The 'funny' thing about the way the media reports car crashes compared to other transportation-accidents is that when something other than a car has an accident, it's treated as the tragedy it is. But car crashes are so rarely reported upon lately because they're a statistic by design.
Last Saturday in Galveston, Texas, a drunk driver in an SUV killed 4 people that were riding a golf cart on a residential street. If you read the way the media coverage has been slanted, you'd think the golf cart was the public menace.
When an "accident" happens no one ever blames the highway/road engineers as much as they should for allowing the road widening or whatever project to even happen in the first place
This. I frequently watch r/idiotsincars videos, and is so strange how we are so fast to judge who is behind the wheel, instead of judging the obviously flawed system/design
@@viniciuslippel7251 That sub is vicious to anyone that brings up the fact that cars are inherently dangerous. They truly believe that this could never happen to them because its everyone else that is an idiot. Despite tiny human mistakes that we all make can turn into fatal life ending events.
There should be a law that if you are allowed to pass on a road, it must be divided by a physical barrier, and access to the road segments should be severly limited
That actually reminds me of when I brought up shitty planning during my risk assessment class when I was taking my drivers license. (Yes, euro urbanist, takes a drivers license.) Like what the heck! Having residential lots with bushes that extend all the way to the edges of a *70km/h 1+1 country road.* With gates opening directly onto said *70km/h road.* Is insanely dangerous! "Who's at fault for this child dying? The parents? The driver? His wife?" Oh Idk, maybe the planner who was negligent enough to allow this in the first place? All the they could respond with was. "Well the police wouldn't take that into consideration." Which, fair, they wouldn't... :/ Also later when asked "How can one reduce their risk when driving?" I responded with something like "Don't drive. This is Sweden, not America. Public transit exists here." :P
Cars give the illusion of control and with that illusion people think that it won't happen to them because, after all, they're in control. When you're doing 80 mph down the interstate, you don't have the control you think you do. When you're in traffic you don't have control, you're just part of the flow (or lack thereof). But, at least you have the illusion of control, and that is, apparently, what freedom is.
My mother almost died in a serious accident when a restaurant pumped water onto a road in winter, I totalled my first car when I pushed it too hard trying to impress a girl, a coworker was killed right after starting his job, and I've personally witnessed several accidents and been first on the scene. This is why the 'cost of doing business' argument makes me so angry, because it simply isn't true. We must give options to people who can't, shouldn't, don't want to drive. We have no other choice. Traffic calming also works. Maybe I'll make a video about that in the future...
If you do, please also mention the Netherlands as a good example. I'm incredibly biased because I am Dutch, but from having seen the difference in infrastructure design i believe it's a good example to emulate. Specifically, livable neighborhoods with lots of traffic calming, rigorously separating bikes from high speed traffic and providing safe crossings when they do meet, and providing both decent local and intercity public transportation. Not all of those translate perfectly (intercity transportation in particular because its effectiveness is heavily based on geographic layout and population density) but it's about taking a look at what does work rather than what doesn't. In the Netherlands, we were on the same car centric path as the US, but we chose to take a different path (through strong and consistent public pressure) so it can be done.
@@alex2143 I envy your infrastructure! A 20 minute drive for me tends to be a 90 minute trip using several buses, so I just ride my bike on the sidewalk or side streets instead.
You and I have similar relationships to cars being from rural areas. They are worshipped but we both have seen lives end because of them. I truly believe rural towns can be made non car dependent.
My problem with govts telling manufacturers to produce electric cars is that they seem like they don’t consider the fact the freeway will eventually become clogged with Teslas. Invest in buses light rails and greenways.
Exactly. Tesla IS part of the government, the same way Facebook/meta is. They want people dependant on purchasing expensive items. That's why credit checks exists
I was t-boned at highway speeds less than 2 months ago and if things had gone a sightly different way, I wouldn't be writing this comment. Now that I'm starting to feel better, I'm having so many family members tell me that I need to start looking for a new car so I can "get back on that horse" and it's really upsetting. I didn't like cars before the accident and have been seeking a way to go car-free in the American suburbs, and everyone looks at me like I'm crazy for choosing to ride my bicycle. I have driven a handful of times and I'm okay with it, but I do not want a car. Also insurance companies are assholes in case that wasn't obvious
@@rojaalborada Thanks for the support, my dad and my uncle have been car mechanics in the suburbs for their whole lives so they have a hard time imagining anything different unless you live somewhere like NYC. In the end though it doesn't matter what they think anyways :)
You're never going to please everyone, so you may as well please yourself. Those around you are living their lives how they see fit. They must allow you the same right. It would be your money wasted on the car ......not theirs. Avoid buying a car. Change begins with early trendsetters.
People from the US who visit Europe often wonder why our roads are so narrow. I had planning streets in university. They are the perfect size to prevent the encouragement of speeding. Ours are not too narrow, yours are too wide.
@@blanco7726 A lot of it is probably cultural too you know. Here in America, we tend to rather have more size for our buck. Where in an other parts of the world. Having so much space, might not be consider as much of an appropriate necessity or not as economical as here in the US. Point is, not every continent in the world see eye to eye with everything. Including the size of what our cars and road should be, sorry to say. It also really not our place, to say who right or wrong in this debate ether. That just the pain of having different cultures in different continents of the world.
It really is disgusting that society at large just accepts these countless deaths as commonplace, a worthy sacrifice to the automobile. Things desperately need to change, especially as the number of fatalities caused by cars continues to increase.
They are not commonplace. Look at the hours driven versus fatalities. Fatalities are statistically irrelevant. I'd say soyciety pushing transformers is disgusting.
@@phu5005 it's not cars, it's the bad infrastructure. countries with good pedestrian and automobile infrastructure don't have so many car related casualties
@@carstarsarstenstesenn The US also seems to be less ruthless in their policing of road rules. In most countries you get booked for doing 1km/h over the limit. In the US, it seems like everybody is going 20km/h over the limit.
Important message here no one else wants to admit. Thank you for making this. That murder car crash ( not accident ) happened 15 minutes away from where I live. Let's be honest, people are distracted, stressed out, drunk, belligerent narcissistic aholes who are behind the wheel of speeding death machines.
It is no one, but it is not enough. Part of this is economic incentives to keep car crashes high. If something is undercharged for, it is used as an incentive.
I remember a video of a truck driver saying that he wasn't willing to die to save other bad drivers. That video shocked me. How inefficient must our system be that a driver feels so threatened on the streets? We are really out there risking our lives EVERYDAY
American roads are the most dangerous I've ever seen (in a developed country of course). Multiple lane intersections are extremely dangerous, I wouldn't drive there.
Probably fairly safe in a truck, when a truck driver kills someone it makes the news. Not so for cars. Rail freight is better, but truck drivers, bus drivers, etc. are head and shoulders above mouth breathers who don't do it professionally and ought to catch the train.
My favorite comparison is, “What outrage would there be if 40,000 people died while sitting on the toilet each year?” For something considered essential to the way we live, it’s insane how easy it is to die. You don’t need to do anything, you just need to lose focus for a single second.
The same outrage as there are about injuries caused by walking down steps? There isn’t much because it’s understood that walking up and down steps can pose a risk. It’s understood and accepted.
@@MatthewChenault maybe, but also the risk is significantly smaller, and there are alternatives that exist in public places (like elevators) for people who are not safely able to use stairs. Whereas more cars pose a higher risk to every person who cannot use a car (6-7,000 pedestrians are killed by cars each year in the US, despite there being far fewer pedestrians than motorists).
A friend of mine was in a car accident which was not her fault and her car was on fire and she barely got out and now she’s too afraid to drive even though she’s not that old. But in her city she doesn’t have many alternatives to get many places even though it’s a major city so her friend has to take her places so she can’t be really independent.
In the US, don't remember where, but a woman on a bicycle was killed this week by the opening of driver-side door, and she was in a bike lane. Makes no sense to have bike lanes next to parked cars.
I was thinking about this recently because I was getting insurance quotes for my new home. I found that my car insurance would be higher than my home insurance at a lot of places, despite my car being less than 10% the worth of my home, because of how common car accidents are.
I live near one of the Deadliest Stroads in Pennsylvania, Rt 65 also known as the ohio river boulevard, and the speed limits are not set appropriately, and there is too much access to the stroad from driveways and parking lots. The parts that are horrible undivided multilane stroad sections have the same speed limits as the safe divided highway sections with low access. What makes it even worse is that almost all of the towns along the stroad are walkable, and drunk driving is rarely a cause of accidents here, It is poor road design. I try to avoid driving it as much as I can, and now take the interstates as much as possible, because even though speeds are much higher, the design is safer and much more forgiving. Interstate driving is the safest driving you can do in most of the U.S.
Several European countries including my own country have adopted Vision Zero. The aim to reduce the traffic related deaths to zero, and traffic deaths are steadily decreasing due to these policies. On the wikipedia page form 'vision zero' I saw that many US regions have adopted vision zero as well, I am curious what their succeses are as the US national deaths are increasing.
American deaths are increasing for other factors. One factor is that more and more people use the decrepit roads each year. Another factor is that unlike in Europe, US driving standards are laughable at best. Testing is a complete joke.
In the US pedestrian deaths are also increasing due to the size of vehicles getting larger, as a sort of arms race to have the biggest car that will hold up in a crash. Plus the bigger SUVs and trucks make car companies more money
Traffic calming would absolutely help walkers trying to cross streets. I tried to cross the street in Orlando Florida which has six lanes and a protected crosswalk but people driving cars turning right made it very dangerous for me walking across the street and I almost got hit even though I was crossing when I had the greenlight for walkers.
Similar experience on my end: I got honked at for walking on a pedestrian crossing at an intersection in Lakeland, Florida. It was a green walking sign for me after mashing the button for two minutes. Some impatient driver felt that him needing to turn right on red was more important than me crossing the 10 (Yes, 10) lanes of traffic safely, and thus I deserved getting honked at. (I guess I should have driven the 1/4mile I needed to cross to the other mall.)
@@ts9749 Yeah I agree , I really think that unless you’re in the countryside or outer part of the city where there’s no walkers there really should be no right turns for those crosswalks because it’s so dangerous. For the walkers.! Also because there was a small bush the driver turning right could not see very far when she was turning right and she automatically thought there would be no one in the crosswalk or maybe it was her first time driving there and she didn’t know there was a crosswalk. . They should simply install a sign that states no right turns when there are crosswalks. and it needs to be enforced because there’s always those that are in a hurry and don’t want to take an extra second to stop.
There's a reason Orlando is always in the top 5 cities for pedestrian fatalities. Your situation sounds like an everyday situation when I grew up in Orlando. I often would have to wait in a stroad median after crossing halfway in an intersection to let the left-turning cars finish. Sometimes, I would just get stuck in the median and have to wait for the next traffic sequence.
Yep. Most crosswalks are deathtraps. Last time I used one in my neighborhood with my dogs, 4 drivers trucks decided one and the other that the wall light is not something they have to bother with, because they’re entitled scumbags. Then an suv decided to try to run me over with my dog....then the male passenger got out when the car pulled over after I continued walking onto the sidewalk to try to attack us with a object in his hand as he aggressively approached. I yelled at him informing him I had mace that I would empty in his face as I pointed it at him. He backed off quickly because I guess he wasn’t expecting a woman to be armed with any kind of weapon while walking her dog. I have been threatened countless times by other drivers while driving and assaulted a few times. Just recently, I was driving home from my neighborhood park with my elderly and terminal dog - when a crazy male driver almost cremated us driving 100mph or so. I honked at him for almost killing us, then witnessed him almost t-boning another car in a intersection. We both ended up a a red light and he exited his car to try to confront me, so I took off, but he ended up chasing me, getting as close as possible to hitting us from behind. He wanted my to fear for our lives as he sped up to us to do that and the reason I think he finally backed off was because I waved my phone at him repeatedly after he pulled up to the side of my car. I did this as a way to try to communicate I was on the phone with 911. I had not been able to safely call yet because of his insanely reckless driving while trying to get us killed, but I called immediately after I got away from him. He is definitely going to kill someone someday if he has not already. This insane behavior is expected in Albuquerque, NM. As well as many places. It is not surprising or shocking - just expected and normal. Driving is the most dangerous thing we can do in our lives.
@@enjoyslearningandtravel7957 turn right on red is a stop no? That’s the reasoning behind not separating both flows. Its a shame but you can provide more than enough for a sane, competent driver to figure out and not come into conflict, but some wankers will do it anyway
My parents were hit by a driver when my parents are driving back to their small town and they weren’t even on the highway. The people who hit them did not check if they were OK they just kept driving, hit-and-run driver. My parents weren’t hit seriously injured but the car was mostly. My father thought they didn’t have insurance and that was the reason why they ran but still if my parents were hurt seriously usually then they could’ve just not been taken to the hospital in time.
@@SteveSunny agreed, strodes are very dangerous, however my parents were not driving on a strode but on a 2 Lane Rd. that had not many entrys except for a few to farms since they were going to a small town that made more sense than going on the highway at least the direction they were going and where people are driving on the highway or back country road you still need to drive following the laws or at least check if the people are OK if you hit them.
If I remember right, cars are the 3rd biggest killer overall in the US after all forms of cancer and heart disease and I think they're the biggest killer of people under 40
On the weekend of my daughters third birthday my parents came to visit and I was driving us all to lunch in my old Honda Civic. For some inexplicable reason a guy decided to turn left when he had no advance arrow and I was sailing forward through a solid green. I realized what he was doing but it was a bit wet out and I couldn’t fully stop on time. My parents got a bit of whiplash and my daughter and I were unharmed but boy did I ever lose my shit on the guy. The ridiculous part is he had a history of drugs, they believed he was inebriated but couldn’t prove it at the time of the accident, and he was driving with a suspended license. I’ve endured his cringe inducing social media posts about “change” and maybe he really has changed, importantly I’ve never seen him driving around town anymore, at least. We got lucky but…it sure made me think twice about how quickly things can change on a given day just minding your own business going for a short drive.
I always was aware of how, during the morning commute in my city, there was regularly somebody who had gotten up, gotten dressed for an office, had breakfast, started driving to work ... and didn't make it because of a life-changing or life-ending crash. When you actually think about the people in a typical accident, it's absolutely insane what we're doing. I will say though, you'd think widespread working-from-home would reduce car crashes, but you'd be wrong.
@@WillmobilePlus Did you even listen to the video? The structure of modern society wasn't always cars and cars first, if you actually do some research car companies, big oil, along with state municipalities in cahoots together worked on buying out and destroying any and all train, trolly and cleaner energy transportation in favor to create more cars thus more highways and freeways, it didn't have to be that way, and it doesn't have to be this way.
@@aegisreflector1239 Yeah, the classic conspiracy that robbed you of trolleys.... OK. Not that people actually preferred the freedom of movement cars gave them. Nah!!! People were all just tricked and scammed away from what they totally wanted.....a tiny car on rails that only went certain places.
@@WillmobilePlus Call it what you want, I have cars I enjoy them, doesn't change the FACT that what I say is right. Transportation infrastructure didn't and doesn't have to be so cookie cutter basic, poorly designed car centered. Idk why that's so complicated for you, idk why you wanna defend that type of infrastructure sooo much.
@@aegisreflector1239 > car companies, big oil, along with state municipalities in cahoots together worked on buying out and destroying any and all train, trolly and cleaner energy transportation in favor to create more cars thus more highways and freeways" THIS is a lie. Telling me to "do more research" is the same stupid nonsense the flat-earthers tell me. It's shorthand for "I have no proof, but I do hope you fall down the same rabbit hole of confirmation bias I did to arrive at this conclusion.". If you want to keep using this crutch to bolster your "feelings" that people are just chomping at the bit to ride around on trollies (or bikes) as their unironic primary transportation options, (But the shadowy ***THEM*** are blocking it) you are going to be perpetually disappointed.
The attitude about public transit is that it's terrible, dirty, unreliable and for poor people. The idea putting resources into something for poor people, in America, is very unpopular. The poor need to work harder and not sponge off the rich. In America, you have the "freedom" to work your fingers to the bone in order to have the "freedom" to spend it on a car in order to have the "freedom" to go places.
And trap them buy forcing them to buy expensive cars l, insurance And repairs as the majority of Americans don't have access to any decent public transportation. They literally go broke to work poorly paid jobs but the catch they need the car to even have a poorly paid job.
I am alive today...by two feet. That is how far behind my seat the flatbed towtruck hit my car. It caved in the rear of the car past the midpoint. I escaped with a seatbelt bruise and a numb feeling that lasted for hours. It was the tow driver's fault, he admitted he was half asleep behind the wheel, when he turned left into me as I was approaching. My headlights were on, I was doing 2 miles over speed (road marked 50 mph). When I saw him start his turn, I slammed on the gas. I didn't have time to think, my gut reaction was that I could avoid him. It didn't work, but by sweet luck I didn't get more than the bruise. Car demolished.
Imagine a mega factory, without any safety guards, walkways or enclosed machinery. Also, this entire manufacturing operation is happening on only the ground floor, and there are no elevated or lowered walkways, conveyors or machinery. So, all the assembly lines and conveyors have to constantly stop to allow other things to pass their path. Anyone who built this factory would lose their money, worker lives and be shut down as they are laughed out of the modern economy. Yet, this is exactly what our cities have become... By default.
A mother with a child on an electric bike was hit and killed by an SUV in the San Diego area this week. Child is OK. After seeing a number of your videos, I ask myself, why are they even sharing the same surfaces? In America, we have a long way to go.
NEVER walk or ride your bike even near the road where cars and trucks are going. Even if there's a "bike lane" it's a matter of when not if that you'll get hit by a dumba** driver
@@myword1000 That would piss off the majority of oblivious drivers, but data shows speed doesn't correlate with more congestion. A painted line in the asphalt still doesn't make bikes equal to cars.
To answer the title question, because a carcentric society is and has been our way of life for 80+ years. There is not a single person alive who doesn’t know a life that is foreign to this concept, being born and raised in the states. It’s not ignoring it, it’s not understanding or knowing any other way to live. No different than telling a kid born in the last 15 years to imagine a life without internet, without an iPhone, without a constant state of digital connection. Trying to explain the concept of AOL dial up internet, a rotary phone, a blockbuster night, will just be looked at with a puzzled look. They won’t understand, and neither can we understand a life in North America without cars as our main source of transportation and the innate expectation of LITERALLY EVERYTHING being designed and built around them, regardless of suburb or rural area. Even if you may live in an area that doesn’t have much ctraffic and usage of cars, you’re not exempt of it. You’re still affected by it from a global concept. Cars are literally vital to our way of life in this country ( and most of the developed world) and because technology progresses forward, not backward, there is no going back to a life before the car, there is only the next thing. Humanity fucked life up for our species with the Industrial Revolution, and Henry Ford, while innovative for sure, unknowingly sealed humanity’s casket.
Almost every day I see people who do not know how to drive in a safe way. People turning without putting on their signals, people looking down at their phone while driving, people driving way over the speed limit, people tailgating me and I’m in the right lane and driving 5 miles over the speed limit [ this is on a city street not a highway ] And that’s just the ones I see. I read in the newspaper every day of someone crashing because they were speeding 90 mph and of course they aren’t killed but they kill somebody else they ran into and some people who were stopped for otherreasons and they found all these illegal drugs.
I think it's also helpful to compare these numbers in a different context to visualize how ridiculously high they are. In 2021 the deadliest armed conflict in the world was the Afghanistan conflict with 42,223 deaths. That means more people were killed by cars in the US in 2021 than the deadliest armed conflict on earth that year.
This whole "EV is the future" gobbledygook only feeds them, environmentally barely less impactful than normal combustion engine, the gov just signing a bill to auto companies for their climate change checklist makes me sick
One thing that sticks out to me as backwards is the "providing opportunities for on-street parking" part. I don't like cars parked along the street. It's just another piece in the puzzle of centering our society around cars. That part of the street can be much better utilized by other things. Dining, street vending, benches, bike lanes and racks, wider sidewalks, planters and vegetation, etc. are all far superior uses of such spaces. That space can do so much more than provide parking for a static private vehicle. That space can be used to breathe life into the street environment's lungs.
“Can” but shouldnt. At least not all the time. Majority of residential and commercial streets just need road parking. You can take away certain strips. Not sure if they do it in the US, but they could and they should, I agree that a developed sidewalk with terrace or benches is way better than parking places.
Americans don't even understand the concept of "right of way," roundabouts would be a disaster. The few roundabouts I have seen in the states were a disaster.
@@Cyrus992 Yes, really. motorbikes drive different lines as a car. We can't make sharp corners. Those turbo roundabouts are just crazy. It does not matter if you go right (1/4), straight (1/2) or left (2/4) in every direction you have the risk of hitting the raised median, only at all different spots. It is like it is made against motorbikes. But I am pretty sure traffic engineers don't drive motorbikes, they also always manage to put sewer covers exactly on the line a motorbike makes to corner.
You should also add the number of people who are killed by vehicle emissions. Researchers from Harvard University estimated that roughly 17,000 to 20,000 people in US die each year from transportation air pollution
Examples of countries with less car deaths per 100k inhabitants compared to the US: Russia, Uzbekistan, Jamaica, Phillippines, Turkey, Mexico, Mauritius, Jordan etc etc.
We definitely need to invest in public transportation both buses and light rail, we need more biking infrastructure, and we need to tame down heavy traffic on both urban and suburban streets. Stringent traffic law enforcement is one piece to this puzzle.
States should be liable for traffic deaths, car insurance, and other costs of ownership incurred due to lack of public transportation and unsafe car infrastructure.
Everything about the way America sets up its roads makes it so much more dangerous than driving in Europe. Its honestly like a bad joke. Your roads are designed by psychopaths. - Straight, wide roads and automatic cars mean people are often bored and unfocused while driving. They are more likely to eat or text while driving. In Europe you need 2 hands most of time. - Multiple intersections in a row on a straight road. Traffic lights aren't coordinated properly, so if you get stuck in one red you'll probably get stuck at the next, and the one after. This would be infuriating to anyone and encourages people to speed towards or run through red lights. - No NCT, dangerous cars which aren't roadworthy at all are allowed to drive. - Multiple lanes on roads with businesses on them.. impossible to see all lanes when pulling out. - Intersections where people are allowed to turn on red. Makes no sense at all, how is anyone supposed to cross the road safely if you can even trust red lights. - Turning left on an intersection means sitting in the middle of multiple moving lanes. So dangerous it shouldn't be possible. How are you supposed to be aware of 3 directions of car traffic and also pedestrian crossings while controlling your own car safely? - Driving at 15 with minimal test. Smart
Left yields in the US scare the daylight out of me, I've seen people have to back up into the turning lane because there was no opportunity to turn left.
I can't agree. I drove in France and Portugal and the drivers there are terrible and incompetent. They will run you off the road and think nothing of it.
Also I just subscribed to your channel today because of a recommended video. I like the concepts you bring up about cars and pedestrian travel. I wanna keep up with this line of thought and see what i/ we can do at smaller levels to make the change we want to see.
A lot of people tell me this when I bring up this topic. "I see what you're saying, but why are cars able to even go so fast? Why not just cap them off at 80km an hour or so?" It doesn't matter, in order for a personal car to be efficient it needs to be moving at speed, like a coach bus, tram, train or even a bicycle. (There were times when I was passing moving cars on my bike but that only occurred in the inner city or my hometown) And because there are different speeds for highways and streets, a car cannot simply cap itself off to force the driver down to the limit. If a car was capped at 80 to avoid speeding in an 80kmh zone, that car can still go 80 on a tight city street if the driver was crazy enough. And on some European highways the limit is 130kmh and it makes sense because the road is designed for 130kmh traffic. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. What places like America need to do is make their streets more narrow, they really are too wide, cars look so small driving in those huge lanes especially in suburbs. Speed in combination with lack of skill, attention or the lack of fucks to give are major contributors to these fatal crashes but it's also the road design, the fact that it isolates everything else from the car, it's all for the car, drive thrus, big signs big roads, little bike lanes and crosswalks. They need to realize how bad their roads are for the sake of human lives man
Everything you said has been tried and proven everywhere else in the world. I'm European and I don't know anyone with a relative that died in a traffic accident, while it seems to be way too common in the US...
6:14 screen cap was a major multi-vehicle crash in LA last week that killed five people and an unborn child. The driver has been charged with six counts of murder and five counts of gross vehicular manslaughter!
It's probably already a bit better here in Europe, with a lot of roundabouts, smart stoplights, road narrowing etc. But deadly crashes happen a lot aswell. Even in the Netherlands (known for good quality roads) there are certain roads where a lot of people die on, and yet the local government doesn't hurry with any changes. It can literally be years before a change happens on a road that is known to be very dangerous. I just don't get this. You know people will die there, and yet you don't fix it NOW. In aviation this would be a different story. I avoid such roads from time to time, especially in the dark. Also.. if we would really care about safety, there wouldn't be any high powered cars allowed on the street. Who needs a 700hp Porsche? Why isn't it capped to 150hp (more than enough for the car size in Europe), with a fixed top speed of 150kph (90mph) and if you want something more powerfull, drive it on the circuit. I know this limits the 'freedom to buy what you want', and a lot of people won't be happy. But it's safer.
With that mindset we should limit everything to what the government says just because someone (government) said it is good for you. In many cases accidents are caused by human error. I see more people get in crashes in normie cars that are FWD and underpowered as you prefer. Just be a defensive driver and alert. No one should be surprised by their surroundings.
I love how like half of the stock footage was of Montreal, a city with some of the best (going to get even better soon) transit, and cycling infrastructure, in North America. Not to mention is a *very* old city with most neighbor hoods around the centre being dense and walkable.
We all fear that visit from the police at midnight to give us some bad news in person. Every aspect of our lives are affected by cars:- major roads carving up our cities, loss of community, pollution, the cost of ownership, loss of life, etc. If you live in a city, you can play your part:- don't own a car. Just adjust your life around being without them. Get a job that's accessible with the bike or train. If you don't own a car, you may be able to cut back your work days from five to four per week. How about the young dude who drives to work everyday, is stuck in traffic, and most of what he earns goes towards paying off that car, and it's general costs of ownership! How about the homeless people who live in their cars? If they sold their cars, they could afford to rent an apartment, maybe. I just own a pushbike, keep it in my apartment, and ride it to work. The mental, financial and physical benefits of this lifestyle are impossible to describe. If I need to drive interstate, I'll hire the latest, safest model that I know won't break down. Being a minimalist is a great lifestyle. When you have less, then you have less to worry about.
I live in a city but I wont get rid of my car as its useful for the winter and summer. Walking outside and waiting for the bus in 40 c weather is not fun at all neither is winter time with its -30 c weather. Having a car means I don't have to get exposed to the horrid weather and I can use my AC and heater for the summer and winter. The buses are rather frequent but that means I have to stand outside in the heat or cold depending on the month of the year
@@Xenomorph-hb4zf not to mention if the bus isn't running at your time and you get stranded during horrid weather, you have no choice but to walk home (even if it takes an hour). I did that once and ended up with frostbitten legs. (I was just glad that my son who was driving, was home safe). I had to submerge in lukewarm water immediately when I got home. In my case, during pre-COVID in the city, the buses ran every 15 or thirty minutes, depending on where you are. I don't know about now because I don't live in the city but in my small town, they run every hour or two.
@@mariatolentino4516 Yes if you live in a rural area, or a city with few transport options, owning a car is kind of mandatory. The onus should be on government to begin infrastructure rollouts everywhere so people have more choice. This way, those who don't like owning cars, just don't have to. They are an expensive asset.......and a shocking investment.
The shocking thing is ONLY 29% of crashes involved speeding, and ONLY .8% were using cell phones. It's not crazies who crash, it's you and me following the rules. That's a real risk people don't realize they are taking.
Yes, it’s some of the crazies that crash also such as people that are on illegal drugs or driving drunk. I don’t know the percentages but I read in the news articles almost every week there are some that either kill them self and or other people doing these crazy things.
@@eurosonly that’s true, that you don’t need to be on drugs to have a crash. Many people like you said have overconfidence or also they drive distracted.
The same reason why we ignore the staggering number of injuries caused by walking down steps or how those in the 19th century ignore deaths caused by horses? Injuries and deaths are going to happen with any piece of technology either out of negligence by the person, changing weather conditions, or by any other factor. The question from there comes down to the practicality of the thing in question. Cars are extremely practical tools just as a set of stairs is a virtual necessity or the horse and buggy were important in the 19th century. There’s no need to remove them or “ban” them, simply education about personal responsibility will help prevent many of the accidents in question.
We shouldn't ignore them, but we should also have some perspective that motor-vehicle deaths are near historical lows, when taking into account increases in population, miles driven, and number of vehicles on the roads over the years. From the National Safety Council: "Between 1913 and 2020, the number of motor-vehicle deaths in the United States (which include all types of motor vehicles, including passenger cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles) increased 831%, from 4,200 deaths in 1913 to 42,338 in 2020. However, the role cars play in daily life is vastly different now than when tracking began. In 1913, there were about 1.3 million vehicles and 2 million drivers, and the number of miles driven was not yet estimated. The latest 2020 data report 275.9 million vehicles, 228 million licensed drivers, and 2,904 billion miles driven annually. By all measures, motor-vehicle safety has vastly improved since the early 1900s. Driver attitudes and behaviors have changed substantially, as has vehicle safety technology, which makes car travel safer. The population motor-vehicle death rate reached its peak in 1937 with 30.8 deaths per 100,000 population. The current rate is 12.9 per 100,000, representing a 58% improvement. In 1913, 33.38 people died for every 10,000 vehicles on the road. In 2020, the death rate was 1.53 per 10,000 vehicles, a 95% improvement. In 1923, the first year miles driven was estimated, the motor-vehicle death rate was 18.65 deaths for every 100 million miles driven. Since 1923, the mileage death rate has decreased 92% and now stands at 1.46 deaths per 100 million miles driven. Despite these historic drops, we cannot remain complacent. In 2020, the vehicle death rate increased 8.5%, the mileage death rate increased 21.7%, while the population death rate increased 8% from 2019." Some of that 2020 increase stems from the Covid-19 shutdowns taking some cars off the roads, leaving more space for remaining cars to drive faster and more dangerously.
I'm sorry about your cousin, and everyone else who's been sacrificed like a burnt offering to the god of greasy bastards getting where they don't need to be ten minutes faster. I hate when articles and obituaries say "they died in a car accident". No, they were killed, cut down with nary a chance; in some cases one might even say they were murdered. If there were one invention I could erase from human history with a wave of the hand, it would be cars.
The virus that put us into isolation took 6,4 million lives. Cars that are rooted into our everyday routine takes 1.35 million lives every year, and the number will only go up, and that's a normal phenomenon.
Congestion Pricing is in the news in my area b/c NYC wants to implement a charge to drivers of possibly up to $23 to enter Manhattan between Midtown and Lower Manhattan and the TV coverage is showing angry suburbanites who don’t want to pay more to drive into Manhattan plus politicians who want to get rid of the congestion pricing proposal. It’s baffling that people from the suburbs want to drive to and from Manhattan where parking garages are expensive and there’s so much traffic when they have a network of commuter railroads that will take em in without paying for parking or tolls but then again, they’re the ones that complain why train service sucks and the answer to that is an obvious one that they choose to ignore. Also, if they really bitch about how expensive it is to drive into Manhattan, then maybe move to a car friendly place like Florida or Texas with the super wide freeways and lack of public transit funding since they choose not to take the train and before the haters come, yes I know the trains and the stations can be dirty but the whole point of the congestion pricing proposal is to modernize and update the system in NYC and beyond, including the suburbs where Metro North and LIRR run. I’m a way, the region is still paying for the mistakes of Robert Moses and any solution to fix it causes an uproar.
People in the suburbs that work in the city can afford to pay to park in parking garages. It's a case of what works for them may not work for you, or make sense to you. But it does for them.
@@eurosonly Car culture as in the entire country is built around you spending thousands for a car, insurance, repairs, gas.. all while it is also the most dangerous means of travel or you can’t do anything without a vehicle.
I remember my first time seeing a dead person like ever.. was when a truck hit a motor cyclist. They covered his head with a vest but I was traumatized. It was two years ago and I can still never see that city the same way again. We need to take cars off the road. More people need walk, take buses, or trains or bike. We need to change our cities and make them safer for people who aren’t in cars, and also for people who do drive.
Auto companies must be in cahoots with policy makers with regards to roads, infrastructure, etc. The results:- cities are set up with miniscule rail or bike path networks, forcing you into Chevrolets very latest offerings...... It's truly obscene.
I agree with the message of the video, but the stock footage of traffic from Canada and Europe was a little distracting. In Montreal, which was pretty heavily featured in the video, they are building a new automated regional metro system (the REM) which will connect to many of the places featured in the video (like the airport which was shown in one of the shots).
another thing: car size and weight. don't know a massive amount about this but a smaller car is obviously safer for every road user around it, as well as easier to avoid crashes in the first place. it also requires a smaller engine which lessens the costs if owning it massively.
An issue not covered is the distance you drive. If you drive 20km to work you are twice as likely to die than someone who drives 10 km. Another reason for denser cities
there were a couple assaults in the NYC subway earlier this year, people were losing their minds. couple a people assualted, yes it's bad. but meanwhile tens of thousands die in their cars every year and people are "meh. what ya gonna do. ya gotta drive"
I believe better technology such as sonar automatic stopping of the vehicle prior to a collision, along with other safety improvements would really reduce death rates. The public should demand this, and be prepared to pay some extra reasonable amount of money to the manufacturers. RS. Canada
Why should we pay? We already pay overpriced for depresiating assets in the cars themselves that are designed to break down after 5 years. They also get federal bail outs, when do the people get federal bail outs?
Less 'I' and you'll get far more response. Be the impartial observer. Separate videos for solutions and problems to avoid looking like an advocate/lobbyist. Very nice videos, good message and clearly stated. Respect and subscribed! Edit: ohhh and if you can make it regional for an area you know well than so much the better. Name dropping for places works.
Cars are way too deadly and polluting for me to ever drive one again. I am satisfied with my life and my ability to get around on a bike. I don't want a world where cars are everywhere and almost think our entire planet will be malformed thanks to cars and roads and parking lots. Just look at all the dead birds and deer and small mammals along the highways. Human fatalities are inconceivable. It's so insane how we brush it all under the rug. From the death to the pollution to the noise to the inhibiting of pedestrian or cyclist freedom. It's absolutely disgusting and insane.
In Florida, the highly endangered panther and some other animals have gotten hit and killed many times by cars on roads that are not highways but the drivers are speeding over the limit.
Unfortunately much like what Huey Lewis mentioned in one of his songs, we don't live in a perfect world. So we still need cars, as not all of us live in an area where every destination we plain to go to is a bike ride away. what we need to do is put other modes of transportation out there for people to choose from beside road travel. Like where i am from in Canada. There are major freeways and highways for out of town driving. But there also a high speed train service running alongside, going to the same destination. giving travelers that multi choice
@@KenKen-ui4ny No Ken Ken, you misunderstand. We already have modes of transportation like buses and electric scooters and bikes. We need to dismantle the oil and gas industry. We need to dismantle the car industry. The electric bike is a massive upgrade from an electric scooter because the battery lasts longer and you can take the battery out and charge it anywhere. You *could* be living in a much more perfect world, but our love of cars (and working a job all day to afford one) is stopping us from advancing as a civilization. We could be more active, enjoy life at a slower pace, take care of the environment, etc... yet we waste our money, time, and energy on cars and jobs that don't add any value to life.
4:07 the first of these is traffic calming according to the us department of transportation traffic calming consists of physical design and other measures put in place on existing roads to reduce vehicle speeds and improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists the purpose of traffic calming is to calm traffic down from road rage. it's kinda obvious and in the name.
42,000 deaths in America? 1,123 in Australia, also a car dependent society, where I’m from. 2,500 in Japan, where I live, which possibly could be reduced as the speed limits are not enforced. I know because I just got my drivers license renewed and everyone has go sit through a lecture.
America is probably 13x the size of Australia so it makes sense. More people on the roads in America. It's a way of life and there's nothing wrong with that. 42,000 deaths with a country of 333 million people is actually small number.
@@robertwhitlet It does not make sense. US has higher traffic death rates than other countries by every measure, including miles travelled. Explain this away.
I normally like your ideas but despise your presentation style. In this one your presentation style is good. This video I can show to people that might actually have an impact on their thinking. Thanks for making a serious video where you're not demeaning to your audience or overly sarcastic
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. - Stalin(?) This has always been true, only the scale changes. From the very earliest days of industrialization, when little children were used inside the machines because they were small enough to fit. People have been maimed and killed en masse so the owners could increase profits. The automobile industry is one of the worst offenders, and always has been.
02:00 to put that number into perspective, that's like 50 Airbus A380 (the big one) crashing every year. People would not be stepping on a plane if there were four plane crashes a month. And pilots are constantly being trained, monitored, and supported by many warning systems, while you're allowed to drive after a couple hours of practice. Also holy cow, they allow 15 year olds to drive in some U.S. states?
That's a common comparison--the number of motor vehicle related fatalities vs. a fully loaded airliner "buying the farm" every other day. But for most of us, air travel is a "special event", while driving is part of everyday life. And street and highway crashes kill people in single digits, not nearly as headline grabbing as an airliner disaster.
Why not banned cars(except police vehicles, fire trucks, and ambulances 🚑 ) in some streets and highways, freeways, and expressways, and replacing with rail transit such as trams, subways, and/or light rails? This will shrink traffic congestion and death accident. Besides, some people aren't interested to buy cars.
I wonder if anyone has considered how traffic calming design with interact with self-driving cars as they become more ubiquitous and the technology improves. Theoretically, a self-driving car programed to do so would slow down if you 'just change the speed limit'. I'm not saying traffic calming shouldn't be done, but it might be worth also thinking ahead on what a self-driving car- constantly paying attention, obeying the rules to the best of its ability- would be doing differently than a human driver. A human driver might slow down when it has reduced site lines. A autonomous car might just slow down when you change the speed limit. I could see a wide open road with a slow driving self-driving car- where the car would have good sight lines, possibly being safer than a narrow road with a self-driving car. Of course, that's just the traffic safety aspect... huge parking lots still make cities less liveable by moving everything farther apart... but again, if you have self driving cars, they could drop drivers off at the front door and then go off to some slightly more remote location to park... (obviously not too far, or you'll create a lot more vehicle miles, but just a couple blocks could let you build much denser 'main drags' and move the parking to higher density parking garages (with zoning rules), that don't physically take up space on the main drag. They designed car-centric cities because they predicted the future and didn't see the unintended side effects as the technology changed. I'd love to see some urban planners doing studies on how you could integrate some of the advantages of self-driving vehicles into urban planning (not just cars- shuttle buses can be expensive to run because you still have that fixed cost of paying a driver that you do with a big bus. A driverless bus or shuttle bus, maybe with cell phone paging so it only stops at the stops where people are waiting or want to be dropped off?
Get where you're coming from but it seems the opposite of wise to form infrastructure being built now around technology that doesn't exist and doesn't have any concrete timeline for existing. Also -- a lot of the issues you mentioned in the first paragraph are reasons why 'self-driving' cars probably aren't sensible. The things they propose to do well are things drivers and road design is supposed to be doing now, and most of the conditions they will encounter are only passable with human judgement. I've never heard a good case that self driving cars are anything more than a solution in search of a problem.
I'm non driver do to a medical issue. And yes it's not fun. Still think of all the money I save not having to deal with a car. And I have a less dangerous life with less stress too.
I don't understand why there's not a special police to control drivers, because in other countries like in France we have a police that prevents from those stupids accidents by doing some control like check the rate of alcohol in blood, check if the driver consumed some drugs like weeds ,check security etc.. and if the driver committed on of the infraction so he will get a strict sanctions like not allow to have his driver license for 5 years so for 5 years he is not supposed to drive and there are some other sanctions according to the infraction.
It's just as much a problem with how roads are designed, and how almost everyone is forced to own and drive a car to even participate in society. American roads and intersections are incredibly unsafe, due to everything from laws allowing right turns on red, high speed limits, and poorly designed intersections. Then there's the quality of the drivers' ed. It should be far more lengthy and rigorous than it is in a lot of places.
So the most convenient way to consume alcohol, in a North American car-dominated city, is to drink and drive, or consume it alone at home. Yeah, no problem with that at all.
On the subject Of adequate transportation to bars, I’d say with that bars should refuse service to those without proof of use of these sources. That may sou cryptic but i suppose they could show their bus pas or whatever. Hell, if they simply show up driving themselves in a car that’s reason enough to refuse entry
The 'funny' thing about the way the media reports car crashes compared to other transportation-accidents is that when something other than a car has an accident, it's treated as the tragedy it is. But car crashes are so rarely reported upon lately because they're a statistic by design.
Last Saturday in Galveston, Texas, a drunk driver in an SUV killed 4 people that were riding a golf cart on a residential street. If you read the way the media coverage has been slanted, you'd think the golf cart was the public menace.
Yup, I’m the US car related deaths are just the cost of doing business.
the brightline headlines are always hilarious. Its always somehow the train's fault
Cause most of the time it's a drunken fool killing a family or an idiot. But yeah blame the machine. Not the alcohol or someone's I.Q
@@RAAM855 *blame the thing somebody crashed into
When an "accident" happens no one ever blames the highway/road engineers as much as they should for allowing the road widening or whatever project to even happen in the first place
This. I frequently watch r/idiotsincars videos, and is so strange how we are so fast to judge who is behind the wheel, instead of judging the obviously flawed system/design
@@viniciuslippel7251 That sub is vicious to anyone that brings up the fact that cars are inherently dangerous. They truly believe that this could never happen to them because its everyone else that is an idiot. Despite tiny human mistakes that we all make can turn into fatal life ending events.
There should be a law that if you are allowed to pass on a road, it must be divided by a physical barrier, and access to the road segments should be severly limited
Exactly, i see and see almost infinite number of bad and dangerous road designs. The state and engineers are also at fault
That actually reminds me of when I brought up shitty planning during my risk assessment class when I was taking my drivers license. (Yes, euro urbanist, takes a drivers license.)
Like what the heck! Having residential lots with bushes that extend all the way to the edges of a *70km/h 1+1 country road.* With gates opening directly onto said *70km/h road.* Is insanely dangerous! "Who's at fault for this child dying? The parents? The driver? His wife?" Oh Idk, maybe the planner who was negligent enough to allow this in the first place?
All the they could respond with was. "Well the police wouldn't take that into consideration." Which, fair, they wouldn't... :/
Also later when asked "How can one reduce their risk when driving?" I responded with something like "Don't drive. This is Sweden, not America. Public transit exists here." :P
Cars give the illusion of control and with that illusion people think that it won't happen to them because, after all, they're in control.
When you're doing 80 mph down the interstate, you don't have the control you think you do. When you're in traffic you don't have control, you're just part of the flow (or lack thereof).
But, at least you have the illusion of control, and that is, apparently, what freedom is.
Well said
💯💯💯
My mother almost died in a serious accident when a restaurant pumped water onto a road in winter, I totalled my first car when I pushed it too hard trying to impress a girl, a coworker was killed right after starting his job, and I've personally witnessed several accidents and been first on the scene.
This is why the 'cost of doing business' argument makes me so angry, because it simply isn't true. We must give options to people who can't, shouldn't, don't want to drive. We have no other choice.
Traffic calming also works. Maybe I'll make a video about that in the future...
If you do, please also mention the Netherlands as a good example. I'm incredibly biased because I am Dutch, but from having seen the difference in infrastructure design i believe it's a good example to emulate. Specifically, livable neighborhoods with lots of traffic calming, rigorously separating bikes from high speed traffic and providing safe crossings when they do meet, and providing both decent local and intercity public transportation. Not all of those translate perfectly (intercity transportation in particular because its effectiveness is heavily based on geographic layout and population density) but it's about taking a look at what does work rather than what doesn't.
In the Netherlands, we were on the same car centric path as the US, but we chose to take a different path (through strong and consistent public pressure) so it can be done.
@@alex2143 I envy your infrastructure! A 20 minute drive for me tends to be a 90 minute trip using several buses, so I just ride my bike on the sidewalk or side streets instead.
@@alex2143 I'll keep it in mind! I'm full-time in Germany, so most of my footage comes from here. I wish we all could have dutch infrastructure...
You and I have similar relationships to cars being from rural areas. They are worshipped but we both have seen lives end because of them. I truly believe rural towns can be made non car dependent.
Yeah, very original, make a video that the circle jerk of quasi-urbanists already made countless times.
My problem with govts telling manufacturers to produce electric cars is that they seem like they don’t consider the fact the freeway will eventually become clogged with Teslas.
Invest in buses light rails and greenways.
Exactly. Tesla IS part of the government, the same way Facebook/meta is. They want people dependant on purchasing expensive items. That's why credit checks exists
I was t-boned at highway speeds less than 2 months ago and if things had gone a sightly different way, I wouldn't be writing this comment. Now that I'm starting to feel better, I'm having so many family members tell me that I need to start looking for a new car so I can "get back on that horse" and it's really upsetting. I didn't like cars before the accident and have been seeking a way to go car-free in the American suburbs, and everyone looks at me like I'm crazy for choosing to ride my bicycle. I have driven a handful of times and I'm okay with it, but I do not want a car. Also insurance companies are assholes in case that wasn't obvious
So sorry. Hopefully you're back on that safer, nonmotorized two wheeled horse soon 👍
So glad to hear you're doing well. Don't let anyone discourage you from choosing alternatives; it should be a choice after all! Sending much love
@@sam_ram Thanks! I've been riding my upright bicycle to get around. though the hills are stressful when cars are flying past
@@rojaalborada Thanks for the support, my dad and my uncle have been car mechanics in the suburbs for their whole lives so they have a hard time imagining anything different unless you live somewhere like NYC. In the end though it doesn't matter what they think anyways :)
You're never going to please everyone, so you may as well please yourself. Those around you are living their lives how they see fit. They must allow you the same right.
It would be your money wasted on the car ......not theirs.
Avoid buying a car. Change begins with early trendsetters.
People from the US who visit Europe often wonder why our roads are so narrow. I had planning streets in university. They are the perfect size to prevent the encouragement of speeding. Ours are not too narrow, yours are too wide.
based mediaeval castle town streets
Yea but Europe also has more compact vehicles then we do here in the US. to handle those narrow roads though, and give drivers more playroom on them.
@@KenKen-ui4ny yall could slowly downsize though, it’s more economical (ecological too), less dangerous and more practical.
@@KenKen-ui4ny its weird how your cars got this big in the first place, there’s literally no use for all that space
@@blanco7726 A lot of it is probably cultural too you know. Here in America, we tend to rather have more size for our buck. Where in an other parts of the world. Having so much space, might not be consider as much of an appropriate necessity or not as economical as here in the US. Point is, not every continent in the world see eye to eye with everything. Including the size of what our cars and road should be, sorry to say. It also really not our place, to say who right or wrong in this debate ether. That just the pain of having different cultures in different continents of the world.
It really is disgusting that society at large just accepts these countless deaths as commonplace, a worthy sacrifice to the automobile. Things desperately need to change, especially as the number of fatalities caused by cars continues to increase.
They are not commonplace. Look at the hours driven versus fatalities. Fatalities are statistically irrelevant. I'd say soyciety pushing transformers is disgusting.
Cars don’t kill ppl. Blame the drivers.
Next you’ll tell me guns kill ppl.
@@phu5005 it's not cars, it's the bad infrastructure. countries with good pedestrian and automobile infrastructure don't have so many car related casualties
@@carstarsarstenstesenn The US also seems to be less ruthless in their policing of road rules. In most countries you get booked for doing 1km/h over the limit. In the US, it seems like everybody is going 20km/h over the limit.
It doesn't increase. You're far more likely to die in an automobile accident back in the 70's than you are today.
Important message here no one else wants to admit. Thank you for making this. That murder car crash ( not accident ) happened 15 minutes away from where I live. Let's be honest, people are distracted, stressed out, drunk, belligerent narcissistic aholes who are behind the wheel of speeding death machines.
The stress of driving turns people into aholes that otherwise wouldn't be.
It is no one, but it is not enough. Part of this is economic incentives to keep car crashes high. If something is undercharged for, it is used as an incentive.
check out "Adam Something"... he's european, but he does try to inform people of bad designs etc...
I remember a video of a truck driver saying that he wasn't willing to die to save other bad drivers.
That video shocked me.
How inefficient must our system be that a driver feels so threatened on the streets?
We are really out there risking our lives EVERYDAY
American roads are the most dangerous I've ever seen (in a developed country of course). Multiple lane intersections are extremely dangerous, I wouldn't drive there.
Probably fairly safe in a truck, when a truck driver kills someone it makes the news. Not so for cars. Rail freight is better, but truck drivers, bus drivers, etc. are head and shoulders above mouth breathers who don't do it professionally and ought to catch the train.
My favorite comparison is, “What outrage would there be if 40,000 people died while sitting on the toilet each year?” For something considered essential to the way we live, it’s insane how easy it is to die. You don’t need to do anything, you just need to lose focus for a single second.
Or someone else lose focus for a single second...😔😔😔
I once heard people die from walking on the stairs and yet there is no outrage over that -_-
@@thewewguy8t88 how many though?
The same outrage as there are about injuries caused by walking down steps? There isn’t much because it’s understood that walking up and down steps can pose a risk.
It’s understood and accepted.
@@MatthewChenault maybe, but also the risk is significantly smaller, and there are alternatives that exist in public places (like elevators) for people who are not safely able to use stairs. Whereas more cars pose a higher risk to every person who cannot use a car (6-7,000 pedestrians are killed by cars each year in the US, despite there being far fewer pedestrians than motorists).
A friend of mine was in a car accident which was not her fault and her car was on fire and she barely got out and now she’s too afraid to drive even though she’s not that old. But in her city she doesn’t have many alternatives to get many places even though it’s a major city so her friend has to take her places so she can’t be really independent.
In the US, don't remember where, but a woman on a bicycle was killed this week by the opening of driver-side door, and she was in a bike lane. Makes no sense to have bike lanes next to parked cars.
I was thinking about this recently because I was getting insurance quotes for my new home. I found that my car insurance would be higher than my home insurance at a lot of places, despite my car being less than 10% the worth of my home, because of how common car accidents are.
I live near one of the Deadliest Stroads in Pennsylvania, Rt 65 also known as the ohio river boulevard, and the speed limits are not set appropriately, and there is too much access to the stroad from driveways and parking lots. The parts that are horrible undivided multilane stroad sections have the same speed limits as the safe divided highway sections with low access.
What makes it even worse is that almost all of the towns along the stroad are walkable, and drunk driving is rarely a cause of accidents here, It is poor road design.
I try to avoid driving it as much as I can, and now take the interstates as much as possible, because even though speeds are much higher, the design is safer and much more forgiving. Interstate driving is the safest driving you can do in most of the U.S.
Several European countries including my own country have adopted Vision Zero. The aim to reduce the traffic related deaths to zero, and traffic deaths are steadily decreasing due to these policies. On the wikipedia page form 'vision zero' I saw that many US regions have adopted vision zero as well, I am curious what their succeses are as the US national deaths are increasing.
American deaths are increasing for other factors. One factor is that more and more people use the decrepit roads each year. Another factor is that unlike in Europe, US driving standards are laughable at best. Testing is a complete joke.
"Vision Zero" in the US is more talk than action.
In the US pedestrian deaths are also increasing due to the size of vehicles getting larger, as a sort of arms race to have the biggest car that will hold up in a crash. Plus the bigger SUVs and trucks make car companies more money
@@dblezi They also don’t hand cars to 15 year olds to drive.
The Anglophone world has adopted 'Thoughts & Prayers Zero'
Traffic calming would absolutely help walkers trying to cross streets. I tried to cross the street in Orlando Florida which has six lanes and a protected crosswalk but people driving cars turning right made it very dangerous for me walking across the street and I almost got hit even though I was crossing when I had the greenlight for walkers.
Similar experience on my end: I got honked at for walking on a pedestrian crossing at an intersection in Lakeland, Florida. It was a green walking sign for me after mashing the button for two minutes. Some impatient driver felt that him needing to turn right on red was more important than me crossing the 10 (Yes, 10) lanes of traffic safely, and thus I deserved getting honked at. (I guess I should have driven the 1/4mile I needed to cross to the other mall.)
@@ts9749 Yeah I agree , I really think that unless you’re in the countryside or outer part of the city where there’s no walkers there really should be no right turns for those crosswalks because it’s so dangerous. For the walkers.!
Also because there was a small bush the driver turning right could not see very far when she was turning right and she automatically thought there would be no one in the crosswalk or maybe it was her first time driving there and she didn’t know there was a crosswalk.
. They should simply install a sign that states no right turns when there are crosswalks. and it needs to be enforced because there’s always those that are in a hurry and don’t want to take an extra second to stop.
There's a reason Orlando is always in the top 5 cities for pedestrian fatalities. Your situation sounds like an everyday situation when I grew up in Orlando. I often would have to wait in a stroad median after crossing halfway in an intersection to let the left-turning cars finish. Sometimes, I would just get stuck in the median and have to wait for the next traffic sequence.
Yep. Most crosswalks are deathtraps. Last time I used one in my neighborhood with my dogs, 4 drivers trucks decided one and the other that the wall light is not something they have to bother with, because they’re entitled scumbags. Then an suv decided to try to run me over with my dog....then the male passenger got out when the car pulled over after I continued walking onto the sidewalk to try to attack us with a object in his hand as he aggressively approached. I yelled at him informing him I had mace that I would empty in his face as I pointed it at him. He backed off quickly because I guess he wasn’t expecting a woman to be armed with any kind of weapon while walking her dog. I have been threatened countless times by other drivers while driving and assaulted a few times. Just recently, I was driving home from my neighborhood park with my elderly and terminal dog - when a crazy male driver almost cremated us driving 100mph or so. I honked at him for almost killing us, then witnessed him almost t-boning another car in a intersection. We both ended up a a red light and he exited his car to try to confront me, so I took off, but he ended up chasing me, getting as close as possible to hitting us from behind. He wanted my to fear for our lives as he sped up to us to do that and the reason I think he finally backed off was because I waved my phone at him repeatedly after he pulled up to the side of my car. I did this as a way to try to communicate I was on the phone with 911. I had not been able to safely call yet because of his insanely reckless driving while trying to get us killed, but I called immediately after I got away from him. He is definitely going to kill someone someday if he has not already. This insane behavior is expected in Albuquerque, NM. As well as many places. It is not surprising or shocking - just expected and normal. Driving is the most dangerous thing we can do in our lives.
@@enjoyslearningandtravel7957 turn right on red is a stop no? That’s the reasoning behind not separating both flows. Its a shame but you can provide more than enough for a sane, competent driver to figure out and not come into conflict, but some wankers will do it anyway
I agree, last year my friend pasted away from a wrong way driver. Since then I’ve been very into urban planning and anti car.
My parents were hit by a driver when my parents are driving back to their small town and they weren’t even on the highway. The people who hit them did not check if they were OK they just kept driving, hit-and-run driver. My parents weren’t hit seriously injured but the car was mostly. My father thought they didn’t have insurance and that was the reason why they ran but still if my parents were hurt seriously usually then they could’ve just not been taken to the hospital in time.
FWIW I have no stats to back this up but I'm pretty sure highway driving is far safer than city driving due to the nature of stroads.
@@SteveSunny agreed, strodes are very dangerous, however my parents were not driving on a strode but on a 2 Lane Rd. that had not many entrys except for a few to farms since they were going to a small town that made more sense than going on the highway at least the direction they were going and where people are driving on the highway or back country road you still need to drive following the laws or at least check if the people are OK if you hit them.
@@SteveSunny in the EU, 40% in urban 50% on country roads and 8% on highway. Fatal crashes.
If I remember right, cars are the 3rd biggest killer overall in the US after all forms of cancer and heart disease and I think they're the biggest killer of people under 40
On the weekend of my daughters third birthday my parents came to visit and I was driving us all to lunch in my old Honda Civic. For some inexplicable reason a guy decided to turn left when he had no advance arrow and I was sailing forward through a solid green. I realized what he was doing but it was a bit wet out and I couldn’t fully stop on time.
My parents got a bit of whiplash and my daughter and I were unharmed but boy did I ever lose my shit on the guy. The ridiculous part is he had a history of drugs, they believed he was inebriated but couldn’t prove it at the time of the accident, and he was driving with a suspended license.
I’ve endured his cringe inducing social media posts about “change” and maybe he really has changed, importantly I’ve never seen him driving around town anymore, at least.
We got lucky but…it sure made me think twice about how quickly things can change on a given day just minding your own business going for a short drive.
I always was aware of how, during the morning commute in my city, there was regularly somebody who had gotten up, gotten dressed for an office, had breakfast, started driving to work ... and didn't make it because of a life-changing or life-ending crash. When you actually think about the people in a typical accident, it's absolutely insane what we're doing.
I will say though, you'd think widespread working-from-home would reduce car crashes, but you'd be wrong.
Yeah? What other forms of transportation do we need to shun because someone was hurt?
You can be hurt walking. Should we see that as insane too?
@@WillmobilePlus Did you even listen to the video? The structure of modern society wasn't always cars and cars first, if you actually do some research car companies, big oil, along with state municipalities in cahoots together worked on buying out and destroying any and all train, trolly and cleaner energy transportation in favor to create more cars thus more highways and freeways, it didn't have to be that way, and it doesn't have to be this way.
@@aegisreflector1239 Yeah, the classic conspiracy that robbed you of trolleys.... OK.
Not that people actually preferred the freedom of movement cars gave them. Nah!!! People were all just tricked and scammed away from what they totally wanted.....a tiny car on rails that only went certain places.
@@WillmobilePlus Call it what you want, I have cars I enjoy them, doesn't change the FACT that what I say is right. Transportation infrastructure didn't and doesn't have to be so cookie cutter basic, poorly designed car centered. Idk why that's so complicated for you, idk why you wanna defend that type of infrastructure sooo much.
@@aegisreflector1239
> car companies, big oil, along with state municipalities in cahoots together worked on buying out and destroying any and all train, trolly and cleaner energy transportation in favor to create more cars thus more highways and freeways"
THIS is a lie. Telling me to "do more research" is the same stupid nonsense the flat-earthers tell me. It's shorthand for "I have no proof, but I do hope you fall down the same rabbit hole of confirmation bias I did to arrive at this conclusion.".
If you want to keep using this crutch to bolster your "feelings" that people are just chomping at the bit to ride around on trollies (or bikes) as their unironic primary transportation options, (But the shadowy ***THEM*** are blocking it) you are going to be perpetually disappointed.
The attitude about public transit is that it's terrible, dirty, unreliable and for poor people. The idea putting resources into something for poor people, in America, is very unpopular. The poor need to work harder and not sponge off the rich. In America, you have the "freedom" to work your fingers to the bone in order to have the "freedom" to spend it on a car in order to have the "freedom" to go places.
absolutely correct
And people fall for it
And trap them buy forcing them to buy expensive cars l, insurance And repairs as the majority of Americans don't have access to any decent public transportation. They literally go broke to work poorly paid jobs but the catch they need the car to even have a poorly paid job.
thanks for this great video. Car crashes and drunk driving is the insanely ugly consequence of car dependence
I am alive today...by two feet. That is how far behind my seat the flatbed towtruck hit my car. It caved in the rear of the car past the midpoint. I escaped with a seatbelt bruise and a numb feeling that lasted for hours. It was the tow driver's fault, he admitted he was half asleep behind the wheel, when he turned left into me as I was approaching. My headlights were on, I was doing 2 miles over speed (road marked 50 mph). When I saw him start his turn, I slammed on the gas. I didn't have time to think, my gut reaction was that I could avoid him. It didn't work, but by sweet luck I didn't get more than the bruise. Car demolished.
This also adds up to why it is so easy to get a driver's license here in the US.
same reason we ignore the millions of deaths caused by the pursuit of profit over people. boiling frog.
Imagine a mega factory, without any safety guards, walkways or enclosed machinery.
Also, this entire manufacturing operation is happening on only the ground floor, and there are no elevated or lowered walkways, conveyors or machinery. So, all the assembly lines and conveyors have to constantly stop to allow other things to pass their path.
Anyone who built this factory would lose their money, worker lives and be shut down as they are laughed out of the modern economy.
Yet, this is exactly what our cities have become... By default.
Excellent analogy.
A mother with a child on an electric bike was hit and killed by an SUV in the San Diego area this week. Child is OK. After seeing a number of your videos, I ask myself, why are they even sharing the same surfaces? In America, we have a long way to go.
NEVER walk or ride your bike even near the road where cars and trucks are going. Even if there's a "bike lane" it's a matter of when not if that you'll get hit by a dumba** driver
@@aegisreflector1239 So why penalise the victims? Why not slow down the death machines and insist they be driven as if vuknerable human lives matter.
@@myword1000 I'm not penalizing anyone I'm just stating the reality that alot of drivers are dumb aholes, and we should not be around them.
@@myword1000 That would piss off the majority of oblivious drivers, but data shows speed doesn't correlate with more congestion. A painted line in the asphalt still doesn't make bikes equal to cars.
To answer the title question, because a carcentric society is and has been our way of life for 80+ years. There is not a single person alive who doesn’t know a life that is foreign to this concept, being born and raised in the states. It’s not ignoring it, it’s not understanding or knowing any other way to live. No different than telling a kid born in the last 15 years to imagine a life without internet, without an iPhone, without a constant state of digital connection. Trying to explain the concept of AOL dial up internet, a rotary phone, a blockbuster night, will just be looked at with a puzzled look. They won’t understand, and neither can we understand a life in North America without cars as our main source of transportation and the innate expectation of LITERALLY EVERYTHING being designed and built around them, regardless of suburb or rural area. Even if you may live in an area that doesn’t have much ctraffic and usage of cars, you’re not exempt of it. You’re still affected by it from a global concept. Cars are literally vital to our way of life in this country ( and most of the developed world) and because technology progresses forward, not backward, there is no going back to a life before the car, there is only the next thing. Humanity fucked life up for our species with the Industrial Revolution, and Henry Ford, while innovative for sure, unknowingly sealed humanity’s casket.
Almost every day I see people who do not know how to drive in a safe way.
People turning without putting on their signals, people looking down at their phone while driving, people driving way over the speed limit, people tailgating me and I’m in the right lane and driving 5 miles over the speed limit [ this is on a city street not a highway ] And that’s just the ones I see.
I read in the newspaper every day of someone crashing because they were speeding 90 mph and of course they aren’t killed but they kill somebody else they ran into and some people who were stopped for otherreasons and they found all these illegal drugs.
I visit Florida frequently. Using a turn signal is suggested there, not required. It angers me when people don't use turn signals.
I think it's also helpful to compare these numbers in a different context to visualize how ridiculously high they are. In 2021 the deadliest armed conflict in the world was the Afghanistan conflict with 42,223 deaths. That means more people were killed by cars in the US in 2021 than the deadliest armed conflict on earth that year.
Because there’s a lot of money being made from the auto industry.
You mean the auto industry that has been lobbied and incentivised by gov't. Looking at you GM.
This whole "EV is the future" gobbledygook only feeds them, environmentally barely less impactful than normal combustion engine, the gov just signing a bill to auto companies for their climate change checklist makes me sick
One thing that sticks out to me as backwards is the "providing opportunities for on-street parking" part. I don't like cars parked along the street. It's just another piece in the puzzle of centering our society around cars. That part of the street can be much better utilized by other things. Dining, street vending, benches, bike lanes and racks, wider sidewalks, planters and vegetation, etc. are all far superior uses of such spaces. That space can do so much more than provide parking for a static private vehicle. That space can be used to breathe life into the street environment's lungs.
“Can” but shouldnt. At least not all the time. Majority of residential and commercial streets just need road parking. You can take away certain strips. Not sure if they do it in the US, but they could and they should, I agree that a developed sidewalk with terrace or benches is way better than parking places.
A huge reduction in deaths can happen if you were to focus more on turbo roundabouts, raised crosswalks, and avoiding "stroads."
Americans don't even understand the concept of "right of way," roundabouts would be a disaster. The few roundabouts I have seen in the states were a disaster.
Normal roundabouts are fine, those "turbo" roundabouts are dangerous for motorbike drivers because of the raised medians.
@@buddy1155 really?
@@dblezi teach them in new areas
@@Cyrus992 Yes, really. motorbikes drive different lines as a car. We can't make sharp corners. Those turbo roundabouts are just crazy. It does not matter if you go right (1/4), straight (1/2) or left (2/4) in every direction you have the risk of hitting the raised median, only at all different spots. It is like it is made against motorbikes.
But I am pretty sure traffic engineers don't drive motorbikes, they also always manage to put sewer covers exactly on the line a motorbike makes to corner.
Great examination of the topic! Thanks for being part of the movement.
You should also add the number of people who are killed by vehicle emissions. Researchers from Harvard University estimated that roughly 17,000 to 20,000 people in US die each year from transportation air pollution
Examples of countries with less car deaths per 100k inhabitants compared to the US: Russia, Uzbekistan, Jamaica, Phillippines, Turkey, Mexico, Mauritius, Jordan etc etc.
We need to change this American obsession with car culture. I hope the message that you send through your videos reaches more and more people.
We definitely need to invest in public transportation both buses and light rail, we need more biking infrastructure, and we need to tame down heavy traffic on both urban and suburban streets. Stringent traffic law enforcement is one piece to this puzzle.
drivers shoot themselves in the foot, as less car dependency allows for those wanting to drive a more open road
Dude, stop it. We love cars. Nothing wrong with it. If you don't like it, move to another country.
@Russ Ingram Punished? How?
@Russ Ingram That's not true. You can live in any inner city and not even need to own a car.
States should be liable for traffic deaths, car insurance, and other costs of ownership incurred due to lack of public transportation and unsafe car infrastructure.
Yeah, that sounds r3tarded
Now do the something for the people hurt on the NYC or Chicago subways or busses.
Everything about the way America sets up its roads makes it so much more dangerous than driving in Europe. Its honestly like a bad joke. Your roads are designed by psychopaths.
- Straight, wide roads and automatic cars mean people are often bored and unfocused while driving. They are more likely to eat or text while driving. In Europe you need 2 hands most of time.
- Multiple intersections in a row on a straight road. Traffic lights aren't coordinated properly, so if you get stuck in one red you'll probably get stuck at the next, and the one after. This would be infuriating to anyone and encourages people to speed towards or run through red lights.
- No NCT, dangerous cars which aren't roadworthy at all are allowed to drive.
- Multiple lanes on roads with businesses on them.. impossible to see all lanes when pulling out.
- Intersections where people are allowed to turn on red. Makes no sense at all, how is anyone supposed to cross the road safely if you can even trust red lights.
- Turning left on an intersection means sitting in the middle of multiple moving lanes. So dangerous it shouldn't be possible. How are you supposed to be aware of 3 directions of car traffic and also pedestrian crossings while controlling your own car safely?
- Driving at 15 with minimal test. Smart
Left yields in the US scare the daylight out of me, I've seen people have to back up into the turning lane because there was no opportunity to turn left.
It's not that bad when you've been driving in the US for decades. Couldn't be that much worse than say France or Italy where they drive like maniacs.
Aren't automatic cars a greater necessity on congested roads, as you are able to focus more on the traffic than clutching/ shifting?
I can't agree. I drove in France and Portugal and the drivers there are terrible and incompetent. They will run you off the road and think nothing of it.
Also I just subscribed to your channel today because of a recommended video. I like the concepts you bring up about cars and pedestrian travel. I wanna keep up with this line of thought and see what i/ we can do at smaller levels to make the change we want to see.
A lot of people tell me this when I bring up this topic. "I see what you're saying, but why are cars able to even go so fast? Why not just cap them off at 80km an hour or so?" It doesn't matter, in order for a personal car to be efficient it needs to be moving at speed, like a coach bus, tram, train or even a bicycle. (There were times when I was passing moving cars on my bike but that only occurred in the inner city or my hometown) And because there are different speeds for highways and streets, a car cannot simply cap itself off to force the driver down to the limit. If a car was capped at 80 to avoid speeding in an 80kmh zone, that car can still go 80 on a tight city street if the driver was crazy enough. And on some European highways the limit is 130kmh and it makes sense because the road is designed for 130kmh traffic. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. What places like America need to do is make their streets more narrow, they really are too wide, cars look so small driving in those huge lanes especially in suburbs. Speed in combination with lack of skill, attention or the lack of fucks to give are major contributors to these fatal crashes but it's also the road design, the fact that it isolates everything else from the car, it's all for the car, drive thrus, big signs big roads, little bike lanes and crosswalks. They need to realize how bad their roads are for the sake of human lives man
Everything you said has been tried and proven everywhere else in the world. I'm European and I don't know anyone with a relative that died in a traffic accident, while it seems to be way too common in the US...
6:14 screen cap was a major multi-vehicle crash in LA last week that killed five people and an unborn child. The driver has been charged with six counts of murder and five counts of gross vehicular manslaughter!
It's probably already a bit better here in Europe, with a lot of roundabouts, smart stoplights, road narrowing etc. But deadly crashes happen a lot aswell. Even in the Netherlands (known for good quality roads) there are certain roads where a lot of people die on, and yet the local government doesn't hurry with any changes. It can literally be years before a change happens on a road that is known to be very dangerous. I just don't get this. You know people will die there, and yet you don't fix it NOW. In aviation this would be a different story. I avoid such roads from time to time, especially in the dark. Also.. if we would really care about safety, there wouldn't be any high powered cars allowed on the street. Who needs a 700hp Porsche? Why isn't it capped to 150hp (more than enough for the car size in Europe), with a fixed top speed of 150kph (90mph) and if you want something more powerfull, drive it on the circuit. I know this limits the 'freedom to buy what you want', and a lot of people won't be happy. But it's safer.
With that mindset we should limit everything to what the government says just because someone (government) said it is good for you. In many cases accidents are caused by human error. I see more people get in crashes in normie cars that are FWD and underpowered as you prefer. Just be a defensive driver and alert. No one should be surprised by their surroundings.
I love how like half of the stock footage was of Montreal, a city with some of the best (going to get even better soon) transit, and cycling infrastructure, in North America. Not to mention is a *very* old city with most neighbor hoods around the centre being dense and walkable.
We all fear that visit from the police at midnight to give us some bad news in person.
Every aspect of our lives are affected by cars:- major roads carving up our cities, loss of community, pollution, the cost of ownership, loss of life, etc.
If you live in a city, you can play your part:- don't own a car. Just adjust your life around being without them. Get a job that's accessible with the bike or train.
If you don't own a car, you may be able to cut back your work days from five to four per week.
How about the young dude who drives to work everyday, is stuck in traffic, and most of what he earns goes towards paying off that car, and it's general costs of ownership!
How about the homeless people who live in their cars? If they sold their cars, they could afford to rent an apartment, maybe.
I just own a pushbike, keep it in my apartment, and ride it to work. The mental, financial and physical benefits of this lifestyle are impossible to describe.
If I need to drive interstate, I'll hire the latest, safest model that I know won't break down.
Being a minimalist is a great lifestyle. When you have less, then you have less to worry about.
There’s literally no homeless person who’s car is worth rent money for more than a few months at best.
@@phu5005
That few months would be just the time they need to get a roof over their heads, then sort out the other issues with their lives.
I live in a city but I wont get rid of my car as its useful for the winter and summer. Walking outside and waiting for the bus in 40 c weather is not fun at all neither is winter time with its -30 c weather. Having a car means I don't have to get exposed to the horrid weather and I can use my AC and heater for the summer and winter.
The buses are rather frequent but that means I have to stand outside in the heat or cold depending on the month of the year
@@Xenomorph-hb4zf not to mention if the bus isn't running at your time and you get stranded during horrid weather, you have no choice but to walk home (even if it takes an hour). I did that once and ended up with frostbitten legs. (I was just glad that my son who was driving, was home safe). I had to submerge in lukewarm water immediately when I got home. In my case, during pre-COVID in the city, the buses ran every 15 or thirty minutes, depending on where you are. I don't know about now because I don't live in the city but in my small town, they run every hour or two.
@@mariatolentino4516
Yes if you live in a rural area, or a city with few transport options, owning a car is kind of mandatory. The onus should be on government to begin infrastructure rollouts everywhere so people have more choice. This way, those who don't like owning cars, just don't have to. They are an expensive asset.......and a shocking investment.
My cousin died on her senior prom night after getting hit by a drunk driver.
The shocking thing is ONLY 29% of crashes involved speeding, and ONLY .8% were using cell phones. It's not crazies who crash, it's you and me following the rules. That's a real risk people don't realize they are taking.
Yes, it’s some of the crazies that crash also such as people that are on illegal drugs or driving drunk. I don’t know the percentages but I read in the news articles almost every week there are some that either kill them self and or other people doing these crazy things.
You don't need to be on drugs to have a crash. You just need confidence. Or rather, over confidence.
@@eurosonly that’s true, that you don’t need to be on drugs to have a crash. Many people like you said have overconfidence or also they drive distracted.
The same reason why we ignore the staggering number of injuries caused by walking down steps or how those in the 19th century ignore deaths caused by horses?
Injuries and deaths are going to happen with any piece of technology either out of negligence by the person, changing weather conditions, or by any other factor. The question from there comes down to the practicality of the thing in question.
Cars are extremely practical tools just as a set of stairs is a virtual necessity or the horse and buggy were important in the 19th century. There’s no need to remove them or “ban” them, simply education about personal responsibility will help prevent many of the accidents in question.
We shouldn't ignore them, but we should also have some perspective that motor-vehicle deaths are near historical lows, when taking into account increases in population, miles driven, and number of vehicles on the roads over the years. From the National Safety Council:
"Between 1913 and 2020, the number of motor-vehicle deaths in the United States (which include all types of motor vehicles, including passenger cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles) increased 831%, from 4,200 deaths in 1913 to 42,338 in 2020. However, the role cars play in daily life is vastly different now than when tracking began. In 1913, there were about 1.3 million vehicles and 2 million drivers, and the number of miles driven was not yet estimated. The latest 2020 data report 275.9 million vehicles, 228 million licensed drivers, and 2,904 billion miles driven annually.
By all measures, motor-vehicle safety has vastly improved since the early 1900s. Driver attitudes and behaviors have changed substantially, as has vehicle safety technology, which makes car travel safer.
The population motor-vehicle death rate reached its peak in 1937 with 30.8 deaths per 100,000 population. The current rate is 12.9 per 100,000, representing a 58% improvement.
In 1913, 33.38 people died for every 10,000 vehicles on the road. In 2020, the death rate was 1.53 per 10,000 vehicles, a 95% improvement.
In 1923, the first year miles driven was estimated, the motor-vehicle death rate was 18.65 deaths for every 100 million miles driven. Since 1923, the mileage death rate has decreased 92% and now stands at 1.46 deaths per 100 million miles driven.
Despite these historic drops, we cannot remain complacent. In 2020, the vehicle death rate increased 8.5%, the mileage death rate increased 21.7%, while the population death rate increased 8% from 2019."
Some of that 2020 increase stems from the Covid-19 shutdowns taking some cars off the roads, leaving more space for remaining cars to drive faster and more dangerously.
Even if only twenty people die in a twelve month period in the whole country, it's still twenty too many.
@@noelgibson5956 Everyone in the world, stop dying! Noel can't handle it. 🤦♂️😂🤣
there needs to be rotaries at intersections, they are way safer than normal intersections
Car safety ratings don’t consider the safety of those outside the vehicle, and that sucks.
I'm sorry about your cousin, and everyone else who's been sacrificed like a burnt offering to the god of greasy bastards getting where they don't need to be ten minutes faster. I hate when articles and obituaries say "they died in a car accident". No, they were killed, cut down with nary a chance; in some cases one might even say they were murdered. If there were one invention I could erase from human history with a wave of the hand, it would be cars.
The virus that put us into isolation took 6,4 million lives. Cars that are rooted into our everyday routine takes 1.35 million lives every year, and the number will only go up, and that's a normal phenomenon.
It's like the gun topic in the usa . They both aren't going anywhere
No need to go anywhere.
Crewmate 1:41
Joker 1:44
Thank you. I felt like pointing it out myself.
Congestion Pricing is in the news in my area b/c NYC wants to implement a charge to drivers of possibly up to $23 to enter Manhattan between Midtown and Lower Manhattan and the TV coverage is showing angry suburbanites who don’t want to pay more to drive into Manhattan plus politicians who want to get rid of the congestion pricing proposal.
It’s baffling that people from the suburbs want to drive to and from Manhattan where parking garages are expensive and there’s so much traffic when they have a network of commuter railroads that will take em in without paying for parking or tolls but then again, they’re the ones that complain why train service sucks and the answer to that is an obvious one that they choose to ignore.
Also, if they really bitch about how expensive it is to drive into Manhattan, then maybe move to a car friendly place like Florida or Texas with the super wide freeways and lack of public transit funding since they choose not to take the train and before the haters come, yes I know the trains and the stations can be dirty but the whole point of the congestion pricing proposal is to modernize and update the system in NYC and beyond, including the suburbs where Metro North and LIRR run.
I’m a way, the region is still paying for the mistakes of Robert Moses and any solution to fix it causes an uproar.
NYC should serve the interests of NYC residents, not suburbanites who just drive into the city...
People in the suburbs that work in the city can afford to pay to park in parking garages. It's a case of what works for them may not work for you, or make sense to you. But it does for them.
Watching this right after the “can you survive one day without a car” is very ironic and made me realize how toxic car culture is..
Car culture as in people who modify their cars or car culture as in people who view cars as the best form of transportation?
@@eurosonly Car culture as in the entire country is built around you spending thousands for a car, insurance, repairs, gas.. all while it is also the most dangerous means of travel or you can’t do anything without a vehicle.
>toxic car culture
Ok, Zoomer. Whatever the h3ll that means. Most of us are fine with our cars, much to your annoyance.
@@WillmobilePlus Here’s an example of an individual who has been indoctrinated by our car culture society
@@WillmobilePlus thanks for giving us an example of exactly what they were talking about.
I remember my first time seeing a dead person like ever.. was when a truck hit a motor cyclist. They covered his head with a vest but I was traumatized. It was two years ago and I can still never see that city the same way again.
We need to take cars off the road. More people need walk, take buses, or trains or bike. We need to change our cities and make them safer for people who aren’t in cars, and also for people who do drive.
Auto companies must be in cahoots with policy makers with regards to roads, infrastructure, etc. The results:- cities are set up with miniscule rail or bike path networks, forcing you into Chevrolets very latest offerings......
It's truly obscene.
@@noelgibson5956 Pretty sure they literally are. The Americans call corruption "lobbying."
Sorry to hear about your cousin and coworkers. Tragic.
I don’t understand why lobbyists are blaming Brightline’s trains for causing deaths, but don’t care about cars causing deaths
thank you for making this video
Because cars make money. That's all these politicians care about
I agree with the message of the video, but the stock footage of traffic from Canada and Europe was a little distracting. In Montreal, which was pretty heavily featured in the video, they are building a new automated regional metro system (the REM) which will connect to many of the places featured in the video (like the airport which was shown in one of the shots).
another thing: car size and weight. don't know a massive amount about this but a smaller car is obviously safer for every road user around it, as well as easier to avoid crashes in the first place. it also requires a smaller engine which lessens the costs if owning it massively.
An issue not covered is the distance you drive. If you drive 20km to work you are twice as likely to die than someone who drives 10 km. Another reason for denser cities
It is crazy how bike accidents are treated like the end of the world but car crashes are just a fact of life.
there were a couple assaults in the NYC subway earlier this year, people were losing their minds. couple a people assualted, yes it's bad. but meanwhile tens of thousands die in their cars every year and people are "meh. what ya gonna do. ya gotta drive"
Why do we accept the staggering number of deaths due to eating garbage & never exercising?
Walking and riding a bike are exercise.
Eating McDonald's in moderation is fine when combined with healthy food and daily exercise.
If every deadly car accident was on the news it would be on 24/7 non stop
What about Boston? Does Boston have the same issue? 🤔
Whoa, why are so many people dying on trains? That chart showed way higher numbers than I expected.
Unfortunately, many are suicides.
@@michaeloreilly657 In a way that is a good thing. It means trains don't hurt you if you don't want them to.
Let's make this video trend everyone. America needs a wakeup call.
😂🤣
I believe better technology such as sonar automatic stopping of the vehicle prior to a collision, along with other safety improvements would really reduce death rates. The public should demand this, and be prepared to pay some extra reasonable amount of money to the manufacturers. RS. Canada
Why should we pay? We already pay overpriced for depresiating assets in the cars themselves that are designed to break down after 5 years. They also get federal bail outs, when do the people get federal bail outs?
Less 'I' and you'll get far more response. Be the impartial observer. Separate videos for solutions and problems to avoid looking like an advocate/lobbyist. Very nice videos, good message and clearly stated. Respect and subscribed!
Edit: ohhh and if you can make it regional for an area you know well than so much the better. Name dropping for places works.
Cars are way too deadly and polluting for me to ever drive one again. I am satisfied with my life and my ability to get around on a bike. I don't want a world where cars are everywhere and almost think our entire planet will be malformed thanks to cars and roads and parking lots. Just look at all the dead birds and deer and small mammals along the highways. Human fatalities are inconceivable. It's so insane how we brush it all under the rug. From the death to the pollution to the noise to the inhibiting of pedestrian or cyclist freedom. It's absolutely disgusting and insane.
Yes I agree, I still need cars to go to work and travel a little. It's a vicious circle.
In Florida, the highly endangered panther and some other animals have gotten hit and killed many times by cars on roads that are not highways but the drivers are speeding over the limit.
@@enjoyslearningandtravel7957 That's the problem..speeders. The roadways aren't the problem.
Unfortunately much like what Huey Lewis mentioned in one of his songs, we don't live in a perfect world. So we still need cars, as not all of us live in an area where every destination we plain to go to is a bike ride away. what we need to do is put other modes of transportation out there for people to choose from beside road travel. Like where i am from in Canada. There are major freeways and highways for out of town driving. But there also a high speed train service running alongside, going to the same destination. giving travelers that multi choice
@@KenKen-ui4ny No Ken Ken, you misunderstand. We already have modes of transportation like buses and electric scooters and bikes. We need to dismantle the oil and gas industry. We need to dismantle the car industry. The electric bike is a massive upgrade from an electric scooter because the battery lasts longer and you can take the battery out and charge it anywhere. You *could* be living in a much more perfect world, but our love of cars (and working a job all day to afford one) is stopping us from advancing as a civilization. We could be more active, enjoy life at a slower pace, take care of the environment, etc... yet we waste our money, time, and energy on cars and jobs that don't add any value to life.
4:07 the first of these is traffic calming according to the us department of transportation traffic calming consists of physical design and other measures put in place on existing roads to reduce
vehicle speeds and improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists
the purpose of traffic calming is to calm traffic down from road rage. it's kinda obvious and in the name.
Its not cars, its careless drivers that are the problem, everyone is in a hurry to go nowhere!
So... "cars don't kill people, people kill people"? Sorry, that just sounds like handwaving to me.
42,000 deaths in America?
1,123 in Australia, also a car dependent society, where I’m from.
2,500 in Japan, where I live, which possibly could be reduced as the speed limits are not enforced. I know because I just got my drivers license renewed and everyone has go sit through a lecture.
42,000 deaths annually out of 338 million people. That's not many in comparison to how many Americans live in the country.
America is probably 13x the size of Australia so it makes sense. More people on the roads in America. It's a way of life and there's nothing wrong with that.
42,000 deaths with a country of 333 million people is actually small number.
@@robertwhitlet It does not make sense. US has higher traffic death rates than other countries by every measure, including miles travelled. Explain this away.
I normally like your ideas but despise your presentation style. In this one your presentation style is good. This video I can show to people that might actually have an impact on their thinking. Thanks for making a serious video where you're not demeaning to your audience or overly sarcastic
Just the human error factor alone is enough to make you avoid it when you can
40.000 deaths is fucking insane!
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. - Stalin(?)
This has always been true, only the scale changes. From the very earliest days of industrialization, when little children were used inside the machines because they were small enough to fit. People have been maimed and killed en masse so the owners could increase profits. The automobile industry is one of the worst offenders, and always has been.
02:00 to put that number into perspective, that's like 50 Airbus A380 (the big one) crashing every year. People would not be stepping on a plane if there were four plane crashes a month. And pilots are constantly being trained, monitored, and supported by many warning systems, while you're allowed to drive after a couple hours of practice.
Also holy cow, they allow 15 year olds to drive in some U.S. states?
That's a common comparison--the number of motor vehicle related fatalities vs. a fully loaded airliner "buying the farm" every other day. But for most of us, air travel is a "special event", while driving is part of everyday life. And street and highway crashes kill people in single digits, not nearly as headline grabbing as an airliner disaster.
@@DNRY122 Fact
i pay 365 eur per year for public transportation, that includes subway, tram, train and bus. Never had a car
nice videos. you should turn up your mic volume though. I almost double the volume on my computer to hear you like most other youtube videos
It's funny, here in germany traffic deaths keep going down
Follow the money...
Why not banned cars(except police vehicles, fire trucks, and ambulances 🚑 ) in some streets and highways, freeways, and expressways, and replacing with rail transit such as trams, subways, and/or light rails? This will shrink traffic congestion and death accident. Besides, some people aren't interested to buy cars.
I wonder if anyone has considered how traffic calming design with interact with self-driving cars as they become more ubiquitous and the technology improves. Theoretically, a self-driving car programed to do so would slow down if you 'just change the speed limit'. I'm not saying traffic calming shouldn't be done, but it might be worth also thinking ahead on what a self-driving car- constantly paying attention, obeying the rules to the best of its ability- would be doing differently than a human driver. A human driver might slow down when it has reduced site lines. A autonomous car might just slow down when you change the speed limit. I could see a wide open road with a slow driving self-driving car- where the car would have good sight lines, possibly being safer than a narrow road with a self-driving car.
Of course, that's just the traffic safety aspect... huge parking lots still make cities less liveable by moving everything farther apart... but again, if you have self driving cars, they could drop drivers off at the front door and then go off to some slightly more remote location to park... (obviously not too far, or you'll create a lot more vehicle miles, but just a couple blocks could let you build much denser 'main drags' and move the parking to higher density parking garages (with zoning rules), that don't physically take up space on the main drag.
They designed car-centric cities because they predicted the future and didn't see the unintended side effects as the technology changed. I'd love to see some urban planners doing studies on how you could integrate some of the advantages of self-driving vehicles into urban planning (not just cars- shuttle buses can be expensive to run because you still have that fixed cost of paying a driver that you do with a big bus. A driverless bus or shuttle bus, maybe with cell phone paging so it only stops at the stops where people are waiting or want to be dropped off?
Get where you're coming from but it seems the opposite of wise to form infrastructure being built now around technology that doesn't exist and doesn't have any concrete timeline for existing. Also -- a lot of the issues you mentioned in the first paragraph are reasons why 'self-driving' cars probably aren't sensible. The things they propose to do well are things drivers and road design is supposed to be doing now, and most of the conditions they will encounter are only passable with human judgement.
I've never heard a good case that self driving cars are anything more than a solution in search of a problem.
I'm non driver do to a medical issue. And yes it's not fun. Still think of all the money I save not having to deal with a car. And I have a less dangerous life with less stress too.
I don't understand why there's not a special police to control drivers, because in other countries like in France we have a police that prevents from those stupids accidents by doing some control like check the rate of alcohol in blood, check if the driver consumed some drugs like weeds ,check security etc.. and if the driver committed on of the infraction so he will get a strict sanctions like not allow to have his driver license for 5 years so for 5 years he is not supposed to drive and there are some other sanctions according to the infraction.
>I don't understand why there's not a special police to control drivers,
Is this post sarcastic?
It's just as much a problem with how roads are designed, and how almost everyone is forced to own and drive a car to even participate in society. American roads and intersections are incredibly unsafe, due to everything from laws allowing right turns on red, high speed limits, and poorly designed intersections. Then there's the quality of the drivers' ed. It should be far more lengthy and rigorous than it is in a lot of places.
Everyone just say your guardian angel prayer before driving.
So the most convenient way to consume alcohol, in a North American car-dominated city, is to drink and drive, or consume it alone at home. Yeah, no problem with that at all.
Hey, i really like your videos, wondering why your subcount is still so low... Hopefully you will "trend" and gain lots of followers
I'm deeply sorry to hear about your cousin
On the subject Of adequate transportation to bars, I’d say with that bars should refuse service to those without proof of use of these sources. That may sou cryptic but i suppose they could show their bus pas or whatever. Hell, if they simply show up driving themselves in a car that’s reason enough to refuse entry
We should have trams, trams trams, trains, trains, trains and more buses, buses, buses. They should cross our landscape continuously and without end.
Also walkable streets and separated bike road
People are the main problem, not cars.