Posted on Tuesday November 10th by Alex Lessard-Pilon | 124
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- The map above illustrates the number of traffic fatalities per 100,000 population worldwide. Note to self: Don’t walk or ride a bus in Ghana, Mozambique, or Kenya. And stay out of Iraq. Stay. Out. Of. Iraq. (HowWeDrive via Planetizen - pic via)
- If you don’t already read “Ask the Pilot,” you should. In this edition, why senators trying to ban the use of personal electronics by pilots are wrong, and a theory that people (politicians especially) hate air travel. (Salon)
- Isn’t this lovely. Chrysler convinced Congress to give it $12.5 billion on the premise that it would build electric cars; a few months pass, and it’s dropped all of its electric car programs. (USA Today)
- Cities worldwide are revitalizing their waterfronts: Hamburg, Stockholm, Sydney, Seoul, Mumbai, New York, and Toronto are all undertaking massive projects to clean their waters and build parks and sustainable cultural centers; click through to see the proposals. (DesignObserver)
- Yesterday we reported about the bus driver who killed a guy on his first day back from a texting-related suspension. Turns out suspensions for texting are up 60% this year. (NY Daily News)
- Go figure: the fewer flights there are, the more flights land on time. On-time arrival rates are at their highest in six years; the number of scheduled flights is as low as it was in September, 2002, when things were not exactly coming up roses for the airline industry. (Bloomberg)
- If a solar manufacturer makes panels out of cadmium, which is toxic and banned from most products in Europe, does it still make for sustainable energy? The manufacturers seem to think so… (Green Inc.)
November 11th, 2009 at 12:32 am
So thats why I pay $100 for 2 of my bags to go with me on a round trip and pay $ 5 for a bag of 6 peanuts and $ 5 for a $0.50 headset and and and and….I have to subsidize their lack of business savvy.
If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline. ~ Richard Branson
I went to South Carolina for a week in the summer and it was cheaper for me and my family to drive form Dallas to Hilton Head, stay the week, see the sites there and along the way etc and drive back, than it would have been for the 3 of us to fly from Dallas to Savannah one way, one flight with a weeks worth of stuff.
There needs to be an overhaul of the transport system in this country. The inefficiency of the system is astonishing and so many people who have the means to change it don’t get it for some reason.
November 11th, 2009 at 3:06 am
Deacon, flights are priced to be cheaper than driving for individuals, and maybe couples. For families airlines try to offer discounts with their Saturday night stay rule, which gouges business travelers in order to fill planes with more family travelers.
November 11th, 2009 at 6:22 am
I think you mean Iran.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Hang on… Italy’s roads are safer than France’s?
November 11th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I mean, not going to Iraq is always a good idea, but holy shit, IRAN is dangerous.
Like Vanderbilt notes, the number of miles driven versus drivers makes a big difference - but that still doesn’t explain Iran, unless they’re just driving really badly.
November 11th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Does this map mean of drivers, not population as a whole? Correct me if I’m wrong, but if, say, 20% of the people in, say, China drive, compared to, say, 80% in the US, wouldn’t there accident rate on this map be four times worse than it appears?
November 11th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Dammit. Not another chart showing the US as a third world country. Mexico has better drivers than us! Otoh, it’s really weird to see South Korea in the same boat as us. I thought that old lady not passing her driver’s test for 60 years was a good thing!
November 11th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Really surprised India is up there with the worst. It’s a total free-for-all over there, I know, I was almost killed on several occasions.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Alex, it’s fatalities per 100,000 drivers, so population differences taken care of that way.
November 13th, 2009 at 5:28 am
Apparantly, the UAE is worst when it comes to car accidents. It has more accidents in the world per capita than any other country.
http://www.menainfra.com/news/uae-traffic-accidents/
November 15th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Joe, on further digging, it appears they got the data from the WHO road safety report (find it here: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/publications/road_traffic/world_report/en/index.html), and the data is in mortality per 100,000 INHABITANTS, not drivers. Therefore, I believe I am correct in my assessment: the danger of driving in some countries where a relatively small percentage of their population drives is considerably higher than this map suggests. Countries like China and India likely have exceedingly dangerous roads, it is just that their huge number of people that don’t drive are at less risk of death due to an automobile and so pull down the average. Iraq, Iran and the UAE show extremely high levels, because they have a high percentage of people that drive (probably comparable to US levels) and they have “third world driving habits”, which are excessively dangerous. I suspect limited seatbelt use is also a huge factor.
This likely also explains the difference between the US and other first world countries. It’s well documented that the average American drives much more than the average driver in other countries. More deaths per 100,000 inhabitants are to be expected because of this, there is simply more opportunity for Americans to get in accidents. The roads themselves are not necessarily any less safe; indeed, they are likely extremely safe on an accident per mile driven basis.