It’s kind of crazy how many things are mandated now that weren’t 20 years ago. Abs, traction control, airbags for both driver and passenger, rear camera (which means a screen to view it is also mandated), more and more emissions controls, etc. Not saying all or most of these are bad things but the number of expensive electronic and mechanical add-ons legislated into every vehicle makes it basically impossible to make a “basic” car.
And despite all that more people are dying on the roads, and there are more cars on the road (290 million around August, ) ... https://hackertimes.com/item?id=33765179
There is a definite bump in the last couple years (likely covid-related) but we are still at about 1/2 the rate of the 60s/70s/80s, and roughly 1/3 the rate per-mile driven. Even by total deaths, fewer people died last year than in most every year of the 1960s. The increasing safety standards of the modern road system (cars and infrastructure) should be applauded as an engineered success story.
Roughly two or times as many people die each year of alcohol abuse. If we are going after dangerous evils there are better areas to attack.
the argument in the NYT piece[0] is that the US is not doing enough to protect pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists[1] compared to other rich nations. (obviously because they have less cars than the US, so the article just points out that "cars first" costs a lot of lives)
> If we are going after dangerous evils there are better areas to attack.
Absolutely, but ... I'm not saying "it's all connected" and all of it is due to suburban sprawl, but ... it's a common factor.
If people were not driving, drinking, vaping, fentanyling in their little isolation cubes (ah, I mean cars, or houses with perfectly useless backyards, or tents), they might die less. Low population density does nasty things to communities. NIMBYs keep density low, commute times high, etc.
Meh. US culture was always a bit too simplistic, from homesteading the manifest destiny to "USSR has fallen, democracy won" and finally with "first black president elected, racism officially over guys", and now it seems society entered a post-modernist phase.
I mean the obvious fallacies[0] of these oversimplifications are getting the spotlight culturally. And it's mighty polarizing. One one hand it's too much for some people and on the other hand it's still nothing substantial for others.
[0] Yes, the USSR has fallen, but Putin built a cleptocracy, also here comes China. Oh, yes Obama got elected and the ACA is nice, but it hardly moved the needle for millions of people. The benefits of half a century of global and domestic changes concentrated in the top ~30%, and the drawbacks hit the bottom ~30%, and weaponized selfishness, shortsightedness, and radical demagoguery (ie. ingroup vs outgroup populism, both the eat-the-rich and the republiklan variety) are on the rise again, because social media maximizes engagement.
I am going to be very sad when I find I can no longer buy a car without bullshit like parking sensors, auto braking, digital screens, tracking/logging and so on.
