[seanmcdirmid]

I always expect kids running out into the street to be in lots of danger anyways. But the big problem is that weird unusual events while driving are rare, at least in the developed world. That’s why that kid running into the street has a much better chance surviving in crazy Beijing where drivers are very aggressive but on edge all the time vs LA where traffic is much more sane, organized, but drivers get too complacent.

[diggan]

I felt the same driving in Peru vs driving in Sweden or Spain. While the traffic is a lot more organized in Sweden and Spain, people were a lot less attentive so close-accidents happens a lot more than in Peru, where people communicate via honking and pay attention to the road 100% all the time.

While the traffic was a bit crazier than I'm used to, I actually felt safer on the road in Peru.

[flavius29663]

I felt this too, I wonder if this has a name. NYC is crazy aggressive, but I felt pretty safe, everyone was paying attention. In DC some people want to drive as aggressively as in NYC, but they don't pay attention, or at least most drivers don't. The result is that I felt much safer in NYC than in DC, even though it's much more congested.

[samcheng]

If you’ve ever been to China, you might have had the unsettling experience of hearing a truck SPEED UP as you step out in front of it coming down the street.

There is also the cruel practice of “finishing off” a pedestrian injured by a car collision.

It is much, much, more dangerous to be a pedestrian in China. Be careful!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/slate.com/news-and-politics/201...

[seanmcdirmid]

Most of the reported “finishing off” incidents happened in Taiwan, actually. However, I’m sure it happens in the mainland as well.

I’ve seen a taxi hit a girl riding a bike through a red light in Beijing. You never really forget the thunk. I’ve also seen a car’s tires all pop off on a ring road in the middle of the night while going 120kph or so (I’m guessing a bad mod job).

Still, pedestrians and other cars doing weird crap is just so common that everyone is expecting it. It is definitely dangerous to be a pedestrian even if you are following the rules, but trying to cross four lanes of traffic without a light or crosswalk doesn’t help. Still, the fact that most people do it and it’s considered normal means all the driver’s are on edge and paying deep attention.

[tdeck]

Is that actually true, or just intuition?

[CorrectHorseBat]

My personal experience with Chinese drivers: No, the reverse is true.

[seanmcdirmid]

True. A driver in the states is unlikely to ever encounter a kid running out in front of their car, while a driver in China might encounter that situation multiple times a day. Now, more kids are going to die in China (they have higher rates of traffic fatalities), but for kids that run out into traffic, more will survive in China than in the USA where no one is really expecting that to happen (with the caveat that there are much fewer kids running out into traffic in the USA vs China).

It really is just a matter of whether some event is rare or not. In countries where the traffic is more chaotic, drivers are necessarily paying attention much more than places where traffic is much more orderly.

[amitport]

I think he was asking for an actual study.

(Do people in China respond faster because they're on edge, or do they respond slower to the single risky event, because they're distracted from all the other noise?)

(Do children in China actually run into streets with fast moving cars more often? Perhaps they're more aware of the risks if the road is indeed more chaotic. Is the road filled with a slow constant traffic jam (something I experienced in India)?)

(Etc.,)

This could be one of those common misconceptions that can found out to be false if investigated properly (that being said- I don't know if it's true or false)

[ALittleLight]

I don't think that's the kind of thing we can have a direct study of. Nobody is going to send children out into the streets to see how they fare and we don't have numbers of how often kids run into the street because nobody is there recording that.

Wikipedia[1] shows deaths per 100k vehicles per year. It puts the US at 14 compared to China's 104. A slightly better statistic would be deaths per billion kilometers traveled but that's not reported for China.

If I had to bet, I'd bet that there is marginal benefit from having lots of experience with children running out in front of you. Maybe there's a slightly higher chance per incident of child-street-running resulting in death in the US, but I don't think there's any evidence for that opinion.

1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic...

[gwd]

Several years ago I visited my uncle who lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere in Thailand. At some point I drove his old motorcycle around town, and he explained the traffic system this way:

In the West, the core concept in traffic is "Right of Way". Everyone on the road figures out who has the right of way, and that person shouldn't have to change their speed or direction.

In Asia [1], the core concept is "don't hit the thing in front of you". Basically, you should be aware of what everyone else on the road may try to do, and if you ever hit something in front of you for any reason, it was your fault.

([1] Obviously "Asia" is a big place, and traffic laws and customs will be different everywhere you go. This explanation matched the behavior I've observed in both Thailand and central China.)

So for example, in the West, if you're overtaking someone and need to switch lanes, it's your responsibility to check to see if there's already a faster car in that lane; because if there is, they have the right of way; if they have to slam on their brakes or swerve to avoid you, that's your fault.

In Asia, if you're overtaking someone, it's their responsibility to notice that you may need to switch lanes and give you space. If they hit you, it was their fault. So most people just swerve out without checking.

Same thing with pulling out onto the road -- in the West, if you're pulling out from a side street onto a main road, it's your responsibility to check that there's no traffic. In Asia, it's the job of the person on the main road not to hit you; so people will just pull right out onto the road without checking first.

I'm pretty sure "right of way" results in fewer accidents overall; but "don't hit the thing in front of you" definitely results in much more careful drivers in my experience. You just can't go 60 miles an hour down a city street if you have mopeds shooting out of random side streets left and right.

[jhrozek]

According to a quick search, Thailand is #5 in road deaths per capita. So I don't think they fare very well.

But your anecdote reminded me of what the instructors in my driving school used to tell us (20 years ago..I'm old..) - whenever you sit into the driver's seat, your left buttcheek is actually sitting in jail and your right buttcheek is laying in a morgue. Drive accordingly. - everyone else on the road is a psychopath that's out there to kill you. Drive accordingly.

That was of course mostly meant to calm down a bunch of 18 year olds who were eager to drive, but I think the basic premise of "don't even forget that driving is really, really dangerous" is correct.

[rangibaby]

In Japan there is traffic priority (right of way) but all drivers also have a legal obligation to not hit anything, which means that in nearly every accident blame will be split between both parties, usually 80:20.

[nitrogen]

It depends on where you are driving in the US, but I've had kids run out in front of me at least twice in suburban areas (stopped in plenty of time). One was the TV classic beach ball appearing from behind a parked car, with a toddler not far behind.

Do self driving systems know that "ball" means "kid"?

[iams]

What people forget with self driving cars is that they don't have to always go at the speed limit.

I love taking trains rather than driving, I can put all my attention on netflix or reading a book. Sometimes the train goes at 100mph sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it stops for 5 minutes, sometimes it just continues slowly at 10mph. At first you find it annoying when a train appears to stop for no reason for a few minutes before continuing, but after it happening a few times, you get used to it, stop noticing and stop caring.

Self driving cars can do the same. It's ok for a car to slow down to 5mph when there are hazards, it's ok for a car to go fast when there aren't. The car doesn't need to know that "ball" means "kid" if, every time it sees a ball or a plastic bag or a puddle, it slows down to 5mph and continues at that speed until it's sure there is no more hazard.

Humans are very bad a driving. They treat the speed limit as a target rather than a ceiling. I live on a road with 2 schools, the speed limit is 30mph and yet many people drive much closer to 40mph past children walking to school. I'd be willing to bet big money that it's much more likely that that impatient driver driving at 40mph is going to hit a child than a self driving car that changes its speed according to the current situation.

[enkid]

This is a great poitlnt, and a good driver would do the same things ng. If there's an unknown hazard, you slow down to make sure it isn't going to cause a problem. Self driving cars can have the same behaviour programmed in.

[bryanlarsen]

But they won't, because for acceptance they'll be programmed to drive "naturally", which means at or above the speed limit, following too closely, et cetera.

The standard complaint for an under-developed L2/L4 system is that it's too timid, it slams on the brakes for a paper blowing in the wind, et cetera.

A car that can avoid hitting a paper blowing in the wind is a car that can avoid hitting a child. Maybe we should just accept a high number of false positives.

[consp]

Alsmost all of these happen here when a kid is jumping from behind an obstacle or running after something like a ball. The way you are taught to anticipate is to spot the children playing ~before~ they are even close to jumping in front of you car. I would not be surprised if any driver, LA or Beijing, would hit the kid if it jumped in front of the car and they were not aware kids were playing.

[seanmcdirmid]

The difference is that the kid in Beijing is chasing the ball out into a crowded street with multiple lanes of traffic. The kid in LA is chasing the ball out into a quiet residential street...and even that is rare.

[eli]

Isn't "unusual events are rare" a truism?