Our speedometer goes up to 300 km/h. The car’s top speed is about 230 km/h (measured via GPS), though the needle is pointing at ca. 250 then. I think Audi puts these speedometers in all recent cars to a) save costs or b) remind everyone that some of their cars can go 280 km/h?
That’s quite a nonlinear speedometer. Ahh, the things you can do with computers.
One other thing about Germany (and most other countries that aren’t the US), is mandatory car inspections. IIRC the German TUV is every two years, and if your car doesn’t met the standards, then it’s off the road until you get it fixed (see also: the MoT in the UK).
I’m not sure how hard it is now, but when I got my driving license, most people got about 10 hours of (professional) instruction before they attempted the test.
I’m sure that car inspections help but I doubt that’s a huge factor in the discrepancy between countries. Most cars are pretty reliable these days and according to a 2015 report by the NHTSA, 94% of crashes are the drivers’ fault vs about 2% caused by “mechanical failure or degradation.”
Or, as the saying goes, “safety begins by checking the nut behind the wheel.”
I disagree strongly. German car inspections include things like tire wear, suspension wear, and modifications. I’ve personally witnessed accidents, especially in snowy conditions, that could be chalked up to bald tires. And many of the ridiculously lifted trucks that belch smoke that we have in the US would not pass German inspection for road use.
In the US there are about 11.7 road deaths per 100k people per year. In Germany it’s 3.7 per 100k. So even if you think that the NHTSA’s estimate of 2% of crashes being from mechanical failure is off by an order of magnitude it still wouldn’t get us close to Germany’s numbers. We’d need to reduce our deaths by about 68% to get to where Germany is, and I’ve seen no evidence that auto inspections (though still a good idea) could prevent nearly that many crashes.
Remember that the fault data is generated by insurance companies. If a driver crashes into a tree or another vehicle on a snowy road, it’s automatically their fault - even if they couldn’t stop due to bald tires. The data set isn’t even looking for what you’re attributing to it.
I’m willing to bet every single accident in LA during/after a rain is caused by bad tires that an inspection would have caught. Nobody in California maintains their tires, because 90% of time it doesn’t matter. Until it does. Of course the roads are extra slippery when it hasn’t rained for a long time because all the oils come up out of the road, but bald tires sure aren’t helping with that either.
So yah- I’m willing to believe German inspections prevent a lot of accidents.
Sure, they obviously prevent some, but even the US States that DO have annual vehicle safety inspections (Maine, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Vermont, and some others) still all have road deaths per capita that are well more than double that of Germany. So requiring safety inspections may be a good idea that saves lives but there’s no way that that alone will get us down near Germany’s level.
The original assertion that kicked off this subthread, that you disagreed with, was that along with much better driver training, vehicle safety inspection is “another factor” in safety differences between the US and places like Germany that allow much higher highway speeds in some areas.
Now it sounds like you agree with that?
I never once said that vehicle inspections weren’t a factor. To the contrary I said several times that they’re probably a good idea that saves some lives. What I did say was:
To which you replied
You and I just seem to disagree on how big the factor needs to be in order to be considered “huge,” and I guess that’s ok.
Are the road death rates you quoted per 100,000 drivers/passengers, or total population?
Until we get way better public transportation, I don’t know that we could possibly get down to their numbers.
Like most of the developed world Germany does have a better public transportation than us, but they still have a very high car ownership rate and do a lot of driving. They invented the Autobahn, after all.
If you look at deaths per car rather than deaths per person, their rate is 0.5 deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles and the US is 1.53 deaths per 10,000 vehicles.
Edit to add: I just came across another number that provides the more direct comparison you suggest: deaths per 1,000,000,00 kilometers driven. In Germany it’s 5.9, in the US 7.1. So we are still worse by that metric, but I guess not multiples worse.
Yeah, let’s improve our public transportation and reduce miles driven. I think everyone can agree that would help.
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