this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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It’s not the drivers. I suppose you could say drivers have become slightly more distracted due to touchscreen consoles, but the real issue is vehicles keep getting larger and pedestrians no longer ride up the hood onto the roof when being hit by a car. Instead you are hit by a 5 foot tall wall (grill) and die, and the driver doesn’t brake because they never even saw you due to the enormous blind spot in front of their truck/suv
EDIT: I'm getting a disturbing amount of pushback on this comment, so I'm dropping this video here: These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us | Not Just Bikes
It feels dishonest to say it isn't drivers. You could see them coming from the sides more if you pay more attention?
Is driving with a blind spot NOT something we are taught to check and eliminate and are the fault of the driver to chose that vehicle/not adjusting or getting mirrors, not driving slower, etc?
I think we're lying to ourselves if we don't think people could do better.
In theory. But how will that behavioral change be implemented? In my view this is unrealistic and often used as a cop out to avoid the more difficult infrastructural changes needed. Many countries in Europe have developed proven strategies to reduce pedestrian deaths but in the US we choose not to implement them. The carnage will continue until we decide we’re actually going to solve the problem.
You discount that we have a horrible and state-by-state driving rules and training? We do not have skilled people on the road, we have people who have no respect for the machine they are in. Do you not think the government could regulate that, too?
Some room for improvement here but many people will ignore training regardless of how in-depth it may be. So I think the bigger issue is the infrastructure that allows and encourages unsafe behavior.
If it’s going to work you’ll need meaningful levels of enforcement and punishments for unsafe behavior, including license suspension. Suspensions are rarely used today because it’s seen as “too harsh” for most infractions. The lack of alternatives to car based transit makes it an economic death sentence. So again, the solution will need changes to and investment in infrastructure.
But the problem is bad so I’m certainly open to these educational approaches in combination with other changes. What I’m not open to is the common attitude of “It’s those other bad drivers’ fault so I personally don’t need to change anything.” Until this gets better I think all road users have a moral obligation to advocate for change.
I edited my post to include a video I highly recommend you watch as it will better explain what I was saying.
Here's one of the comments on the video:
Oh wow. One event! Definitely clearly we don't have a road full of people who were teens who halfassed their license in big vehicles they likely should have more license to handle.
But you know. We currently dont have a federal standards for regular class C i am sure we can definitely just get smaller cars made, that'll fix underqualified drivers.
You tell me a story of a driver who doesn't pay attention to the number of people who enter and leave the walkways and the car is the issue?
it feels more like everyone in the entire society is more stressed and desperate and that's reflected in the driving
I remember seeing studies in the US^1 that showed that wreckless driving had drastically increased during the pandemic... and stayed high afterwards.
Everyone is at the end of their rope. The problem is that everyone is also taking that out on everyone else, even though everyone else is in the exact same position.