It isn't just motorcyclists...

[single]

Everyone's dying:

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811741.pdf

To me this paints the picture that the roads themselves are less safe. When talking about motorcycle safety people are obsessed with helmet laws, but the fact is motorcycles are more vulnerable and if there is an overall degradation of safety of the roads then motorcycles will be disproportionally affected. We need to fix the root cause of the safety issue: distracted drivers, lax unenforced right of way laws, and insane driver licensing regulations which allow inept drivers to stay on the roads for decades.

[/soapbox]

[hamiamham]

Amen brother. I commute to/from work in NYC everyday and 9 times out of 10 when I see a driver acting in a less then normal manner its because they are screwing around with their iphone (or blackberry or whatever) / I HUGE fan of civil liberties but not when your driving, sorry.

[rdcamp]

@ Ham, where do you live? I'm up in Albany.

Since I started cycling, I have been much more aware of NOT doing things like texting whilst driving.

It scares the shit out of me seeing people in the middle turning lane with their head down in their lap.

"Are they going to make the turn w/o looking?"

[Andyvh1959]

I agree that car drivers not involved in the action of driving, not caring one bit about actually driving a vehicle, distracted, multi-tasking, etc, etc, etc are a big problem that is still not addressed adequately.

People assume driving a car on public roads is a "right" entitled to everyone regardless of ability. Wrong, it is a privilege, proven by licensing process, training and experience. However, it is much too easy in the US to obtain and maintain a license.

That said, I don't completely agree with this comment, "We need to fix the root cause of the safety issue: distracted drivers, lax unenforced right of way laws, and insane driver licensing regulations which allow inept drivers to stay on the roads for decades."

These road users are definitely the larger cause. those factors impact us directly, literally. But I see SO many inept and unskilled cycle riders, including many claiming to be "experienced", that we as riders need to step up our game too. Like a car license, I feel a cycle license in the US is too easy to obtain and maintain.

[hooliken]

MEH! Most of the "roads" I have to most fun on could barely be called roads at all. Get off the highway and get dirty!

[chazbird]

Check out the 2008 book "Traffic" - traffic and the psychology of driving. Some of it is common sense but a lot of it, to those outside the business of psychology and human performance, is rather counter intuitive.

Road engineers making "safe roads" - wide lanes, wide medians, easy curves, that are actually less safe than the compact older style roads. Or, most electronic safety devices have a short term benefit, then the benefit becomes nill and often times result in higher accident rates or different kinds of accidents. Also, in this book and in other research I've read getting rid of many traffic signs is a sizable benefit to traffic safety.

By and large engineers design for technical machine performance and not how the human is going to behave in a particular environment and the interaction of these - resulting in in unattended and very difficult to reverse consequences.

[LuciferMutt]

Originally Posted by chazbird

Check out the 2008 book "Traffic" - traffic and the psychology of driving. Some of it is common sense but a lot of it, to those outside the business of psychology and human performance, is rather counter intuitive.

Road engineers making "safe roads" - wide lanes, wide medians, easy curves, that are actually less safe than the compact older style roads. Or, most electronic safety devices have a short term benefit, then the benefit becomes nill and often times result in higher accident rates or different kinds of accidents. Also, in this book and in other research I've read getting rid of many traffic signs is a sizable benefit to traffic safety.

By and large engineers design for technical machine performance and not how the human is going to behave in a particular environment and the interaction of these - resulting in in unattended and very difficult to reverse consequences.

I've been saying for years that modern cars are creating horrible drivers. They do everything for you now: wipers, lights, traction control, shifting, even braking to avoid crashes ad parking for you now! Because of this, people are becoming more and more insulated and removed from the road, the other PEOPLE on the road, the experience of driving, and are just being shelled into a soundproof box on wheels that takes them from A to B. Any personal touch, pride of being a good driver or interaction with anything besides themselves and their gadgets is completely out of the question anymore.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, this paradigm shift mirrors society at large: people want less and less to do with anyone else, and only lend attention to themselves and their gadgets, frankly forgetting the fact that there is a big wide WORLD right in front of them full of actual PEOPLE.

Interesting to know that the attempts at making roads safer and "easier" to drive is yet another culprit in the slow degradation in the attention span of humans.

As long as technology is the way it is, this is only going to get worse.

The thing that pisses me off the most is that who will you talk to who DOESN'T agree with everything I'm saying?

YET...go on the roads, and see how many people are being stupid and not paying a lick of attention? Everyone knows there is a problem, but NOBODY wants to admit being part of it! For some reason, THEY are always exempt. They tell themselves, "oh, I text and drive SAFELY. I've been doing it for years." Or "I always read the paper while driving to work in the morning. I'm good at it. It's the other guys that are the problem, with the huge drinks and the super loud stereos!"

Try it tomorrow at work. Start a conversation about horrible drivers and observe how everyone you talk to complains about idiots on cell phones, etc. Yet realize that the majority of those people you just talked to are going to get in their cars to go home that evening and probably yack on the phone or start dicking with the stereo the whole time.

No personal responsiblity! ARGH

[duck]

Yep, we'd all be a lot safer if everybody drove 57 Chevies.

[the_sandman_454]

Of course cages having 43 airbags in them doesn't help visibility either. My Fusion has side curtain bags among others and as a result, the pillars could come close to obscuring a semi. You really have to make an effort to move your head around to make sure you don't miss something. I think most people don't think about things like that.

[chazbird]

This has got me to thinking about the ultimate direction the electronic car safety devices and inattentive drivers is headed; i.e. Google (and others) work on autonomous cars. At first I thought, oh, its just Google grabbing the cash, in software licensing and the ability for people to be plugged into their electronic addictions whilst in the car. But then, with some thought there are some tremendous potential benefits to this, and in some ways I'd be a big supporter. Safety could be dramatically increased, road congestion reduced, and access for elderly or disabled people might be a huge benefit. While I enjoy driving-riding, and do believe it is a skill task to be taken seriously I'll play devils advocate here. If one commuted via one of these cars, well, why not be able to read or sleep or whatever? (Of course for most commutes good buses, trains, and bicycles, to me, are preferable, the autonomous cars are still a socially isolating phenonema).

So far 12 states no have codified regulations for autonomous cars. Hmm. How about that? Now days the federal government regulates cars and its up to the states to license drivers.

So, if that goes forward that's a big fat fail! Good idea gents! Does the car behave differently once it crosses a state line and then the driver is supposed to recognize this? Aircraft certification and performance (as are cars) are regulated by the federal government, and so are the pilots. Seems like a autonomous car should be too.

Anyway, the prevailing thought is that the autonomous car, when something goes wrong, the "driver" will have to take over, and, by pressing the button to drive is liable, just like it is now with a regular car. Hmm. So there goes the idea that people can drink and then ride in a autonomous car. Or the semi-blind or blind are not going to benefit from these vehicles. Additionally, they are using the airline auto-pilot model. Its very automatic but if something happens the pilot (i.e. driver) takes over. That's great. Do they not know there are two highly skilled pilots flying the plane who have extensive (incredible if compared with what a car driver has) levels of training to just use, and above all, actively monitor the automation - and monitor it all the time. There's another big fat fail! Yeah, so why have a autonomous car if you have to watch it all the time? Well, as we know that monitoring is not going to happen.

And guess what happens when someone has to intervene and take manual control of something autonomous when it (rarely) fails? You guessed it - they do terrible at it. Fail!

I guess I could go on about this, but its good to know that our friends the engineer idiot savants are working hard. They are brilliant morons.

On a related note I've been researching Google "Glass" - the wearable computer glasses. You think people have problems with texting, walking, driving or wherever? Wait until people walk into street lamps or, of course, drive with these on. Another human performance issue completely swept under the tech carpet. Familiarity with the near-far vision adaptation is appropriate here; When pilots started using these HUD (head up displays) they had plenty of trouble with them, they dwelled on the near sight reading data at great expense to the far vision scene. Because of this the HUD's are quite constrained in the flying world these days. Somehow I just don't think such prudence will not be forthcoming when Google Glass comes on the scene.

My new sig line: In the future everything will be better except the future.

[anotherguy]

It's easier to institute seat belt and helmet laws so you appear to be concerned than to make sure everyone who has a license knows how to operate a vehicle safely. That's the real solution. When you kill with a motor vehicle there must be penalties and they should be harsh. Of course sometimes things happen and that should be considered but when you kill from ignorance and stupidity you should pay dearly. And ever driving again should not be part of the picture. When you can do a decade for smoking a joint in public but walk away from killing a motorcyclist somethings wrong.

[Andyvh1959]

Exactly! As cars improve and do more for the driver, they continually "dumb down" the driver's involvement to the point driving has become to the general public, simply a means of getting from A to B, rather than an involved interactive process of going from A to B.

So much has changed in cars themselves, traction control, ABS, zone sensors, now they have "smart" cruise control, stability controls, etc, etc. But also, cars are now more insulated/quiet/cimate controlled cocoons or comfort. 30 years ago FAR fewer cars had air conditioning or climate control systems, people kept their windows open. Car window glass, and door seals have evolved to be very effective at making the cabin quieter, but also blocking more outside noise.

Next time you see an emergency vehicle approaching, really focus on how close the vehicle has to be, before you can easily hear it and quickly determine where it is, and where it is coming from. I am NOT an advocate for loud pipes in any way. My point here is even with loud pipes, the rider (who "thinks" he is safer) is already WAY too close to the vehicle to have any certainy the driver will do anything to help the situation.

Car driver's continue to be LESS involved in driving, and cars continue to dumb-down the driver. I for one do NOT look forward to auotmated vehicle traffic controls like so many "experts" are talking about.

[chazbird]

Maybe a little research could confirm a theory I have; I call it the The Lexus effect. In San Francisco during the mid to late 1990's it sure seemed like the emergency vehicle sirens became significantly louder. Being a pedestrian there became painful.

[Islesfan91]

Originally Posted by LuciferMutt

I've been saying for years that modern cars are creating horrible drivers. They do everything for you now: wipers,

wtf? what kind of wipers did you have on your car way back when? Was it your arm out the window with a squeegee?

[the_sandman_454]

Originally Posted by Islesfan91

wtf? what kind of wipers did you have on your car way back when? Was it your arm out the window with a squeegee?

I think that was how it originally worked. Now some cars sense moisture on the windshield and activate the wipers.

I do agree though, that all the added automation has helped dumb drivers down. Automatic headlights or even DRLs are a great example. The automatic headlights don't always reliably activate in fog and people don't think to manually activate them. The same with DRLs, they see the light from those and assume the lights are properly on when the reality is the taillights aren't on.

This is just one of many examples including ABS, traction control, etc. Lack of training doesn't help but is even worse combined with technology that tries to make up for such shortcomings in skill but fails or gives people a false sense of security.