Some People Never Learn - But Applause To Those Who Do

      You might already know that the biggest braggarts are the most ignorant and least-likely to welcome self-improvement.  Such is much of the American population.  Hence, a published study by Rutgers University and Virginia Tech about how far U.S.A. "street safety" worsened during recent decades... while safety improved in highly-developed, first-world, European counterparts.  Like its obstinate failure to reduce gun violence, innutritious fast food, coal fuel, and human trafficking, America failed to reduce pedestrian and cyclist fatalities.  That takes concentrated effort to continue in such a direction.  While the bloodshed and deaths pile up, America's government and Big Three Automakers push gas-guzzling SUV's on the populous.  Together, they make bicycling unattractive.  The tax-paid government also refuses to improve public transportation.

     Car-loving countries like Germany and the United Kingdom, along with cyclist-savvy countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, have done the opposite and saved lives.  They reduced accidents by 61% during the previous 22 years.  That's remarkable, especially since Germany is world-famous for its autobahn that lacks speed limits.  Somehow, German drivers are able to zoom safely at higher speeds than Americans, with less fatalities than bad-driving Americans.

     During the same 22 years, America only reduced fatal accidents by 36%--but began increasing again by 10% in two years since 2014!  It's inexcusable to lag so far behind (especially considering the American president's blowhard claims).

     U.S. roads aren't any safer since 1990!  Between 2016 and 2018, while American authorities condoned a cyclist fatality rate 80% higher than those peer nations, the Dutch only saw a SINGLE death.  Keep in mind that Americans use bikes much less often than the Dutch, so that death toll is more significant and much worse.  Americans (over-consumers who are famously lazy and overweight) bike less than 1% of all trips, whereas most of the Dutch bike weekly--if not daily.  

     Scary in a different way is the reminder (now published to the world) that biking is much lower in America than the other four nations, despite America's population being much bigger.  That means that those modern nations have busier bike paths (and bike highways) but with fewer fatalities.  

     The chart below demonstrates pedestrian fatalities.  Again, the U.S.A. is a bloodbath, while the Dutch safely only suffered ONE death.  For every 100 kilometers walked, 11 Americans died.

     Unchanged for one century, American authorities have the same excuses: automakers need higher sales, auto insurance companies need to receive premiums (to buy more TV ads and online advertisements), gasoline companies need higher profits, corrupt Highway Departments need to constantly pay overtime to workers for never-ending road repairs, more bituminous asphalt needs to put on more roads to keep petroleum conglomerates happy, police need to achieve their speed-trap quotas, tollbooths need to funnel unmarked cash to embezzling authorities, banks control the bike-share programs, and public transportation entities still can't afford to make infrastructure improvements.  

     Well, clearly, other places in the world surpass America--the land that advertises a "pursuit of happiness".