The first mandatory seatbelt laws weren't passed until the 1980s[1]; that and frontal airbags (not required until 1998[2]) probably cover a large amount of the overall decline in deaths on our roads.
That's to say that we have done some things right, but that it's premature to assume that we've done all we can. We can, and should, go further (including but not limited to traffic calming, disincentivizing driving where it makes sense, and making the legal and educational requirements for driving similar to those in European countries.)
> For the uninitiated, how do differing european rules make people safer?
By and large, they're substantially stricter. Using Germany as an example[1]: they require potential drivers to take a multi-segment first aid, submit to a recent optical exam, and perform at least 37 hours of officially overseen driving practice. I believe there are additional training segments that German drivers are required to pass as well, but I'll let an actual German (or other European) speak about those.
For contrast: in New York (a somewhat strict state, by US standards), there is no hours of practice requirement once you're over 18. I don't believe there's a medical knowledge requirement either, and the DMV accepts whatever optical record you give them.
Germany's car fatality rate is roughly a quarter of the US's[2].
But how does this improve safety? Which one or combination of these things causes a four fold reduction in traffic accidents?
I did indeed need to take a vision test on the states, three times, once in each state, these look comparable to what I had to pass in California- less the first aid part.
Are new drivers causing all the excess accidents?
After 10 years of driving the average American and German driver should be about as safe? If not, why not?
Stricter licensing requirements get talked about a lot, but as far as I know the actual evidence that they improve driver safety is pretty mixed (with some exceptions, e.g. vision tests for people over 85.)
IMO it’s more likely things like street design and cultural attitudes towards risk are responsible for most of the difference.
My understanding is that German highways are similarly safer than American highways, so it's not just street design.
I agree that cultural attitudes play a large part; a somewhat easy way to change America's culture of unsafety is to gate the privilege of driving to those who are willing to change it. It's what we did for seatbelts, airbags, and just about everything else that's saved countless drivers' (and passengers') lives over the last few decades.
Maybe I’m not understanding the idea - if you’re saying we should punish people for demonstrated unsafe behavior (e.g seatbelt laws) then I agree, but that’s not really related to licensing requirements. Or is the idea that you’d just not issue licenses to people who are generally risk-seeking? If so, that doesn’t seem like something you could assess without a socially unconscionable false positive rate (and probably wouldn’t be very effective in changing cultural norms IMO.) Or something else?
Sorry if I'm not expressing myself well -- I was trying to draw a comparison between seatbelt laws (which, when introduced, were broadly griped about by drivers) and stronger licensing requirements (which, if introduced, will no doubt similarly be griped about).
I don't think there's a good (fair) way to devise a test for whether people will be risk seeking, in the same way that seatbelt laws can't stop scofflaws from not wearing their seatbelts. Instead, the purpose of these kinds of laws/regulations is to change the cultural "baseline" around safe behavior: wearing a seatbelt is the law, and most people do it by default now. Similarly, instituting a more intensive licensing regime (where people have to demonstrate not just driving ability but proficiency in safe driving) can change the cultural baseline around how drivers behave on our streets, our highways, etc.
In other words: let's keep licensing people, but make getting a drivers' license "intense" the way it is in much of Europe, rather than taking it for granted as a part of being an American adolescent. I think that can go a long way in terms of encouraging a more serious treatment of the responsibility that comes with driving, and which is currently lacking on American roads.
(And of course we should induce behavior away from driving to begin with, reconfigure our cities to favor pedestrians and cyclists, fund mass transit, etc.)
> instituting a more intensive licensing regime (where people have to demonstrate not just driving ability but proficiency in safe driving) can change the cultural baseline around how drivers behave on our streets, our highways, etc.
As I mentioned in my original post, the evidence that implementing stricter licensing requirements improves driver accident rates is mixed (really, mostly negative but not exclusively.) Personally, it seems much harder to impact broad cultural norms compared to a specific driver’s behavior, so I consider that to be pretty strong evidence against things working as stated. The parallel to seatbelt laws also seems dubious because a) it’s not really clear to me that seatbelt laws are the specific reason for the cultural shift and b) they were accompanied by enforcement, which tends to be a much stronger way to change behavior. A more analogues policy in my mind would be one that punishes drivers for a specific, dangerous, behavior - e.g. DUI laws, which have a lot of evidence of working. But that’s a completely different type of policy from what you’re suggesting.
That said, it’s not totally implausible that stricter licensing could improve things - part of the reason it gets brought up a lot is that people find it very intuitive. But in practice it doesn’t actually seem to work that way.
That stat doesn't capture all the life altering injuries or financial losses. Cars are incredibly powerful and dangerous compared to lesser modes like walking, bicycling, or even scooters.
If you did look at life altering injuries and financial losses, you'd find fewer of those too - cars today are measurably safer, from tires, to better seatbelts, to airbags, to ABS - cars in virtually every way are safer. I'm actually reasonably certain that bicycles and scooters are more dangerous than cars.
The one exception to this is danger to others, modern cars are probably more dangerous to pedestrians than cars in 1976.
> I'm actually reasonably certain that bicycles and scooters are more dangerous than cars.
They're only dangerous where they're getting hit by cars. If you're doing a handful miles an hour with a helmet on it's pretty hard to get actually hurt.
There is a dearth of statistics here, but uhh, judging by the number of friends I've had to transport to or from a hospital from bike accidents I'm at least on the surface skeptical.
In the United States, vehicle fatality rates for pedestrians are lower now than in 1981, but they are increasing, and at a staggering rate. Likely due to a combination of more distracted driving, changes in road design, and larger vehicles with worse visibility.
Worth stating that “something right” in this case is adopting life-saving technologies like seatbelts and airbags, exactly the kind of thing the original article is arguing against.
In 1970, there were about 26 traffic fatalities per 100,000. Today, that number is down over 50% to 12. We are doing something right.