I’ve lost two friends to it and I’m not even 30
And several family members
Buddy of mine from high school died in a motorcycle crash, my little brother’s best friend also died in a motorcycle crash
Yeah cars are dangerous, but motorcycles… Those mofos are DAAAAANGEROUS
I met two people in the rehab hospital for brain injury, one from a motorbike and one one was from dirt bike. But anyway, they scare the shit out of me now.
People just don’t seem to recognize that the biggest risk they take in getting hurt or hurting someone else is with motor vehicles. We just really gloss over it all.
In kindergarten I love my best friend when he and his dad died in a car crash hitting a tree
When I was 19 I saw a guy in a lifted F150 run over and kill a cop on a motorcycle. Of course the truck had a thin blue line punisher sticker on it too…
How did that happen?
At an intersection the truck turned right on red and then directly left into a parking lot. The cop was just approaching the intersection and I assume the truck driver couldn’t see him over the hood of his truck. I was working at the store the truck driver was intending to go to and could see it out the window.
The cop was responsive at first but soon went pale and laid motionless on the ground the rest of the time. The truck driver was an elderly man who looked completely devastated after seeing what he did. The EMTs came quickly cause the hospital was just down the road and they stayed for like 45 minutes until they fully covered him with a white sheet and left. I can only assume he died from what I observed, I have no idea if he actually did.
It was age 16 for me, and he was around my age. He was sitting alone on his own suburban front lawn when some speeding idiot lost control, swerved onto the yard, and killed him.
When I was a kid my friend’s mom got permanent brain damage in a motorcycle crash and her life pretty much came to a permanent halt.
A high school friend of mine was thrown off his motorcycle and off an overpass when he was 20. Doctors said he died instantly upon impact with the berm.
I know of two other high school acquaintances who have had vehicular deaths, one in a sedan and the other on a motorcycle.
I’ve known two separate people in NYC who had both of their legs broken simultaneously by a car hitting them from behind while they were waiting at a red light on their bikes. In one of those cases the motorist got out of her van and, upon seeing the state he was in, got back in her van without a word and drove away.
I had a roommate in NYC who had just returned back to town after spending a full year on his sensei’s farm in New Jersey recovering from getting right-hooked by a van has he was crossing the street. He was pulled under and snagged, dragged a full block, the back of his head and back were cheese-gratered down to the bone. He showed me an operating room photo of the damage.
I’m exactly 40 year old.
Can confirm. My grandmother beat breast cancer, and was killed by a drunk driver.
All for safer streets.
\46. First person that died due to a car accident that I knew was when I was 7. I now have known 8 people that have since died in car wrecks. E-bike adoption cannot come fast enough.
I’d like to see more “professionalism” required to obtain a driver’s license. At this point the barrier to entry to drive a 2 ton death machine is far too low. There is no reason why we should have people with multiple (or arguably any) DUIs operating a motor vehicle.
Shit man, had that happen at about 14. And again at 15. And once more at 16.
similar losses in my high school, cars are the number one killer of kids and teenagers
The first one that I was aware of, was in high school. The father of one of my friends did not wear a seatbelt while driving in an open jeep … until he no longer was in the jeep
The second was a few years later in college. My middle school bully was driving his motorcycle at ridiculous speeds through town and missed the road. I was not upset
This seems to be basted of statistical averages, so I’m so sure it can necessarily be translated to 4 in 5 people in a real empirical sense. It’s not entirely clear though - I didn’t try to find any sources.
I’d expect a skewed distribution with more deaths concentrated in certain areas and impacting some people more.
This might seem an anal point, but it might help explain voting behaviour and crowd responses and such.
If you’re speaking to a room of 100 random 40-year olds it might be way less than 80 who agree that they know someone who died in a crash. It might be just 20 who knew 4 people die. That sort of skew in people’s experiences might be helpful for advocates to understand as the dynamic of a minority with more trauma vs a majority none could be different - especially if the majority are callous self interested fuckfaces.
I realized I ADHD rambled in my post. tl;dr: I totally agree
It for sure is a statistical average. Like one in four women in your life have been sexually assaulted (can’t remember the exact statistic, but whatever it is, it’s bad).
To your point about some people being more affected than others, you are absolutely correct. Adding to this, some people don’t realize how many on their own life, like friends and family, have been affected by automotive accidents. Traffic injuries and deaths are so so normalized. Just anecdotally, the more I think about it, the more I remember people who have been injured, myself included. I just thought of a family friend, right now, while typing this, that was killed in a drunk driver hit and run, while she was jogging on a paved bike path in a park. My cousin and his wife were killed on a motorcycle when a truck pulled out in front of them illegally. Another cousin’s best friend died in a car accident in high school.
But when I first read the statistic my first thought was “I don’t think I know anyone who has died that way.” Stunning. I have a relatively high level of empathy and it took a fair amount of introspection to remember those who died. Partly because they weren’t immediate family or friends, but rather, once removed. No wonder, as you say, those callous, self-interested bastards don’t allow statistics like the OP to move them toward change.
a truck pulled out in front of them illegally.
Without knowing any real details, this is a type of accident where the perpetrator may not be held liable (because accident), and there’s really no technical solution (except maybe self-driving). Pulling out without seeing traffic is far too easy for a human to do by mistake, and no amount of road engineering or stop signs can change that
(Certainly roundabouts can help, and getting rid of stroads, but there’s still “pulling out”)
It’s also critical to understand the datasource. If we’re computing average by crash data, I’m sure I’m not average, but also “know” more people who have died than I am aware of
If their data was from personal surveys, my answer might be 2. The real number is likely higher, and the average is not predictive
Yep. Averages are just statistics, not real peoples experience. They’re far from useless, but a nice rich, (ideally) random or otherwise re[presentative sample has way more diverse things to say about the world than a single summary statistic ever can.
👏 fuck 👏 every 👏 single 👏 car 👏
That sounds painful. And what about electric cars? There’s no exhaust to stick the benis in 🤔
Not quite 40 and not American but close enough. I think the closest person that I know of who has passed from a vehicle related incident was my cousin’s friend in highschool about 20 years ago. Never met them just know of them. I’m not a terribly social able person though so my network is small.
Lost my father due to a car crash when I was 6. this shit is more serious then many realize.
