Okay, car accidents, seriously. WHAT the HELL?

[RainGrowsBrite]

I always say… how are cars legal and marajuana isnt??

[gonzomax]

@Poysyn

I sympathize, there was a two year period where I was involved in no fewer than seven car accidents, none of them my fault, but it was starting to feel personal.

what, exactly had I done to the automobiles of the world to make them so angry?

Years ago my dad had a streak of getting hit by cars with him being blameless. The last one he was waiting for a light to change and a driver plowed into the rear totaling the car. The insurance company jacked up his rates declaring him" accident prone".

[Broomstick]

@GHO57

Sorry about your family and friends… but, umm… it actually sounds like while none of the drivers were at fault, all of them could have prevented being involved in the accident

1. start slowing down early, and look in the mirror to see if the guy behind you is slowing down.
2. keep one eye on the mirror when stopped on the road, in case the guy behind you doesn’t slow down.
3. watch what other people are doing in case they do something stupid (which they will)

It’s a bit strong to state that ALL of the non-fault drivers could have avoided these accidents - sometimes you’re just screwed and there is NOTHING you could have done. Seriously, you weren’t there and you don’t have access to first hand information. Suggestions to HELP avoid an accident are welcome but this is a bit like saying a rape victim could have prevented the assault if she wore less revealing clothes. Don’t blame the victims, it’s crass.

Take your #1 for instance - no matter how early you slow down it won’t help you if the jackass behind you is far exceeding the speed limit. I’ve seen it on the road in front of my house - someone is at a complete halt at a red light and gets rammed by some yahoo doing 80 down a street with a limit of 35. In other cases, if you’re on a curving road, you can’t see a speed demon behind you until it’s too late. Then there are the tailgaters who will not slow down and will not get off your ass - add in a kid dashing across a road and someone is going to get hurt. Which is why I think tailgating should be felony, frankly, it’s freakin’ dangerous to everyone around. I’m sorry if you wound up behind granny, you don’t have a right to ride anyone’s bumper to bully them into speeding up.

#2 presupposes you CAN go somewhere if someone behind you won’t/can’t stop, though how you do that in a traffic jam or when stopped at a light amidst a bunch of cars I just can’t fathom.

#3 is altogether true but just because you see something doesn’t mean you’ll avoid an accident. My most recent scary incident was going down a freeway that was four lanes wide when a car in the far left land suddenly lost control and spun across all four lanes of traffic, doing donuts with his wheels smoking, to end up in the ditch next to the road. Not one goddamn thing anyone could do, and it was sheer luck that no one got hit. I called the accident in to 911 under the presumption that whoever wound up in the ditch would need assistance of some sort, but really, it happened too fast to brake or dodge.

@Inigo_Montoya

In almost every case I see I have to agree with GHO57 (apart from mixing up break & brake ), While one driver is usually definitely at fault, there is often something the other driver could have done differently that would have prevented an accident. Defensive driving is unsatisfying because if you do it right you seldom see it work for you, you simply are one of those people who don’t get into accidents.

That, and all the people giving you the finger or honking at you because you’re NOT breaking the speed limit by 30 mph or who cut you off or testosterone-poisoned passengers who are going ballistic because you’re NOT cutting other people off or, Og forbid - lettering someone pass you!. (Seriously, there are people I will no longer give rides to because of that sort of thing) Being a defensive driver is stressful at times, in addition to having no immediate gratification.

(BTW - 30+ years of driving, no accidents, no tickets. Still trying hard to keep it that way).

@salinqmind

Is it because there are more cars on the road that there are so many accidents?

Yes.

Are drivers just more careless?

Yes

Is it cell phones and god forbid texting?

Yes.

People are idiots, and often careless. If the accident rate holds steady or goes down it probably has more to do with improved engineering in cars and crack-downs on intoxicated drivers than improved driving skills.

[JoelUpchurch]

If you look at the actual statistics, it has never been safer to drive in the United States. The fatality rate per vehicle mile is 1/5 what it was 50 years ago. The fatality rate has decreased almost every year over that period. Of the people still getting killed, a lot of them are outside the cars; pedestrians, motorcyclists and bicyclists.

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pubs/811172.pdf

Of course, saying it is safer, isn’t the same thing as saying it is safe. Driving is probably the most dangerous activity that most people do on a daily basis. We could make it safer. We could put breathalysers in every car. We could install Faraday cages in every car so people couldn’t use their cell phones. We could forbid radios and CD players and any other source of distraction. The problem is that any politician that tried to do that would be looking for a new job after the next election.

The long term solution is to get rid of manually steered automobiles and go to Robocars. They are already testing a new enhanced GPS system that could locate a car to 10 centimeters. Using Robocars on freeways wouldn’t requie any AI breakthroughs. Just combining and standardizing technology we already have.