"John Capp, the director of vehicle safety technology, strategy and regulation at General Motors, stressed that there is not enough data about pedestrian traffic deaths to understand the causes..." https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/nation-world/traffic-fatalities-car-safety/507-deaf2699-272b-4a3c-ba4f-5404fbe81bb2
When the automakers and their captive regulators at the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration are finally hauled before Congress to explain the increase in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities on U.S. roads...
@TheWarOnCars Could be bears for all we know. Just can't tell without more data.
@dr2chase We have to collect more data about bears before jumping to conclusions
@TheWarOnCars
@TheWarOnCars This is a very complicated issue. Aggressive driving seems to be on the rise. Distracted driving AND walking is also an issue that is on the rise.
We are not a bike or pedestrian friendly culture. How to change this won’t be easy or placed in a single area.

@DavePerrino @TheWarOnCars It's actually pretty simple, but politically difficult. In all fifty states, impose ruinous penalties on drivers involved in car-on-pedestrian and car-on-bike accidents, extending to their employers, and sit back and watch habits change and vehicle design adjust accordingly.

That won't happen because the US system of administration is poorly designed, but there's nothing inherently difficult about solving the problem, if that were a priority.

@DavePerrino @TheWarOnCars
It's not *that* complicated. The answer is, "Follow the Netherlands."

It's *difficult* because North American bias has a hard time accepting a solution coming from a middle power like the Netherlands.
https://xkcd.com/2832/

Urban Planning Opinion Progression

xkcd

@TheWarOnCars

People died with trucks, not died from trucks.

@TheWarOnCars My question would be simple: Specifically, how many injuries and deaths are required to determine what is safe or unsafe?
@WTL @TheWarOnCars Proponents would argue that these injuries and deaths are "the price of progress." 🤮

@WTL
7 injuries, 3 death. You're welcome.

[Edit: Fixed numbers to conform to current scientific consensus.]
@TheWarOnCars

@TheWarOnCars if you do not have any intelligence or ppl with that commodity at your service,

Then indeed one needs data for logical conclusions.

@TheWarOnCars Adopting a classic position, long-ago pioneered by the tobacco industry.
@mjgraves @TheWarOnCars maybe a way to deal with these drivers and their emotional support vehicles is to shame them like we started doing with smokers back with the "smoking stinks" campaign. Make it socially unpalatable to drive a truck or suv unless it is small and clearly required for work.
@Pepperbike @TheWarOnCars I've long held that large, loud vehicles are anti-social. Their owners would have been better off buying Viagra. That way they only annoy or endanger one person
@TheWarOnCars Consider that fewer laws might be the answer. Bohmte, a small town in Germany, Had a significant reduction in traffic accidents. It has removed all sidewalks, traffic lights, signs, and street markings. The roadways are now shared with all travelers, whether on foot, by bicycle, or by automobile.
@ostout @TheWarOnCars That's incredibly dependent on culture and infrastructure, and for majority of the US would put the cart before the horse.
Many parts of the US are so car centric that if people are willing to walk in the first place, the road design would straight up kill them if the sidewalk weren't there (and sometimes that doesn't even protect them!). Removing signage and lights is a great idea on smaller streets, and even some larger streets if the rest of the infrastructure makes it clear that cars are guests, but when your city has plenty of stroads I think traffic calming and road diets are a better approach to start. Currently in many cities people don't feel safe walking or biking. Removing signals and signage would turn the car dependent areas into a straight up meat grinder with no way to cross a six lane stroad short of playing IRL Frogger.
@TheWarOnCars is that a real pick-up truck? What is that abomination?
@TheWarOnCars @simon2k6 It's an edit that's been around for a while of a photo of a real truck.
@TheWarOnCars hyperbole will destroy the universe.
@TheWarOnCars
I wonder if he has a blind spot
New cars are supposed to be getting safer. So why are fatalities on the rise?

Current U.S. ratings only consider the safety of the people inside the vehicle, meaning there's a blind spot in the data that leaves pedestrians vulnerable.

WUSA
@TheWarOnCars cars don't kill people, people kill people
@TheWarOnCars That truck is almost perfect, but it needs a lift kit and extra-wide off-road tires. No point buying a truck if I don't need a ladder to get into it and it doesn't generate deafening road noise at highway speeds
@malcircuit @TheWarOnCars needs some smokestacks while we're at it, how else are you gonna roll coal?

@YexingTudou @TheWarOnCars

Indeed! How else are we supposed to trigger the lib snowflakes if not through halving our already pathetically low gas mileage by deliberately making the engine burn an incorrect fuel-air ratio? This is America, goddamn it!

@YexingTudou @TheWarOnCars

It's god-given right as an American to spend $200 every three days to fill up my gas tank

@malcircuit @TheWarOnCars How can I afford to feed my family and drive my necessary child-crusher to work? Joe Biden made the gas too expensive 😡
@TheWarOnCars Seems the correlation with “involves car” would be pretty high.
@TheWarOnCars

Reminds me of the old comparison showing the M1 Abrams Tank has better pedestrian visibility than some of the trucks on the road today.
@TheWarOnCars And in other news, nicotine is not addictive, and the science of climate change is far from being settled and is still being debated.
@TheWarOnCars is the goal not to see out of this thing?