sir_eccles

That reminds me, a couple of restaurants near me do "bicycle discounts". That said, you can still get ticketed for being drunk in charge of a bicycle.

kodokan

Totally me. Plus the kids now know not to chatter at me during full attention maneuvers like filtering onto a busy highway.

kodokan

Yes, I did check, and discovered that the drinking laws still do apply to bikes. It's funny - I wouldn't dream of drinking, not anything at all, and then driving a car, but I find it perfectly acceptable to have a couple of beers with a pizza then amble slowly home through the residential streets chatting with hubby biking alongside.

I decided that I wasn't going to cause anyone else a speck of harm doing it, and I'd take my chances on the police having better things to do than stopping middle-aged cyclists ambling along, obeying all the rules of the road, with proper lights, etc. I bike a lot for daily transport even when sober, so even when slightly tipsy can pass for someone who's in total control and knows what they're doing.

BritInParis

The statistics are interesting.

Despite having the highest legal blood alcohol level in Europe the UK is still one of the safest European countries in which to drive (beaten only by the Nordic countries, Switzerland and San Marino) and is one of the safest countries in which to drive in the world. There are only 3.5 road deaths for every 100,000 people each year.

In the US the figure is 11.6, i.e. the US kills over three times as many people on their roads compared to the UK. In 2012 alone 36,166 people were killed on US roads. The total number of US combat deaths in the Vietnam War was 58,303.

Pulaski

Since I came to the US 13 years ago, the US road fatality figures have remained roughly static at around 36,000 per year. Back in 2001 they were ten times the UK figures, despite having only five times the population of the UK, but since then annual UK road fatalities have halved, from around 3,600 to 1,800.

What still shocks me are the number of accidents in NC, which I assume is typical of other states, where people simply drive off the side of the road. Then they either hit a tree, (in Florida they drive into a pond, lake, river, or ditch), or they over correct and come back across the road and hit oncoming traffic, or a tree on the other side of the road. This description is repeated pretty much every week in the local news reports. The carnage is just staggering, and it never stops.

md95065

You should read this which, among other things, includes the following:

Pulaski

I see deer running into the road 5-10 times a year and have managed, so far at least, to avoid the need to throw my vehicle into the landscape.

The linked article, or at least the bit about Jimmy Carter, reminds me of a humourous article I read many years ago about Jimmy's brother, Billy Carter. The article said that Billy wasn't a redneck, he was a good ol' boy. A redneck drives down the road in his pickup truck drinking beer and throwing the empties out of the window (as an aside, that means there are a LOT of rednecks in my neck of the woods! ), whereas a good ol' boy drives down the road in his pickup truck drinking beer and throwing the empties in the bed of his truck.

Beaverstate

When mileage is considered the gap between the UK and US narrows.

At 1 billion km driven the US while still high is 7.6 the UK (one of the lower in the world) at 4.3.

Unsurprisingly sparsely populated states tend to have an elevated count per mile. Not many areas in the UK similar to Wyoming or Alaska I would imagine.

Pulaski

I somewhat agree, however I would dispute that distance is, or should be, a good proxy for the risk of having an accident. If you're driving sixty miles into the nearest big city for a shopping trip, then sixty miles on the interstate should create relatively few accient opportunities compared to a shorter drive on relatively crowded streets in the UK. ..... Obviously this isn't the case, as I observed earlier, Americans have a remarkable propensity for driving off the road for no discernable reason.

Mrs Danvers

Indeed. A coworker of mine recently hit a cyclist. She was mortified. Since Colorado has had legal pot our company policy changed in that any time we get in an accident on company time we have to have a drug and alcohol test. Turns out the cyclist at 11am was well over twice the legal limit for alcohol on the road. He pulled out on a red at an intersection and my coworkers light had just gone green. She was clean. Happened in a town notorious for blaming any car v cyclist accident on the motorist.

The cyclist will recover ok.

Beaverstate

Yes but, on crowded streets in the UK are both oncoming cars doing 75MPH?

With modern vehicles you don't usually die from accidents at 30 or 40 MPH.

This is about fatalities not accidents yes?

One cause for people driving off the road is falling asleep while driving for hours, nearly done it myself at 60MPH.

Pulaski

All fair points, though I would point out that it is about "road fatalities" not "driver fatalities", or even "driver and passenger fatalities".

Here's story, from a few years ago, shortly after the wearing of seat belts became mandatory in the UK and the police were doing a half-decent job of enforcing the law. One county, Kent IIRC, looked at its road fatality statistics, and discovered that the enforcement of the seatbelt law had increased the number of road fatalities. Sure the number of drivers and passengers killed had declined, ..... but they concluded that drivers snuggly belted in felt safer and were driving faster and hitting and killing more pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists! .... So to answer your question, yes you do die from accidents at 30-40mph, if you're outside the vehicle.

And BTW most of the "drive off the road" fatalities here seem to be either inattentiveness of some sort, or failing to turn the steering wheel to match the curve of the road. They are generally not on interstates or major highways. I suspect that phones and/or alcohol account for a majority of the deaths, and inability to control the vehicle (excessive acceleration or speed inappropriate for the ability of the driver under the prevailing road conditions) account for most of the rest. ..... One such accident shortly after we moved here was an 18 year old who borrowed (with permission) his father's 'Vette, picked up his cousin who lived nearby, ..... then wrapped the 'Vette around a tree after failing to steer into a turn. That was two avoidable fatalities right there! A few years later the teenage grandson of a local businessman I knew was given a BMW by his parents. He drifted at high speed across the center line of a sweeping right bend, and killed himself and the middle aged couple in the car coming the other way.

Beaverstate

My father once told me he thought seat belts were dangerous you could be trapped in the car. Better to be tossed through the wind shield I suppose.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Fatalities per mile/km traveled is the standard benchmark for measuring safety.

RoadWarriorFromLP

The data suggests that alcohol usage by US drivers has fallen sharply over the last four decades. Your experience is anecdotal, not indicative of trends or overall social norms.