• NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 days ago

    Victoria is that low cos they don’t fuck around when it comes to driving fines. The speed limit means limit, and they’re cracking down hard on drivers using phones.

      • Fleur_@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 days ago

        Yeah the only people worse at driving are Belgiuns. I say this with certainty having never been to Belgium and in direct conflict with the source presented to me. I simply know it to be true as an empath.

    • Delphia@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      6 days ago

      I mean,Australia has way less snow than the US, that definitely has to account for a chunk of the difference in our numbers.

      • Quilotoa@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        6 days ago

        But Canada has way more snow than the U.S., so that doesn’t seem to be a major factor.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          6 days ago

          Could be that Canada is ready for the snow it gets while you see some states shut down completely when they get a light dusting of snow.

          • Delphia@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            5 days ago

            Yeah this is what I’m getting at.

            Canadians and northern states know how to drive in snow and in general can afford more comprehensive plowing and salting programs. Mississipi is both broke AF and gets snow rarely.

            So the programs suck and so do the drivers.

      • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        6 days ago

        from existing in a car in the US on a few occasions and living in australia i’d wager a HUGE amount of the difference is attitude… holy SHIT do yall speed like crazy! 15-20mph over the limit just seems to be standard… 15kph over the limit here in aus you literally watch them pass every other car and call them a dickhead - and they’ll almost certainly get a speeding fine

        • Delphia@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          6 days ago

          I am Australian, Ive been doing track days, drift days and have done a few amateur rallys too over the last 20 years and Ive never been more scared driving than a rental car in Austria in winter on holiday. Ice and snow is a whole different skillset.

          • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            6 days ago

            also true, but as other have said, mississippi doesn’t really get snow so given the massive difference between them and vic, i don’t think snow is really a particularly big contributor

        • Delphia@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          5 days ago

          Im not saying its THE cause, just that the US as a whole has to regularly deal with a potential cause of accidents that is almost non-existent in Australia.

          We also have a significantly lower amount of bear attacks and it has nothing to do with the quality of our bear management programs.

    • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      6 days ago

      I don’t know much about Mississippi, but I know that in neighboring Louisiana, there are drive-through daiquiri places.

      the fine print of the law says that the open container law is not applicable to containers with frozen alcoholic beverage where the lid is intact and no straw is protruding through the lid.

      In most cases, daiquiris adhere to the “tape rule.” Most daiquiri shops will put a piece of tape over the straw hold on the lid. If this tape is removed or broken then the drink is considered an open container.

      So a piece of tape counts as a “seal.” They’re not even trying.

    • itslola@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 days ago

      Wait, are you saying BAC while driving must be 0.00 in some parts of the States, or am I misunderstanding? It’s 0.05 in most (all?) parts of Australia (except if you’re in a restricted licence category). It’s not encouraged, but it’s legal.

      Figured you guys would have more permissive laws than we do.

      • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        No I’m saying you’re not allowed to be drinking alcohol while you drive. Which you are in Mississippi.

        USA freedom warriors ™ on Reddit say ‘that’s fine because they still have to be under the legal limit’. Unable to fathom that the idea of normalizing drinking alcohol while you drive encourages irresponsible behaviour amongst other negatives, beyond just staying under the BAC limit.

        • itslola@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          5 days ago

          Ahhh, yeah, that’s a bit cooked. The freedom warriors bit isn’t surprising, though. You’d expect them to be in favour of “the freedom to be as irresponsible as you like”.

  • Allemaniac@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    6 days ago

    getting a drivers license in mississippi is basically show up to the DMV, suck a cock and drive home or what?

    • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      6 days ago

      Mississippi has drive-through combo shops: liquor store / DMV / KFC.

      Saves time on your way to and home from church.

    • breecher@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      6 days ago

      Yes, but that does not make it any better, since the US should be compared to other Western developed countries. That is like people saying that the number of gun deaths in the US isn’t that bad because they are worse in Ukraine or Syria, you know, active war zones.

    • Allemaniac@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      6 days ago

      yes but whole africa is developing nations with ultra bad infrastructure like roads and intersections. You should be comparing USA to peering nations, like western europe or countries of the commonwealth. Unless you admit that USA is also third world shit hole

    • FarraigePlaisteaċ@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      7 days ago

      I think it’s fair to compare like with like. Many African countries have poor infrastructure, inadequate enforcement of traffic laws, rapid urbanization, unsafe vehicles, and limited emergency medical services. Its easy for a Western country to look better compared to that, but is it a fair comparison?

    • bier@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      7 days ago

      The Netherlands has 4.19

      The Netherlands is close in size to Maryland, and close in the number of inhabitants as New York. Also half of the traffic is cars and half is bicycles. It’s pretty insane how bad Mississippi is.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        7 days ago

        I tried looking into why Mississippi was so far worse. Mostly just finding people self report texting and driving more there, infrastructure is shitty, enforcement is shitty, DUIs are high they recently just upped the civil fine of texting while driving from $25 to $100.

        For fun I looked to see what Mississippi would be like if it was its own country, and do to GDP it was compared to Morocco and Kenya.

        Car Deaths per 100,000

        Mississippi: 26 Morocco: 17.29 Kenya: 28

        Kenya is 4x as dense as Mississippi is though, so still hard to say Mississippi is safer than Kenya. It’s just numbers

        • Allemaniac@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          6 days ago

          tried googling it also and prompted “which state is easiest to get drivers license?” and one answer was “probably washington, you dont have to parallel park there, just attempt it” and it told me everything I need to know about the safety of US roads

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            6 days ago

            That’s a good amount of states, at least 10 I’m sure. Parallel parking in the U.S. is rare. I remember my mother telling me in her late 50s she had never done it since her driving test back in 77. I used to do it when I’d go into cities but it is rare to find anywhere that requires it. Some vehicles are also so big here that if someone parallel parks a truck 5cm off the curb cars will have to drive into oncoming traffic to go around them. Thankfully places are starting to crack down on that.

            • Allemaniac@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              6 days ago

              didnt even think about too wide cars using parallel parking in cities. I mean we have the occassional F150 in Munic downtown blocking all trams and traffic because they can’t fit europoor parking lots, but it’s always a spectacle and the owners are more often than not scolded for driving these into crowded spaces where they clearly dont fit. But if this occurance was daily, I bet our cities would only build parking houses too instead of parallels

              • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                6 days ago

                Most places I have lived in the U.S. have plazas, giant parking lots, with stores that loop around 2 sides into a corner for the most part. They aren’t designed to be walked to. Bicycling to them is often tough as well. The mom and pops shops are mostly dead, so groceries, appliances, movies, whatever it is you are looking for are in Walmart, Target, Bestbuy, and other failing stores like Macy’s, Dillard’s, JCPenney, etc. all resteraunts are either surrounded by a parking lot, or in a plaza. Fast food is everywhere, and neighborhoods are miles from stores. The jurisdictions don’t allow commercial propertys near many neighborhoods. Slowly we are seeing more mix, but it’s a last 10 year change that I have noticed.

                • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  6 days ago

                  One of the big reasons for the stupid size of parking lots around stores has to do with zoning laws as well. I don’t remember the numbers and it’s gotta vary by district, but it’s tied to a certain percentage of the max occupancy of the building.

                  Because of the car-focused infrastructure that puts everything else last, we’ve created a self-defeating system that forces people to drive everywhere, thus justifying the massive parking lots that prevent people from using other modes of transport in the first place.

          • nwtreeoctopus@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            6 days ago

            Yet, Washington has one of the lowest rates on this scale. Maybe it’s because you have to go to driving school if you want a license before 18?

          • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            6 days ago

            the local driving schools (plural, there are a bunch) use the park nearby to teach parallel parking. I don’t think the avg driver in WA parks any worse than texas, illinois, virginia, ca or ny state. YMMV there are outstanding assholes everywhere, but I do have the privilege of a large number of places lived / driven.

  • itslola@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    6 days ago

    How the heck are Victorians down the bottom? Is it just the sheer size of our population keeping that number in check…?

      • itslola@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        There’s some truth to that (wonder what percentage of fatalities are hook turn related…?), though most of my “if you can survive” experiences have been with drivers overtaking on the shoulder, overtaking in the right hand turn queue and then making a dangerous turn, losing control of their speeding vehicle in the Burnley Tunnel or on the West Gate Bridge, or deciding that stopping for red lights and/or pedestrians (crossing legally) is optional.

        Obviously anecdotal, with a sample size of just one, but these are experiences I’ve had as a driver, passenger, pedestrian, or onlooker from a shop/restaurant/inside a tram. Didn’t happen anywhere near as frequently when I lived in Sydney or Brisbane.

    • Match!!@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      7 days ago

      It’s comparing against total population, not driving population, so any amount of mass transit will greatly reduce this number

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      7 days ago

      Probably not. The state has been implementing Vision Zero as a statewide program along with several cities.

      The two major highways have lower than average accidents due to design.

      One of the state’s signature traffic configurations, the Jersey Jughandle, eliminates left turn movements on older highways, a major source of accidents.

  • BigBenis@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    6 days ago

    The thing that surprised me most after moving to Oregon was how bad the drivers were. I’ve lived in many states across the South, the Midwest, and West Coast and I’ve never encountered drivers so consistently vindictive, entitled and reckless as the drivers in Oregon.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    6 days ago

    I assume this includes pedestrians and cyclist deaths? It’s by population rather than by “car” or “km driven” but I’d like to see a per county breakdown.

  • Smoogs@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    5 days ago

    Wait what?? British Columbia is less than Alberta? There are single lanes in dangerous areas in comparison to Alberta.

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      7 days ago

      There are only 36 states represented here by my count. It says “major” states, whatever that means. But 14 in total are missing either because of their smaller populations, or because their fatality rate is low enough that they would fall off the right hand side of the chart and thus wouldn’t fit the “America Drivers Bad” narrative quietly being implied, here.

      Edit: I looked up the numbers for my state in the same year (and no, I’m not telling the public which one). We would be at 1.2 on this chart if my math is correct, which is well below even the shortest bar for Victoria, there.

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        7 days ago

        I decided to look and found that this metric is almost always measured by vehicle distance travelled rather than by population. Basically the graph OP shared is useless and meant to support a narrative, as you stated.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          7 days ago

          Does that mean that Canadians in Alberta, Quebec, and Ontario simply don’t drive long distances inside their provinces? That doesn’t track with what I’ve seen when visiting all three provinces.

          • SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            7 days ago

            Calgary relatives: “oh I’m just going to zip up to Edmonton for the day” or go for a coffee 40km to the other side of town or just do the daily 130km commute etc.

            • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              7 days ago

              For AB I’m thinking its more “I can’t afford to live in Banff, but that’s where work is so a place in Canmore is where I call home with a 30 min commute each way.”

              Or “Yeah I like living in Red Deer, but it means a 1.5 hour drive one way if I want to see the Flames beat the skates off the Leafs when they’re in town.”

        • Artisian@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          7 days ago

          I think it’s kinda interesting still, in that it shows people are (must?) drive so much. But yes, agree that per cap seems like the wrong statistic for any kind of safety.

          Maybe more fair would be transit fatalities per mile traveled (any method)?

      • taiyang@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        7 days ago

        While I’d prefer to see every state and province represented, I imagine only metro areas matter here anyway. The dangers of the road are quite different when your largest city has a sliver of density compared to the rest, though by that token, density is probably a factor that even large states should account for (which would probably put NYC very low on the list lol)