The cause was easy enough to identify: Data parsed by Kuhls and her colleagues showed that drivers were speeding more, on highways and on surface streets, and plowing through intersections with an alarming frequency. Conversely, seatbelt use was down, resulting in thousands of injuries to unrestrained drivers and passengers. After a decade of steady decline, intoxicated-driving arrests had rebounded to near historic highs.

… The relationship between car size and injury rates is still being studied, but early research on the American appetite for horizon-blotting machinery points in precisely the direction you’d expect: The bigger the vehicle, the less visibility it affords, and the more destruction it can wreak.

  • PlasterAnalyst@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    11 months ago

    Cars also got a lot faster than they used to be. Mostly due to many more gears in the transmission as well as much higher horsepower compared to cars even 15 years ago.

    • BruceTwarzen@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      11 months ago

      But also much safer and way more stopping power. But the best car is useless when the driver is browsing tiktok

      • psud@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        11 months ago

        stopping power

        Yep. A single vehicle can take down a hopped up man, or a bear

        (Really though I translated that to braking power)