportation. On my walk to work and home each day I obey all traffic laws, cross at crosswalks and check around me for errant cars and drivers -- still nearly every day I have a near-miss with a car. Nearly ever near-miss, the driver yells at me and flips me off!
When I bus with a higher vantage point I can see into people's cars - anecdotally I'd estimate 70-80 percent are on their phone watching videos and texting.
But it's like drunk driving, the laws weren't severe because everyone did it and no one wanted the laws applied to them when they did it, it wasn't till, just like this article was pointing out that nearly everyone had lost a loved one to a drunk driver that laws began to shift.
19
@Megan ....nearly every day you have a near miss with a car and a driver yells at you? Yet you obey the rules?
I walk every day in NYC, for decades and never have a near miss, and no driver yells. I'm careful...we often make eye contact, but the driviers seem careful too.
It's bike's that don't obey rules and often come from out of nowhere, the wrong way, no lights.
9
@Megan
Incidentally, DU/WI laws are the only known, direct impact, laws that people follow purely because of the consequence. I was sad to read that because I figured at least some people would care about the people they put at risk, but no. It's like 85% of drivers who sometimes drink only don't drive out of police fear.
Murder and theft are moral issues that most people do or don't do without thinking about the punishment. Generally speaking, obviously. Someone OK with stealing a movie may not steal a car because it is easier to catch someone. But you get the point.
I agree. Make using the phone a bigger deal and people will stop. The police first though. :)
1
@Megan
And noe, you can't have a drink with dinner because the BAC limits are set so low.
I would not tout that as a solution. And you really need to change your lifestyle or move if indeed you are nearly being hit every night. It just makes sense to protect yourself because the car will always win. Are you able to cross an intersection quickly, or physically are you slow? Do you wear dark clothing sobyou are hard to see? Something is odd about you almost being hit daily yet choosing to keep walking that route...
Empower yourself and stay safe.
2
There are other reasons besides safety to start to move away from cars. Their manufacture and operation is resource intensive. Nitrile rubber microfibers that are shed by car tires have been found in the Arctic. There are tons of microfibers that fall on a large city each day. A study found that the biggest source of microfibers in California coastal waters originated from car tires. The annual cost for cycling is $330. The annual cost for a car is $9,350.
6
Most road fatalities and accidents are cause by human error, alcohol, impatience and aggression. Self-driving car technology will get better and better each year. Hence: Safer roads for all.
3
Modern cars today have pedestrian radars that detect and warn the driver of a pedestrian in the path of the vehicle and in many cases that automatically apply the brakes. My SUV does that. It's now pretty much standard equipment on most passenger vehicles. They have a host of all sorts of safety warning devices that alert the drivers to approaching vehicles from behind, from the side, when backing up. It alerts if I am about to back over my cat. My SUV alerts me and applies the breaks if I approach a vehicle too fast. It alerts me at a stop light when the vehicle in front pulls away when I am not paying attention. It alerts and gently nudges the steering wheel if I drift out of my lane. It alerts when a person on the side of the road just walks in the direction of the oncoming vehicle without actually stepping in front of it. Some expensive models have thermal vision cameras that see the heat signatures of pedestrians and animals in complete darkness hundreds of feet beyond the illumination of the most powerful headlights. I installed one on my vehicle. It spots and alerts on pedestrians wearing dark clothes in the blackest environments or the most confusing of intersections who are virtually invisible to alert drivers.
Of course one has to get used to the variety of beeps and what they mean but that's not a serious hurdle.
1
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
If those technologies are so widespread and effective, why are cyclist and pedestrian injuries increasing?
I wouldn’t trust car manufacturers to actually get this right. Pedestrians aren’t their customers, and driver friendly laws (pushed by car manufacturers over the last century), ensure that their customers aren’t actually Lia low for hurting pedestrians....
More cities need to follow NYCs lead and implement VisionZero plans. Technological fantasies aren’t necessary to fix this problem.
1
@Luke
Whine. It's new technology. Not all cars have it. Such aids don't negate the need for careful driving. It's not a fully automatic vehicle with such safety features.
Since when has it ever been considered that a person will not be injured if they are struck by a moving vehicle? Motor vehicle manufacturers put in a great deal of effort to design vehicles for the safety of occupants and pedestrians. Just look at how door handles and side rear view mirrors are designed.
Death Machines is accurate, but cars are given a free pass because so many of us are complicit. Four of my wife's relatives, two husband-wife couples, were killed in separate street crossing collisions in Palm Desert, CA, one in a crosswalk. No charges.
I have been hit twice while bicycling, one driver turning left into me and the other coming directly into my lane from the oncoming lane. One ticket.
Here in Burlington a pedestrian was killed after properly using the crosswalk by a motorist turning left. No charges because the driver was not speeding or impaired by alcohol or drugs.
A shift in perspective is long overdue.
42
I share the writers concerns about the danger of automobiles and her values. On the other hand, getting people to change habits under current conditions seems so improbable. One possibility offered by autonomous vehicles is self-driving buses which might help start a virtuous cycle of more vehicles and more use. I'm in an urban center and still may have to way 30 minutes for a bus during daylight hours. That's no way to inspire use of public transport.
1
Imagine a world of Self-Driving Cars. All roads that will support the SDC will have to be flawless and have all sorts of sensors and reflectors embedded in them. They will have to be meticulously maintained. The SDC itself will have to be inspected and regulated and upgraded and kept in tip-top condition, no doubt at the dealership, not at Joe's Garage. That won't be cheap. The car and the road will have to work in harmony, via computers and wireless communication. This will all cost big bucks. I can imagine no world with SDC that isn't socio-economically stratified. Extremely stratified. The 1% will have the money to buy and maintain these robots on wheels and they will also have the money to drive on the perfectly maintained roads... which will have to be toll roads. The 99% will be relegated to HDCs (human driven cars) which won't be allowed on the perfect SDC toll roads. Jalopies on service roads. This isn't even mentioning how car insurance might work.
Or... we could invest in the other self driving transportation system... the train. Perfect roads [rails], with well maintained engines and carriages. Trains could be driverless if necessary, but having one driver for 500 people isn't a bad ratio. It's almost driverless if you consider the ratio of driver to traveller.
We won't be getting rid of cars any time soon, but we could invest in a much much safer, cleaner, and cheaper form of transportation. This would lower the need for the cars.
10
@Rosebud You are right that initially the autonomous technologies that will save lives will be implemented in expensive cars. This is true of all technologies. The first call phones were owned only by rich people in first world countries. Now you can to rural villages in remote parts of the world and see smart phones in almost everyone’s hands.
So what is inevitably true is that autonomous driving will make its way to the masses over time. In 30 years from now, the thought of a human driving a car will be quaint. And that will be true in even the cheapest mass produced vehicles.
1
It is not likely that the freedom, convenience and enjoyment personal vehicles provide will force the majority into going 'car-less'.
Greater investment in the separation of car / pedestrian & cycling infrastructure is an overlooked solution that has vast potential benefits in creating a safer travelling-system.
An overhaul of outdated driver-licensing requirements across North America would go a long way to putting more competent motor vehicle pilots behind the wheel.
On an individual level, pilots of motor vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians alike must stay focused when operating in society. A little bit of attention goes a long way.
3
@BR one of the most equitable ways we can achieve "separation of car / pedestrian & cycling infrastructure" at scale is by limiting motor vehicle access to our denser urban areas
"Here’s the thing: Statistics clearly don’t seem to persuade anyone of the magnitude of this problem. Not policy makers or automakers, technologists or drivers."
I imagine that the author is younger than I am. I remember the 1960s when there were many more US auto deaths than today, with half of today's population and many fewer cars.
The engineers gave us "steel cage" cabins (thank you, IIRC, Mercedes Benz), crumple zones, lap belts and--later--shoulder belts (and drivers like me eventually started using them and getting passengers to use them. And divided highways. And, eventually, airbags, anti-lock brakes (which still have not lived up to their safety potential because we don't use them right), etc.
The one statistic that concerns me very much is the increase in pedestrian deaths. Is it pedestrian distraction by cellphones? Is it too-quiet electric or hybrid (like mine) vehicles ?
I have to admit that human interest is usually what goads us to action. It's too bad, because it's science and engineering that actually tells us what the problem is and how to solve it.
2
@Ken Gallant it's not pedestrian distractions. Many of these collisions are the result of ever increasing driver distraction and designs of both roads and cars that put the safety and convenience of the cars' occupants first and the unprotected people outside of the car last.
Note that all of the innovations you list are for protecting people inside of cars and do nothing to make the street safer for pedestrians. Making cars safer for people driving has been a smashing success (though there's still work to do there) but the US has been much less focused on protecting other road users.
1
@Ken Gallant
Hi Ken, I looked up the quaint little town you are from and it seems to be a great place but it isn't the same as the high density poplulated parts of the country where cars represent the most danger to pedestrians. The deaths you refer to in the 1960s were from less safe cars battling each other but the problem today is about driving bullies and irresponsible drivers who think that they don't have to obey the most basic traffic laws in a battle between drivers and everyone else. On a green light with a dozen or more people crossing the street in a crosswalk it is common for a driver to turn and try to drive through the pedestrians assuming they will scurry out of the way instead of waiting. Most of the vehicle caused pedestrian deaths in NYC were from drivers making a left turn at an intersection, because they are focused on the other cars, or running a red light. Nothing about science and engineering involved just self-centered dimwits behind the wheel of a car, truck or bus.
Ms. Allison Arieff this is a beautifully written and brilliantly conceived article. I read every word and felt the pain and agony of your tweet selections. Trust me I have been working on the problem of highway safety for at least forty years and even though I have tried several times to publish an op-ed to discuss various alternative solutions to the alarming number of fatalities and injuries because of the increasing numbers of trucks and personal autos that pass through our congested urban areas, I, thus far, have not been successful, so I want to use your article to share my solutions to supplement ideas.
In 1987, I was privileged to hear the idea of the late Senator Pat Moynihan of NY, who chaired a Senate Transportation Committee, that I thought was a great idea that we should do to reduce the number of cars and trucks on our highways.
His idea was to use the rights-of-ways of the Interstate Highway System to build a guideway system for a 300 mph freight, freight truck and passenger system to relieve a portion of the intercity traffic. My thoughts were that we could ship overnight and send passengers and their autos during the day to provide the necessary travel and goods for our growing population. To promote the concept I maintain a website, www.magneticglide.com This won't solve all the problems but it will save lots of highway deaths. Eventually it would be possible to move a large portion of our goods on delivery vans from producer sources to stores/homes.
2
These streets are not made for the amount of traffic.Which due to Uber and Amazon is only growing more and more.
Along with the construction industry vehicles ...
So lets punish the middle class (the few that remain) ??
Take away parking and bike lanes ??
How about this since I pay taxes and Amazon does I should be the one to get use of my streets.
And bikes...helmets and insurance and laws that need to be obeyed . Lets be clear they don't even have to stay in the bike lane..
Everyday i see bikes going the wrong way or riding on the sidewalk. Stop thinking your entitled to everything.
5
The headline: "… Self-Driving Tech Won't Change That."
The story: "So far, I'm unpersuaded," because automotive companies have spent billions on autonomous vehicle development, and it's still not widely acceptable yet.
But the story features anecdote after anecdote of people victimized by drunk, impaired, overconfident, and/or distracted drivers, and not the piece of steel they're piloting.
Please don't write off a technology just because it has been long in development. The number of lives saved from autonomous vehicles removing human weakness from behind the wheel would likely be greater than simply cutting the number of cars. And autonomous vehicles are much more likely.
11
@Mike why should we invest so much in unproven tech when there are cheaper proven techniques to reduce harm. See NYCs VizionZero efforts
1
Bike riders in Philadelphia are the very worst. They run red lights with abandon. Groups of cyclists will clog a roadway meant for cars with the belief of entitled royalty. They rarely signal. I know three pedestrians who have been very badly injured by cyclists when crossing a street, and they, not the cyclists had the right of way in every case.
As a pedestrian, when crossing a street, any street, no matter that a traffic light may indicate I have the right of way, I LOOK IN EVERY DIRECTION FOR CARS AND CYCLISTS. Why? Because the size and kinetic energy of these moving bodies pose a far bigger threat to me than I do to them.
Whether you are a pedestrian or motorist, always assume you are in life threatening environment and act accordingly.
Lastly, autonomous vehicles will eventually save us. Why? Because technology always gets better, people don't.
1
@Ok Joe I am one of those Philadelphia bikers. Thank you for lumping all of us together and blaming us all for the actions of a few. I am not the problem, cars are. There is a lovely train that goes from Byrn Mawr to Philly so please leave your car in the suburbs and out of the city. Driving a car means your convenience is worth more than my safety.
3
@Ok Joe Streets are a public right-of-way and bicycles have the right to the road.
Streets in Philadelphia are "meant for cars"? You are aware of how old the street grid in Philadelphia is, right?
3
^^^ A perfect example of the typical American driver's blame-the-victim mentality. As long as attitudes like Joe's prevail, the carnage will continue.
I like the idea of personalized rapid transit: small single-car electric trains on elevated rails with a computerized dispatch system. Up to six passengers make their way to a station, indicate their destination, and get in a traincar. The system then calculates how to navigate the web of tracks and other traincars, and conveys the passengers to their destination station.
Better driver education and strict enforcement of traffic laws would go a long way towards m making cars safer.
My daughter was hit by a SUV , in a crosswalk, with an active traffic signal.
The driver suffered no consequence for failure to yield in a crosswalk or running a red light.
Driver actually bawled out my daughter for ruining her mirror and denting the car.
I was told later that the police in our town (in Northern California) automatically assume it is the pedestrian's fault in an accident.
Fortunately, my daughter has fully recovered.
My faith in other drivers on the road has not.
8
@Karl Smith Glad your daughter is OK, but Ventura County is most definitely Southern California...?
But don't deny that technology has made cars safer and made being a pedestrian safer. My mom tells stories about how her dad made his own seat belts out of rope long before they were standard equipment. Otherwise, everyone in the car just bounced around...
Future rounds of technology will also hopefully decrease the danger of the death machines!
1
When the notion of fast mechanized travel was first becoming widespread, many believed that going sixty miles an hour would be fatal, that the human heart would be able to withstand it. They were wrong, of course, but it is clear that cars evolved much faster than our ability to deal with the safety issues they bring with them. Yes, it would be great if everyone abandoned their SUVs, left their phones off while driving, and in general treated driving like what it is—a sport—but it's not going to happen. Not in America, at least, the land of the free. Technology will be the best and only answer, though it will take years for it to be accepted. Ask someone how they'd feel about not being able to drive their car over a posted speed limit no matter how hard they hit the gas and see what they say.
2
Mama always taught us to look both ways and to obey traffic laws, so I've only been hit a few times while walking or cycling, but LA County is still very dangerous for peds and bikers. I no longer ride my motorcycle for fun at the beach or in canyons, and I try to ride my bike on bike paths where cars are not allowed. Cars rule, and many are driven by fools messing with cell phones, which are the most dangerous development in traffic ever.
2
My cousin was killed by a drunk driver when he was picking a route for the annual MADD benefit ride he organized in memory of a good friend who was killed on her bike by a drunk driver. I had a driver pull out right in front of me and then, befuddled, stop. Luckily I hit and rolled onto the trunk of the car and only the bicycle was seriously injured. I was also hit while driving by a drunk who ran a red light at a blind intersection. My Dad, an orthopedic surgeon, spent many nights and days in surgery patching up victims of cars.
4
@Chris Campbell
Please! Victims of cars? Really?
How about victims or reckless, unskilled and dangerous drivers.
For every 100 bad drivers on the road I am confidant that there are at least 10 bad bike riders who are reckless and don't follow the rules of the road.
Also keep in mind that there is no single cause to an accident. An accident follows the accumulation of multiple errors or failures.
An autonomous car will not weave in and out of traffic making frantic lane changes to slip between two cars. Autonomous cars will not tailgate 1/2 a car length behind another going at 70 mph or more. Autonomous cars will have data on road conditions, traffic, and thus travel at the optimum pace to get to the destination.
Ultimately autonomous cars *will* save lives and make commuting safer. Further, with autonomous cars and car sharing applications, we can reduce the number of cars on the road.
Also imagine 5 people all taking the train, getting into one car, being picked up at their home, no parking space required, just dropped off. Same thing when they and others are ready to return home.
Imagine not having to deal with traffic and driving after work. Wow!
Some of us think bigger than this writer. What a depressing and backward thinking column.
I could go on, but I won't.
126
@Joe Sabin
You can have your autonomous car when the owner, manufacturer, and all the technology companies behind it agree to be held civilly and criminally liable for any and all "accidents" in which their vehicles are involved.
20
@Joe Sabin Spending $80 billion on unproven technology (that has, alas, already killed people) when spending about an 1/8th of that would provide protected bike lanes and better pedestrian options in just about every American city is far more depressing to me.
26
@Joe Sabin thank you.
9
Boy, do I agree about right turn on red. Drivers almost never look right. And of course the pedestrian "Walk" signal here is just wishful thinking.
It's another manifestation of the bigger, faster, richer individual having priority over the lives of others (property and profits over people). Really most Americans are OK with this. If a self-driving car is programmed to make a choice between hitting a pedestrian or bumping a parked car, what will it be?
6
On top of the astounding numbers of Americans injured or killed by cars each year, numerous studies show that driving causes us more unhappiness than any other activity. Cars can be a part of the future but not at the current rate. For cities to be even remotely livable places, leaders must take a hard look at how much space cars require, including parking.
We must also confront the fact that infrastructure for cars is roasting our cities and driving urban heat island effect. Black asphalt retains and radiates heat hours after the sun has set. This phenomenon kills dozens and hospitalizes thousands each year.
Cities must be made for human beings and not cars.
69
Almost all of the injuries cited in this article were in urban areas - so maybe we should reduce cars in urban areas (where people are getting hit) instead of proposing sweeping policies like, "Banning all passenger auto-driving vehicles above a certain weight and front grill height."
3
@Ben - Also, part of the most comprehensive pedestrian-impact-friendly designs is a requirement to INCREASE the contact area between a pedestrian victim and the front of the vehicle, to distribute the impact over a larger area of the pedestrian's body - people survive more with fewer injuries under that scenario. This writer does not even appear to be aware of those facts.
This is a very emotionally-involved writer who does appear to be command of the latest and most accurate information on the subject. Being emotionally involved is fine, of course, but it has to be combined with actual factually accurate reporting.
2
@Ben Yes. And this kind of proposal is the kind of thing that drives rural Americans nuts. If you go to most rural areas, you'll see a LOT of pickup trucks. Sure, some people in those areas buy trucks just because they want to - but most are towing and hauling things. You cannot do that with a Prius. The District of Columbia charges much higher registration fees and excise taxes for heavier personal vehicles. And in a city, that makes perfect sense. In a rural area it would be far less sensible.
1
@Bone Head
Sorry, my observations from living in rural areas show that the vast majority of pickup trucks are NOT towing and hauling things. Far more machismo than practicality involved in pickup truck purchases.
1
Computers dont drink, toke or text. They dont get distracted. They talk to other self driving cars without bias.
Self-driving cars may not be perfect, but without a doubt will be better than humans. This is inevitable, the next technological evolutionary step.
All assuming the network can be kept as secure as possible from hacking.
12
@megachulo And don't have hidden bugs or flaws...
Both HUGE assumptions on which lives will be literally, riding.
2
Self-driving vehicles will help tremendously -- but not until all vehicles are self-driving.
1
Just pay attention to current television commercials fpr new cars and even road tires. Predominantly they show their products moving at speed in city streets, on highways and off road. This is subliminal and tacit permission for similar real time behavior.
13
Almost every week walking in NYC I'm almost hit by cyclists, scooter-riders, and moped drivers who are not obeying the traffic signals. These collisions can also be lethal or lead to serious injuries. Cyclists in NYC are often terrible, with electric bikes easily going at 30MPH uphill on sidewalks, against traffic, through red lights: and the kinetic energy is enough to kill or maim.
Cars - far worse of course. Past time to invest in autonomous vehicle tech and as soon as it is better than people, phase out human drivers. It's not an either/or choice between autonomous cars or public transit, it's a both/and situation.
I see no problem with tags on pedestrians, either: we already carry smartphones that track our movements 24/7 and have no privacy anyway. At least let's add a measure of safety!
3
Our roads were never designed to accommodate bicycles let alone accommodate bikes and cars simultaneously. We need to rethink how we engineer them so that bikes can operate safely in a restricted lane. The cars themselves can be equipped with inboard computer systems that sense when we are approaching a bike rider or pedestrian even if the driver doesn't and slows down or breaks the car and sends an alarm signal. Cell phones and electronic devices should be banned from usage in car by the driver unless parked.
What would also help is to rethink our drivers training and licensing requirements. I believe that all vehicle drivers need a course on bicycle and pedestrian safety. Bicyclist need to be licensed if they are going to drive on the road and also be required to take a safety course. The arterial by my house has a designated bike lane, most of the riders are aware and ride safely, but just like some car drivers, some run red lights/stop signs and veer in front of a car without regards to safety.
I would agree that far too many vehicles are too large, too heavy and ride too high. I am often puzzled by the small in stature person driving a big honker of an SUV and they clearly do not have the best visibility.
As to better mass transportation, please talk to your congressman, they have stone walled this issue since forever.
5
As a population, we would be safer if there were fewer and smaller cars. But as individuals, each of us (and especially our children) is safer in our large SUV than we would be biking or walking on the edge of the road. The statistics bear that out.
So, our individual incentives lead the least efficient overall solution.
Economists have a name for this situation: the Prisoner's Dilemma.
There's no easy solution.
We could make criminal and civil penalties much stiffer for drivers who cause accidents or violate speed limits, run red lights, etc. But there are public costs and collateral consequences to impoverishing and locking up bad drivers. And should driving be a privilege for the rich, and an unaffordable luxury for the poor?
We could make cars more autonomous in anticipating and avoiding harm, but would that further discourage attentive driving? What happens when drivers trained to be inattentive climb back behind the wheel of a car without safety features?
We could tax vehicles by size, but what about large families? Do we ask people to 'prove' they need an SUV?
3
Someone mentioned "right on red." I miss the good old days, when stopping at a red light meant you stayed stopped until it turned green. Why must we feel pressured (honked at) to go on red when it's sometimes hard to see if there's any oncoming traffic? Can't we just sit peacefully for 30 seconds or so until the light turns green?
15
@Ben Calwell
Absolutely not! I have to go NOW so I can get to the next intersection in time to run the orange light so I can catch up to the cars ahead of me and get around them and get home fifteen seconds sooner so I can watch some stupid TV show or have a drink or stuff my face with potato chips, I'm a busy guy!
2
@Ben Calwell If you can't see then you don't have to make that right on red.
1
Communities throughout the USA are increasing their use of commuter rail for their transportation solutions.
Once upon a time public schools were given the task of teaching high school students how to drive- Drivers Ed. Apparently they don't do this anymore. They don't teach Civics or have physical education classes either. Their lunches are substandard and school districts allow vending machines on campus to sell sugar saturated beverages and junk food.
"I’m not so naïve..." you say. I think you are and your solutions are not realistic and are very expensive to implement.
3
My husband rides his bike to work every day. It's only 3.5 miles each way, but it's in heavy city traffic. Between the distracted-by-cellphone criminals (yes, you are), the speeders (ditto), and the road ragers (likewise), it's simply not safe. But there's nothing I can do. I just cross my fingers and hope he comes home.
If I ever hear the doorbell ring around 6pm and look out to see a cop or two standing on my porch, I'll know what that means.
8
I was hit head on in Plano TX in 1997 as I crossed an intersection on a green light for me and the car on the opposite direction made a left turn. The driver pull over and waited in the car while I laid there on the asphalt unconscious. People walking by assisted me and dragged me and my bike off of the intersection. I was bleeding badly. Days later the driver came to my house and apologized. The driver said that the insurance instructed not to assist anyone and to wait for EMS.
2
Driving is the most dangerous thing most of us do. Once perfected self-driving cars will save countless lives. In the mean time we must not let anti-regulatory fervor allow the technology to be deployed too soon. But neither should we let the dangers of premature deployment stop us from developing something that can save so many lives and be transformative in so many other ways.
2
The Netherlands had the choice to go with ever more cars and roads or something else. They chose to go with bicycles. If you haven't seen the YouTube videos of bicycling in the Netherlands, it is quite astounding. Half the working population in Amsterdam commute to work daily on a bicycle.
19
@Eric The Netherlands is quite small, and flat. It was also one of the countries destroyed in two vicious wars in the last 85 years. Their infrastructure had to be rebuilt, no one had money for cars. Their experience is unique to other small, flat, European countries, e.g., Belgium. It does not apply to most of the rest of the world.
1
All true but Allison buried the lead, which is that the trend towards larger vehicles with taller hoodlines has made things much more dangerous for all vulnerable road users (pedestrians of course, but also bicyclists, motorcyclists, and users of the various 'micromobility' options.
Virtually none of these huge personal vehicles are purchases of necessity. Selfish drivers merely imagine they themselves are safer in them.
I'm waiting for the first massive class action suit, filed on behalf of those killed/injured by these vehicles -- because manufacturers have never made any effort to warn buyers that they've chosen a vehicle far, far more likely to kill or maim another person.
Even gun manufacturers pretend to care how their products are used, and warn buyers (however insincerely) that their purchase is potentially deadly and should be used with care.
Makers of giant SUVs and pickups just tell us how powerful we'll feel at the wheel. Victims of these vehicles should definitely be able to sue the manufacturers who failed to warn buyers of the added risk associated with giant, ridiculous vehicles that are totally unsuited to day-to-day driving.
22
@Mark Gardiner
How are you certain that huge personal vehicles aren't necessary? What if I tow a trailer for work? What if there's no/little public transportation? Do I have to buy a Toyota Corolla to use on the weekends to get groceries?
And how would warning labels reduce vehicle-pedestrian fatalities? I don't think they'll be very effective in an accident...
I'm no fan of the ridiculously large F350s people use to drive to their desk jobs but you can't change behavior with warning labels...
1
@Dave If 90% of the people driving SUVs and pickups only use them for personal transport, and 10% work with them, I don't have to know which specific people are exposing everyone else to additional risk to know that most of those drivers are doing that. You need to tow a trailer? So fine; you're in that 10%.
As for warning labels not helping in an accident? What if they were printed on huge mattresses strapped to the front of those F350s? Just kidding. Of course they won't help in an accident, but shouldn't those fragile, vain, selfish, wasteful drivers be forced to at least acknowledge the additional risks they take -- especially because they take on those risks for others, not themselves.
I agree though; warning labels may not be very effective. But it they had no effect at all, the tobacco industry wouldn't spend billions fighting them around the world.
4
@Mark Gardiner These same type drivers seem to think removing or enhancing their mufflers so they sound like airplane engines makes them cool or something. What it does is ruin our neighborhoods and make people want to move. Obnoxious and selfish.
It's primarily a cultural problem. Our society simply accepts dangerous driving and mechanical absurdities.
If there were the will, we would clamp down on drunk, drugged, gadgeting, speeding, tailgating, and other extremely dangerous behavior. The solution to such does not take technical breakthroughs or academic studies. It simply takes a social agreement that we will not accept 40,000 Americans slaughtered needlessly each year.
Cost? We spend untold billions and huge inconvenience worrying about terrorists in airplanes, because 3,000 were killed on 9/11. We can afford a few billion to pay for more cops, prosecutors, judges, and jails to take off the road and, more important, hopefully deter negligent assault (and murder) with a deadly weapon, because that is what it really is.
But, there is no will to do this. Instead, we raise speed limits (using significantly more gasoline) and pretend that the solution is a technical one. And that, if it were not so serious, would be a real laugh. Bumpers were put on cars for protection, to bump into each other, which originally they did. Now we allow bumpers of very different heights, so they often function as crash enhancers. Many new cars no longer even have emergency brakes. And as to focusing on driving, that becomes harder and harder as more screens, mechanical voices, and myriad forms of internet connectivity in cars encourage anything but watching the road.
The solution is right in front of us.
The problem is in the mirror.
35
@Steve Fankuchen
We also accept dangerous walking and riding as an OK cost for keeping ourselves busy every minute 24/7.
1
@Steve Fankuchen Clamping down on dangerous driving as you said would lead to the incarceration of millions of Americans destroying lives because of human mistakes made by the wheel. Life is dangerous and the only solution to lowering fatalities is autonomous vehicles.
1
@Steve Fankuchen
I blame the GOP. Pretty much every problem in America today can be directly linked to GOP policy, lack of good faith governing and the attitudes of their conservative base. But hey, at least those dirty transsexuals can't go in the ladies room, got to protect the womenfolk y'all.
I am hard pressed to identify a single challenge facing america that I can honestly say I believe was the fault of the democrats that the GOP has made an active attempt to repair for the benefit of all.
I would like to add this to this discussion. New features, even including electric motors (long overdue) are simply an excuse to keep the market as it is.
Recent cars (25 years old or so) are very well made, even cheap ones. I'd love to see a valid study comparing the energy cost of maintaining a vehicle for a long time compared to the costs of upgrading every 3 years - a guess at a typical lease period.
I do not own a car with less than 150k, they are all in excellent shape, because I take the time, and value the time and energy that went into their initial production. Admittedly, I am better equipped than most to do this, but promoting this kind of conservation is far outside the focus of most of the interest. All this development is done assuming the world we live in isn't going to change in fundamental ways, I think this is a big mistake.
2
@Not that someone - well, I had a vehicle for 16 years. It had 125K on it, and was in mechanically excellent condition.
Then, I took it in for a small repair, and the shop told me to not get it repaired again, as the under body of the vehicle was rusted out in areas, and they felt the vehicle was now unsafe and that if I were to get hit, the vehicle would not stay intact.
The majority of the time I owned that vehicle was in Michigan - and guess how they battle the road ice and snow? With salt. Despite huge gains in corrosion control with the automakers, simply living in that environment hampered my ability to keep that car for 20 years.
I take care of my vehicles such as you do, but a lot of this ability to keep the cars for long periods of time is dependent on you live in the US.
@Mary
Sure, I grew up in Pa. I know this well. I am sure it was a disappoitnment, if you are as attached to your car as I am.
My point is so much of the debate about features - safety or otherwise fail to account for ALL of the energy involved in manufacturer of a car, as well as a lot of fabricated notions of them being safer because of the bells and whistles meant to market newer cars.
I have driven on a race track - well over 120mph, in a then 30 year old car, with other drivers in similar vehicles, and never felt safer in a car. Drivers matter. AVs have no driver.
Ask anyone, the scary place is the public roads, no matter what they are driving, and I agree with the author of the article, autonomous vehicles are unlikely to improve this as much as one thinks. The mass of the car is implicated in the article, and I think this extends to other matters of conservation, and the clash of practical, realistic solutions versus the consumer/market culture.
We waste so much energy, enough to be appalled, altogether.
1
I am not sure I understand what Aliza is trying to convey. The laws of physics are such that the energy increases by the square of the speed. Human bodies are not designed to manage impacts above walking speed easily. Period.
As long as we value speedy transportation above walking speed, engineering and regulations will help decreasig the impact. A look at the statistics easily demonstrates the success over the last 100 years or so. There is no indication that such success will not continue with many options. Driver-less cars, smaller cars, need to drive less are all parts of that menu.
1
@Jzu "As long as we value speedy transportation above walking speed" Maybe we don't have to do this everywhere??
1
Quite the Luddite, eh. Ignoring red lights and stop signs, wrong way turns, lane drifting (into bike lanes), backing over people; these are exactly the kinds of things that "self-driving" vehicles would eliminate, or at least drastically reduce. I am a driver and a bike rider, and I've had close calls while riding, too. I've also seem cyclists cause, or nearly cause, accidents. I am interested in the conversations about getting rid of most POVs, but until that happens, and even after it does, having the vehicles that are left on the road be autonomous will make for much safer roads. Everyone thinks the everybody else is a bad driver, but we are all, after all, only human, autonomous vehicles aren't.
3
At the risk of being unpopular, I would like to mention two things. One is that fully-autonomous cars will for sure be much safer than human drivers. That will be the only way authorities will approve their use. I think about 40,000 people die in vehicle accidents in the U.S. each year. If a manufacturer like Tesla can show that on average their self-driving system is far safer and will have many fewer accidents, then I think it will be obvious that the authorities will approve them. No more silly and lethal mistakes by increasingly "distracted" drivers. Secondly, it would be interesting to know what % of the bicyclists killed were actually breaking traffic rules when the accident occured. Certainly not all, but having lived and driven in the U.S. for 20+ years, I'm amazed that not more bicyclists die. Traffic lights, stop signs, one-direction lanes seem just like things to be sure you don't get caught by neglecting, not things to follow. Not just once have I stopped my car, gotten out and explained to a bicyclist that just by luck and my quick reaction did he/she not get hit after not having followed traffic rules. I too hate to see anyone get hit or killed, but having seen the most outrageous rule-breaking by bicyclists, I have to say that the vehicle drivers are certainly not the only ones at fault.
21
@Anders There's lots of research showing that the drivers were at fault in the vast majority of incidents where they kill pedestrians and cyclists.
3
@Anders
I agree but as a biker I also see car drivers break every traffic law in the book every day. Roll through lights, signs, don't signal, park in bike lanes, make sudden U-turns in the middle of major streets, let people out on the left side.... we actually all break the rules no matter how we're moving, it's just that car drivers are have the most deadly vehicle at their command.
3
When Ralph Nader was traveling the country giving speeches to promote his book, Unsafe at Any Speed, he would ask the audience to raise their hands if a family member or close friend had been killed or seriously injured in an auto accident. At my college, everyone in the crowd, about 3,000, raised their hands. It was shocking. When the Google engineer working on the autonomous car project was quoted in the NYT that to be safe autonomous cars would have to be limited to 25 mph as long as they shared the road with non-autonomous cars, the honest sap was pilloried across the tech world, not for being wrong but for being honest. In tech, to be hones is to be an outcast. One of the poor sap's points was that autonomous cars would need their own right of way if they were to travel at speeds above 25 mph. But what is an autonomous car on its own right of way? It's transit. Shush, don't tell anybody.
3
The licensing procedure to drive a passenger vehicle in this country is a joke compared to European countries. I hope it can be made a bit more rigorous with respect to pedestrian and bicyclist safety.
22
Great article. And it's even clearer that cars are death machines when you consider how much they're contributing to climate change.
Unfortunately, land use decisions that the U.S. made in the post-war period make reducing automobile use a politically intractable problem. Suburbs don't have the density to support widespread transit use, because they preclude walkability. And we can't very well bulldoze all of the suburbs and start over.
So electric, self-driving cars are probably the only realistic solution for reducing emissions and improving safety for all road users. At least if we want to make headway in our lifetimes, as we must. In the longer term, the best thing local governments can do to encourage better land use is make walkable lifestyles more appealing than moving to the 'burbs--by investing in excellent car-free transit options (including rail and bike lanes), ensuring that cities are affordable and attractive places to live, improving urban public schools. And, frankly, we need to make driving in cities less convenient and stop shifting costs (to repair infrastructure, to store these huge vehicles in underground garages, and to deal with pollution and road runoff) from drivers to everyone else.
8
Almost all accidents are the result of human error. To say that driverless cars won't change anything is unwarranted nihilism.
8
@Will And of course there will be zero human error in the hardware and software for driverless cars.
Clearly written from the cocoon of a large urban area. In most of the "fly-over states," if you want to get anywhere, you HAVE to drive. I live exactly 7 miles from my place of employment, straight run, up a major artery. I'd love to be able to ride a bike, but the last three miles are 2-lane, with no shoulder, no bike lane and not even a side walk. No, I'm not doing that. On top of that, even though the city is laid out on a 1 mile grid system (by and large,) the city mass transit company uses a truly bizarre system of routes that cause such low ridership that they probably pump out more pollution per passenger mile than a car would, if driven directly point to point. On top of that, to make it to work by 6:00, I'd have to leave home, around 2:30 to 3:00, IF the buses ran at that time of the morning, which they don't.
14
@John Vesper What are you doing to change that? By what means do you imagine that the "cocoons" became the way they are? Yes, my urban area is more bikeable than where you live. I devote a decent amount of time to advocacy and volunteering to make it even more so.
10
When I was 13 and living in Brooklyn, I had virtually the exact same experience as the man who flew over the hood of the car after getting hit by a car turning left in front of him. Thank goodness these were in the days before SUV's b/c had the hood been higher, we would surely have been crushed under the tires.
I survived my injuries but the experience drastically altered the course of my life. I am afraid of cars. I have never owned a car and I do not drive. I hold my breath whenever I am even in a car. I would like to implore my fellow New Yorkers to pay attention when they are crossing the street or waiting on a corner. Stand back a few feet back from the corner while waiting to cross the street. There at least two stories daily in the NY tabloids about a car killing a pedestrian because the driver drove like a maniac and jumped the curb.
4
We've pretty much carved the world up (or at least the urban/suburban world) into a asphalt grid of little people islands separated by motor vehicle lanes. This impacts people and wildlife. If an alien arrived from another planet, their 1st impression might be that we are a planet designed for vehicles and 2 legged assistants who get them where they need to go. I drive everywhere so I'm not climbing on my pedestal here. It just amazes me sometimes that we can redesign how the whole planet works and barely notice what we've given up.
3
Self driving cars will solve this problem. Tesla's neural net for instance is growing exponentially in capability.
"In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes online on August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 AM, Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug."
1
@Joel The terminator scenario you suggest isn't accurate. It's an alpha male projection for a dystopian sci-fi plot. The reality is AI is coming online in the pockets of billions of people not in undergrad labs.
The biggest problem with cars is not that they are dangerous machines. It is that dangerous people drive them. True that fewer and smaller cars and reduced usage of cars for transportation is the best solution, but in lieu of that unlikely outcome, self-driving cars with appropriate application of technology is reasonable. The problem with the latter is that people will expect it to be perfect or they will otherwise deem it a failure. My instinct is that there would be far fewer deaths and injuries with this application of technology than with human fallibility behind the wheel, but society won't see that as acceptable - society will demand an absolute.
1
The article makes a contribution to our ongoing conversation about transportation by highlighting that car travel is not only expensive and time-consuming and polluting but also dangerous. Okay. But I think most of us know that car travel in the United States represents a set of tradeoffs and that other solutions (trains, buses, etc) had their own advantages and disadvantages. It's really convenient to travel by car in a giant country. I personally would love to see more investment in train travel, but it's a huge public goods problem that requires collective solutions, and its benefits would not be equally distributed.
1
I don't drive.I don't own a car. But live in Europe, where cars are not so necessary if one wants to get around.-
There is an obvious solution to the problem raised so well by this essay- Don't drive. if you don't have to, and if you do, drive less.
3
I was getting out of a cab on the right side. I opened the door and a bicyclist slammed on the brakes in front of me. Luckily no one was hurt. I didn't know I was exiting into a bike lane. From the back seat, I didn't see the markers. Being from a small town I was also unaware of bike lanes. I'll be more careful now. I can see how easily these accidents happen.
14
Self-driving cars are indeed part of the answer. I would not argue against fewer cars, nor smaller cars, nor more public transportation options (I lived in Europe for many years, and Europe is far ahead of us). But for the cars that will remain, autonomy has the potential to help a lot.
These vehicles will be able to see in all directions at once, and will be able to react far faster than humans. They will be able to share information with each other to avoid accidents. They will not be distracted by cell phones, and they will not get sleepy or drunk.
On top of this, they can significantly reduce the number of cars in total, significantly reduce space required for parking, and help usher in the electric revolution, because people won't need to own their own cars. A fleet of cars can be shared by users, and those cars can come to you when you need them, as well as recharge when you don't need them. Ideally, the total number of cars has to be large enough to handle peak demand only, which should be far fewer than we have now, which is almost as many as there are people in the US.
3
Yes, cars should be smaller, and slower. Much slower.
Don't allow them faster than 35 kph (20 mph) in urban areas, or 50 kph (30-35 mph) on suburban roads, not much faster on rural roads.
Highway speeds? Only on limited access highways.
And two big features in favor of driverless cars: they will obey speed limits, and they won't get road rage.
14
@Steve :O Or hacked and used as a weapon by a terrorist?
Larger cars and trucks can certainly inflict more severe injuries and digital distractions in new cars add to the problem of driver inattention. But the most significant factor in accidents is the lack of thorough driver training in the US and the licensing of almost anyone who can fog a mirror. Most European countries recognize this and driver training and licensing are far more rigorous and effective resulting in fewer accidents and injuries. Learning to properly drive and control a 3000+ pound vehicle capable of high speeds means more than learning to parallel park and understand the rules of the road. When emergencies occur, the vast majority if drivers are over their heads and react in all the wrong ways. Until we take driver training seriously, the statistics will not change.
3
Excellent article. As a long-time cyclist in DC and Baltimore, it is clear that the auto-centric nature of our roads and development needs to re-calibrated.
4
I am a survivor of traumatic brain injury: Car vs. bicyclist. I was only a half-mile from home in Pennsylvania when I was struck by the car, which was driven by an elderly woman who should not have been licensed at all. This was in 2007 just four years after my late wife underwent lung transplant surgery in Pittsburgh. I have yet to be in or even near a town that was walkable, not car-centric. My history also includes being doored once while cycling and being struck by a pickup truck that was atempting to leave a parking lot at the time it struck me as I walked on a sidewalk. That was in Vermont, oncre a state that prided itself on being bicycle-friendly. The great American car is a disaster that has unfolded over a century's time.
4
Over the last 60 years, 1 million people have been killed by drunk drivers, and 3-4 million have been injured. Of course, if our country, each state, etc. would of had a policy in place, that took the vehicle away from a driver on the first DUI charge for one year, we wouldn't been even talking about this. The reason that taking the license away doesn't work, is the fact that most of those who have had their license suspended, or taken away drive anyway, according to a former drunk driver who told me as much. They could of made those charged with drunk driving pay for a device that disables the vehicle in their garage, back yard, driveway, street, etc. However, we don't have intelligent people making policy in our states, and federal government, as they have been beholden to the liquor lobbyist industry. Then, there is the issue of speed. If the fine for speeding was like Switzerland, where you actually receive a ticker for going even 2 miles over the speed limit, we wouldn't have speeders for the most part. As soon as cell phones were common, there should of been a ban on using them while driving, and a $500-$1000 fine or more. However, it has taken 10 years for many states to put this in place, but not a big fine. You see, it is the fact that humans are very primitive people, who aren't up to the responsibility that comes from driving a vehicle. Until we see that it is humans, and not the vehicle, and make policy accordingly, we will miss what will save lives.
4
My son died last April after a car made a left turn in front of his motorcycle, the driver was cited for failure to yield right of way. I doubt that much will come out of this, still in the courts. Ironically just a few months prior to this tragic accident I had commented to him and his mother that future societies will look back on us with disdain towards our incredibly brutal transportation systems. I can understand that in the early part of the last century when model T's flooded the roads that it was practical. But for the life of me I cannot believe that in the early part of this century we are still driving these huge machines at incredible speeds passing in opposite directions within a few feet of each other. I suspect that the larger issue here is a matter of resources, primarily money, but how long are we going to continue with this deadly transportation method, it is obvious that technology and commitment could go a long way in reducing these tragic accidents, when are we going to move forward. Our lives are worth more than this and it makes no sense to me that huge semi trucks share our roads with cars, motorcyles and bikes.
20
A thought for the poor. There is an unfortunate complication in all plans to improve road safety, both the stiffer fines/expensive gas side and the better bike lanes/walking city side. The poor need their cars to live. Rural poor have absolutely no choice. Urban poor live in the places that are not served by good options. When the city improves access, the neighborhood becomes better, and the poor are pushed somewhere else -- where they need a car.
Solutions are needed! Don't get me wrong. But as we innovate, we need to remember some harsh realities about how resources are distributed.
22
@adam hammond Contra stereotypes, people who commute by bike are generally lower income and people by car are higher income. This is what census data shows.
Human-powered street design and increasing the amount and efficiency of public transit are options that are 100% focused on serving low-income people.
2
@dporpentine I think we agree. Although, here in Chicago, 100% focus on the poor is nowhere near the truth. A quick tour of the city by L will show you all of the nice places to live ... and a fraction of the city. There are plans for an express transit tunnel (i.e. bypassing the poor) to O'Hare, for crying out loud. Fighting stereotypes of the poor is worthwhile, but just getting arm chair urban planners to remember that poor people exist is hard enough. The census data is important, the Community Survey Data especially ... for example, the pernicious inverse correlation between property values and bus commute times.
3
@adam hammond true about Chicago. The lower income, higher minority neighborhoods are by far the least well-served by public transportation, and biking from those areas would take real commitment and a lot of bike-unfriendly routes.
3
I often remember my grandparents’ & parents’ stories about life without automobiles. They lived in one of the most isolated & rural areas in the country, but could get wherever they needed to go by combinations of bus & train. When my grandparents bought their first car it was entirely as a luxury / recreational item, used perhaps 2 or 3 times a month. It took, in the early to mid 20th century, enormous investments of public & private money to reorganize our entire physical & economic infrastructure to conform to the needs of private automobiles. It will take comparable levels of investment to change back to more rational & sustainable (& ultimately much less expensive) transportation systems.
23
This is true. For most of us, proximity to cars -- not terrorists, not criminals, not [your fear goes here] -- is the most dangerous part of our day.
But it gets worse. Cars are what, 125 years old? That's not much older than Catherine Deneuve's mother. Over such a small period of time in human history, think what else they have accomplished:
--a human landscape defined by roads and cars
--amoral geopolitics defined by oil prices
--an addiction to fossil fuels that appears ruinous to the planet on a scale way out of sync with the time-history of our cars.
What can you do? When some extraterrestrials come along to exhume us and do a retrospective, they'll have a good laugh at us and our cars.
18
Seems to me we really need a separate system of bike trails to keep bikes and cars separate.
7
Articles like this one - where "even self-driving tech won't help" - are exactly what conservatives think that liberals want:
Everybody on a train, a bike, or walking.
Which works in the Netherlands, but not quite as well in America's vast hinterland ("flyover country"), where these things simply aren't scalable options.
19
@Chris Agreed. Self-driving is precisely what is required to make cars safe, and it's coming fast.
2
@Chris Everywhere across the US government puts much more money into infrastructure that prioritizes private vehicle ownership than it does into infrastructure supporting more efficient and less violent means of transportation.
Change that and it all becomes scalable.
Also, buses.
11
@Chris But we do have many different types of areas to consider. Can't we adjust our transportation accordingly? Why do urban residents need to live with the approach used in rural Iowa?
7
Reducing the number physical space occupied by cars in our world is a noble goal, but its doomed to failure in this country.
Exhibit A: Jimmy Carter. We won't be adopting the metric system or turning down the heat any time soon either.
However, there is a pathway to reducing the massive car-nage that we are living with.
A concerted push on traffic safety could force states to effectively regulate driving privileges, instead of handing out licenses like candy. Yes, it will cost more - $200 a year is more than fair to operate the world's deadliest machine, but maybe $500 would better give drivers motivation to keep their eyes on the road or re-consider public transportation.
Here in Oregon we have a rampant problem with drunken driving. Someone dies practically every day. Meanwhile, we have a state 'Liqour Control' agency that does virtually nothing other than sell liquor, push paperwork, and occasionally bust a vendor for selling to a minor. A bartender lets someone get blackout drunk and sends them on their way? Not our problem.
I know a guy who was arrested, blind drunk, driving the wrong way up the freeway. He even tried to run from the cops. Two months later, he's back on the road with a "hardship" permit. He's not drinking - for now.
There's plenty of low-hanging fruit that could save a lot of people from heartache.
6
Important note: Driving is a privilege, not a right. This has been repeatedly affirmed by the US Supreme Court. If drivers can't behave, we need to remove privileges to drive in places where cars cause problems.
56
We could do so much more. But until we do, riding a bike in a large city is, I'm sorry to say, suicide. It shouldn't be, but it is.
When gas prices go back up, we'll revert to normal-sized vehicles, which may help a little.
10
@JR And yet we think we really give people freedom of choice...it's really freedom to choose the most selfish and aggressive way to do things.
1
NYC. Two years before I moved here from Columbus Ohio I only had a bike. No car. Two close calls. One was my fault. One was a road rage near miss. I took one look at NYC and left the bike behind.
Everyone in every mode of transportation in NYC including pedestrians use a lot of distracted, self-involved awareness to negotiate the city.
NYC has gone to significant expense to install protected bike lanes. Fine. I'm for it. We need it. We should continue to refine it. But in a lot of cases, it significantly adds to congestion and increases the likelihood of human-automobile contacts.
If you are on a bicycle or a pedestrian, it is your problem. Even if it is the cars fault you are the dead or damaged one. It won't matter if you had the light.
I saw the results of a bike-pedestrian accident in Central Park. The pedestrian died. There was a lot of blood.
3
If fuel for vehicles costed $5 a gallon, you'd have much smaller vehicles in a few years. That would solve much of the problem. And generate a lot of revenue for governments to pay down debt.
Sometime we could consider doing something rational.
284
@Zan I doubt it. For the increasing numbers of upper-middle-class people who own hybrid or electric cars, the cost of fuel is largely irrelevant. All higher fuel prices would do is make it more expensive for average people (who are also less likely to live in high-priced "walkable" neighborhoods) to get to work and back.
28
@Zan, agreed. Would also reduce driving in general.
14
@Zan Agreed that would be a good idea, but more likely you would accelerate the adoption of electric cars than take cars off the road.
10
It is certainly possible technologically for stoplights and stop signs to force braking in oncoming cars. It would be more difficult but still very possible to program general collision avoidance. I wouldn't hold your breath, but someday, and perhaps soon... these things are simpler than autonomous vehicles, which are being actively researched. The real problem will be the millions of cars still on the road without these features.
Great article and as an avid pedestrian (who drives a tiny eco sedan but wishes no driving were needed) I concur completely. California has set the standard on emissions law despite the administration's appalling attempts to challenge it. Perhaps a city like NYC could do the same on vehicle size. Just carry out a prohibition on vehicles in Manhattan that aren't small, ticket the violators to hundreds of dollars. Then it would spread from there naturally.
46
@Onward and Upward NYC already has laws against full size tractor trailers operating outside a handful of highways, and they're openly flaunted. There will be no difference as long as the writers and implementors of policy (from politicians and traffic planners to police doing enforcement) have a windshield perspective.
We're starting to see some changes now that pedestrian friendly designs and bike lanes are being introduced, but just look at the NYPD's routine practice of parking in them.
5
@Onward and Upward
Manhattan has a very large percentage of trucks. They bring the food and goods that residents need for living.
5
I drive 15 miles every weekday to work, on a combination of highways, busy suburban roads and city streets, and every day I am appalled by the driving I witness in this big, unregulated free-for-all that the roads in the tri-state area are. Attention spans flickering like loose light bulbs, basic driving skills that you would expect from children. We will never get rid of cars, but driving standards need to be picked up off the pavement and raised much, much higher.
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@AK
Try South Carolina if you want to see some really bad, dangerous, discourteous driving as well as a lot else.
8
It isn't the cars, it's the drivers!
Exactly. It is appalling how careless and discourteous people are. Driving while yakking on a phone, rudeness, exceeding already higher speed limits, not maintaining proper car length distances between cars...I could go on and on with the poor behaviors and driver skills I see every day.
No one seems to be aware there are turn signals on their cars...or dimmers.
Have to say, I do remember when gas prices jumped some years ago, life on the road was so much nicer.
20
It would be great to drive less. There are many ways to make it possible including encouraging employers to let people work remotely, revamping mass transit, and building walkable cities and towns. I already work from home many days and take a train to a nearby city when i do go into the office. But there's no way I'm biking. Most of the people who have been hit by cars in the article where bicyclists. I did try biking to my local train station. When a car nearly hit me as they turned left, as the driver stared right at me, I decided to hang up my helmet.
36
Tesla's approach to self-driving focuses on vision. The object is to understand what objects are (truck, car, bike, pedestrian) and anticipate next actions via visual cues. Their sampling of data comes from a few hundred thousand cars with the necessary hardware, so they have the requisite data to feed their neural engine and human annotators. The result will be exponential improvement, so expect competent full-self-driving cars from them sooner than later.
As far as fewer cars on the road, robo-taxis are a great way to accomplish that as well.
3
It sounds like we need to separate all the pedestrians and bike riders from the cars. Fine with me.
50
@J Barrymore In Berlin I saw bike lanes that did not parallel auto traffic and it seemed much safer. Or even having bike lanes between the sidewalk and auto parking would help protect riders. Surely we can give up a lane or some road space to carve out a protected area for cyclists.
16
@J Barrymore For the most part, that's what they've done in the Netherlands. At any major intersection, there is a sidewalk for pedestrians, a protected bike lane, and a lane or lanes for cars. In addition, there is a separate traffic signal for each group. When your light turns green, you know that you will be safe. For this reason, you see far fewer Netherlanders running red lights on their bikes than you do Americans. On top of that, just about anyone in a car was riding a bike the day before. See the recent article in The New Yorker for more details. We can do this too.
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@D G Hill Agreed that proper bike / scooter infrastructure would result in better bicycle behavior. A recent study here in Chicago found 47 bike lane violations near the University of Illinois - Chicago campus in less than 30 minutes - yet that is where bicycles and scooters are supposed to be. Technically bikes and scooters are not legal on the sidewalk. It's not surprising that bike and scooter riders will do what they have to do sometimes, regarding obeying traffic rules, in order to stay alive.
I was able to. switch to commuting by bike last year. I love it so much and it has been so great for me; I wish more people could safely have that experience, and I'd like less cars on the road!
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I think you should include wildlife in the victim count. I am sickened daily by the sight of a squirrel or some other creature, destroyed because someone was too careless to notice them.
I love to drive. I do every single thing I possibly can to not hit ANYthing. Imagine all the policies you like. Personal responsibility is the single biggest influence on automobile safety.
Where does it go with autonomous vehicles?
This idea was bad from the get go. A fantasy for capitalists and closet totalitarians.
Want to innovate? Find an alternative to requiring people to muddle in the rat race to live a decent life. Competition, scheduling, limits, stress, all of these things contribute to reckless selfishness, expressed in the poor driving I witness every single day.
We have the capacity to make massive changes that benefit everyone, but it would be at the expense of the normal arc of inflation a few rely on to become wealthy, or maintain their wealth.
How many issues must present themselves to say we ALL must change. I'd be happy to only use my Jeep get far out in the wilderness. The rest of the time it can sit. Happy to bike, but I can't fit in a normal schedule if I do so.
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Life is full of deadly dangers. That is hardly a revelation. Cars are part of modern life and much of the world depends upon them. What do you propose as a realistic alternative?
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@Frank Miller: Several alternatives were discussed in the column, along with the acknowledgement that we're not going to get rid of cars altogether.
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@Frank Miller There were many deaths associated with horse-drawn conveyances too. There no absolute safety when it comes to transportation. But we can do better. There are some good suggestions in other comments.
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@Frank Miller Self-driving cars, cars with advanced pedestrian protection systems.
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I would like to see all texting and car phone usage by drivers banned and very strong penalties imposed on offenders. At least with vehicles there are legal requirements in almost every state for training, licensing, insurance, inspections etc. (SC doesn't inspect vehicles and you can look at some of them with bald tires, spewing oil with their bumpers hanging off and observe the consequences of South Carolina's hands off inspection policy).
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Agree. No texting or smart phone function on a device that is moving more than 15 mph. Disable location services? No texting/smart phone usage.
As for passengers, too bad. Just have to pull over.
We had a very nice society before all these technologies, so limiting their usage in these circumstances is a worthwhile give-back.
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@R. Anderson
Cars hit and killed pedestrians even before the cell phone was invented. It may help a bit but won't solve the problem.
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@gARG
As a long time biking commuter, I would reduce that to no texting while in motion. Pedestrians are often the worst on city streets because of their devices. Oblivious to the extreme.
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Three things to add to this:
1) we need to compel drivers to submit evidence of medical fitness to drive at each renewal
2) we need to retest drivers on the road rules at renewal - there are some in MA who still think they can go through a stop sign 3 at a time.
3) we need more enforcement of road rules, tougher penalties for drivers who violate them, and automatic revocation of licenses for any hit and run, reckless driving, or OUI offense.
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@Multimodalmama
Would you propose similar standards for cyclists and pedestrians who wish to navigate public by-ways? I mean, you can walk around your own property all you want but if you're going to walk down 5th Ave. you should be able to prove that you can keep your head up, concentrate (off your phone), stay to the right, stop gawking and know when to go and when to stop.
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@Chris
NO.
Cars are heavy machines that weigh 3000-5000 pounds, are frequently driven over 40mph, and as such can easily kill multiple people. That's why we require licensing and training to gain the privilege of driving them.
Bicyclists weigh 100-300 pounds and rarely exceed 20mph, and as such rarely kill anyone other than the cyclist.
Do the math. A 4000-pound car going 30mph has 80 TIMES the kinetic energy of a 200-pound cyclist going 15mph.
Pedestrians don't kill anyone in collisions.
Your suggestion of licensing pedestrians and bicyclists is ludicrous and shows extreme windshield perspective.
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On two occasions while walking with someone else I was struck by a car pulling out with the driver looking the other way for traffic.
Both times I ended up splayed across the hood but uninjured.
The second time the coworker walking with me could barely suppress her mirth at my plight. She had no idea how much she revealed about character.
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Thanks for this. The damage that cars due to pedestrians, cyclists and the ambient environment is incalculably great. Changing the mode of power (gasoline or diesel to electricity) or the entity in charge of steering (dumb human being to indifferent machine) will, at best, reduce this damage but slightly, The bottom line is this: having people move around at relatively great sppeds encased in a small tank is a terrible idea from almost every perspective.
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@richard by slightly you mean by 90%, right? That is the scientific, educated guess for how much human error can be avoided with self-driving cars.
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I'm all for a lot less cars and a lot more mas transportation. Unfortunately a whole lot of my fellow countrymen don't agree.
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This op-ed is an appeal to emotion rather than logic. An old saying in the sciences is that the plural of anecdote is not data. Yet the big feature here is a collection of anecdotes.
The newest cars have pedestrian-detection and collision avoidance systems that will save many lives. Typically these features spread from high-end vehicles to mainstream ones in just a few years.
Autonomous cars will take some time to perfect - far longer than the industry visionaries have predicted - , but eventually they will be almost incapable of hitting each other or a pedestrian.
Finally, rather than ban cars ban bad drivers. Rigorous enforcement of license suspensions, jail terms for DUI, and mandatory road tests every few years for elderly drivers would all go a long way.
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Safety advocates such as NHTSA, GHSA and TRB all agree that the chance of surviving a car-pedestrian/cyclist crash at 20 mph is much better than at 30 mph. It is unfortunate that they seem so uninterested in the safer, easier to learn and age retain, Left Foot Braking Method that would stop a vehicle from 30 mph in a shorter distance than it normally could from 20 mph! Tradition and Testosterone can be a terrible thing. Note: Simply using your left foot to brake is NOT, repeat NOT the Left Foot Braking Method.
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