Comments on: New Report on Roads Uses Old Assumptions

By: Ian Turner

Ian Turner — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:08:48 +0000

Alex,

The paradox is that how safe a road /feels/ has very little to do with how safe it actually /is/, because of the principle of safety compensation. True road safety, therefore, comes from building roads which combine solidly safe engineering practices with an uneasy sense of instability.

Cheers,

–Ian

By: AlexB

AlexB — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:21:30 +0000

I just read the Tom Vanderbilt article and it makes a lot of sense, but not enough sense. At some point, if you make things dangerous enough, people will get hurt. I am from Texas and have spent many hours driving narrow state roads trying to get home from who-knows-where with white knuckles. Many of the state roads have little to no shoulder and poor visibility. Interstates, on the other hand have much better visibility and wide shoulders. They are definitely much safer than the state roads. If there is something in the road or someone is swerving into oncoming traffic, there is basically nothing you can do on a small two lane road but hope a tree feels better than an oncoming vehicle. On the interstate, you can pull over onto the shoulder. If you gave me a choice of the thruway or the taconic with regards to safety, I would choose the thruway any day. If someone can figure out which is safer, busier, etc, I’d love to know.

By: christine

christine — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:26:43 +0000

UNit and Alan right on .. this VMT stats drive me nuts but they ilustrate perfectly our society. In contrast the trucks stats are all measured in tons which makes a lot of sense.

one of our major goal in the new transportation act should be that all statistics be in person/mile …. then eveything would become self explanatory ..

By: AlanKHG

AlanKHG — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:22:48 +0000

“By contrast, California and most of the northeast corridor rank high in crash costs per roadway mile (see below) and much lower in costs per million VMT (see above). The study’s authors, who hail from the Pacific Institute of Research and Evaluation, attribute the trend to “traffic density” — making a powerful argument for giving special attention to expanding transit options, including high-speed rail, in California and the northeast.”

Or against. After all, if we keep traffic density high by requiring everyone to use a car for most trips, we’ll make roads safer.

By: Unit

Unit — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:03:11 +0000

Interesting that no mention is made of crash costs per capita – the only measure that makes any real sense. Who cares about costs per VMT? As if higher VMTs (i.e. Florida) make more costs and casualties acceptable. Or per road mile? These measures have little to do with people’s lives.