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75% More Pedestrians Have Been Killed Since 2009. Giant Trucks and SUVs Are Why (www.thedrive.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 1 point 2 months ago (2 children)

Road speed has definitely increased since then. Cars are more powerful than ever and easier to drive blindly.

Road conditions have also changed. Europe has invested heavily in well designed infrastructure with a clearly stated goal of reducing road deaths.

Large vehicles in North America are clearly a major part of the problem but trying to be this reductionist seems pretty weird.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Road speed has definitely increased since 2009 exactly and by so much that the trend of falling pedestrian deaths in the US completelly turned around!????

    Also I've actually lived in 3 countries of Europe since 2009 and beyond a handful of larger cities (such as Paris) closing a handful of streets and making them pedestrian only, pedestrian infrastructure has barelly improved in that period.

    Absolutelly, Europe invested in much better infrastructure than the US, especially for pedestrians and cyclists, but that long predates 2009 - in fact Europe always had much more pedestrian-friendly infrastructure than the US, even in the most car friendly countries in Europe.

    Methinks you're trying too to exculpate the huge increase in average car size in the US.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    How do you get to that conclusion? I clearly state I believe it to be a major factor. I just don’t get why this place is so vehemently against confounding variables. It reads the same as US propaganda but opposite. Yeah, trucks bad, US bad. It’s just clearly not so simple. The US is huge and a rural town and major city have little in common. The trend is everywhere.

    You can believe what you want but data from the ETSC (European Transport Safety Council) and ERSO (European Road Safety Observatory) is pretty clear. Reducing it to little cars is really slighting what Europe has accomplished. Car size is important but there has been so much more done. Little things like moving money from heavy vehicle corridors to raised sidewalks have both immediate (like visibility of pedestrians) and emergent effects (like driving culture changes).

    This place is getting worse than Reddit.

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