Can confirm. My grandmother beat breast cancer, and was killed by a drunk driver.
All for safer streets.
Shit man, had that happen at about 14. And again at 15. And once more at 16.
similar losses in my high school, cars are the number one killer of kids and teenagers
This seems to be basted of statistical averages, so I’m so sure it can necessarily be translated to 4 in 5 people in a real empirical sense. It’s not entirely clear though - I didn’t try to find any sources.
I’d expect a skewed distribution with more deaths concentrated in certain areas and impacting some people more.
This might seem an anal point, but it might help explain voting behaviour and crowd responses and such.
If you’re speaking to a room of 100 random 40-year olds it might be way less than 80 who agree that they know someone who died in a crash. It might be just 20 who knew 4 people die. That sort of skew in people’s experiences might be helpful for advocates to understand as the dynamic of a minority with more trauma vs a majority none could be different - especially if the majority are callous self interested fuckfaces.
Yeah, that’s a good observation. There are definitely clusters. Similarly, I’ve known a depressingly large number of close acquaintances who died of overdoses, AIDS and suicide. I was playing music, living in big cities and socializing with artists, musicians and dancers. The 80s, to me, were a bloodbath. But I think it’s fair to say that most people who went though that decade didn’t experience the same degree of loss, desolation and survivor’s guilt. It’s hard to explain to someone who didn’t go through it. The experience shaped my world view, my politics and how I live my life.
I realized I ADHD rambled in my post. tl;dr: I totally agree
It for sure is a statistical average. Like one in four women in your life have been sexually assaulted (can’t remember the exact statistic, but whatever it is, it’s bad).
To your point about some people being more affected than others, you are absolutely correct. Adding to this, some people don’t realize how many on their own life, like friends and family, have been affected by automotive accidents. Traffic injuries and deaths are so so normalized. Just anecdotally, the more I think about it, the more I remember people who have been injured, myself included. I just thought of a family friend, right now, while typing this, that was killed in a drunk driver hit and run, while she was jogging on a paved bike path in a park. My cousin and his wife were killed on a motorcycle when a truck pulled out in front of them illegally. Another cousin’s best friend died in a car accident in high school.
But when I first read the statistic my first thought was “I don’t think I know anyone who has died that way.” Stunning. I have a relatively high level of empathy and it took a fair amount of introspection to remember those who died. Partly because they weren’t immediate family or friends, but rather, once removed. No wonder, as you say, those callous, self-interested bastards don’t allow statistics like the OP to move them toward change.
a truck pulled out in front of them illegally.
Without knowing any real details, this is a type of accident where the perpetrator may not be held liable (because accident), and there’s really no technical solution (except maybe self-driving). Pulling out without seeing traffic is far too easy for a human to do by mistake, and no amount of road engineering or stop signs can change that
(Certainly roundabouts can help, and getting rid of stroads, but there’s still “pulling out”)
Behaving illegally and causing someone’s death as a consequence should be treated as a criminal matter. It’s a homicide, compounded by “reckless disregard.”
there’s really no technical solution (except maybe self-driving)
A lower threshold for taking dangerous drivers off the road would help. And don’t believe the self-driving hype: self-driving car makers’ stats should not be trusted unless corroborated by peer-reviewed, third-party science, where the people doing the analysis have no conflict of interest.
👏 fuck 👏 every 👏 single 👏 car 👏
That sounds painful. And what about electric cars? There’s no exhaust to stick the benis in 🤔
It’s also critical to understand the datasource. If we’re computing average by crash data, I’m sure I’m not average, but also “know” more people who have died than I am aware of
If their data was from personal surveys, my answer might be 2. The real number is likely higher, and the average is not predictive
Yep. Averages are just statistics, not real peoples experience. They’re far from useless, but a nice rich, (ideally) random or otherwise re[presentative sample has way more diverse things to say about the world than a single summary statistic ever can.
I’d like to see more “professionalism” required to obtain a driver’s license. At this point the barrier to entry to drive a 2 ton death machine is far too low. There is no reason why we should have people with multiple (or arguably any) DUIs operating a motor vehicle.
When I was 19 I saw a guy in a lifted F150 run over and kill a cop on a motorcycle. Of course the truck had a thin blue line punisher sticker on it too…
How did that happen?
At an intersection the truck turned right on red and then directly left into a parking lot. The cop was just approaching the intersection and I assume the truck driver couldn’t see him over the hood of his truck. I was working at the store the truck driver was intending to go to and could see it out the window.
The cop was responsive at first but soon went pale and laid motionless on the ground the rest of the time. The truck driver was an elderly man who looked completely devastated after seeing what he did. The EMTs came quickly cause the hospital was just down the road and they stayed for like 45 minutes until they fully covered him with a white sheet and left. I can only assume he died from what I observed, I have no idea if he actually did.
it’s a slaughter, over 30,000 a year killed, many times that maimed. FREEDOM.
Just 10 9/11s per year. No big deal.
It was age 16 for me, and he was around my age. He was sitting alone on his own suburban front lawn when some speeding idiot lost control, swerved onto the yard, and killed him.
Buddy of mine from high school died in a motorcycle crash, my little brother’s best friend also died in a motorcycle crash
Yeah cars are dangerous, but motorcycles… Those mofos are DAAAAANGEROUS
Dangerous because they attract the wrong people who ride them.
I have been riding 46 years. You meet the dumbest people on motorcycles. I can tell just from a few miles of following a rider if they are going to get killed.
Dangerous because they attract the wrong people who ride them.
A friend of mine is a nurse in a neurological ward. She says the other nurses call people like that donor-cyclists.
I also used to ride, mainly touring in the UK and Europe, and I largely agree, but there’s also an irreducible risk of getting killed or maimed by other, larger vehicles, regardless of all the precautions you take. I was extremely cautious and well-trained, but still had a couple close calls. Mitigated risk is not zero risk. And, as they told me during training, when you’re on a motorcycle, the crumple zone is your own body.
The same is true of bicycling, but fortunately there are some good bike routes where I live where you’re mainly separated from traffic.
I met two people in the rehab hospital for brain injury, one from a motorbike and one one was from dirt bike. But anyway, they scare the shit out of me now.
People just don’t seem to recognize that the biggest risk they take in getting hurt or hurting someone else is with motor vehicles. We just really gloss over it all.
Most people are terrible at putting risks in proportion. Familiar risks are discounted, while nearly nonexistent ones amplified in the media get far more attention.
I’ve lost two friends to it and I’m not even 30
And several family members
When I was a kid my friend’s mom got permanent brain damage in a motorcycle crash and her life pretty much came to a permanent halt.
A high school friend of mine was thrown off his motorcycle and off an overpass when he was 20. Doctors said he died instantly upon impact with the berm.
I know of two other high school acquaintances who have had vehicular deaths, one in a sedan and the other on a motorcycle.
I’ve known two separate people in NYC who had both of their legs broken simultaneously by a car hitting them from behind while they were waiting at a red light on their bikes. In one of those cases the motorist got out of her van and, upon seeing the state he was in, got back in her van without a word and drove away.
I had a roommate in NYC who had just returned back to town after spending a full year on his sensei’s farm in New Jersey recovering from getting right-hooked by a van has he was crossing the street. He was pulled under and snagged, dragged a full block, the back of his head and back were cheese-gratered down to the bone. He showed me an operating room photo of the damage.
I’m exactly 40 year old.
First at 17, second at 25.
Had a close call myself on my bicycle at 16, a drunk who did a hit-and-run, leaving me concussed and with a broken collarbone. My brother, who was with me, remembered the license-plat number, so the fucker did time for that. Then I lost my best friend at 18 to a drunk driver, who got off lightly in court, but who treated it as a joke, and as a result was nearly beaten to death by one of my friend’s other friends. Three of my other high school friends also died in car or motorcycle crashes around the same time.
My cousin’s wife was killed on a motorcycle. She was in her early 20s and left behind two toddlers. A carload of teenagers slammed into her from behind while she was waiting for the light to change. The driver was distracted.
The son of one of my closest friends was driving home from work and was hit by a drunk driver. He went over a small cliff and had a severe TBI. His speech and mobility are permanently affected, though it’s remarkable how much of a recovery he was able to make.
I nearly lost one of my sons in a motorcycle crash when he was 17. In that case, he was the drunk.
I’m 70 and still drive. So far, my reflexes and vision are fine, but this will be the last car I own. I plan to sell it off by early next summer. I’m a strong bicyclist, live in a walkable place with (mainly) workable public transport, and can afford taxis. The reasons to quit far outnumber all the reasons why, as the man said.
\46. First person that died due to a car accident that I knew was when I was 7. I now have known 8 people that have since died in car wrecks. E-bike adoption cannot come fast enough.
Lost one last week
In kindergarten I lost my best friend when he and his dad died in a car crash hitting a tree
My dad had a heart attack while driving and hit a tree. He managed to slow down and get off the road before he passed out, so he wasn’t badly injured and didn’t hurt anyone else, and went on to live another 12 years.
It was not coincidental that he smoked three packs of Marlboros a day and had heart and lung trouble.
