this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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[–] card797@champserver.net 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

You gotta enforce traffic laws in order to maintain safety.

Also*, where is Maine?

[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Wait what?? British Columbia is less than Alberta? There are single lanes in dangerous areas in comparison to Alberta.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago

In fairness Australia has a low population density, and is not so mountainous, and we have very little snow et cetera.

That said I guess we do have hazards like kangaroos, and a larger road network to maintain (per capita).

Also depending on. When these stats are from they might pre-date the influx of shitty over-sized little-mans American cars. Thats sure to increase the rates of fatalities.

[–] DrWorm@piefed.social 85 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Mississippi is always the worst of any statistic

[–] Lembot_0004@discuss.online 40 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ok, noted: New York is almost on par with civilized regions.

[–] funkajunk@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That might be skewed as most of their population are in New York City, and more than half of the city doesn't even own a car.

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's pretty much the point of the chart. Better public infrastructure decrease the deaths from cars.

[–] Xaphanos@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Or commuting accidents in traffic are rarely fatal.

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[–] Geometrinen_Gepardi@sopuli.xyz 36 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I understand this is largely due to Americans wanting to get drunk like everyone else but also having to drive everywhere.

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 40 points 1 week ago (2 children)

And gigantic motor vehicles.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

And terrible roads and/or regulations? I can't help but notice the worst offenders are conservative areas and those usually are neglectful.

[–] PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The transportation departments of red states just funnel the monies to corrupt buddies and nothing gets fixed even though there is perpetual road work being (performatively) done.

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

And lack of pedestrian infrastructure, and..., and... We can go on and on at how baked into the cake these deaths are in the car cult.

[–] Botzo@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

There are so many dumb regulations and circumstances that functionally push people to giant vehicles.

For instance: I replaced my 2016 VW golf base model with an electric F150 this year for a multitude of reasons. I got a refund from insurance (with the same coverage). None of this makes sense except that I'm less likely to be injured by other motorists in my 3.5ton truck. I found this depressing.

[–] huppakee@feddit.nl 23 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Thought it would be interesting to compare with EU, they published an article in 2023 (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?oldid=630784) with the following data. This graph uses a number per 1 million inhabitants so divide by 10 to compare it.

Road accident fatalities, 2023 (number per million inhabitants)

[–] Coelacanth@aggregatet.org 7 points 1 week ago (4 children)

As far as I know Finland has the world's strictest driving licence, so I'm actually surprised to see it posting worse statistics than Sweden here.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sweden went insane with road security in the nineties (nollvisionen?) so maybe that's why.

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[–] Tobberone@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Sweden is as expected. 200-something fatalities for 10 million people. Norway stands out😃

It got me thinking about definitions, though. For Sweden every death during transportation is counted (including busses, heavy trucks and single accidents with a bike), while the definition my 2 minute googling found for Canada said deaths resulting from accidents involving automobiles.

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago

The way this chart is formatted is making me more angry than it should lol

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[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 14 points 1 week ago (13 children)

Victoria is that low cos they don’t fuck around when it comes to driving fines. The speed limit means limit, and they’re cracking down hard on drivers using phones.

[–] alansuspect@aussie.zone 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Victorians are some of the worst/dangerous drivers I've seen, but I'm not in Victoria.

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[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

I remember reading years back that Mississippi is the only state where it's legal for the driver to drink while driving (as long as they keep it below 0.08). Multiple defenders on Reddit said its safe because its still below the legal limit.

Couldnt be related, could it? Nahhh

https://dui.drivinglaws.org/resources/can-a-passenger-drink-alcohol.htm

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I don't know much about Mississippi, but I know that in neighboring Louisiana, there are drive-through daiquiri places.

the fine print of the law says that the open container law is not applicable to containers with frozen alcoholic beverage where the lid is intact and no straw is protruding through the lid.

In most cases, daiquiris adhere to the “tape rule.” Most daiquiri shops will put a piece of tape over the straw hold on the lid. If this tape is removed or broken then the drink is considered an open container.

So a piece of tape counts as a "seal." They're not even trying.

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[–] Hupf@feddit.org 9 points 1 week ago

21 Mississippi, 22 Mississippi...

Count van Count

[–] Allemaniac@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

getting a drivers license in mississippi is basically show up to the DMV, suck a cock and drive home or what?

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Mississippi has drive-through combo shops: liquor store / DMV / KFC.

Saves time on your way to and home from church.

[–] burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Took a closer look to see if I was surprised by any correlation about poverty, and browsed away with the belief that the south is still a shithole... which might still correlate with poverty. I think kansas/oregon is the first entry that wouldn't be 'south.'

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Drinkin' beers an' drivin' yer trukk is a highly traditional pastime in the US deep south. Typically done in the middle of the night, in my experience, for the maximum probability of contacting the local wildlife or making friends at high speed with a tree.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (5 children)

America is more in the middle of the road when you look at the whole globe, and don’t just select a few counties with lower death rates.

https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/estimated-road-traffic-death-rate-(per-100-000-population)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

Africa is currently the reigning champ for vehicle related deaths.

[–] breecher@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 week ago

Yes, but that does not make it any better, since the US should be compared to other Western developed countries. That is like people saying that the number of gun deaths in the US isn't that bad because they are worse in Ukraine or Syria, you know, active war zones.

[–] FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think it’s fair to compare like with like. Many African countries have poor infrastructure, inadequate enforcement of traffic laws, rapid urbanization, unsafe vehicles, and limited emergency medical services. Its easy for a Western country to look better compared to that, but is it a fair comparison?

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well, if you're comparing the US south, it might be fitting.

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[–] bier@feddit.nl 11 points 1 week ago (8 children)

The Netherlands has 4.19

The Netherlands is close in size to Maryland, and close in the number of inhabitants as New York. Also half of the traffic is cars and half is bicycles. It's pretty insane how bad Mississippi is.

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[–] Allemaniac@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

yes but whole africa is developing nations with ultra bad infrastructure like roads and intersections. You should be comparing USA to peering nations, like western europe or countries of the commonwealth. Unless you admit that USA is also third world shit hole

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[–] Texas_Hangover@lemmy.radio 7 points 1 week ago

You can always count on Mississippi! I'm surprised Texas isn't higher, we drive like maniacs.

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

New Jersey is too low. Serious doubts about the validity of this table.

[–] match@pawb.social 8 points 1 week ago

It's comparing against total population, not driving population, so any amount of mass transit will greatly reduce this number

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 8 points 1 week ago

Probably not. The state has been implementing Vision Zero as a statewide program along with several cities.

The two major highways have lower than average accidents due to design.

One of the state's signature traffic configurations, the Jersey Jughandle, eliminates left turn movements on older highways, a major source of accidents.

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[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Where are Idaho, Wyoming and Montana?

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

There are only 36 states represented here by my count. It says "major" states, whatever that means. But 14 in total are missing either because of their smaller populations, or because their fatality rate is low enough that they would fall off the right hand side of the chart and thus wouldn't fit the "America Drivers Bad" narrative quietly being implied, here.

Edit: I looked up the numbers for my state in the same year (and no, I'm not telling the public which one). We would be at 1.2 on this chart if my math is correct, which is well below even the shortest bar for Victoria, there.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I decided to look and found that this metric is almost always measured by vehicle distance travelled rather than by population. Basically the graph OP shared is useless and meant to support a narrative, as you stated.

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[–] goldenquetzal@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I'd like to see the % of trucks vs cars for each location.

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