Why so many fatal car wrecks? (Austin, Cedar Park: loan, buy, club)

[texdav]

As far as slippery road when wet. Any area that gets alot of traffic and spells of dry weather then rain will be slippery. The vehicles deposit oil on the roadway and the first rain has to be enough to wash it off. Until it does the road is slippery. Most texans IMO grewup not having not having to deal with traffic congestion and not that they do they try to drive as they always did.Californians are use to it and just take it in stride mostly.

[RoundSparrow]

Originally Posted by Jenbar

I moved here from Seattle. One of the most densely populated cities. There are bad, passive aggressive, drivers there - but no where near the number of fatality accidents.

Austin is way more spread out and wide open than many cities...

I lived in Dallas for 2 years, then Seattle for 5, then Austin for 2.

Seattle is a much safer place to drive. In general they protect the environment and restrict road expansion (i405 from airport to Bellevue/Redmond).

Everyone drives slower and I loved it. Yes, traffic was bad, but hey - GO MOVE ELSEWHERE.

Here in Texas - they just add more lanes, more lanes! And of course, people drive more because MORE LANES! Easier to get around in car -- use the car more! They will pave over ANYTHING here in Texas.

I used to get a kick out of people in Seattle who kept saying the solution to traffic was - EXPAND ROADS and add more lanes

RANT ON The real problems: Everyone who thinks work should only be 9to5/5 days a week. And EVERYONE has to go out at 7pm on Friday night. Mix it up a little, people! And the lack of social support of friends for using public transportation ("not good enough for me syndrome"). Austin has decent public transportation, but people still drive. Young people drive drunk way too often, and get away with it. Go hang out at Chile's after work at the bar at 5pm and watch people have 3 drinks then get in their car to go home to their kids. I see this everywhere (spent 5 of the last year traveling around the west/south in an RV - where I could have couple drinks and go watch TV in the parking lot) - and Texas is one of the worst places. There just isn't the social stigma against drunk driving - and there IS a social stigma against public transportation.

[S6Sputnik]

Text Messaging!!!

[TexasHorseLady]

Having lived in Austin since 1969 (and in Texas since I was born), and having driven in other areas, as well, I have to agree with the person upthread who said that they watched the change in traffic from friendly (people would as a matter of course let someone who needed to get on the road from a parking lot get in if traffic was backed up, for example, and let people over into their lane who needed to be there) to what it is now. I observed it changing and, at the same time, had a son who had a game of seeing how many different out of state plates he could see (this was in the late '70's/early '80's). The change correlated with the dramatic increase in out of state plates (at that point in time it was a very high percentage of California and New York plates that I noticed - later it was Kansas, but there wasn't such a change in driving with that influx). I even noticed it in myself - I started driving more aggressively in self-defense, even as I hated it.

And someone else said it, as well - the coming together of so many different driving styles, with everyone from every place else absolutely sure that their style of driving/signage/whatever is "right" and what we have here is, by definition, "wrong", led to a lot of these problems, and the they reached some sort of critical mass and we've got the mess we do now.

By the way, my daughter had to take Driver's Ed in order to get her driver's license, because it IS still required by law. I do think it should be required by law to take driver's ed and pass the test in order to get a Texas driver's license if you move here from out of state (or move to any other state, for that matter) - is that not the case?

[love roses]

Are you only 9 yrs. old then, or did 4 years in Texas tell you everything there is to know about Texas? I lived in Colorado for 6 years, where public transportation is excellent and there were drunk driving accidents all the time, but never tried to pass off any opinions I may have had there as fact. Even with great public transport, cars don't disappear from the road. And there is social stigma against driving drunk. The only problem is, the drunk person really doesn't care what someone else is thinking. From the age of 18 til now, My friends and I were amazingly responsible for kids our age. We'd take keys from people who were drunk to keep them from getting behind the wheel. We had people stay at each others houses to keep them from driving. We ALWAYS had a designated driver. And all of this was in Texas. Very tragically, a friend of ours, who has actually spent time in jail for multiple DUI's, lost his brother, who lived in Philadelphia, to a drinking accident last year. He was drunk, waiting for a subway car and fell on the tracks. (And seriously, I'm not trying to be funny. It really happened and our friend still has a hard time with it). And yes, it's a tragic irony. Texas has no stigma against public transportation. That would probably be a government issue more than anything. Or that it is a different place than the densely populated East Coast, who has had a system since the 1800's.

[AGA]

Originally Posted by Jenbar

What about police patrol?

I see a lot of these (though, I wouldn't say half...) are alcohol related. Are the laws not particularly tough here on drinking and driving? Does TX have an open container law?

I often wonder how the convenience stores could possibly have any sort of conscience when they sell single tall boy cans of beer... ALL DAY LONG... in a iced down case... just right for the after 5 driver!!! At least at a bar you can't get it to go and you sit and chat, relax, eat etc.. while you drink. The easy access tall boys just promote DUI, DWI whatever...

Oh I know,,, anyone could get it anywhere, but it just seems so in your face! I cringe everytime I go into one to get my soda for the drive home.

(can you tell I am bitter about being hit by a drunk driver last summer)
A

[love roses]

Can't blame you. I'd be bitter too.

[sberdrow]

Well, I hear a lot of Caifornia blame here. Im not from there (darn it) but I go there constantly to visit, and I have to say that those drivers for the most part were not as close to my bumper as the scary days when I lived in Austin. I was run off the road once on my 2nd day there (welcome to Texas I guess). I don't want to dish on Texas....as I am kind of fond of some of it now (especially that awesome lake Travis), but I think y'all might lieave California alone.

[southdown]

I am so shocked by the driving here, it is truly awful and the resulting loss of life and limb is totally unacceptable.

Having lived and driven in Europe, Asia and Australia over the past 30 years, I can safely say I have NEVER seen such bad driving as in the USA. Blame who you like, state by state, but it seems to be terrible no matter which plate is on the car.

Mainly, people are just not concentrating. Simply not paying attention.

And they don't appreciate the power of the car, nor the conditions of the road and the traffic.

Badly educated, bad attitude, drive too close, don't look ahead, hit the gas or the brakes too hard = wreck.

[TexasHorseLady]

Well, I hear a lot of Caifornia blame here. Im not from there (darn it) but I go there constantly to visit, and I have to say that those drivers for the most part were not as close to my bumper as the scary days when I lived in Austin. I was run off the road once on my 2nd day there (welcome to Texas I guess). I don't want to dish on Texas....as I am kind of fond of some of it now (especially that awesome lake Travis), but I think y'all might lieave California alone.

If you were taking my post as blaming California in particular, that wasn't it so much as that with so many people who aren't used to driving by the same laws arriving in one place from very different places with not only different laws but different driving customs, and no law requiring them to take a driver's ed course on Texas laws before driving here, you're bound to have problems. Though the driving was much more laid back and friendly (Drive Friendly being the state motto at that time) before the Californians and New Yorkers of that period arrived and the change was observably in response to being constantly cut off, tailgated, etc., so I suppose in a way I am "blaming" them, but do take responsibility for the changes in my own driving in response to their different driving habits.