I think Yglesias has made this same point before, but it's always good to reiterate the many ways transit can be good for safety. As an adult, I enjoy that I can get home from bars in this city, quickly and easily, by walking or taking transit or hailing a cab. As an occasional driver, I'm very happy to know that other people have those options, as well. This goes for other stuff, too. Young drivers are dangerous to themselves and others. I'd rather my sixteen year old (if I had one) be able to get around via transit than be in a car all the time, and I'm glad sixteen year olds in this city have a transit option. Ditto for older drivers.
Driving is an inherently dangerous act-you're piloting an enormous hunk of metal around at high speed-and should only be done by sober, competent adults who are preferably not distracted by phones or dinner or make-up or the newspaper. It would be nice if those who weren't competent adults or sober could get around without a car, and it would be nice if more people who wanted to read or talk on the phone during their commute could do so without driving. Maybe then, we wouldn't be celebrating 41,000 annual traffic deaths as a good year for highway safety.
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Hmmm... I have more confidence in my own driving ability (or my parents' or my teenage sister's) then I do in the typical transit operator's.
I've ridden in a bus where the driver blacked out and we went hurtling off the highway.
The singular of "anecdote" is not data, of course, and I'm sure that there are a bevy of statistics showing how much safer public transit is mile-for-mile than transit.
But, as the previous post illustrated, just because perception doesn't match reality doesn't mean perception doesn't matter, and I don't think people perceive public transit as inherently safer.
One of the problems with driving is that >90% of the time, it is actually not an all-consuming activity. And for we 21st Century Americans thing that if we're not utilizing 100% of our capacity, we're wasting time, so we multi-task.
The problem is we can't always predict when the 10% of the time driving will require all our attention, and if we're already engaged in something else, we're in trouble.
I don't think Avent has as convincing a point has he thinks he does. The main factor in improving driving ability is experience. Every-now-and-then drivers tend to be terrible, so you're going to see more accidents per mile driven if people only drive periodically and the learning period will just be shifted later in life, offsetting at least in part reductions in total miles driven. Shifting it to the late teens or early 20s in particular seems like a bad idea - no parental supervision, your own car, and being able to get into bars is a bad time in one's life to be in the early learning phases of driving. For most 16 yr olds, access to the car is controlled to a reasonable degree by their parents, which limits the risky circumstances they can drive under.
This is a really stupid post. As MatXVI points out, it is probably experience more than age that causes teenage drivers to be more dangerous. Moreover, I guess Advent thinks that all of that mass transit come for free from the transit ferry. Given the incredible cost of building mass transit, I think I would rather take my chances on the road and use that money more productively elsewhere.
I don't think Avent has as convincing a point has he thinks he does. The main factor in improving driving ability is experience.
Yes, and it seems that if people don't learn early, they never seem to get to be very proficient. In my town, there are many drivers who came as foreign students and did not learn as teenagers. Man are they scary -- give me a 16-year-old any day.
Have you MET any teenagers?
Those folks scare the daylights out of me, and what's worse, their parents give them the "safest" (read: "biggest") car to drive, ensuring that they're more likely to actually roll over or take out bystanders when they have their accidents.
It's good to learn to drive as a teenager, but I'd be perfectly happy if the unsupervised driving age were raised to 25.
"Have you MET any teenagers?"
Met them? Sure -- got two of my own, in fact. Both drivers. Neither has even been in a fender-bender so far.
MattXIV, it's not like people would have to stop using public transportation when they hit twenty. Speaking as a young twenty-something, few things would make me happier than good access to public transportation so I wouldn't have to drive long distances to and from parties.
MattXIV, it's not like people would have to stop using public transportation when they hit twenty. Speaking as a young twenty-something, few things would make me happier than good access to public transportation so I wouldn't have to drive long distances to and from parties.
Most public transportation stops running well before most partying twenty-somethings are ready to go home from a night out. And even if it were still running at 1am or 2am or 3am it would probably take so much longer and be so much less convenient than driving that few of them would use it anyway.
On the broader point, I don't think there's much doubt that in general car travel is more dangerous than public transportation (in terms of injuries/fatalities per passenger-mile), but I don't think you could make a serious argument for more public transportation on public safety grounds. The benefits would just be too small in relation to the costs.
It's also worth noting that car safety is continually improving.
Mixner: believe me, I'm well aware that public transportation stops running early; that's why I don't use it. (surprisingly, even in L.A. public transportation doesn't take that much longer to get around than driving does; it just stops running at ten so there's no way for me to get home). But a robust public transit system that people actually use would be able to run more frequently and later.
It would be nice if I never again had to sit waiting in traffic as everything gets stopped for an almost empty Light Rail to go by, while I contemplate how much better traffic would be if the elites would stop trying to jam mass transit down our throats and instead were to spend our tax dollars on what we really want: More lanes.
P.S. Drill, drill, drill!
I think the Onion said it best:
"98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others"
Jadagul,
My point was that it's best for people to learn to drive during a phase of their life where they still have parental supervision that will curtail risk-taking behavior.
On the broader point of late routes:
Why not run later now? The nightlife in most cities tends to be concentrated in a few areas that are already served by the daytime routes - running a fraction of the daytime routes until late at night a couple days a week doesn't require any extra infrastructure. Its one of the few situations where people would find it more convenient not to drive. I'd also increase demand for earlier routes that are already being ran - less people would drive there if they didn't have to get a cab back if they took the bus or train. I suspect the transit agencies just don't want to deal with a surge of drunk people around closing time.
surprisingly, even in L.A. public transportation doesn't take that much longer to get around than driving does;
For the vast majority of trips, this is almost certainly not true. It's not just that buses and trains themselves tend to travel more slowly than cars, but the additional time involved in walking or driving to and from the bus stop/train station at each of the trip, and waiting for the bus or train to arrive. If the trip requires a transfer (two buses, a bus plus a train, etc.) then it will take even longer.
But a robust public transit system that people actually use would be able to run more frequently and later.
But people don't use it, because driving is so much faster and more convenient. You'd have to create very large incentives to significantly change this behavior. And even if you could persuade people to use transit much more than they do now, the demand for late-night/early morning service probably wouldn't be large enough to justify the cost of running it. You might be able to support a limited, infrequent night bus service, but that's it.
Well, that's 41,000 deaths out of 4.8 billion passenger-miles. (Very little of which, comparatively, is busses.)
And consider that nearly 5,000 of those fatalities are from motorcycles, despite their aggregate of a mere 13 million passenger-miles (though part of the disparity must be that motorcycles usually have one occupant and almost never have more than two; I suppose sidecar-plus-two-riders is possible but I've never seen it).
Further, while it's hard to get numbers, a large number of the remaining fatalities are due to drunks smashing into inanimate objects; while it's still a death and still tragic for the person and family, I don't see that as anything for anyone else to mourn as something To Be Prevented By State Action. (Preventing them from driving because of the risks they pose to others is another matter.)
(Statistics suggest about 18,000 deaths are "alcohol related", but it's being difficult to find the proportion which are deaths of the drinker rather than the aggregate.
However, the numbers suggest very strongly that with 39,000 fatal crashes and 43,000 deaths, most fatal crashes kill only one person.
And since alcohol is involved in almost half the crashes, and not wearing a seatbelt in more than half, it seems likely that simply buckling up and not drinking greatly reduce one's risk of dying.
That people drunk-drive and don't buckle up does not make for a national tragedy apart from the "people are stupid and that sucks" level.)
Thus, I reject Avent's attempt to scold me or the nation as a group. Take basic precautions and driving is plenty safe.