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.

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CalRobert 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Similarly, Ireland has seen a massive drop in road deaths, but one problem is that a lot of that improvement came from removing vulnerable road users - the kids biking and walking to school, etc are now much more likely to be in a car. (The US is similar - biking or walking to primary school was once the norm). Similarly you’d have zero drownings if you threw sharks in every pool. I do wish we could acknowledge that a lot of the improvement in road “safety” was a result of people just removing themselves from places where cars are.

	▲	closewith 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		No, that’s not true. Walking and cycling did decline, but risk per kilometre for has also fallen sharply (by approximately 50%) over the same period. Vulnerable road users are safer now than they ever were, despite similar actual numbers using the road network due to population growth and profile. The main factors behind the fall in deaths: * drink-driving enforcement, * seatbelt enforcement, * speed limits and speed cameras, * NCT improving the vehicle fleet, * road engineering changes, * driver training. So the “sharks in the pool” analogy is absurd. Everyone is safer, including the most vulnerable road users, so a better analogy is the road network has changed from shark-infested seas to a managed watercourse with swimmers, surfers, and boaters are seeing vastly fewer deaths or injuries.

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graemep 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> 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.

I think your experience is extremely unlucky. I went to a school in London (in the 80s) with around a 1,000 kids from 8 to 18 and there was one road death, and two injuries, all in the same accident, in all the time i was there. I did not know the buy who died personally, although i knew one of the others who was in the car.

I agree with you about the improvements in general. I do think the 20mph limits where I now live (and in some other places) seem a bit random, and there are some difficult A road junctions that I think the really could do with lower limits or other improvements that do not have them.

Absolutely true that kids are objectively much safer, but people have grown fearful. I wonder whether being safer has made people less tolerant of risk more than risks have diminished. Its common to hear arguments that anything that might save even one life is worth doing.

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KaiserPro 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I think your experience is extremely unlucky

You're probably right on that.

I'm in a london suburb now as well, which may also has something to do with it. I think the big difference is that there isn't anywhere where you can drive on to a 70mph road in the dark without a long merging lane.

> I do think the 20mph limits where I now live (and in some other places) seem a bit random,

I don't mind them being random so much, but what I hate is that they dont (or didn't) put repeater speed limit signs in 20mph zones. They normally put the signs on the road at junctions, where I'm looking for other dangers (pedestrians/cyclists and other cars)

So its fairly easy to either be dawdling in 30 or doing point/fine incurring speeds in a 20

	▲	graemep 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree entirely that A roads and city roads are a LOT safer than country lanes. Easier to drive on too. I find London more stressful and harder work to drive in - it may well be safer, but its harder. I far prefer public transport in big cities and I have not driven in London for years. The only time I have tripped a speed camera was doing 57 on an A road after missing the temporarily lower 50 limit for road works in the night. The road I currently I find hardest is one road where the limit keeps changing. its pretty much the same all the way along (residential area, so default would be 30, but wide as its an A road or a continuation of one). It changes four or five times over a few miles.

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orwin 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Rural and metro areas, especially before traffic calming mesures of the last 20 years, were very different. I'm not from the UK, but in Brittany, everybody know of a schoolmate who died from traffic (especially since you have one high-school for like 15 towns, so in a way, you're schoolmate with half the kids in your area)

	▲	graemep 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Rural roads still often lacking in safety in the UK.