@OrionFed
I don't think it's misleading at all. First of all, ~15-20% of road deaths are pedestrians, not people in cars. Second, this shows the size of the problem in society, which is what actually matters. Yes, cars are also safer in Europe — smaller cars and an order of magnitude more driver training required in most places — but that's not the point here.
@kim_harding
@dymaxion @OrionFed @kim_harding indeed, as a non-motorist, I am more interested in my chance of being killed by one than I am in the relative safety of driving.
@dymaxion @OrionFed @kim_harding If the rules of the road were enforced even 5% of the time I think we’d see that the drivers’ training was mostly good enough - eg people continuing through lights that turned red a couple of seconds ago isn’t because they need another lesson on how traffic lights work
@robidoo99
But also, you do not get trust and mutual respect among drivers with more traffic cops. You get it by fixing the rest of society, and that means doing things like training drivers and fixing roads, among many many many other things.
@OrionFed @kim_harding
@dymaxion @OrionFed @kim_harding Fixing the rest of society sounds like quite a grand project :) NZ addressed the problem of drivers speeding a long time ago, you can get pinged almost any where, any time. Sure some drivers put radar detection devices in their cars but they are taking a risk doing so. Here's a good example showing the attitude of UK driver to being fined, with several others putting them straight https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g255104-i125-k10577867-Speeding_fine_in_New_Zealand_please_share_experience-New_Zealand.html Not sure it led to less trust/mutual respect among drivers?
@hans @kim_harding @OrionFed @dymaxion and regarding the earlier suggestion that most Europeans travel by train, that is a gross misrepresentation of the truth. The USA has a major problem, as it is the ONLY country on the planet which has rising numbers of pedestrian deaths. This is due principally to the move towards increasingly larger “SUV” vehicles with increasingly poor visibility.
@peterbrown doesn’t Canada have very similar stats for vehicle size but far less of a rise in fatalities?