The USA have 105 road fatalities / 1M people.

"Alex87f" (alex87f) 10/17/2014 at 05:32 • Filed to: None

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51

That's nearly twice as much as the European average (55/1M) and it's actually worse than any European country. Also nearly twice as much as Canada.

This isn't news but I never realized it was that bad..

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 05:55

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"The Department for Transport (DfT) statistics show that the total number of road deaths fell 8% year-on-year to 1,754, the lowest since such figures were first collected in 1926. Serious injuries fell by 0.4%, and remain 15% lower than the 2005-9 average."

The UK aint bad for this sort of thing.

Dusty Ventures > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 05:55

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Worse than any WESTERN European country.

But yeah, Our fatality rate is pretty terrible. I know there are "reasons" that somewhat explain this (more cars per person, more licensed drivers per capita, etc) but still.

webmonkees > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 05:57

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In India, the trick is the traffic rarely gets to dangerous speeds.

Dusty Ventures > webmonkees 10/17/2014 at 06:03

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The trick isn't working. 199 deaths per million people. Or, alternately, 2,118 deaths per million vehicles.

duurtlang > Dusty Ventures 10/17/2014 at 06:17

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From what I've heard on this site I'd add lack of decent driver training and maybe lack of proper vehicle inspections to that list as well. The far higher prevalence of trucks might be a factor too, but now I'm just guessing.

PS9 > Dusty Ventures 10/17/2014 at 06:20

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WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT WE LIVE IN THE BEST DAMN COUNTRY ON THE PLANET, AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE SOMETHING IT'S DOING YOU CAN MOVE TO CANADA AND DRINK LATTES WITH ALL THE OTHER HIPPIES AND COMMUNISTS

^^^What happens to me where I live when I deviate from the required amount of blind patriotism.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 06:32

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Is that per million drivers or million residents? Those number would be equivalent in the US but far fewer people even drive in much of Europe so it could vary wildly there.

kanadanmajava1 > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 06:46

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Here's a graph how the traffic fatalities have been changing in Finland. The population is currently 5.5 million and but it was under 5 million in the graph's left end. So in the last year the official number was around 45 deaths/million.

Black: total

Blue: passenger vehicles

Green: pedestrians and cyclists

Yellow: others

Alex87f > Dusty Ventures 10/17/2014 at 06:50

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Worse than all the EU27:

Of course, more to the East, Russia is on a completely different level (200 deaths / 1M)!

Svend > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 06:50

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I know it's an odd one but I would like to see 'deaths by distance travelled' also taken into account. In that most Brits and Europeans travel on much more shorter distances or commutes compared to the U.S.

Say if five cars in Europe drive 20 miles each and one has a fatal collision and five cars in the U.S. drive 50 miles each and two have a fatal collision.

The figure for Europe would be 1 fatality per 100 mile travelled and for the U.S. it would be 0.8 fatalities per 100 mile travelled. So although there was twice as many fatalities it would show driving in Europe to be more hazardous.

Alex87f > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 10/17/2014 at 06:55

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Good point. It's per 1M residents. If you look at figures per 1M cars, the US remains worse than most of Europe, but not by such a large margin (136 / 1M cars vs. around 80 or 90 in the EU27)

Cé hé sin > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 07:00

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Glorious Russian Empire is ahead on many things.

Alex87f > Svend 10/17/2014 at 07:04

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There are sadly few complete statistics about those, but I guess you could make your own.

The average american drives about 13 500 miles per year. The average European would be around 8 or 9 000 (wild guess). That's a hefty difference. But then again, if you look at the average distance traveled per year, I'm pretty sure Europe and the USA would be extremely close. That makes a good case for public transportation :)

Alex87f > kanadanmajava1 10/17/2014 at 07:06

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Yeah the decline has been pretty incredible in the western world.

France dropped from 8 100 to 3 650 between 1992 and 2012!

Alex87f > Cé hé sin 10/17/2014 at 07:07

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They need dashcam material..

samssun > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 07:12

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How is 1/10,000 "that bad"? Realize that have a much higher rate of car ownership, and drive much more, further, and faster. A much higher percentage of Europe is crammed into dense urban centers, and don't/can't own cars, or if they do just putter around from stop sign to stop sign.

spanfucker retire bitch > duurtlang 10/17/2014 at 07:13

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Yeah, I was pretty fucking shocked when I found out that annual inspections wasn't the norm like it is in NYS.

That's pretty horrifying.

Svend > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 07:20

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I hate public transport, namely buses. But at present where I am it's very cost effective as we have had just one company for many years (Stagecoach) providing the service with government and local government stopping any possible price gouging of the customer by regulating fares and fare increases, though in the last year or so another company has come in and they share bus stops in the most part and offer equal service with only the prices and types of coaches varying so the fares have drop quite a bit.

Public transport only works if the infrastructure is in the correct place and able to accommodate not just the numbers of customers but change both up and down with demand.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > Svend 10/17/2014 at 07:32

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You make a good point with this. I'm only averaging about 300 miles a month in my car and most of my family rarely exceed 8k miles per year. My girlfriend only put 1000 miles on her car one year.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > samssun 10/17/2014 at 07:35

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That's an exageration, drivers are fairly fast here in the UK for example. Average cruising speed on the motorway is about 80mph. In fact the other day I was driving 80 in the slow lane and the cars in the fast lane were going past me a fair bit quicker. I live in one of the bigger UK cities too and we have 2 cars in the household.

deekster_caddy > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 07:41

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I'd chalk it up primarily to the fucking joke that's driver's ed in the US. Also the license exam is a joke. Maybe that's why driver's ed is a joke...

Dusty Ventures > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 07:48

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Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia, Georgia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Russia, and Ukraine were the European nations I found with more fatalities per capita. But again, the number of vehicles factors in as well. If you were to make it fatalities per million cars then the U.S. would be better off than: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey, and Ukraine. In other words the list more than doubles, and most of the additions are EU nations.

Dusty Ventures > PS9 10/17/2014 at 07:51

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If I move to Canada do I have to drink lattes, or can I substitute with Timbits?

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 07:55

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You know what would be sweet? If people could start paying attention when they drive.

duurtlang > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. 10/17/2014 at 07:55

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Really? There are long weekends where I drive 1000 miles , and I'm as European as they come. Having to drive for work and having a girlfriend 500 miles away does help.

Dusty Ventures > Svend 10/17/2014 at 07:57

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I can semi-provide that. Like Alex said, the stats aren't as prevalent, but of 31 nations that compiled such data the U.S. ranks 17th at 7.6 deaths per billion kilometers, beating out (in order) Slovenia, Belgium, New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Malaysia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Bulgaria, South Korea, Slovakia, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates. Of course this is also skewed, because for the most parts it's the most developed and safety-conscious nations that actually tracked these stats.

Dusty Ventures > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 07:58

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Check my response to Svend, I provided ranking stats based on distance traveled.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > duurtlang 10/17/2014 at 07:59

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She went away to uni and left the car at home so that's the main reason why it had so few miles on it. That said she was home about half of the year so that's still like a 2000 miles average even if she hadnt moved away.

I drive my car very little because I cant really afford to, I drive it to see family and otherwise just potter around in it every so often. I didn't need it at all really, I just couldn't stand being a car guy with no car.

samssun > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. 10/17/2014 at 08:00

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Sure, but the number of folks zipping around the countryside at high speed is a much smaller proportion than in the US. London alone has millions of non-car-owners, and most city car owners likely rarely break 25mph. Nobody dies in bumper to bumper traffic.

US: 318M people, 255M cars

UK: 65M people, 28M cars

vondon302 > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 08:04

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Not surprised people in Michigan can't even stay in their own lane let alone drive like a intelligent human being. Now some politico will use this to pass tighter driving laws instead of more driver education. Sigh Murica is like the Internet we're the best and worst of everything.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > samssun 10/17/2014 at 08:05

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London is really the only place it's extremely difficult to own a car. Here it gets congested at rush hour in select places but is otherwise fine. I think you're right that the number of cars affects the statistics, but the speed people travel doesn't have much of a part in it. A smaller proportion of the UK is congested than you'd expect. The US still has dense cities just like we do.

Alex87f > deekster_caddy 10/17/2014 at 08:12

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Yeah that seems to be a big problem!

samssun > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. 10/17/2014 at 08:15

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Agree we have dense cities where car ownership is lower, and traffic among the car owners tends to crawl, but we're proportionally less hyper urbanized. NY is basically the only megacity and still much smaller than London.

After that comes places like LA, Dallas, Chicago, etc which while heavily populated have much higher car ownership rates, lower densities, and higher travel speeds. And then half the country lives in truly exurban areas where "real" driving (and therefore real crashing) occurs.

Alex87f > Dusty Ventures 10/17/2014 at 08:16

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Armenia or Azerbaijan are hardly European though.

There's a list of fatalities per car, and the US are still ranking pretty high (around 136 death / 1M, where the EU27 would be around 80-90). But it is a factor.

Alex87f > Dusty Ventures 10/17/2014 at 08:17

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Nice!

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > samssun 10/17/2014 at 08:20

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I think it's not necessarily speed travelled, it's distance. I don't know anyone who has more than a 5 mile commute for example. The longer you drive for, the higher the chances of a wreck.

Dusty Ventures > Alex87f 10/17/2014 at 08:27

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I have a similar list, which breaks it down by individual nation, and when done so the U.S. fares better than 10 of the EU27. Here's the stats for those worse:

Bulgaria - 236/million cars
Croatia - 226/million
Greece - 138/million
Hungary - 213/million
Latvia - 301/million
Lithuania - 166/million
Poland - 176/million
Portugal - 180/million
Romania - 473/million (HOLY CRAP!)
Slovakia - 220/million

Mattbob > vondon302 10/17/2014 at 08:51

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what are these laws you speak of that they want to pass? I have not heard anything, and a quick google into MI driving laws reveals nothing.

ly2v8-Brian > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. 10/17/2014 at 09:05

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That's the big difference here. Everything is so spread out. You almost have to drive everywhere.

ly2v8-Brian > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. 10/17/2014 at 09:08

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The cities are indeed dense but they weren't built on a medieval layout. They were built on a grid with wide streets. It is fairly easy to negotiate an American city with a car, though time consuming.

ly2v8-Brian > vondon302 10/17/2014 at 09:10

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That wouldn't happen. It would get called racist or some dumb shit.

webmonkees > Dusty Ventures 10/17/2014 at 09:20

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Sorry, bias. I thought US was #1, trying to figure out how India was safer. I guess not.

Cé hé sin > Dusty Ventures 10/17/2014 at 09:37

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Interestingly one thing stands out: Portugal excepted you're better off keeping to the western and northern ends of Europe.

Cé hé sin > samssun 10/17/2014 at 09:45

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"US: 318M people, 255M cars

UK: 65M people, 28M cars"

It's not that simple though. Fewer cars per head of population most likely means that more people in the car at any given time. One car crashing with one person inside results in no more than one death for that car, two in up to two and so on so just comparing cars/capita doesn't give a complete picture either. You'd have to allow for car population, average distance travelled, type of driving and average occupancy to get a statistic which you could use to compare different countries.

Jordaneer, The Mountaineer Man > Alex87f 11/14/2014 at 23:36

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The reason canada only has half is becuase most of the year it is like this.

yes I know this isn't true, I live in northern Idaho for cryin out loud.

dogisbadob > Alex87f 11/16/2014 at 21:06

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stance yo

Rally Spec'd > Alex87f 11/18/2014 at 03:00

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I have a theory that was is causing all these fatalities in the US is the predominance of automatic transmissions in cars here. With the ease of driving with an automatic, we all know you can be drinking a mug of coffee, browsing through your music on your iPhone, putting on your makeup, yakking on the phone, eating a burger, taking off your shirt, taking surreptitious peeks at your messages or actually texting- all while in the act of driving. Because it is so easy to do any or several of these things while driving, people tend to relax their guard and forget that driving a 4500 pound with several hundred HP's is essentially a dangerous thing. All it takes is to take your eyes off the road for a few seconds to turn your brisk drive into carnage.

Also automatics have democratized driving. People who should have never been behind the wheel, or should have stopped driving a long time ago are plowing their cars into stores and preschools just because they forget which pedal it is they're stepping on. If they they were driving sticks they would just have stalled their cars before harming other people inside buildings. I'm sorry to say but driving involves skill, awareness of your surroundings, knowing what you and your car can and cannot do, and an appreciation of the imminent danger surrounding it; in the US most of the drivers don't have these because it was so easy to get behind the wheel of an automatic.

Alex87f > Rally Spec'd 11/18/2014 at 13:24

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This is an interesting point, but I think things also work the other way around.

It's true that the automatic box will allow you to get distracted doing other things. But it also means that "bad drivers" will have one less thing to deal with, and all the more time to focus on what's actually happening on the road. Because let's face it, lots of people will only get around by car. And if they're bad at driving, having to row their own gears won't help them being better.

Both probably influence road casualties in their respective directions, and I'd be curious as to how they compensate each-other.

9brghtn4 > vondon302 12/01/2014 at 13:03

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Exactly, the best and worst of everything, you just wrote what I've always thought.

9brghtn4 > Alex87f 12/01/2014 at 13:12

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Exactly my thoughs, brilliant comment.

9brghtn4 > Rally Spec'd 12/01/2014 at 13:14

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That's why the safest driver in the world is someone driving an automatic but that learnt to drive / has always driven a manual.