If 369,629 people were killed by terrorists, what would our response be?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/nov/22/us-road-accident-casualties

If you take a look at the map above, since 2001 (but only until 2009), cars and trucks contributed to 100 times more deaths than occurred on 9/11. Yet very little has been done to prevent this from happening in the future. Some states and cities have banned texting while driving (which wasn't a problem 10 years ago). Car safety might be improving (vehicle mass isn't helping other cars survive)... However, I doubt that there will be fewer deaths from 2011-2019.

Congress has made sure that electric vehicles will make noise... yet the same noise warning system should be applied to all cars and trucks in certain areas and times of day.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13416020

I will admit, that pedestrians and bicyclist need to follow the rules and watch out for their own safety too. But, they should have their own pathways away from traffic. Las Vegas has made a lot of progress over the past few years on the strip to separate drunk pedestrians and distracted tourists driving fast down the strip for instance.

The question is, what else could be done? The local news covers these stories, yet the national media is pretty silent on the epidemic. Is the solution better technology in cars? Better drivers who don't tailgate and run red lights or come to complete stops before turning on red? More serious punishments for drunk drivers? Cars and trucks that are better designed for visibility instead of acceleration? Or slowing down things to where if someone did get hit or crash, they would be more likely to survive?
http://www.alternet.org/story/153488/are_slower_cities_better_for_bikers,_the_air,_and_our_mental_health_/

 

Please tell me someone else sees the incredibly painful and obvious point here.

 

People shouldn't be eating messy foods while driving either. Or doing make-up, or reading the paper, or getting distracted by their kids in the back-seat...

 

...so the government should stop us from being morons by legislating common sense.

 

whether something is wise or not, it doesn't follow that the govt must ban it and spend money on enforcement. It's impossible to eliminate all risky behavior, and I wouldn't want to live in a country that tried to do it, especially via govt fiat. And I bet you wouldn't either. Otherwise, we can just ban cars and require everyone to use public transportation. Heck, we can reach full employment by hiring van drivers for everyone and laying rail track to the boondocks.

 

BG, what you're seeing now is the predictable outcome of a reflexive statist response. Given the choice of (1) good judgment and sane decisionmaking, and (2) a huge, highly visible, bureaucratically laden apparatus, if the decisionmaker is the government the choice will invariably be #2, because it increases the power of those making the decisions. And so we end up with the current kabuki, in which little old ladies from Minnesota are patted down, incontinent mental patients have their diapers inspected, and anyone who complains is detained for a bit and made to miss their plane for the crime of having dissed a government functionary who wields a bit of power. And we are demonstrably no safer, even though everyone is inconvenienced.

The NTSB is following the typical statist response. What good is it having the power of government behind you if you can't use it to lord over other people and boss them around? And hire lots of enforcers to work under you and thereby create a nice empire for yourself?

 

not going to get it in the current atmosphere, BG. And certainly not from this president, who wouldn't know good judgment if it slapped him in the face and stepped on his toes.

 

This isn't only about the government's role in preventing crashes and accidents. Their policies can influence this through traffic laws, car safety requirements, legal alcohol limits, designing safer roads/intersections, and public education/driver ed.

However, at the end of the day,the people still figure out a way to mess up and kill themselves or others in the process.

That is the big question. And it's not just the government spending and state DOT making the roads safe to travel on, along with protecting pedestrians. The car makers and insurance companies have a role in it too. Yet, you have to blame the customers and the American people as well. Sure, you have a 99.999% chance of making your trip successfully, but it seems to be a big problem. Not just for the 370,000 that were killed, but for the millions of family members, friends, and co-workers that were negatively effected for years afterward.

But there is no way that 100 times more money is going towards fighting this problem that the 'war' on terrorism.

 

The obvious answer is to go back a century and stop suburban sprawl before it has a chance to make cars a necessity in the US rather than a convenience. Then we can get to where we are with sensible licensing requirements rather than handing licenses out to anyone who has a pulse and doesn't actively try to injure anyone during their road test.

There's basically nothing politically viable that we can do at this point. $4/gal gas taxes to build public transit everywhere aren't going to happen, texting bans make the problem worse by forcing phones down out of sight and keeping eyes off the road for longer, handsfree headsets and speakers don't make people drive better, and summary execution for tailgating will never make it past the Supreme Court.