13 ms·

Anyone has an idea what caused the decline in Motor Vehicle Deaths from ~2004-2014?

unsupp0rted 3y ago
I’m curious if it could be safety technology improvements and child car seats?
BoxFour 3y ago
Highly likely a lot of it is simply older cars without safety features we consider basic these days (like side air bags) being phased out. Very few people driving cars from the 80s or earlier these days. You can probably thank Ralph Nader for a lot of it, honestly.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jsbg 3y ago
  > You can probably thank Ralph Nader for a lot of it, honestly. no https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35341056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35341056
  - BoxFour 3y ago
    Vehicles became a lot safer because of Ralph Nader. Google “unsafe at any speed”.
    - jsbg 3y ago
      did you look at the graph? has he been active in auto safety since the 1920s?
      - BoxFour 3y ago
        I did, you apparently didn't because you missed the huge increase in fatalities from the mid 60s to mid 70s. Look up when "Unsafe At Any Speed" was written and think about what might've reversed that trend.
        jsbg 3y ago
        I know about unsafe at any speed. Correlation is not causation. Trends don't mean monotonically decreasing. Was there also a book written in 1931 and in 1945?
        BoxFour 3y ago
        > Correlation is not causation lol I see, the man who crusaded for vehicle safety and helped force a bunch of legislation mandating vehicle safety regulations has nothing to do with vehicles becoming safer following said regulations. Seems pretty clear you just don't want to admit you're in the wrong here, so I think we're done.
- simplicio 3y ago
  Also encompasses the "cash for clunkers" program and period of low interest rates, both of which accelerated the retirement of older cars for newer (and generally, safer) cars
jsbg 3y ago
motor vehicle deaths have always trended down, cars just keep getting safer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT,_VMT,_per_capita,_and_total_annual_deaths.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
- consp 3y ago
  Yet in a lot of countries they don't anymore. Here mostly due to pedestrian and cyclist deaths being counted as motor vehicle deaths due to increasing car size and more km driven per capita.
- ljf 3y ago
  Strange you don't link to the table which tells a different story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... the deaths per 100,000 population has got worse across the last 10 years.
orwin 3y ago
Car were safer and safer, ABS and stuff helped, Also the whole world started doing crash tests to help protect the drivers and passengers. Note that the trend continued past 2014 in Europe (stabilizing now). Two differences: - Less SUVs/light truck on the road in Europe (it's changing) - crash tests in Europe test small cars against SUVs, SUVs against trucks... All different combinations. If your utility vehicle / SUV doesn't perform well on those crash tests, you can't sell it (hence no F-150).
dsfyu404ed 3y ago
A lot of improvements in vehicle safety were made between 1990ish and 2005ish. Around 2004-14 period the older cars that teenagers drive would have started being models with airbags and ABS. Neither of these have much impact on fatalities among "average drivers" but young driver's propensity to crash into things at very high speed and propensity to load more people than seat-belts into vehicles plays right into the use cases where these technologies will save the most lives. Cars from the mid '00s on up will also have much stiffer cabins because of a bunch of rollover and side impact rule changes that took effect around then.
- genman 3y ago
  Rate of fatal car accidents in US is about twice as that in Germany and Germans have autobahn with no speed limits drinking beer and then driving is part of their culture.

I’m curious if it could be safety technology improvements and child car seats?

Highly likely a lot of it is simply older cars without safety features we consider basic these days (like side air bags) being phased out. Very few people driving cars from the 80s or earlier these days. You can probably thank Ralph Nader for a lot of it, honestly.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jsbg 3y ago
> You can probably thank Ralph Nader for a lot of it, honestly. no https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35341056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35341056
- BoxFour 3y ago
  Vehicles became a lot safer because of Ralph Nader. Google “unsafe at any speed”.
  - jsbg 3y ago
    did you look at the graph? has he been active in auto safety since the 1920s?
    - BoxFour 3y ago
      I did, you apparently didn't because you missed the huge increase in fatalities from the mid 60s to mid 70s. Look up when "Unsafe At Any Speed" was written and think about what might've reversed that trend.
      - jsbg 3y ago
        I know about unsafe at any speed. Correlation is not causation. Trends don't mean monotonically decreasing. Was there also a book written in 1931 and in 1945?
        BoxFour 3y ago
        > Correlation is not causation lol I see, the man who crusaded for vehicle safety and helped force a bunch of legislation mandating vehicle safety regulations has nothing to do with vehicles becoming safer following said regulations. Seems pretty clear you just don't want to admit you're in the wrong here, so I think we're done.
simplicio 3y ago
Also encompasses the "cash for clunkers" program and period of low interest rates, both of which accelerated the retirement of older cars for newer (and generally, safer) cars

jsbg 3y ago

motor vehicle deaths have always trended down, cars just keep getting safer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT,_VMT,_per_capita,_and_total_annual_deaths.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

consp 3y ago
Yet in a lot of countries they don't anymore. Here mostly due to pedestrian and cyclist deaths being counted as motor vehicle deaths due to increasing car size and more km driven per capita.
ljf 3y ago
Strange you don't link to the table which tells a different story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... the deaths per 100,000 population has got worse across the last 10 years.

orwin 3y ago

Car were safer and safer, ABS and stuff helped, Also the whole world started doing crash tests to help protect the drivers and passengers. Note that the trend continued past 2014 in Europe (stabilizing now). Two differences: - Less SUVs/light truck on the road in Europe (it's changing) - crash tests in Europe test small cars against SUVs, SUVs against trucks... All different combinations. If your utility vehicle / SUV doesn't perform well on those crash tests, you can't sell it (hence no F-150).

dsfyu404ed 3y ago

A lot of improvements in vehicle safety were made between 1990ish and 2005ish. Around 2004-14 period the older cars that teenagers drive would have started being models with airbags and ABS. Neither of these have much impact on fatalities among "average drivers" but young driver's propensity to crash into things at very high speed and propensity to load more people than seat-belts into vehicles plays right into the use cases where these technologies will save the most lives. Cars from the mid '00s on up will also have much stiffer cabins because of a bunch of rollover and side impact rule changes that took effect around then.

genman 3y ago
Rate of fatal car accidents in US is about twice as that in Germany and Germans have autobahn with no speed limits drinking beer and then driving is part of their culture.