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submitted 8 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world

The cause was easy enough to identify: Data parsed by Kuhls and her colleagues showed that drivers were speeding more, on highways and on surface streets, and plowing through intersections with an alarming frequency. Conversely, seatbelt use was down, resulting in thousands of injuries to unrestrained drivers and passengers. After a decade of steady decline, intoxicated-driving arrests had rebounded to near historic highs.

... The relationship between car size and injury rates is still being studied, but early research on the American appetite for horizon-blotting machinery points in precisely the direction you’d expect: The bigger the vehicle, the less visibility it affords, and the more destruction it can wreak.

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[-] marine_mustang@sh.itjust.works 94 points 8 months ago

Just my own experience and maybe due to frequency bias, but holy shit everyone seemed to lose their goddamn minds behind the wheel after Covid.

[-] SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world 54 points 8 months ago

People seem to have gone “feral”.

Animals in the store?

No shoes/shirt?

Waiting your turn?

Treating other people (especially service workers)?

Nope. Just a feral return to “mine mine mine, me me me”

[-] GBU_28@lemm.ee 20 points 8 months ago

Yup. Everyone realized social norms/good behavior, was just a social shared agreement. If you opt out, and shit on the floor, it's the other person's fault for caring

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[-] 0110010001100010@lemmy.world 33 points 8 months ago

And I swear SOOOO many fucking people on their phones. Bitch, you aren't that important. Put it the fuck down and drive.

[-] GBU_28@lemm.ee 11 points 8 months ago

Former firefighter: COVID didn't start that.

[-] BruceTwarzen@kbin.social 8 points 8 months ago

That is not new tho. People now watching tv shows while driving is pretty new. And i assume people who do that are also on their phones at the same time.

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[-] Igotz80HDnImWinning@kbin.social 26 points 8 months ago

Yes! A TON of people have brain damage from COVID and have no idea they have brain damage from COVID.
https://twitter.com/yash25571056/status/1745048307335119358

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[-] Voyajer@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months ago

A lot of people only go the speed limit because there are cars in the way

[-] NateSwift@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

Apparently i’m a lot of people

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[-] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

Yes. Covid unleashed a lot of people’s inner narcissism. Bunch of fucking me-mes.

[-] Microplasticbrain@lemm.ee 70 points 8 months ago

I dunno but can we turn down the brightness on some of these fucking headlights

[-] Assman@sh.itjust.works 33 points 8 months ago

They need to mandate that headlights cannot be installed > 2-2.5 feet off the ground. Putting them higher than that does not benefit you in any way, it just fucks with other drivers.

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago

If an 18 wheeled transport truck can have lights mounted at a reasonable height and brightness, so can your f150 or chevy Suburban.

[-] Assman@sh.itjust.works 14 points 8 months ago

Exactly, practically every semi has its headlights mounted just above the bumper. People saying "it's the angle that matters" don't understand that if you're in a small car you're getting blinded from both directions regardless of how the lights are angled.

[-] Coreidan@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago

The height doesn’t matter nearly as much as the angle they are pointing.

[-] psud@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago

There are already rules about where they may point (for road legal lights, anyway) you shouldn't get dipped headlights in your mirror or from oncoming traffic except briefly as they crest hills

The height is a problem as when a large vehicle is tailgating you the angle doesn't matter much

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

I have a small car and even without being tailgated, excessively high headlights nearly blind me as they are as high or higher than my side mirrors or rear view mirror. Its so bad I'm tempted to wear sunglasses at times.

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[-] corruptmagician@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

No joke, my MIL hit a dear the other day because she couldn't see it due to a truck blinding her as it drove the opposite direction. Luckily she was only going 30 so the damage was minimal but it's crazy they are allowed to blind drivers like that.

[-] FReddit@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago

With you on that.

I live in a rural area with no street lights, and a lot of these redneck asshole trucks have two sets of headlights vertically, guaranteeing that you will be blinded

[-] Pyramid8058@kbin.social 37 points 8 months ago

In my city, police have pretty much given up on doing any traffic enforcement.

[-] DrCatface@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

same, why? i didnt see any cops during xmas new year, then this morning i see 3 highway patrols, probably on their way to an accident

[-] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 8 points 8 months ago

Quiet quitting after Floyd protests hurt their feelings.

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[-] psud@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Same in mine, in Canberra, Australia. Maybe I'm just not driving at the times they're doing drink driving enforcement. I recall when I was a youth the breathalyzers were set up randomly midnight to 4am

We do have camera enforcement of speed, red lights, and mobile phones

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[-] DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world 37 points 8 months ago

It's because we have so many entitled morons on the road, and we're all stressed over the worsening human condition.

[-] psud@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago

And because the roads are not designed to keep traffic at safe speeds, and don't separate traffic from pedestrians and cyclists sufficiently, when those morons do something moronic they kill someone

Infrastructure can fix a lot of this problem - Australia is like mini-America in so many ways, but we allow speed cameras and red light cameras which reduce speeding marvelously, though I have been tailgated by someone offended I was only going 80km/h* in the 80 zone. They passed me illegally and unsafely

Even the fixed cameras do good work, even when everyone knows where they are as it's hard to speed right after them as slow cars move into the fast lane to pass glacial traffic

I point at the bike I ride as a reason cars give me space, it's a carbon fibre recumbent. Since it looks odd, people see it. But the bike lane is protected by paint on the route I mostly ride, and one driver was so busy looking at my odd bike that they went out of their lane into the bike lane. Luckily there was no cyclist just that distance in front of me - that's a pretty regular person, driving mostly safely, but screwing up. If the bike lane was protected by a kerb the car would've been deflected.

*I calibrate my speedometer to GPS speed, so it's accurate

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

Here in Canada I've noticed we are starting to use cameras as well, the only issue is there are lots of signs before it is installed and lots of signs when it is installed. That way you know where you can speed and where you can't speed, which is usually just 1 or 2 intersections of cameras.. It seems like a small improvement but they are too easy to avoid, especially for locals. Imagine if a traffic cop had to walk down the road and put a little sign up that says "radar trap ahead" before doing any radar.

[-] psud@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

My town has mitigated that problem by putting a mobile camera just after the fixed camera. The sign for the mobile camera is hidden by the slow traffic, but they catch all the people who speed up just after the fixed camera

People are now afraid of speeding anywhere around the cameras

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

I've also heard of arrays of cameras being used along an entire street. So even if you aren't speeding at one camera, it will know your average speed across the whole street and if you were speeding between cameras.

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[-] General_Effort@lemmy.world 23 points 8 months ago

Chart showing motor vehicle traffic deaths in road accidents, by country: OECD Data

I'm taking this graph from wikimedia. It's super weird, no?

In some other developed countries, you can even see how lockdowns brought down traffic deaths. It especially saved children. The US just... loses it?

[-] Thrashy@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago

People just went batshit over the pandemic for some reason. I don't know if it was a nihilistic embrace of the void in the face of plague and death, or what, but in addition to garden-variety street racing and dangerous driving ballooning while the roads were lightly used, there's been a huge increase in sideshows shutting down intersections, people just deciding not to pay for license plates or annual inspections, and generally making the roads more dangerous for everybody else.

I suspect that the anomaly in the US might be reflective of the way that social cohesion has corroded in the last decade or so. The pandemic broke us, but adhesion to the social contract has been getting weaker for a long time. People suddenly driving like maniacs is, in a sense, just a symptom of that breakdown.

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[-] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Car sizes are getting larger in america to meet the fule efficiency requirements imposed by the government.

Car manufacturers could not meet these requirements, but they figured out that if they increase the weight of the car they could meet the fule efficiency.

Here is a video that explains it better then my ape brain could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh4H9qZ-_6Y&t=55

[-] silence7@slrpnk.net 26 points 8 months ago

You don't need to make the cars bigger to meet fuel economy requirements; it's a decision by vehicle makers to make them bigger rather than take advantage of the more efficient engine designs available to produce a vehicle which uses less fuel.

[-] vividspecter@lemm.ee 24 points 8 months ago

It's partly that, but the other aspect is the absurd "light truck" exemption where SUVs and pickup trucks have less stringent emissions standards. So there is less incentive to go the downsizing route, and instead make bigger and bigger cars because if you're a car company, you make more money per vehicle this way.

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[-] LordKitsuna@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Because our requirements for getting a license are basically nothing. You answer 20 is super basic questions half of which have fucking nothing to do with driving or have insanely retarded answers like "how many feet exactly should you turn off your high beams if there's another car approaching" YOU TURN THEM OFF FUCKING IMMEDIATELY WHEN YOU SEE ANOTHER CAR!! Oh sorry I blinded you I was pretty sure that was about 500 ft my bad

And then the Practical test the vast majority of places do a quick little jaunt around the block on some insanely basic streets have you parallel park real quick and then you're good to go. The drivers in America are more deadly because they learn literally fucking nothing from the process of acquiring a license

[-] PlasterAnalyst@kbin.social 11 points 8 months ago

Cars also got a lot faster than they used to be. Mostly due to many more gears in the transmission as well as much higher horsepower compared to cars even 15 years ago.

[-] BruceTwarzen@kbin.social 7 points 8 months ago

But also much safer and way more stopping power. But the best car is useless when the driver is browsing tiktok

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[-] dmrzl@programming.dev 7 points 8 months ago

Re the headline: Can someone explain to me - a German - when to use "deadly" and when to use "lethal"? Feeling pretty confident with the language, but this one just confuses the shit out of me...

[-] jennwiththesea@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

Hmm, they're pretty synonymous, but I think you're noticing this slight, occasional difference in use: Lethal is active, deadly is passive. A thing can actively be lethal when used by you, but when it's something that happens to you, it's deadly. An accident is something that's considered to have happened to you, despite the fact that it's typically your fault to some extent.

[-] laverabe@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I'm no linguistics expert but these are the definitions from Webster

lethal applies to something that is bound to cause death or exists for the destruction of life. lethal gas

deadly applies to an established or very likely cause of death. a deadly disease

They are synonyms and most people would probably use them interchangeably. I guess the biggest difference is lethal applies to something that is about to cause death, whereas deadly applies to death that has moreso already happened.

lethal weapons, deadly accident, etc ...

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[-] Thrawne@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

I looked into similar data from the NHTSA regarding accidents during lock down on the hypothesis the insurance companies would have an interest in WFH. I was stunned to see accidents did not decrease. Anecdotally i was working in field service during this period, and observed what seemed like less traffic, and yet the data disagreed with my impressions during the time.

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this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
273 points (96.3% liked)

Fuck Cars

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