On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 10:32:05 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:

I haven't read *all* of these posts, so hopefully
I'm not repeating someone, but your linked report
says this:

"Covers only accidents occurring on the road. Data are estimated.
Year-to-year
comparisons should be made with caution."

Records are public. Why do they have to estimate?
Why didn't they just collect accident reports? They
don't say. As at least one person noted, drunk driving
is almost certainly down since 1990. Cars are better
made, especially brakes. An increasing number of states
ban handheld devices.

I've had two accidents in about the last 12 years.
One was a man talking on a cellphone who veered into
my lane. The other was a young man who plowed into
my pickup, which was parked on a quiet, straight street.
He was amazed he had hit me. Cellphone? Probably,
but I'm not certain. He was in the car alone in late
afternoon, so it wasn't "partying".

I've had many close calls. I can often tell when someone
in front of me is on the phone because their driving
doesn't correspond to conditions. Their speed and braking
is erratic. Cellphones have also created a problem of
very few people signaling. They simply don't have a hand
free to do it!

So how do we figure in the increased defensive driving
on the part of people who are paying attention? To a great
extent, non-phoners are doing the work for phoners. I find
driving to be more strenuous than it used to be. I have
to constantly be vigilant for lane wanderers, non-signalers
and general out-to-lunchers. Those people are all depending
on others to be paying attention.

It would be interesting to also see figures for pedestrians.
How many injuries walking into trees and cars while phoning?
Last week I was heading down into the subway as a young
woman strolled down the middle of the stairs, gabbing away,
not holding the railing. I said excuse me, then "on your left".
I was afraid she might step to the left as I passed and send
one or both of us down the stairs. She was simply *not where
she was*. Finally I raised my voice and said "wake up!". That
worked. I listened to her indignant protests fade into the
distance as I headed for the train. At least no one fell down
the stairs. (Excuse me?! How dare you! blah, blah, blah...)
And who knows, maybe she'll pay attention a bit more in the
future. But the incident highlights another disturbing trend:
People are increasingly uncomfortable simply being where
they are. Many people simply don't expect to have to relate
to the world around them. They're offended by it! It's not
only a danger and a mild form of mental illness; it's also a
growing social problem. I find people increasingly just walk into
me on sidewalks. I asked a blind friend about his experience.
Yes, more and more people are walking into him, as he walks
city streets with a guide dog!

While we're at it, I'm curious how many accidents are
caused by ridiculous flashing light overkill on emergency
vehicles. Police and firefighters just can't seem to resist
the childish thrill of adding yet another light. Police cars
used to have a blue "bubble gum machine" on top. It
worked fine. Now they have dozens of flashing lights in
every color. The problem: It's impossible to tell where an
emergency vehicle is going. Even if they use turn signals,
there's no time to figure out which lights on this high-speed,
psychedelic Christmas tree are signalling.


Interesting points. My driving experience is that things are no
different on the road now then they ever were in the past as far as
the general competency and driving behavior of other drivers. Sure,
sometimes you run into idiots but that's always been true. I see
regional variations in how people drive... here in the west almost no
one gets over to the left when people are coming down an on-ramp and
will need to merge into traffic, it's every man for him/her self. Yet
back east it's very common for the thru traffic to move left whenever
there is someone coming up the on ramp.

I really think the regression to the mean applies and every time we
try to make the Driver safer they just become more dangerous in some
other fashion with the net result being the overall safety of THE
DRIVER remains more or less the same year in and year out. Yet
accident rates are lower..... I give credit for that more to highway
and street design than to the driver. We have wider shoulders, wider
lanes, more divided highways, safer guardrails, better signing, better
sight distances, better geometric design, higher friction pavement
surfaces, all things that make the roads safer but that the drivers
don't even notice.

As far as emergency lighting, in the last 10 years it's actually taken
a step backwards in my opinion. You are right that they have gone nutz
with the lighting. The reason is LEDs. Before LEDs there was a
practical limit on how many lights you could put on a car because more
then a single light bar across the top would draw so much power (in
addition to all the radios) that the battery would go dead while the
cop was stopped. When LEDs dropped in price to where cost wasn't too
big a concern (and cost is almost never a concern with PDs) they
started loading up the police and emergency vehicles with every LED
light they could find a place to bolt on. But something else happened
too. Before LEDS, when it was usually a single light bar with half a
dozen lights in it, all the lights in the bar were interconnected to a
central controller which would flash them in a fixed and designated
pattern. Researchers had even studied patterns and such looking for
the best ones. Perhaps all the lights on the right half, then all the
lights on the left half, then all the "even" lights, the all the "odd"
lights, repeat or they might sequence from right to left to encourage
you to stay left. So you saw an identifiable, and possibly even
meaningful pattern as you approached the emergency vehicle.

With the LEDs they have mostly gone to each little module being it's
own little world. Then they stick a dozen of them on teh vehicle, a
couple at teh bottom of the rear window, a couple at the top, a few on
the bumper, some on the rear view mirrors, plus they make the tail and
reverse lights flash plus they have the top light bar going. None of
those little modules are synchronized with any of the others so aside
from the lights in the top light bar it's just a bunch of randomly
flashing lights and so many of them that you can't focus on anything.
Then they add the TAKE DOWN lights which are front and rear facing
BRIGHT WHITE steady burning lights equivalent to headlight high beams.
The purpose of the take down lights is to BLIND YOU. The idea is that
you, the car either in front or behind the cop car, will have those
take down lights shining right into your eyes so that you cannot
clearly see the officer who stopped you, whereas he can see you. That
way you won't pull your gun and shoot him because you can't see to aim
at him. Lots of those cops turn them when they aren't needed which
naturally blinds oncoming and upcoming traffic depending on the angle
at which he parked his car.