I read somewhere that the average american spends 30+30 minutes in the daily commute. And I read somewhere else that excluding some folks that live in the L.A. area where the situation is significantly worse of the commute times in Europe - the rest of the US is a relatively less hectic commute drive.
Still US has relatively stricter highway limits than elsewhere and they seem to be enforced more.
The taxi cab that took me from London to drive me to oxford was doing 100mph (real miles not kilometers) - it was the first time ever I had been in a car going that fast.
I wonder if US had an 90mph highway speed limit, instead of the 65mph would it be a positive or a negative change?.
Thinking of commute time a a dead time a 10% decrease in the avg commute time , 6mins every day time 300 days ~2000 mins, ie 30 hrs, ie 2 days in terms of waking time. In 50 years thats 100 days so we can say that the average american would have 0.3 years more to enjoy - 0.3% of extra lifetime.
On the other hand we can assume that car fatalities will increase - (they probably didn't increase when we moved from 55 back to 65mph ). Apparently every year in the US 10 out of 100K people die from car accidents (wikipedia). Even more interestingly according to that article, the rate has been dropping steadily during the last 30 years from 30/100K to 10/100K, probably due to car safety improvements in spite if worsening of underlying highway infrastructure ( I did a project with my son about this for a speech and debate lesson), in spite of increased wealth and car ownership( I am guessing here), more early age car ownership (I am guessing here), the speed limit increasing from 55 in the 70s to 65+ now etc etc.
Now, how do you compare a 10/100K fatality with every one gaining (hypothetically) .3 yrs of life?
E.g. , mathematically speaking should you be willing to gain 2 days of extra life in a year at a risk of increasing by 100% your chance to be killed in that year, e.g. your car fatality odds in the year would go from 10/100K to 20/100K?
The answer seems pretty obvious to me: increase by 10/100K my chances to die vs increase my year by 600/100K. Absolutely definitely I would.
Still US has relatively stricter highway limits than elsewhere and they seem to be enforced more.
The taxi cab that took me from London to drive me to oxford was doing 100mph (real miles not kilometers) - it was the first time ever I had been in a car going that fast.
I wonder if US had an 90mph highway speed limit, instead of the 65mph would it be a positive or a negative change?.
Thinking of commute time a a dead time a 10% decrease in the avg commute time , 6mins every day time 300 days ~2000 mins, ie 30 hrs, ie 2 days in terms of waking time. In 50 years thats 100 days so we can say that the average american would have 0.3 years more to enjoy - 0.3% of extra lifetime.
On the other hand we can assume that car fatalities will increase - (they probably didn't increase when we moved from 55 back to 65mph ). Apparently every year in the US 10 out of 100K people die from car accidents (wikipedia). Even more interestingly according to that article, the rate has been dropping steadily during the last 30 years from 30/100K to 10/100K, probably due to car safety improvements in spite if worsening of underlying highway infrastructure ( I did a project with my son about this for a speech and debate lesson), in spite of increased wealth and car ownership( I am guessing here), more early age car ownership (I am guessing here), the speed limit increasing from 55 in the 70s to 65+ now etc etc.
Now, how do you compare a 10/100K fatality with every one gaining (hypothetically) .3 yrs of life?
E.g. , mathematically speaking should you be willing to gain 2 days of extra life in a year at a risk of increasing by 100% your chance to be killed in that year, e.g. your car fatality odds in the year would go from 10/100K to 20/100K?
The answer seems pretty obvious to me: increase by 10/100K my chances to die vs increase my year by 600/100K. Absolutely definitely I would.
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