Be careful out there.
Speed is the number 1 problem. You can’t react if your speed exceeds reaction time.
Too many articles to post this morning.
Slow down and pay the ■■■■ attention.
Distracted driving, impaired driving, loss of temper, and lack of cooperation with other drivers are problems too.
Please put down the phone, never drive under the influence, keep calm, and help someone properly signaling get to where they want to go.
7 Likes
Speed actually isn’t the number 1 problem.
Speed is an exacerbating factor, but it rarely causes a crash.
The vast majority of auto pedestrian accidents occur due to lack of attention by pedestrians.
2 Likes
I know from having driven a delivery truck in the downtown area that there are folks who cross the street whenever and wherever they choose. “Don’t Walk” signs and the lack of a crosswalk don’t seem to matter.
3 Likes
“Situational Awareness” is a big deal in aviation, definitely applies when crossing the street, driving, practicing down-hill racing at ski resorts, using a cigarette to light dynamite, etc.
All of this is a derivative of “Stove-hot! Stove-hot!” and how that translates to other scenarios in life.
It’s so bizarre the variability in how people think… or don’t.
"Well, Ma’ake, you’re completely wrong, a hot stove has nothing to do with my freedom to cross the… "
BAM!!!
5 Likes
All you need to know is the lug nut rule.
He whose vehicle has the most lug nuts wins. 
3 Likes
I don’t understand the thin margin betwen contributing towards a crash or causation, but I do believe that if more opeople used the speed limit as a limit, we would have less crashes and less fatalities.
I do agree that in this day and age it’s not uncommon to see someone walking across the street with zero regard for traffic conditions. I mean staring at their phones, earphones in place with complete disregard for risk. Regardless of who is “in the right of way”, I would imagine nowadays that half the drivers aren’t even aware of crosswalks until they blast though throuroghly distracted by their phones as well.
1 Like
A very basic way to look at it, would speed alone cause the crash if nothing else occurred.
The vast majority of pedestrian accidents do not occur in crosswalks.
While Utah law allows for crossing outside a crosswalk in certain conditions, it does require awareness and thought.
1 Like
Not to bicker, but in our neighborhood people blast through a 20mph road at 50+. I would imagine the stopping distance is at least doubled. I’m sure there’s charts and such. So a kid chasing a ball or an elderly person “in the wrong place” are much more at risk for dire consequences than a person respecting the neighboorhood and going slow. I would imagine these people have to panic stop all-the-time becasue someone is just trying to pull out of their driveway. The police could care less (They never post for ticketing offenders) and so far, the town will not put in speed-bumps.
2 Likes
In theory that’s true.
But almost no fatal crashes occur in residential neighborhoods.
I’ve got a ton of training in crash investigation.
1 Like
I respect that. I certainly hope it doesn’t happen in ours.
1 Like
Hot off the press. Don’t know how fast he was going.
1 Like
He wasn’t in a neighborhood and speed wasn’t the cause of the crash.
Trust me on this.
1 Like
There are many causes, definitely many injuries & deaths at lower speeds where the driver was not at fault.
But like one of my buddies in HS’s dad pointed out (as we teenagers were talking on and on about how cool the Autobahns are in Germany):
“If there’s a crash on the Autobahn, they don’t call the ambulance”
4 Likes
When asked what’s behind the increase in crashes, UHP said two-thirds of them are crashes only involving one car.
“That could mean a lot of things: distracted driving, it could mean fatigue, it could mean, you know, people going too fast,” said UHP Lt. Cameron Roden.
1 Like
The data doesn’t really support that.
You also are using quotes from an agency who only handles crashes on high speed roads.
I’m on the team that handles fatal and near fatal crashes for almost all of Salt Lake County other than freeways, while speed can be a factor, it is not the cause of the vast majority of our crashes.
2 Likes
My vote is that motorized vehicles are the cause.
1 Like
I appreciate your expertise. So where’s the majority of crashes? I imagine the highways. How come there’s seemingly no data on cellphone use contributing to crashes? I remember volunteering for a study at the U with a large driving simulator and cell phones 20 years ago.
Now it seems everyone is on their phone texting while driving. Seems much worse than a person who might barely be over the already low bar for DWI.
2 Likes
There are crashes everywhere.
Fatal crashes are just as common off freeways as on. A usual year for our team is close to 100 callouts.
As for cell phones, it’s pretty simple why the data isn’t there.
It’s nearly impossible to prove someone was on their phone in violation of the law unless they admit it.
While Utah’s crash reports allow officers to speculate, criminal proceedings do not.
And crash reports are not admissible in court.
There just isn’t an easy way to know someone was distracted unless they admit it.
An impaired driver is easy to spot.
2 Likes
This comment should perhaps belong in the Pet Peeves thread, but I have nearly hit people in crosswalks, in the downtown area, and in Sugarhouse this summer. Due to my quick reactions and not being over the speed limit, I avoided both.
In both cases, a pedestrian, walked very quickly into the street, in front of me, in a cross walk, without a flag, without looking at traffic coming from either direction, as though being a pedestrian entitled them complete freedom of motion with no responsibility for their own safety and entitled to the space regardless of everyone else.
I see this sort of behavior too often, and I appreciate that pedestrians probably get tired of drivers not deferring to them in cross walks when they should, and driving too quickly. However this sort of aggressive response, is reckless and foolish. They should have the the right of way, but quickly and aggressively demanding it without looking before crossing a street, will get themselves killed, not the motorist…
5 Likes