Around half deaths from car accidents are pedestrians (may be less in US). By choosing not to drive, you increase the time of walking and your chances of being hit by other person’s car.
My impression is that if you don’t drive you wouldn’t be covering the same distances as you would in a car. Eg. if you walked 5 miles vs drove 5 miles, maybe the risk of being hit as a pedestrian starts to add up, but since in practice you’d only be walking a few blocks, the risk of death would be many times less. Similar point for biking.
Also, maybe this is overconfidence, but I feel like you have more control over your risk of death when walking or biking. Eg. you can be really careful about crossing the street, whereas on the road there’s only so much you can do. For example, if the crosswalk thing turns green but there is a car coming fast such that it’d have to stop in order to avoid hitting you as you cross the cross walk, I say you shouldn’t cross the crosswalk even though you’re “supposed” to. Maybe my memory is being overly dramatic, but I’m pretty sure I’d be dead right now if I didn’t adopt this policy.
Finally, some cars are like two-three orders safer than others, if we look at the number of reported deaths per billion km driving. I saw once that Toyota Prius had 1 death for 1 billion km, but Kia Rio was only 1 for 10 millions.
That example in particular doesn’t control for Prius drivers potentially having a more cautious personality or something than Rio drivers. However, it is still quite telling. If cars really do differ this much in safety then that is a very important point. Do you or anyone else have more info about this? I feel some skepticism about it, but am ready to update!
Waiting few years for self-driving Tesla Cybertrack may be an option.
In theory I think this is beyond the scope of the question, but in practice I think it’s a good point. It’s nice to know if driving might become something that is worth the risk in the future.
BTW, my personal choice is Uber Black.: I don’t have car and I delegate driving to special trained person. Every time I take Comfort, I regret, as I have near-miss accidents. It is relatively cheap in my area.
I have two-three people who I knew and who died in accidents: all of the were “reckless pedestrians”. It supports you point about the ability of pedestrians to manage risks.
Can’t find a link on statistic of accidents by car types
My impression is that if you don’t drive you wouldn’t be covering the same distances as you would in a car. Eg. if you walked 5 miles vs drove 5 miles, maybe the risk of being hit as a pedestrian starts to add up, but since in practice you’d only be walking a few blocks, the risk of death would be many times less. Similar point for biking.
Also, maybe this is overconfidence, but I feel like you have more control over your risk of death when walking or biking. Eg. you can be really careful about crossing the street, whereas on the road there’s only so much you can do. For example, if the crosswalk thing turns green but there is a car coming fast such that it’d have to stop in order to avoid hitting you as you cross the cross walk, I say you shouldn’t cross the crosswalk even though you’re “supposed” to. Maybe my memory is being overly dramatic, but I’m pretty sure I’d be dead right now if I didn’t adopt this policy.
That example in particular doesn’t control for Prius drivers potentially having a more cautious personality or something than Rio drivers. However, it is still quite telling. If cars really do differ this much in safety then that is a very important point. Do you or anyone else have more info about this? I feel some skepticism about it, but am ready to update!
In theory I think this is beyond the scope of the question, but in practice I think it’s a good point. It’s nice to know if driving might become something that is worth the risk in the future.
BTW, my personal choice is Uber Black.: I don’t have car and I delegate driving to special trained person. Every time I take Comfort, I regret, as I have near-miss accidents. It is relatively cheap in my area.
I have two-three people who I knew and who died in accidents: all of the were “reckless pedestrians”. It supports you point about the ability of pedestrians to manage risks.
Can’t find a link on statistic of accidents by car types
Thanks for the tip on Uber Black. Sorry to hear about the accidents.