Road fatalities per 100 000 inhabitants per year: Indonesia 17.7 USA 11.4 UK 3.4 We are closer to Indonesia than the UK. This is Indonesia <object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/gezVxeYqEdg?hl=en_US&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/gezVxeYqEdg?hl=en_US&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>
More relevant is per miles driven since US drives are longer.... Also, if you're serious about this, the real issue is older drivers..their ratio for this is 2-5xs the rest...as well as under 21 drivers...
yeah the analysis should be fatalities per 1000 drivers, no inhabitants. people in 3rd world countries don't have cars
Our cars are also bigger and have stricter safety regulations than Europe. The number of motorcycles in the USA is minuscule compared to Europe. Motorcycles have a 35 times higher risk than cars and trucks of a fatal crash per mile driven.
Most of the terrible drivers are either Illegal Mexicans, Asians or women so really it's just a segment of the population screwing it up for everyone else.
I've been to Indonesia and yeah it is pretty scaring driving there. Also yes I agree the US doesn't have as good drivers as many other industrialized countries. As other posters have noted that has to do with that there are more miles driven in America per capita but another factor might be that driving is much more regulated in other countries.
Exactly. The conditions are horrible but they still die at a rate less than twice as much as the USA. We have huge lanes with billion dollar freeways and still kill each other.
In those countries where there's little structure to the roads and crazy drivers, I've found they tend to be much more aware of their surroundings and are more cautious. In the US we get lulled into a sense of security and are less aware of our surroundings -- not to mention the whole texting while driving and women applying makeup in the car.
Actually, I like the per so many miles driven that the above graphic uses. That accounts not only for the number of drivers, but how many miles, on average, they tend to drive.
Agreed. One of the things that helped me develop a hyper-awareness of what is going on around me on the roadway was riding a motorcycle regularly. It is truly amazing how much most people just don't notice, even when they AREN'T putting on makeup, texting, or talking on the phone while driving.
my econ professor joked that the best safety feature to have in a car is for all cars to have a knife sticking out of the steering wheel, pointed directly at your heart. That way, nobody ever speed or crash.
Man, here in Dubai we have even better cars, better roads and better drivers but we're still significantly worse than the US road safety wise. It's not about those things. A good driver is not necessarily a safe driver, that's the thing people don't understand. A good driver, to me, is a person who has great control of their own vehicle. A safe driver is someone who drives according to the risks of their own car, other cars, pedestrians and the roads. A good driver can be unsafe. There's really no reason for this madness. The best way to tackle this IMO is to make it hurt the pockets. People with different levels of income, across countries and within countries, should not be fined a uniform amount. You have to link this to a person's wealth/income - which is futile considering how difficult and complicated it is to make this a fair exercise. The other alternative is you focus more on non-monetary punitive measures like taking people's cars and driving licenses more readily and instituting a better points system. I'll be the first to admit I used to drive really irresponsibly when I was a kid and it took a terrible crash which nearly killed other people and myself to make me see how stupid I was for driving that way. I wish that had been drilled into my head, perhaps at school. Is it part of school curriculum in any country?
It doesn't account for average speed, though. The US has the infrastructure and car quality such that we can drive faster than people in 3rd world countries - so there's a tradeoff with efficiency. We could lower speeds and cut deaths in exchange for spending more of our lives on the road. 3rd world countries have crappier roads and crappier cars, so even though driving is chaotic, it tends to be much slower on average so you have fewer deaths.
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