this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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Science Memes

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[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 91 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Traffic deaths in Thailand are 60 per 100.000 vehicles. In the Netherlands is 6. It's 10 times a deadly...

[–] Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world 37 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

It's 27 in mississippi, so only about twice as deadly.

Edit, actually, let's revisit the data. You said 60 per 100000 vehicles, if you shift that to population, the data point I used, it becomes 32. Only slightly more deadly than living in the southern US

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 45 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think that says a lot about Mississippi

[–] Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Its a pretty similar statistic for most rural states.

Consider that the population is lower but the ratio of people driving is much higher. Less cities, more people have to commute 30-60 minutes, etc.

Part of it is poor infrastructure, yeah(the other southern rural states with similar stats track a better record comparatively based on quality of infrastructure by my own personal anecdote of having driven/lived in them), but it's just predominantly the ratio of drivers to non drivers as the key factor.

[–] doppelgangmember@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Florida looks around sweating nervously over lack of guardrails

[–] DragonTypeWyvern 1 points 11 months ago

Don't forget all the meth

[–] emptiestplace@lemmy.ml 5 points 11 months ago

That's pretty good!

[–] nBodyProblem@lemmy.world -5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So 0.6% chance of being a vehicle owner being involved in a fatal accident over a ten year timespan? 0.06% over a single year?

Sounds pretty safe to me.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The injury rate is about 70 times higher though.

[–] nBodyProblem@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

The point I’m trying to make is that absolute risk numbers are far more useful than stating relative risk, especially once we get below the average person’s acceptable risk tolerance. Saying “this country is xx times safer than this country” can be misleading.

For example, if we consider a hypothetical country that has 1 traffic death per 100,000 vehicles you could make the statement that, “the Netherlands has 6x more traffic deaths than hypothetical country!” It would make the Netherlands seem like a dangerous place to live, but I’d wager that the vast majority of people would feel perfectly comfortable with the idea of being in traffic in the Netherlands.