the only way to kill someone who’s not trying to get killed while driving a car is intentionally or disgusting negligence
Nah, that’s definitely not true. It’s an incredibly motornormative claim to make, actually (though this might be counter-intuitive). It’s actually frighteningly easy to kill someone with a car, and while the driver will almost always bear a strong degree of responsibility, it’s very often also the design of the road that is to blame. Road design that encourages drivers to go too fast, or which does not provide adequate separation (including safe angles and waiting areas at intersections to give drivers good sight lines and a way to wait out of the way of continuing traffic) for pedestrians and cyclists, or complex environments with large numbers of driveways and side streets on higher speed roads (i.e., “stroads”) are all examples of design that we see all the time on Australian roads (and Canadian, and American, for any people from those countries who might blow in to this thread), which play a huge role in the high death toll on our roads.
We can’t get to a zero road toll by changing drivers. Driver education is important, but it’s one of the smallest things we can do in terms of the size of its impact.
N.B. I wrote this talking about driving on roads in cities, because the parent comment seemed to be talking in the general sense, and not specifically talking about driving on beaches like is in the article. So this is only tangentially related to the OP.
hot take: the only way to kill someone who’s not trying to get killed while driving a car is intentionally or disgusting negligence
Nah, that’s definitely not true. It’s an incredibly motornormative claim to make, actually (though this might be counter-intuitive). It’s actually frighteningly easy to kill someone with a car, and while the driver will almost always bear a strong degree of responsibility, it’s very often also the design of the road that is to blame. Road design that encourages drivers to go too fast, or which does not provide adequate separation (including safe angles and waiting areas at intersections to give drivers good sight lines and a way to wait out of the way of continuing traffic) for pedestrians and cyclists, or complex environments with large numbers of driveways and side streets on higher speed roads (i.e., “stroads”) are all examples of design that we see all the time on Australian roads (and Canadian, and American, for any people from those countries who might blow in to this thread), which play a huge role in the high death toll on our roads.
We can’t get to a zero road toll by changing drivers. Driver education is important, but it’s one of the smallest things we can do in terms of the size of its impact.
N.B. I wrote this talking about driving on roads in cities, because the parent comment seemed to be talking in the general sense, and not specifically talking about driving on beaches like is in the article. So this is only tangentially related to the OP.