Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/26/interactive-map-of-u-s-road-fatalities-in-the-21st-century.html
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An important map to have constructed!
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There’s a shocking number of bike/pedestrian fatalities, even over a couple years, even just in the immediate area where I live - and I don’t see any of them mentioned in the newspaper. Which I suppose makes sense, given that those kinds of accidents aren’t treated seriously by law enforcement.
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I traced the commute I take most days – not too surprising and I could tell where some of the problem spots were going to be before seeing the confirmation. Zooming out a bit, the busier roads in my area start to be traced out like glowing circuit traces.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was still startling to see the record of a motorcycle death almost immediately in front of my home. (Or at least that’s where the db shows it.)
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The custom of mounting a white cross on the roadside where a fatality occurred is a stark reminder of how dangerous a particular place can be. More deaths, more crosses.
New Zealand leaves a wrecked vehicle carcass at high crash sites.
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Not necessarily. I have two different white crosses about 100 meters apart along my property on a rural county road. I only know the story about one of them: a 16yo (in an area where kids are driving farm vehicles from single-digit age) who crashed and hit a tree along the edge of my property. The skid marks from braking determined that the pickup truck was going over 80 mph just before the crash occurred. No other vehicles involved. Driving home from high school in the middle of the afternoon on a quiet rural road. Maybe a deer? Maybe joyriding? But definitely not a “dangerous” intersection.
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Sigh. I appreciate the sentiment. But, as xkcd has pointed out, because this date isn’t divided by population density, it’s mostly just a population map.
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I suppose that if you were going to use the site to make claims about regional differences, that point would stand. But if you are zooming in and looking for problem intersections, (national) population density structures doesn’t really matter as much.
e.g. this isn’t population density:
It might be a mph map though.
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I don’t follow.
Yes it traffic tensity which directly correlates to population density, so it doesn’t tell you much as to how dangerous the roads are which, if I follow the comments, are what people are inferring. It’s kinda like the “shocking statistic” most accidents occur within 25 miles of home. (Which is true, but hardly surprising since you spend the vast majority of your time in that area).
But if it was normalized by number of miles driven then you could compare certain intersections to others ask say “ that is an exceptionally dangerous intersection compared to similarly busy ones.”
Yeah, individual ones mark a tragedy and the stories can be poignant. OTOH, hundreds of them point out that something is going on there, repeatedly.
I have to admit, my comment is based on anecdata from a buddy that travelled in South America in the 80’s. I did see his photos, and I knew nothing like it at the time, so it really stood out in my mind.
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That’s a good point, but from a public policy point of view I think it makes sense to use finite time and $ to prioritize fixing traffic situations where roads are somewhat less dangerous if they are much more busy.
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