> Our World in Data is a project of Global Change Data Lab, a nonprofit based in the UK (Reg. Charity No. 1186433).
I'm a Brit too, but this article felt a bit too self-congratulatory given I've read other recent reports about other places (cites, regions, and entire countries) with overall safer roads; kinda like how we love to tell everyone how chuffed we are with how safe our AC plugs are.
I chose active travel over car dependency at an early age. I also worked in the cycle trade. My opinion is that roads have become far more dangerous, however, most of what can be killed by the car has already been killed and the reason for fewer deaths is slimmer pickings.
Children and the elderly are two canaries in the coal mine.
Kids used to get new bicycles at Christmas, play in the streets and be 'free range' in the UK. Nowadays they are all welded to mobile phones and cocooned in SUVs. Only something like one on four know how to ride a bicycle nowadays and that Christmas trade in bicycles died thirty years ago.
Although you see a fair few Lime bikes and people commuting by bicycle in London, most bicycles are sold to rich people for them to strap to cars, for them to drive to a designated safe spot, for them to ride from the car park in a loop back to the car park. You never see these bicycles parked up next to the door at a supermarket or even at a railway station, partly due to the risk of theft, but also due to the dangers of the road.
As for the elderly, nowadays they are boomers and they all have cars. They only give up their car keys when they get condemned to retirement homes. Hence, like kids, old people are not to be found in the streets, unless cocooned in tin boxes.
As for being cocooned in a tin box, what happened to spirited driving? In the 1970s it was normal for people to cross the country with no sat nav or seat belt, driving as if they were in a Group B rally car, taking their special shortcuts, drunk, with cigarette in hand. Nowadays this doesn't happen, people in cars just shuffle from traffic light to traffic light fearing CCTV and speed cameras.
We have also priced out younger motorists, who would have been the 'spirited drivers'.
Hitchhiking used to exist in the 1970s. Thatcher era stranger danger put an end to that, so nobody hitchhikes these days. Does this mean that hitchhiking is safer? No!
There is another aspect of car dependency and 'safety'. Sure, you might not get killed in an ultra-violent crash in a tin-box cocoon, however, what about cardiovascular disease? Being car dependent and eating the convenience foods of the car dependent is a shortcut to obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, cognitive decline and death by blocked arteries.
The government knows this, and this is why 'active travel' is a phrase. By 2030 the UK government wants more than half of all journeys in built up areas to be 'active travel' rather than lame car dependency.
As others have said, a limit not a target. But also, how fast you can travel along a road sensibly very much depends on conditions. If you do let people think of the limit as a target, you'd better set the limit low enough that it's still appropriate in terrible conditions.
My general take is that I try to drive as if a maniac (meaning anyone who might think it's reasonable to drive faster than I do) is about to come the other way along the road. I should be able to stop within my sight-lines if the road is wide enough to take evasive action, and well within half that distance if the road is narrow.
304 women were killed over the 12 months, while the report recorded 956 male deaths. 792 deaths occurred during weekdays and 474 victims were killed over a weekend."
The breakdown on where the crashes happened is interesting
"A total of 326 people died in major cities across Australia, with 581 deaths in regional Australia and 63 in remote or very remote parts of the country."
Given that the vast majority of Australians live in major cities it's surprising.
It's really surprising how many accidents are single vehicle :
"Out of 1266 deaths, 490 victims were involved in multiple-vehicle road incidents, whereas 776 people who died were involved in single-vehicle crashes."
On top of this it should be added that in a review of fatalities in Victoria ~52% of the crashes involved a driver who tested positive for alcohol or drugs or both.
I wonder if there will be a reversal in pedestrian deaths with the rise in larger cars. I live in a large UK city and it is mad the number of SUVs you see driving around.
I dont see why. Like outside of specifically seppo produced coal wagons, the bigger cars\trucks\suvs are shipping with all safety features by default. I have 360 degree cameras at slow speed, sensors that go off if theres a loose branch within a meter of the car. I have more faith in my big car than I did with my older hatchback which only had a reversing cam.
Probably mitigated by the fact that the most popular SUVs in the UK are effectively just tall hatchbacks. People think Range Rovers but the bestsellers are like Kia Sportage and Ford Puma.
Is the rise in SUVs about (displaying/increasing) social status? I am curious why people in the UK "need" SUVs. In many areas of the US, having a huge car is about social status.
Poor driving skills rather than social status. But who of those brilliant folks would admit that even to themselves. Also suvs are not some expensive car category, you can find dirt cheap (and crappy as suvs in general anyway are) ones.
Putting in roundabouts as a default so many years ago (as described in the article) makes a huge difference the the road infrastructure in the UK. They take up a lot more space, but the lack of stop-start traffic light intersections makes a completely changes how people move around. Bigger, more complex roundabouts do have traffic lights, but straight-up road intersections with traffic lights are the exception.
I have children who are now approaching, or have approached large independence milestones. By the time I was my eldest's age (no just in high school [11-13 years old]) I knew of at least one kid from my school (a school of 55) who had died in a road accident.
By the time I had left sixth form (18), two other people from my high school had died in RTAs and two others had life changing injuries.
Granted this was rural east of england, so the roads were/are more dangerous.
However those last crashes triggered changes to the layout of the roads where they happened. This wasn't some line painting thing either, complete junction change from a y junction to a roundabout with re-grade of the road to improve visibility.
Much as it pisses me off, speed cameras, bumps and "low" speed limits are almost always a reaction to road deaths.
All of this means that my kids, who go to a much bigger school (500 and 1500 respectively) have not lost people they know to road crashes.
objectively kids are much much safer outside than any 80s kids. Yet, for whatever reason we don't think thats the case.
As somebody who has driven in a few places around the World, I would say that overall the standard of driving and safety is remarkably high in the UK given that the road layouts are often quite confusing (we have roads in use today from Roman, Saxon, Norman, Medieval, Tudor and more modern phases of development, so it can get confusing), and the level of signage around some confusing layouts is much lower than, say, California.
This is because the rules are more complex, but actually get a license is, too. There are plenty of bad drivers, there are still idiots who drink/take drugs/use their mobile phones while driving, but it's way, way less than in some other parts of the World. And the rules of the road are broadly followed in terms of lane discipline and right of way in a way that they aren't in much of Europe or elsewhere.
I sometimes wish that we had clearer lane signage in some parts of the road network, like that seen in the US, but overall, once you get it, it's all very straightforward.
I've lived in the UK for over 15 years now and I still can't get over people's general allergy for using indicators. And I know the test and training specifically tell you that you must use indicators when changing lanes and turning, but if I had a penny for every time I see someone on the motorway changing lanes without indicating I'd make a very good middle class salary from that alone.
But yes, other than this people do generally drive really safely. I especially like how people mostly keep to the 30mph limit in towns(but then again, people get literally offended when you say you keep to the 20mph limit, like you're some kind of idiot for doing so).
But why is it that countries that are culturally close to Britain (eg colonies) have much higher fatality rates? You'd expect them to have implemented some of the same policies. Singapore and Malta have similar rates, but the others are much higher.
Regarding roundabouts, it makes sense when explained like in the article. But I've always felt like they were dangerous, especially the ones they have in Britain where you have multiple lanes with lights and connecting roundabouts. Perhaps that sense of fear is what actually makes them safe.
Large roundabouts are pretty safe, if you've gone through the learning process we have in the UK. I did about 30-40h of practical lessons with an instructor, over half of which would have included multi-lane roundabouts.
The lights control the flow, so no need to worry about giving way. You pick your lane in the lead up using the signs and road markings. Then you follow your painted lane, the markings of which guide you all the way through. The markings and lights do all the work for you, unless you're in the wrong lane at the start. All your awareness is focused on looking for hazards of people who are in the wrong lane because your route is dictated by the road markings.
I will admit, they look complicated - especially if you've never driven one before. My first time around one was a bit nerve-wracking, but they quickly become second nature.
As an American who drove for 20 years before obtaining a license in the UK, I can offer some observations.
First, driving in the UK is much more a privilege than a right as in the US. You can live a complete life in the UK without a license because of the wide availability of public transit. In the US however, if you want to maintain a steady job outside of NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston or perhaps a few others, you'll have to drive. Revoking a driver's license in the US can be life-altering in a way that it just won't in the UK. Fewer people bother getting the license and fewer still drive.
Second, driving is much more physically and mentally demanding in the UK. Perhaps that serves to reduce traffic deaths by forcing focus, but it also imposes a limit on the types of people who can drive here. This selects against too young, too old, too small, disabled, etc. in a way that would not be tolerated in the US for the above reasons.
Third, annual vehicle inspections are much more stringent in the UK which takes a lot of older vehicles off the road and again selects against those of lower socio-economic status in a way that would be unconscionable in the US.
I think universal vehicle inspections alone would massively cut down on a significant amount of accidents, especially in Michigan. The number of people I see driving in 6” of snow with bald tires, grinding brakes, and blown out suspension is really concerning.
Our driving test standards are also high, having spoken with US colleagues, much higher than state-side (although I imagine that varies from state to state).
The theory test you must pass before taking your practical also now includes a hazard perception test - you are shown multiple videos and must click when you first perceive a hazard - the earlier you click after the hazard presents the higher your score - but if you just click randomly you get a zero.
Some of them are tricky - for instance, one I remember is a van coming from a side road at too fast a speed, but you can only first see this hazard forming in a reflection of a shop window.
Then you get the two wheeled side of the fence. You can do a one day compulsory basic training course and convince a trainer you know what you're doing, then drive on the road with everyone on a 125cc motorcycle (or 50cc at 16 years old), and then repeat the CBT every two years to keep on the road. It's only if you go for the full license that you need to study for theory as a prerequisite, so long as you keep out of trouble.
I took my test nearly 25 years ago, and this was present then -- for the avoidance of doubt, the UK test has always been very thorough, though not quite as thorough as those in places like Finland where apparently they have skid pans and similar!
> having spoken with US colleagues, much higher than state-side (although I imagine that varies from state to state).
You know, it does vary but relative to any other developed country it's pitiful in every state. The reality is we just hand out driver's licenses to whomever.
I live in the US in a town with particularly bad drivers. I know I know, everyone's area has the worst drivers. But I've lived in dozen cities across the US so have some frame of reference. The sad thing is, it's a small town with what -should- be little traffic.
It's one of those places there will only be 2 other cars in sight, but they're driving side by side and 10 under the speed limit. And for some reason, everyone seems to just hold down their brake pedal at all times so you can never tell when they're actually slowing. I presume they're driving an automatic with two feet and keep just enough pressure to trigger the brakelights. And everyone, even the Kia Rios, drives in the opposite lane before turning so they can swing wide like a semi. I could go on and on but I digress.
Anyways, it had been an enigma to me for the last few years since I moved here, until one day I was asked to take a lady to her driving test. Sure, why not.
The entirety of the 5 minute road test was turning out right onto a sparsely populated 2 lane highway, driving anxiously at 35 in a 55 for a mile or so, then turning around and coming back. Passed. Suddenly, everything made more sense to me.
And I'm sure this isn't probably even the easiest test nationally, just one I became familiar with recently.
Can confirm that 6 right turns from getting into the car, comprising a single trip around the block was the full extent of my San Jose, CA driving test.
I left the DMV office significantly more scared of my fellow drivers than I had arrived…
This is probably a huge factor for sure. Both the UK theory and practical tests are somewhat tricky, at least compared to those in places like the US. Many people will fail them the first time around, and a fair few will fail them multiple times.
The official statistics have a rate of about 40-60% for these tests:
It's closer to a school exam in terms of difficulty, rather than the quick drive around a parking lot that it seems a lot of places have.
So people seem a lot more prepared than in many other places, since they actually have to be able to spot hazards and do driving maneuvers to get their license in the first place.
Finally something positive about the UK. Usually the crowd will come in with pitchforks swinging everytime there is something about UK housing or politics going wrong.
UK is extremely risk-averse. In the case of road safety, it shows: a lot of time and cash goes into minimising deaths.
This is not only road users: roadworks have restrictive speed limits, which are not taken down when there is no workforce out, to minimise risk to workers setting and unsetting limits, traffic cones etc. Things that in other countries would close a lane often close the whole road, again because of risks to road users and maintenance people.
This is of course great, but also very expensive - and I cannot shake the feeling that the UK loses so much money on this risk aversion that is actually causes more hazard due to underinvestment elsewhere. NHS is crumbling, the very safe roads take forever to navigate, introducing inefficiencies and starving the central budget of cash. GDP per capita has barely grown since 2008. Even a small annual boost would unlock a lot of cash for investment, in particular into NHS and saving lives.
It's like putting all your pension investments into bonds, because they are safer. But you swap market risk for the risk of not having enough cash when you retire.
But maybe it's easy to have this perspective because I have a desk job and commute by public transport.
I'll guess you've probably not done a huge amount of project management for infrastructure projects then. I can wager most road projects wouldn't be completed quicker if safety barriers had to be removed/reconstructed on a daily basis.
Equally, nobody in the construction trade gets into it to get killed in an accident, especially ones avoided by just having traffic move at slightly lower speeds.
Driving in the UK can be quite a shock when you're used to the roads in the Netherlands. The speed at which people navigate roundabouts can feel terrifying, and the maximum speed in the countryside is something else. Going *60 mph* on narrow roads with limited visibility is just crazy. The locals just speed by. I guess it's just what you're used to.
I prefer the death per people metric as I am more interested in how likely I am to receive some bad news than some metric based on distance.
Both measures have bias, the "per people" metric doesn't take into account when people are actually driving while the "per kilometer" metric puts too much emphasis on long distance driving, which is usually done on motorways where it is the safest. Maybe the best metric would be "per time spent on the road, including as a pedestrian on the sidewalk", but I guess it is harder to estimate.
In my opinion some of this is simply due to how congested built up areas are today. It's genuinely hard to get up to 30 in a city or any populated area in the UK today, and most cities in the UK now have 20mph speed limits when there's likely to be pedestrians around.
It's pretty hard to kill people if you're driving under 30, and anywhere people are driving in excess of 30 it's not that populated and cars these days are pretty safe unless you have a head on collision at significant speed.
As an American tourist in London I found the roundabouts very interesting. In big cities and small, all intersections have a roundabout. Compare that to the US. You have Stop signs which are easy to miss. Sometimes the Stop signs are ignored by people in a hurry. Sometimes people steal the Stop signs to use as decoration in dorms.
Just back from a 8500+km road trip (car, wife, and two kids 6 and 1) around Europe where we visited 9 countries (UK, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece). For us as a family, France and UK had the safest and more relaxing roads. Italy was OK compared to the usual standard, Slovenia and Croatia had highways with too many slopes but people drive carefully. The ones where we struggled and developed high anxiety were (surprisingly!) Germany and Switzerland. In both latter countries we seriously struggled to relax as driving in any lane becomes a stressful experience. We have decided NOT to cross those countries anymore in our next trips sadly.
Roundabouts are great… except when you install them in places people don’t understand how to traverse them. A list of the most dangerous intersections in Michigan is published every year, and the roundabouts near me pretty consistently make the top 5 to top 10.
The hazard perception test was a great addition in my opinion.
(Basically a video plays and you have to press a button when something dangerous has happened).
I passed my driving test 30+ years ago and then took the HPT as part of a motorcycle test 15 years later.
Paying attention (to the kid bouncing a ball at the side of the road, to the cyclist when it's windy weather etc) is a key part of road craft and I hope this made it much clearer with some (contrived) examples. TBH I just wish they let you click earlier (for _potential_ threats - i.e. before they step into the road, not just afterwards).
I think one of the things not mention, is to simply have less driving. That helps a lot. Move more people onto buses, trains, bikes and walking.
In shared spaces, the more alternatives you have the more the car has to adjust to that reality and that tends to slow down cars.
And even more importantly, politically measures like 'slowing down cars' is much easier to pass if people have alternatives.
Here in Switzerland we are just fighting against the Right Wing Transport Minister who wants to make 50km mandatory in every city (but they are anti-regulation of course).
Secondly, I think these numbers only really look good, in light of them having been so horrible bad before. So much more could be done. There are 100s of streets that should simply be pedestrianized, both for economic reason and for safety reasons.
There is lots of good research going on in Netherlands, Finland, Norway and so on. In Oslo for example, they have reduced the cars in the city to a point where I was often simply walking on the street (sadly partly by moving cars underground). Sweden in Stockholm implemented congestion pricing.
Another thing not addressed here, is to keep cars light. The chance of death is much less with a smaller lower profile car. Charge higher registration and road fees to larger cars. Create maximum sizes for all public parking spots and harsh fines is somebody parks their dumb F-150 there. More can be done along those lines as well.
Narrow roads and use safer configuration. For example, never have a 4-lane road. A 3 lane where the middle is a turning lane, has the same threw-put and is safer. In general, preventing any kind of overtaking improves flow and safety.
There are so many more things that can be done. The goal has to be not just less people killed, but also less property damage and other kinds of negative effect. Zero is the acceptable number.
I moved from Germany (Cologne) to London recently and I am surprised to read that UK has safer roads than Germany. I have not yet driven in London - but I have driven in Germany and I have bicycled in both countries. London is hands down terrifying to me. Certain kinds of drivers (eg: vans) seem deliberately hostile to cyclists, and plenty of people park in a cycling lane. Never seen that happen in Germany with such frequency. Also, roads are bumpier - what’s with that?!
Now, cyclists in London are a driver’s nightmare. I’ve seen people barrel down a junction at full speed and jump a red light. This lack of desire for self-preservation is startingly common.
Between the hostile vans and the daredevil red-light-jumping cyclists, I am baffled at this report. Perhaps mortality rates are low, but injury rates are much higher than say, Germany?
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[ 1839 ms ] story [ 1687 ms ] thread> Our World in Data is a project of Global Change Data Lab, a nonprofit based in the UK (Reg. Charity No. 1186433).
I'm a Brit too, but this article felt a bit too self-congratulatory given I've read other recent reports about other places (cites, regions, and entire countries) with overall safer roads; kinda like how we love to tell everyone how chuffed we are with how safe our AC plugs are.
I chose active travel over car dependency at an early age. I also worked in the cycle trade. My opinion is that roads have become far more dangerous, however, most of what can be killed by the car has already been killed and the reason for fewer deaths is slimmer pickings.
Children and the elderly are two canaries in the coal mine.
Kids used to get new bicycles at Christmas, play in the streets and be 'free range' in the UK. Nowadays they are all welded to mobile phones and cocooned in SUVs. Only something like one on four know how to ride a bicycle nowadays and that Christmas trade in bicycles died thirty years ago.
Although you see a fair few Lime bikes and people commuting by bicycle in London, most bicycles are sold to rich people for them to strap to cars, for them to drive to a designated safe spot, for them to ride from the car park in a loop back to the car park. You never see these bicycles parked up next to the door at a supermarket or even at a railway station, partly due to the risk of theft, but also due to the dangers of the road.
As for the elderly, nowadays they are boomers and they all have cars. They only give up their car keys when they get condemned to retirement homes. Hence, like kids, old people are not to be found in the streets, unless cocooned in tin boxes.
As for being cocooned in a tin box, what happened to spirited driving? In the 1970s it was normal for people to cross the country with no sat nav or seat belt, driving as if they were in a Group B rally car, taking their special shortcuts, drunk, with cigarette in hand. Nowadays this doesn't happen, people in cars just shuffle from traffic light to traffic light fearing CCTV and speed cameras.
We have also priced out younger motorists, who would have been the 'spirited drivers'.
Hitchhiking used to exist in the 1970s. Thatcher era stranger danger put an end to that, so nobody hitchhikes these days. Does this mean that hitchhiking is safer? No!
There is another aspect of car dependency and 'safety'. Sure, you might not get killed in an ultra-violent crash in a tin-box cocoon, however, what about cardiovascular disease? Being car dependent and eating the convenience foods of the car dependent is a shortcut to obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, cognitive decline and death by blocked arteries.
The government knows this, and this is why 'active travel' is a phrase. By 2030 the UK government wants more than half of all journeys in built up areas to be 'active travel' rather than lame car dependency.
0: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.358056,-2.6822578,3a,75y,344...
As a specific (and horrific) example, this doctor was found to be mostly liable for a collision that happened due to her speed, while still under the speed limit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-66121540
My general take is that I try to drive as if a maniac (meaning anyone who might think it's reasonable to drive faster than I do) is about to come the other way along the road. I should be able to stop within my sight-lines if the road is wide enough to take evasive action, and well within half that distance if the road is narrow.
It's worth looking at the road deaths data in wikipedia at :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
The road toll of 1266 in 2023 and 4.8 fatalities per 100K residents is and comparing it to 1970 where it was 3,798 and 30.4 per 100K residents.
Even the trend on deaths per 100K residents is down from 8.15 per 100K residents in 2003 and has declined to 4.4 in 2023.
In terms of road fatalities per billion kilometres driven it's down from 44 per billion kilometres traveled in 1971 to 4.4 in 2020.
It's really interesting to see how many single vehicle accidents there were and the breakdown of who was killed.
From : https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/australias-catastrophi... "48 per cent of deaths recorded were drivers, while 20 per cent were motorcyclists, 16 per cent were passengers and 12.5 per cent were pedestrians.
304 women were killed over the 12 months, while the report recorded 956 male deaths. 792 deaths occurred during weekdays and 474 victims were killed over a weekend."
The breakdown on where the crashes happened is interesting
"A total of 326 people died in major cities across Australia, with 581 deaths in regional Australia and 63 in remote or very remote parts of the country."
Given that the vast majority of Australians live in major cities it's surprising.
It's really surprising how many accidents are single vehicle :
"Out of 1266 deaths, 490 victims were involved in multiple-vehicle road incidents, whereas 776 people who died were involved in single-vehicle crashes."
On top of this it should be added that in a review of fatalities in Victoria ~52% of the crashes involved a driver who tested positive for alcohol or drugs or both.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...
41% of fatalities are estimated to involve speeding.
https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/topics-tips/spee...
Obviously, in an UK town pedestrians and cars should never come in contact, there are pavements, pedestrian crossings, etc.
By the time I had left sixth form (18), two other people from my high school had died in RTAs and two others had life changing injuries.
Granted this was rural east of england, so the roads were/are more dangerous.
However those last crashes triggered changes to the layout of the roads where they happened. This wasn't some line painting thing either, complete junction change from a y junction to a roundabout with re-grade of the road to improve visibility.
Much as it pisses me off, speed cameras, bumps and "low" speed limits are almost always a reaction to road deaths.
All of this means that my kids, who go to a much bigger school (500 and 1500 respectively) have not lost people they know to road crashes.
objectively kids are much much safer outside than any 80s kids. Yet, for whatever reason we don't think thats the case.
This is because the rules are more complex, but actually get a license is, too. There are plenty of bad drivers, there are still idiots who drink/take drugs/use their mobile phones while driving, but it's way, way less than in some other parts of the World. And the rules of the road are broadly followed in terms of lane discipline and right of way in a way that they aren't in much of Europe or elsewhere.
I sometimes wish that we had clearer lane signage in some parts of the road network, like that seen in the US, but overall, once you get it, it's all very straightforward.
But yes, other than this people do generally drive really safely. I especially like how people mostly keep to the 30mph limit in towns(but then again, people get literally offended when you say you keep to the 20mph limit, like you're some kind of idiot for doing so).
Regarding roundabouts, it makes sense when explained like in the article. But I've always felt like they were dangerous, especially the ones they have in Britain where you have multiple lanes with lights and connecting roundabouts. Perhaps that sense of fear is what actually makes them safe.
The lights control the flow, so no need to worry about giving way. You pick your lane in the lead up using the signs and road markings. Then you follow your painted lane, the markings of which guide you all the way through. The markings and lights do all the work for you, unless you're in the wrong lane at the start. All your awareness is focused on looking for hazards of people who are in the wrong lane because your route is dictated by the road markings.
I will admit, they look complicated - especially if you've never driven one before. My first time around one was a bit nerve-wracking, but they quickly become second nature.
First, driving in the UK is much more a privilege than a right as in the US. You can live a complete life in the UK without a license because of the wide availability of public transit. In the US however, if you want to maintain a steady job outside of NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston or perhaps a few others, you'll have to drive. Revoking a driver's license in the US can be life-altering in a way that it just won't in the UK. Fewer people bother getting the license and fewer still drive.
Second, driving is much more physically and mentally demanding in the UK. Perhaps that serves to reduce traffic deaths by forcing focus, but it also imposes a limit on the types of people who can drive here. This selects against too young, too old, too small, disabled, etc. in a way that would not be tolerated in the US for the above reasons.
Third, annual vehicle inspections are much more stringent in the UK which takes a lot of older vehicles off the road and again selects against those of lower socio-economic status in a way that would be unconscionable in the US.
The theory test you must pass before taking your practical also now includes a hazard perception test - you are shown multiple videos and must click when you first perceive a hazard - the earlier you click after the hazard presents the higher your score - but if you just click randomly you get a zero.
Some of them are tricky - for instance, one I remember is a van coming from a side road at too fast a speed, but you can only first see this hazard forming in a reflection of a shop window.
I took my test nearly 25 years ago, and this was present then -- for the avoidance of doubt, the UK test has always been very thorough, though not quite as thorough as those in places like Finland where apparently they have skid pans and similar!
You know, it does vary but relative to any other developed country it's pitiful in every state. The reality is we just hand out driver's licenses to whomever.
It's one of those places there will only be 2 other cars in sight, but they're driving side by side and 10 under the speed limit. And for some reason, everyone seems to just hold down their brake pedal at all times so you can never tell when they're actually slowing. I presume they're driving an automatic with two feet and keep just enough pressure to trigger the brakelights. And everyone, even the Kia Rios, drives in the opposite lane before turning so they can swing wide like a semi. I could go on and on but I digress.
Anyways, it had been an enigma to me for the last few years since I moved here, until one day I was asked to take a lady to her driving test. Sure, why not.
The entirety of the 5 minute road test was turning out right onto a sparsely populated 2 lane highway, driving anxiously at 35 in a 55 for a mile or so, then turning around and coming back. Passed. Suddenly, everything made more sense to me.
And I'm sure this isn't probably even the easiest test nationally, just one I became familiar with recently.
So yeah, we have absolutely no driving standards.
I left the DMV office significantly more scared of my fellow drivers than I had arrived…
It has done for nearly 25 years at this point ;)
I kind of assumed every state does this.
The official statistics have a rate of about 40-60% for these tests:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/driving-...
Though it definitely varies by area:
https://www.gocompare.com/motoring/reports-statistics/drivin...
It's closer to a school exam in terms of difficulty, rather than the quick drive around a parking lot that it seems a lot of places have.
So people seem a lot more prepared than in many other places, since they actually have to be able to spot hazards and do driving maneuvers to get their license in the first place.
This is not only road users: roadworks have restrictive speed limits, which are not taken down when there is no workforce out, to minimise risk to workers setting and unsetting limits, traffic cones etc. Things that in other countries would close a lane often close the whole road, again because of risks to road users and maintenance people.
This is of course great, but also very expensive - and I cannot shake the feeling that the UK loses so much money on this risk aversion that is actually causes more hazard due to underinvestment elsewhere. NHS is crumbling, the very safe roads take forever to navigate, introducing inefficiencies and starving the central budget of cash. GDP per capita has barely grown since 2008. Even a small annual boost would unlock a lot of cash for investment, in particular into NHS and saving lives.
It's like putting all your pension investments into bonds, because they are safer. But you swap market risk for the risk of not having enough cash when you retire.
But maybe it's easy to have this perspective because I have a desk job and commute by public transport.
Equally, nobody in the construction trade gets into it to get killed in an accident, especially ones avoided by just having traffic move at slightly lower speeds.
Seems to me the latter would be a much better metric for the safety of the physical roads.
Both measures have bias, the "per people" metric doesn't take into account when people are actually driving while the "per kilometer" metric puts too much emphasis on long distance driving, which is usually done on motorways where it is the safest. Maybe the best metric would be "per time spent on the road, including as a pedestrian on the sidewalk", but I guess it is harder to estimate.
Anyways the UK is doing well on both metrics.
It's pretty hard to kill people if you're driving under 30, and anywhere people are driving in excess of 30 it's not that populated and cars these days are pretty safe unless you have a head on collision at significant speed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
"I will not accept that it's a highly dangerous road" https://youtu.be/7Qir4EEpawE
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2024/07/03/these-a...
I passed my driving test 30+ years ago and then took the HPT as part of a motorcycle test 15 years later.
Paying attention (to the kid bouncing a ball at the side of the road, to the cyclist when it's windy weather etc) is a key part of road craft and I hope this made it much clearer with some (contrived) examples. TBH I just wish they let you click earlier (for _potential_ threats - i.e. before they step into the road, not just afterwards).
In shared spaces, the more alternatives you have the more the car has to adjust to that reality and that tends to slow down cars.
And even more importantly, politically measures like 'slowing down cars' is much easier to pass if people have alternatives.
Here in Switzerland we are just fighting against the Right Wing Transport Minister who wants to make 50km mandatory in every city (but they are anti-regulation of course).
Secondly, I think these numbers only really look good, in light of them having been so horrible bad before. So much more could be done. There are 100s of streets that should simply be pedestrianized, both for economic reason and for safety reasons.
There is lots of good research going on in Netherlands, Finland, Norway and so on. In Oslo for example, they have reduced the cars in the city to a point where I was often simply walking on the street (sadly partly by moving cars underground). Sweden in Stockholm implemented congestion pricing.
Another thing not addressed here, is to keep cars light. The chance of death is much less with a smaller lower profile car. Charge higher registration and road fees to larger cars. Create maximum sizes for all public parking spots and harsh fines is somebody parks their dumb F-150 there. More can be done along those lines as well.
Narrow roads and use safer configuration. For example, never have a 4-lane road. A 3 lane where the middle is a turning lane, has the same threw-put and is safer. In general, preventing any kind of overtaking improves flow and safety.
There are so many more things that can be done. The goal has to be not just less people killed, but also less property damage and other kinds of negative effect. Zero is the acceptable number.
Now, cyclists in London are a driver’s nightmare. I’ve seen people barrel down a junction at full speed and jump a red light. This lack of desire for self-preservation is startingly common.
Between the hostile vans and the daredevil red-light-jumping cyclists, I am baffled at this report. Perhaps mortality rates are low, but injury rates are much higher than say, Germany?