The german driving culture is largely responsible for the lack of spectacular fatalities on the autobahn.
In general, German culture has more respect for the “correct” way to do things, cars tend to be better maintained, and there is a much higher level of driver education going on.
Comparatively, American drivers are a bunch of filthy savages. (I say that as an American driver, currently driving in a country where the locals, in comparison with American drivers, are a bunch of filthy savages)
Then instead of doing all of these increasingly draconian measures, perhaps we should try to copy the Germans. The interstate highway system itself was a copy of the German autobahn system. We should have copied it in all of its aspects. It is never too late to do this.
The US is too car dependent and as such it's practically non-viable to
- put high (skill/knowledge) requirements on drivers (especially given that this normally entails increased monetary requirements)
- put high car maintenance/road safety requirements on cars
and in generally fundamentally changing driving rules is hard in general and also a safety hazard during transition. I.e. it is very much too late to do this.
Like one of the many benefits of not having a hyper car dependent society is you can say "no more driving for you" to people who can't show to safely drive a car (or have repeatedly shown to not keep with the laws (at lest the safety related ones)). Or say "no more driving" to not well enough maintained cars (until fixed).
1. There are annual mandatory vehicle inspections. Driving an uninspected vehicle is illegal and you cannot get the inspection certificate for your windshield unless your vehicle passes.
2. The state requires a driving test to get a license (in addition to prelicensing education requirements) and effectively forces everyone to take driver education courses every 3 years by raising insurance rates if they do not.
3. There is a points system for violations. Reach 11 points, and you lose your license. Reaching 11 points is fairly easy to do.
You are saying that improved driver education and vehicle maintenance cannot be done in the U.S., yet NYS does it. You say that people’s licenses cannot be taken away for unsafe driving in the U.S., yet NYS does it. NYS is part of the U.S.
> You are saying that improved driver education and vehicle maintenance cannot be done in the U.S., yet NYS does it.
The problem is, it's only NYS. Not the entirety of the US. And the federal government can't go and mandate it without a constitutional amendment - and the last one has been passed over 30 years ago, so there is no practical chance something as controversial as that could ever become law.
The only way around this would be a repeat of the Minimum Drinking age, similar to what's being discussed for the "SAVE Act" - the federal government effectively forcing states to abide by tying federal highway or other funding to that condition. And that tactic is, let's be real, outright disgusting and trampling on states rights.
It does seem reasonable to find out what works in other countries and pursue the most effective and freedom-preserving approaches.
However, in the interim I'd support draconian measures (e.g. cameras, speed limiters, more effective consequences) until Americans demonstrate empirically that they are capable of operating dangerous equipment with some degree of competence.
What interim? These are mutually exclusive approaches. Either you mimic what is known to work elsewhere, or you institute backward measures under the misguided claim that it helps. There is no embarking on both paths at once, since they involve doing largely opposite things.
The grand-parent suggested that the source of low German fatalities despite higher speeds is a driving culture that has respect for the "correct" way to do things.
Can you explain how you think encouraging such a culture would be at odds with measures like cameras or speed limiters? I'm also unsure why you think it's "misguided" to expect those technologies to help reduce behaviors like illegal speeding.
I don't see them at odds myself, but if you are correct then I would just support the draconian measures alone. I have low confidence that such a broken driving culture can be fixed and that American drivers can be trusted to follow the rules and stop killing so many people.
When I said that draconian measures were often opposite of what is needed to make roads safer, I was mainly referring to attempts to get people to drive slower on highways. Any attempt to force people to drive slower than the 85th percentile speed poses a danger to others on the road. If you do not believe me, try driving in the left lane at the 55mph speed limit in NYS in areas around NYC. You will undoubtably have many near collisions in just a 5 minute time frame from people cutting you off. Now, imagine a number of people being coerced to drive like that all the time while the rest do not. It is easy to see that there will be more collisions.
Doing draconian things that are ineffective has an opportunity cost that requires diverting time and effort from doing things that actually make a difference. Data on traffic cameras improving safety is mixed (mainly because of people flooring their brakes to avoid fines only to cause themselves to be rear ended). It also does not help that a number of places actually try to cause motorists to run red lights when traffic cameras are put into place by decreasing the amount of time used for yellow lights so that they can increase revenue. Interestingly, increasing the time spent with the light yellow decreases collisions at intersections and unlike traffic cameras, always has a positive improvement on collisions. Another option would be to eliminate intersections by adopting cloverleaf and/or diamond interchanges, which not only make traffic flows more efficient, but also improve safety (since you cannot run a red light, or have a collision caused by someone suddenly stopping upon seeing a yellow light). As for speed limiters, they are outright dangerous when they restrict people to speeds well below the 85th percentile.
That said, NYS has done a number of things to improve driver safety. They probably do not do as much as they would in less densely populated areas, but it is not hard to imagine other U.S. states adopting them. The real problem is that there are so many cars on the road that the average distances between them are very small. As long as the distance between vehicles remains non-zero, collisions are avoided. Efforts really should be focused on maximizing the distance between vehicles, rather than on minimizing the speed at which they travel. Raising the speed limits to the 85th percentile would help there. Car pooling lanes would also help. Modernizing public transport so that people do not need as many cars would also help.
> try driving in the left lane at the 55mph speed limit in NYS in areas around NYC
Why the left lane? I used to live in NYC and when traffic was light enough to actually drive the speed limit I generally stuck to the right lane to avoid inconveniencing other people who wanted to drive faster. Wouldn't people with court-mandated speed limiters simply stick to the right lane?
> Any attempt to force people to drive slower than the 85th percentile speed poses a danger to others on the road.
Perhaps they'd need the "ATTENTION: This vehicle's speed is monitored by GPS" stickers that I occasionally see on fleet trucks in the city.
Regardless, this seems to be an objection to selective enforcement methods, right? For example, if all drivers are subject to the same constraints (whether speed cameras, universal speed limiters, road diet, etc) then not only would this not increase discrepancies in speed, but it would likely decrease them. Does this mean you would support such measures?
> Doing draconian things that are ineffective has an opportunity cost
Agreed. But that applies to ineffective things whether or not they are draconian.
I do agree that stoplight cameras have mixed results -- typically reducing serious T-bone collisions while increasing rear-end collisions -- but to be clear, when I said "cameras" I was referring to speed cameras, not red-light cameras. On the topic of NYS, their school zone speed cameras seem to have been effective at reducing injuries caused by drivers in school zones.
> As long as the distance between vehicles remains non-zero, collisions are avoided. Efforts really should be focused on maximizing the distance between vehicles, rather than on minimizing the speed at which they travel.
Due to human reaction times and the physical limitations of braking, maintaining a time between vehicles is more relevant than distance. That's why defensive driving courses teach you to keep about three seconds between your car and the car in front of you, more if you're hauling a trailer. If you're driving at 8mph that's only about 10ft, but at 80mph that's 100ft. So while I agree that increasing distance is useful, the distance necessary to ensure safe operation is a direct function of speed.
I heard of a few cases in which so many drivers were already breaking the speed limit on an overengineered highway that raising the speed limit did not increase collisions e.g. in Michigan, Texas, British Columbia. But otherwise the data is pretty clear that making people drive more slowly improves safety.
An example of a system that works well is usually the target of low-fidelity attempts to copy without understanding the fundamental principles that make it possible, I.e. copying the obvious form, but ignoring the cultural underpinnings. Also, muh freedoms. And I don’t need no edumacation, I ken drive jest fine.
Unfortunately, the USA has a weird version of the noble savage mythos that enshrines ignorance.
The Germans avoided speed limits on the autobahn specifically because they viewed it as a form of freedom. Your remarks about ignoring cultural underpinnings seem misplaced.
That said, I am not convinced that any of what you said is necessarily true. The annual vehicle inspection that NYS mandates generally ensures a minimum level of quality. In NYS, you need to pass a test that shows a minimum level of competency before you receive a license. You also need to take a driver education course every 3 years or face higher insurance rates. I assume other states do the same (and if they do not, they should start). Germany is unlikely to be very far ahead in either vehicle maintenance or driver education. If they do not have recurring education requirements, they might even be behind.
It sounds like NYS is very progressive. My exposure is anecdotal, but I don’t think that level of vigilance is the norm across the expanse of the interstate system.
I’m with you on freedom and how it ideally translates into responsibility.. but I think that there is a substantial block of US drivers that fail to grasp the intersection of those tightly entangled concepts.
In short, Freedom != freedom from consequences.
Hopefully, my view on the prospect of improving the situation is overly pessimistic. I like your version better, but my faith in cultural progress during what seems to me a significant retrograde slide over the last half century is pretty low.
In general, German culture has more respect for the “correct” way to do things, cars tend to be better maintained, and there is a much higher level of driver education going on.
Comparatively, American drivers are a bunch of filthy savages. (I say that as an American driver, currently driving in a country where the locals, in comparison with American drivers, are a bunch of filthy savages)