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[innes]

This happens when someone is walking and a driver is turning.

In my cantree, if a pedestrian crossing has a green light, and a car also has a green light to drive through that crossing then, basically, something is broken. I may be misreading the original scenario but it sounded like the traffic system was giving both parties the go-ahead to move. "Metal and Flesh - I call on you to mingle violently!" It was saying.

So, in Amurickey - is there some element of overlapping green-lights which is regarded as normal workings of the system? Sounds like the kind of thing Lex Luthor would pull to keep Superman occupied during nefarious deeds.

Let's see...

Per capita road deaths in 2003
USA: 14
UK: 6

Ooh.



Elf-Traffic-Core:
THE CHAOS LIGHTS FLASHED GREEN TO STEEL AND MEAT
EMBRACE IN DEATH UPON THE BLOOD SLICK STREET

[KeithHernandez]

I saw a fight - a literal fistfight - last weekend because a driver turned left through a crosswalk while a couple was walking through said crosswalk.  The driver did have a green light but the pedestrians had a clear, solid "Walk" signal.  Advantage: Pedestrians.

In my cantree, if a pedestrian crossing has a green light, and a car also has a green light to drive through that crossing then, basically, something is broken. I may be misreading the original scenario but it sounded like the traffic system was giving both parties the go-ahead to move. "Metal and Flesh - I call on you to mingle violently!" It was saying.

Basically, yes it was.  But, here in the United States, we understand the system.  If a driver has a turn only light, then the crosslight will not give go ahead.   However, if a driver is turning on a green-yeild, both the driver and pedestrian have a green signal, but the driver must wait on the pedestrian as part of the yeild observation.  Basically, if it is a place with lots of walkers it is generally fine, if it is a place with few walkers I could see it being dangerous.  I doubt this has much to do with per capita road deaths.  In Dallas there are like 3-5 shootings a day due to road rage (at least according to people I know from Dallas, which is way to many), and I bet the U.S. has more mugging that end in death, etc.

Also, your stat is kind of bullshit.  What does it mean?  14 deaths per thousand deaths?  per hundred thousand deaths?  per million?  Or is it a ranking.  Like USA is 14th and UK is 6.  Then what does that mean?  Is that ranking in order of good or bad?  See, I don't doubt that the UK has safer roads, but I do wonder what the fuck that means.

[wombat]

Definition of 'per capita.'

Education.

[KeithHernandez]

I understand that it adjust to the number of people in the country, but that still does not make that make since.

Alright, it makes since, in a 14/6 ratio of deaths caused by road incident per average population (then, is that like to the deaths or compared to the population at whole?), but what are those numbers relative to?  It could also be a ranking still, as I have nothing to that reads otherwise.  I guess it helps to prove the point, but at least one more piece of info should be there.

[innes]

Also, your stat is kind of bullshit.

Please, I didnt mean to drive over your toe with my intended-to-be-non-confrontational post. I suppose deaths-per-person-mile might be an interesting stat.

One thing I have learned from that explanation with the Lights and the Yielding and the Turning and the Glavin is that I am too damn stupid to be a pedestrian in the USA.

Hugs!

[innes]

but what are those numbers relative to? 

Hmm, whether it's maybe per 10,000 people or something? The relative ratios are meaningful I guess - i.e: about 3 times more deadly in the USA than the UK. I will re-google...

[hold music]

...it's per 100,000 people.

Edit: per vehicle miles it's much closer in the two (both really fine) countries.

[wombat]

The point of a per capita statistic is to allow you to make comparisons between populations of different size. The 100,000 figure doesn't mean anything special - you could figure it in terms of another number.

This seems like a clear explanation: http://www.robertniles.com/stats/percap.shtml

But enough with the education already, it is only distracting us from the real issue - it's January! Why don't the cartoon cats update their damn blogs?

[innes]

The 100,000 figure doesn't mean anything special - you could figure it in terms of another number.

I suppose true 'per capita' (deaths per head of population) value would be 14/100,000 - that's 140 micronoggins to use the SI unit.

But enough with the education already

I agree and am slapping myself around the face as I type yet another tedious non-achewood-related digression.

[theinevitable]

lfm-- I always want to have a gun in order to do reverse-road-rage. For instance, yesterday a my girlfriend apparently accidentally cut a guy off. Did he honk? No. Did he flick her off? No. He followed her until the next red light, pulled up next to her, rolled down her window, gestured for her to roll down her window, and then started cussing at her. SHE IS AN EMOTIONALLY FRAGILE GIRL, YOU OLD ASSHOLE! Jesus, people.

Basically I hate when people assume others are purposely being dicks. But I hate it more when people go far out of their way to be assholes. Get a hold of yourselves, people.

My fantasy is to get a little paint-ball pistol, and shoot people who do stuff like this. And then say "next time, it won't be a paint-ball, jackass."

(I wouldn't actually go out and get a real gun, it would just be a teach a lesson.)

[Sub_Topical]

Nice fantasy, until asshole dude assaults you 'cause he knows you ain't lethally armed now.

This conversation today has been beautiful but I think we need cat-blog grist for the mill.

[theinevitable]

oh man, I totally did not think of that angle. Fuck.

[Sub_Topical]

Solution: Have Both

First: Paint-Ball

Second: Display real firearm while screaming NEEEEEEEXT TIME FUUUUUCKER!

Finale: Flee police/jail.

'stad needs Ray to write up his new year party when the hangover ends or I'm going to make up my own.

Holy shit I never threatened fan-fic before. Y'all's bad influences.

[littlefallsmets]

Holy shit I never threatened fan-fic before.

The threat of "fan-fiction" as the final and most cruel option, as a sort of internet mutually-assured-destruction no-win proposition, is a fine (and indeed, can-worthy) idea. I am surprised I've never heard such a notion before. It is so elegant and effective that it could only be called effelgant.

One imagines a cowboy riding a collection of Sam/Al "Quantum Leap" fan-fiction down from the bombay doors of a B52, in stark black-and-white, yipping and screaming as though he had done The Best Thing Ever while he was actually damning us all.

Dr. Strangeblog or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Slash.

The naive belief that he's winning a war while... actually... the moment his bomb explodes, countermeasures will be enacted destroying all major cities and clouding the world in despair forever.

P'CHOO... there goes Los Angeles in a sickening wave of Voyager/Galactica crossover where Seven of Nine schtups a Cylon named after the author.

P'CHOO... there goes London as every computer screen is simultaneously replaced with a quick story of the Tom Baker Doctor seducing the newest guy, the one in the leather jacket and so on.

P'CHOO... Paris falls to a torrent of who would win in a battle: Asterix or the television Highlander.

P'CHOO, P'CHOO, P'CHOO. The civilized world falls, sex scene by sex scene, crossover by crossover, self-insert by self-insert, extrapolation of someone else's ten-novel-long fan-canon by extrapolation of someone else's fan-canon.

Only those of us meta-factually study enough to endure the levels of reality and desperation raining down on the world, breaking the minds of the weak and the pure, would climb out of the rubble of ten thousand Ranma-1/2-seducing-Ellen-Barkin's-character-from-"Switch" essays and attempt to start the world anew.

I'm... pretty sure David Lynch would end up the President of those wastelands.

Anyway, it is too bad that the people here aren't in charge of creating the memes of the internet.

The analogy of fan-fiction to atomic war is a fine idea and bears repeating.

[theinevitable]

damn, dude. My friend at school had a page of fan-pics-- including one of Harry Potter trying to get his smooches on with Cho.

...that one ended up in the student newspaper, in an article about students who make art in their free time. Now whenever we want to get her all red and blushy, we just say "err, Cho, what are you doing--" and pretend like we're pushing her away. (that is what Harry was doing in the picture.)

[linnea]

In my cantree, if a pedestrian crossing has a green light, and a car also has a green light to drive through that crossing then, basically, something is broken. I may be misreading the original scenario but it sounded like the traffic system was giving both parties the go-ahead to move. "Metal and Flesh - I call on you to mingle violently!" It was saying.

So, in Amurickey - is there some element of overlapping green-lights which is regarded as normal workings of the system? Sounds like the kind of thing Lex Luthor would pull to keep Superman occupied during nefarious deeds.

Let's see...

Per capita road deaths in 2003
USA: 14
UK: 6

Ooh.



Elf-Traffic-Core:
THE CHAOS LIGHTS FLASHED GREEN TO STEEL AND MEAT
EMBRACE IN DEATH UPON THE BLOOD SLICK STREET

Heh, excellent song. You get a tiny can of Dr. Pepper for that, mate.

Also...YES! Our country was built upon the automobile! We have a culture of HATE AND DISRESPECT towards pedestrians and bicyclists!*




*I have a degree in architecture and urban planning and our European professors constantly drove it into our heads that we had to design with the pedestrian in mind to pay penance for the past sins of automobile-centric design. It's a good thing -- just ask my twin sister (we call each other wombie, as in womb-mate) Kellichou, who got hit by an asshole when she was commuting to work on her bike.