Originally Posted by
emma dog
I There were a total of 7,522 pedestrian deaths in the US in 2022. Meanwhile, there are 284 Million cars registered in the USA that are driven an average of 13,500 miles. Thats just such a low rate when there are other things that have a significant higher risk. In contrast, there were 46,728 firearms deaths in the US in 2023. There are close to 400 million guns in the US. So on a per-object basis, firearms are much more dangerous than cars,
Having lived in the US and visited 30-odd states, I cannot decide which statistic surprises me more... The fact there are only 47,000 firearm deaths, or the fact there are only 7,500 pedestrian deaths...
Originally Posted by
Misco60
You are perplexed by our "insistence" on obeying the law? I find
that quite perplexing.
It's in their blood. 'Don't tread on me' is as ingrained in their national psyche as nanny statism is in Australia. It all makes sense when you think about it - the Americans started off as rebels, we started off as prisoners.
A great deal of them can't comprehend why Tom shouldn't have an AR-15 in just the same way Dick and Harry in Oz think it's perfectly normal for the Australian police to routinely breathalyse cyclists on lime bikes in the CBD... Somehow, both societies seem to tolerate behaviours which a Brit would likely find bizarre, let alone a continental European.
Originally Posted by
Grey Nomad
This is the crux of the debate. Whilst the relative risk is increased with higher speeds the absolute risk remains tiny. I have driven a 7 figure number of miles in the UK without a single collision. Most of those miles before these ridiculous 20 limits started springing up everywhere.
I will take the (mostly) common sense approach in the USA over the overbearing nanny states in Europe any day.
Spot on. At the end of the day, I wholeheartedly agree that 20mph significantly reduces the risk of a fatal collision, but so too did the reductions from 40 to 30 on some roads - it really boils down to the level of risk to public safety we're all prepared to tolerate as a society. For me personally, that's 30mph*, but then I'm not a parent, nor do I have children, nor do I routinely respect the 20mph limit to the letter, so that's hardly surprising. I'm not right, nor are they, at the end of the day these decisions are all a toss-up between public safety and convenience.
20mph lunacy aside, Brits know how to keep left which, despite the relatively longer distances they drive, is anathema to most Australians and Americans. On this basis alone I hold British driving culture in far higher esteem within the Anglophone world than Australian and American driving culture, which is infected with the belief that traffic behind me ought to potter along at my mercy regardless of which lane I'm in. Arguably this is explainable in the American instance given the farcical driving 'test', but Australians really have no excuse. So much for being Britain's answer to Texas, we're more like Little America
To bring it back to the OPs point, though, get over it. Pay the fine. Move on. I was stung for parking next to a fire hydrant in New York. Bizarre rule as far as I'm concerned, particularly given it chucked it down all week, but I took my medicine and didn't bleat on the interwebs about ridiculous laws in foreign countries in a valiant endeavour to reinforce unfair American stereotypes...
*Unless the restrictions equally apply to MAMILs on the Chelsea Embankment too, who have no issue exceeding 20mph as they hoon past in their segregated lanes...