Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation (38 page)

       
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If the Millennial-led decline in per capita driving continues for another dozen years, even at half the annual rate of the 2001–2009 period, total vehicle travel in the United States could remain well below its 2007 peak through at least 2040—despite a 21 percent increase in population. If Millennials retain their current propensity to drive less as they age, and future generations follow, driving could increase by only 7 percent by 2040. If, unexpectedly, Millennials were to revert to the driving patterns of previous generations, total driving could grow by as much as 24 percent by 2040.

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A conventional internal combustion car loses most of the energy produced by burning gasoline through waste heat and mechanical inefficiency, using about 20 percent to move the vehicle. The inefficiency is compounded because that remaining 20 percent is expended on moving 4,000 pounds of metal in addition to the human driver. So only about 1 percent of a car's gasoline cost is actually involved in moving the person inside. (By way of comparison, a modern all-electric vehicle wastes only about 10 percent of its energy, using about 90 percent to move the car. Electric motors are vastly more efficient.)

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“Air pollution and early deaths in the United States,” Fabio Caiazzo, Akshay Ashok, Ian A. Waitz, Steve H.L. Yim, Steven R.H. Barrett, MIT,
Atmospheric Environment
, Volume 79, November 2013. The study found a total of 200,000 premature deaths annually in the U.S. from combustion emissions, with the most death attributed to transportation emissions. Second, with 52,000 premature deaths, were emissions from power plants. Industrial emissions accounted for 41,000.

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Shared Autonomy
by Adam Jonas, Morgan Stanley Research, April 7, 2015.

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“A Financial Model Comparing Car Ownership with Uber X (Los Angeles)” by Kyle Hill, Medium.com, August 31, 2014, and
Your Driving Costs: How Much Are You Really Paying to Drive?
, 2015 edition, American Automobile Association.

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculates that 27 percent of annual carbon emissions in America are from transportation. Only the generation of electricity accounts for more: 31 percent of the total. In reality, transportation emissions could easily be the greater, as these figures specifically exclude the massive carbon emissions from cargo ships that bring us 90 percent of our consumer goods.

             
According to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 80 percent of the energy expended for transportation is wasted. This means most of the oil burned in the U.S. inside cars and trucks achieves nothing in terms of movement, but contributes considerably to the creation of smog, lung disease, global warming, consumer costs, dependence on foreign oil, and profits for the oil industry.

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Cars and light trucks (mainly pickups) make up 60 percent of U.S. transportation-related carbon emissions. Medium and heavy trucks contribute 23 percent. Rail and ships contribute 2 percent each, and everything else that moves and burns fossil fuels takes up the remnant. (This total for ship emissions is misleading, too, for it includes few cargo ship emissions, which occur in international waters and are generated by non-US sources. Even though the shipping is on behalf of the U.S., bringing goods to Americans, the emissions aren't counted in our tally or any other countries. Those emissions, immense as they are, don't exist when it comes to the accountants' view of global warming.) From: “U.S. Transportation Sector Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 1990-2013,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, October 2015.

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“Making driving less energy intensive than flying,” Michael Sivak, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, January 2014.

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As of October 2015.

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National Safety Council data.

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Air and vehicle trip data is from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

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Centers for Disease Control,
Leading Causes of Death
reports.

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National Safety Council,
Odds of Dying
.

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The Economic and Societal Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes, 2010
(revised), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, May 2015.

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“Fact Sheet: America's Wars,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, November 2014, http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_wars.pdf.

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Centers for Disease Control, based on 2012 accident data, released October 7, 2014.

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National Safety Council.

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“Fact Sheet: America's Wars,” Department of Veterans Affairs.

CHAPTER 5: FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH

  
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Public Road and Street Mileage in the United States by Type of Surface
, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation. Figures are for 2013: Of the 4,071,000 miles of roads, 2,678,000 are paved and 1,394,000 are unpaved.

  
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These numbers are averages, based on most recent data from the National Safety Council. In reality, some days of the week and hours of the day have higher accident rates, while others have lower.

  
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Data sources: National Safety Council for fatality and crash statistics; Centers for Disease Control for emergency room visits.

  
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The seminal study of crash causation was the
Tri-Level Study of the Causes of Traffic Accidents
published in 1979 by Indiana University's Institute for Research in Public Safety, which found human error a definite or probable cause in 90 to 93 percent of crashes. The UK's Transport and Road Research Laboratory put the figure at 95 percent in a 1980 study.
The Relative Frequency of Unsafe Driving Acts in Serious Traffic Crashes
, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's study published in December 1999, concluded that in 99 percent of crashes studied, “a driver behavioral error caused or contributed to the crash.” A 2008 NHTSA study using different data put the percentage at 93 percent.

  
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National Safety Council. The 27 total percent for distracted driving is specifically for cell phone use, primarily talking or texting, according to NSC statistician Ken Kolosh. Other forms of distraction would push the percentage of accidents higher still, though data is scant. According to
NSC's annual report,
Injury Facts
(2015 edition), data shows that at any one time during daylight hours, 9 percent of drivers on the road are using cell phones while driving. About 10 percent of drivers admit to texting or e-mailing while driving.

  
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Unlicensed to Kill: Research Update
, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, March 5, 2008.

  
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This is the case of Abby Sletten, whom prosecutors accused of looking at Facebook photos at the time of the crash instead of paying attention to the road. As often happens in such cases, the evidence could only at most show that the Facebook app on her phone was active, not that she was actually looking at it when she crashed.

  
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“After 47-Second Hearing, Driver Who Ran Over 3-Year-Old Is Found ‘Not Guilty'” by Andrea Bernstein, WNYC.org, November 19, 2014.

  
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“Epidemic of Fatal Crashes” by Bill Sanderson,
Wall Street Journal
, February 10, 2014.

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“Sober Drivers Rarely Prosecuted in Fatal Pedestrian Crashes in Oregon” by Aimee Green, OregonLive.com, November 15, 2011.

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Prosecutors have no compunction about going after reckless fire starters or gun owners who negligently use firearms or leave them unattended for children to find. And neglectful parents routinely face a range of serious charges, from negligent homicide to child endangerment, as well as civil proceedings to supervise, limit, or sever their parental rights. The main exception: if the injury or endangerment occurs during a car crash, the perpetrator is unlikely to face any serious effort by the justice system to hold him or her responsible, or to deter similar behavior in the future. Cars and drivers, no matter how awful the circumstances, generally get a pass.

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Understanding the Distracted Brain
, National Safety Council White Paper, April 2012.

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Ibid. The video can be viewed at http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/12/video_grand_rapids-area_mom_of.html.

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The National Safety Council, extrapolating distraction as a likely cause based on individual crash descriptions, puts the figure at 26 percent of fatal collisions. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, relying on official findings of distraction by police, attributes 10 percent of fatal crashes and 18 percent of injury crashes to distraction.

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Distraction and Teen Crashes: Even Worse Than We Thought
, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, March 25, 2015.

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Injury Facts
, National Safety Council.

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“L.A.'s Bloody Hit-and-Run Epidemic” by Simone Wilson,
Los Angeles Weekly
, December 6, 2012.

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“4 out of 5 Hit and Runs Go Unsolved in LA” by Jane Yamamoto, Tena Ezzeddine, and Keith Esparros, NBCLosAngeles.com, April 25, 2015.

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“Fatal Hit-and-Run Crashes on Rise in U.S.” by Larry Copeland,
USA Today
, November 10, 2013.

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Impact Speed and a Pedestrian's Risk of Severe Injury or Death
, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, September 2011.

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Mass transit streetcars were similarly shunted aside as traffic impediments once a 1935 federal law forced electric utilities to divest their ownership of electric mass transit companies. This not only removed the streetcars' source of low-cost energy but also their political clout with the local politicians setting new traffic policies. The law drove hundreds of private streetcar companies out of business within a decade.

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An Empirical Analysis of Driver Perceptions of the Relationship Between Speed Limits and Safety
by Fred Mannering, Transportation Research, Part F (2008).

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NHTSA Finds Nearly Half of All Drivers Believe Speeding Is a Problem on U.S. Roads
, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,” December 11, 2013. The report also found that one out of five drivers admit, “I try to get where I am going as fast as I can.”

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The Vision Zero movement began in Sweden in 1997 as a rejection of the common practice of treating injury and loss of life like any other line item in a cost-benefit analysis of a traffic or road project. Vision Zero's core principle holds that life and health can never be bartered in exchange for a driver's convenience or a speedier parcel delivery. Instead, Vision Zero advocates argue that the overriding goal in road design should always be to preserve and enhance safety, health, and quality of life, with all other considerations secondary.

             
Los Angeles's official explanation of Vision Zero is more pragmatic: “Vision Zero is a road safety policy that promotes smart behaviors and roadway design that anticipates mistakes so that collisions do not result in severe injury or death.”

             
In addition to Sweden, New York, and Los Angeles, other locations with Vision Zero programs include: The nation of Norway, and the following American cities: Chicago, Austin, Boston, Seattle, Portland, and the California cities of San Francisco, San Jose, San Mateo, San Diego, and Santa Barbara.

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“2013 Motor Vehicle Crashes: Overview,”
Traffic Safety Facts
, U.S. Department of Transportation, December 2014.

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“Seat Belt Use in 2014—Overall Results,” Traffic Safety Facts, U.S. Department of Transportation, February 2015.

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“The ‘Arms Race' on American Roads: The Effect of Sport Utility Vehicles and Pickup Trucks on Traffic Safety” by Michelle J. White,
Journal of Law and Economics
, University of California, San Diego, October 2004.

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Pounds That Kill: The External Costs of Vehicle Weight by Michael L. Anderson and Maximilian Auffhammer, University of California, Berkeley.

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KidsAndCars.org.

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The Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2007, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW–110publ189/pdf/PLAW–110publ189.pdf.

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This directive was issued one day before the U.S. Department of Transportation was due in court for trial in a lawsuit filed by the group Public Citizen, which sought to force the department to move forward on the 2007 law. Source: March 31, 2014 press release, “Government Finally Issues Rear Visibility Safety Rule for Vehicles, Will Save Lives After Years of Needless Delay,” www.Citizen.org.