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Entirely unashamed anti car propaganda, and the more the better.

teuchter said:
Most of that is focused on the safety of car occupants.
Any measures to "reduce damage to pedestrians" are undermined by a trend towards larger and larger vehicles and easily wiped out by non-observance of speed limits.

I'd be interested though in any data that you can provide that demonstrates a significant improvement in pedestrian safety in recent times, related to vehicle design.
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There is some background reading here: Pedestrian safety through vehicle design - Wikipedia

I do know though that in Germany there are projects to reduce injuries which have for example dictated the shape of door handles, which used to jut out and now are flush. It wouldn't surprise me to find there has been quite a lot of work on pedestrian safety done in Germany.
 
weltweit said:
There is some background reading here: Pedestrian safety through vehicle design - Wikipedia

I do know though that in Germany there are projects to reduce injuries which have for example dictated the shape of door handles, which used to jut out and now are flush. It wouldn't surprise me to find there has been quite a lot of work on pedestrian safety done in Germany.
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Ok. Thanks. I am aware of that stuff. But it seems like the answer to my question is that no, you can't provide any data that indicates whether vehicle design has really improved pedestrian safety in recent times.
 
teuchter said:
Ok. Thanks. I am aware of that stuff. But it seems like the answer to my question is that no, you can't provide any data that indicates whether vehicle design has really improved pedestrian safety in recent times.
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I am sure if I go looking for it I will find plenty but I am not so keen to support your thread which I feel is grounded in a basis of hate for private car ownership more than anything else, a proposition I can't support or agree with.
 
weltweit said:
I am sure if I go looking for it I will find plenty but I am not so keen to support your thread which I feel is grounded in a basis of hate for private car ownership more than anything else, a proposition I can't support or agree with.
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I think your inability to provide such data supports one of the premises of my thread, which is that cars endanger the lives of pedestrians.
 
I think improvements in vehicle safety (for pedestrians) might be another one I don't agree with teuchter on. Or at least am not convinced by. But it's not that relevant in any case. I mean there are still definitely 26,000 killed or seriously injured every year. As long as you have a human behind the wheel, they're going to fuck up.

And it has precisely no bearing on pollution, congestion, shitty infrastructure etc.
 
Cid said:
I think improvements in vehicle safety (for pedestrians) might be another one I don't agree with teuchter on. Or at least am not convinced by. But it's not that relevant in any case. I mean there are still definitely 26,000 killed or seriously injured every year. As long as you have a human behind the wheel, they're going to fuck up.

And it has precisely no bearing on pollution, congestion, shitty infrastructure etc.
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I'm don't doubt that there have been improvements in vehicle design that are aimed at reducing the severity of consequences for pedestrians. I just wonder if any attempt has been made to quantify these improvements. Are pedestrians significantly safer now than they were 10 or 20 years ago? This is not something I've ever been able to find much info on - there is much more info on improvements in safety for vehicle occupants.

Recently there have been some studies saying that pedestrian fatalities have gone up in the USA - in the last ten years or so - and have linked this with increasing SUV use.
 
teuchter said:
I'm don't doubt that there have been improvements in vehicle design that are aimed at reducing the severity of consequences for pedestrians. I just wonder if any attempt has been made to quantify these improvements. Are pedestrians significantly safer now than they were 10 or 20 years ago? This is not something I've ever been able to find much info on - there is much more info on improvements in safety for vehicle occupants.

Recently there have been some studies saying that pedestrian fatalities have gone up in the USA - in the last ten years or so - and have linked this with increasing SUV use.
Click to expand...

I believe my car is the only model with a pedestrian airbag, despite it being launched in 2012. I believe it was considered too costly as it costs £2k to replace if activated in a minor shunt. The focus is now on softer bonnet areas and automatic detection and braking.
 
weltweit said:
www.brake.org.uk

Knowledge centre | Brake

Learn about safe and healthy mobility with our fact and advice pages
www.brake.org.uk www.brake.org.uk

en.wikipedia.org

Reported Road Casualties Great Britain - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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It needs a dedicated study. We need to know how many pedestrians are killed or injured each year, but it needs to be set in the context of various other things, for example, over time the number of people making journeys on foot has declined, largely as a result of the increase in car use. So a larger number of fatalities in, say, the 1980s than today would not necessarily mean that the roads are now safer for pedestrians - it might just mean that fewer people dare being pedestrians.
 
teuchter said:
It needs a dedicated study. We need to know how many pedestrians are killed or injured each year, but it needs to be set in the context of various other things, for example, over time the number of people making journeys on foot has declined, largely as a result of the increase in car use. So a larger number of fatalities in, say, the 1980s than today would not necessarily mean that the roads are now safer for pedestrians - it might just mean that fewer people dare being pedestrians.
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Saul Goodman said:
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Here are pedestrian fatalities from 2007-2017.

Screen Shot 2020-06-04 at 09.31.21.jpg

They seem to follow quite a similar line to road fatalities in general - an ongoing reduction until around 2010 after which they plateau. The increase towards the end of the period appears to correlate with an increase in walking.

It would be interesting to understand what happened, or stopped happening, around 2010 that explains this.

These charts indicate that for a journey of the same length, you are about 15 times more likely to be killed if you are a pedestrian, than if you are in a car. Those figures might make car travel look safer than it is for comparable journeys - because there is a high mileage on motorways which are quite safe, and are not used by pedestrians. But in broad terms, if you want to make a one mile trip to the shop, it seems that you are very significantly more likely to be killed or injured if you walk, than if you drive. And that would support my assertion that road safety measures are focussed too much on vehicle occupants rather than other road users.

Screen Shot 2020-06-04 at 09.40.01.jpg
 
Similiar to 'dark skies' campaigns against light pollution, it would be good to have a few areas, such as in the national parks, where there is a ban on all noisy transport using internal combustion engines, to include motorbikes, cars, lorries, and light aircraft. The latter in particular are nearly always flown as a hobby, one which impinges on the tranquility of wide areas of land.
 
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teuchter said:
Here are pedestrian fatalities from 2007-2017.

View attachment 216016

They seem to follow quite a similar line to road fatalities in general - an ongoing reduction until around 2010 after which they plateau. The increase towards the end of the period appears to correlate with an increase in walking.

It would be interesting to understand what happened, or stopped happening, around 2010 that explains this.

These charts indicate that for a journey of the same length, you are about 15 times more likely to be killed if you are a pedestrian, than if you are in a car. Those figures might make car travel look safer than it is for comparable journeys - because there is a high mileage on motorways which are quite safe, and are not used by pedestrians. But in broad terms, if you want to make a one mile trip to the shop, it seems that you are very significantly more likely to be killed or injured if you walk, than if you drive. And that would support my assertion that road safety measures are focussed too much on vehicle occupants rather than other road users.

View attachment 216018
Click to expand...

Deaths per billion passenger miles are much lower than I'd expect for pedestrians.
Pretty sure I'd dead after walking a billion miles.
 
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