Modern Vespa

Well said Frank. That is absolutely correct. Many here won't want to hear it but it's true. Take Texas for example.

https://www.ojp.gov/library/publications/comparing-crime-rates-between-undocumented-immigrants-legal-immigrants-and

Abstract
The study found that undocumented immigrants had substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses. Relative to undocumented immigrants, U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes.

I'm with Sc00ter on this. I stay vigilant and basically paranoid every time I get on the bike. I live about 7 miles out from NYC and commute into the city in warmer weather. I have yet to get into a fender bender, I've yet to go down or drop the bike (while on it). I feel lucky about that, but I'm also of the mindset that "these idiots don't see me," and "these idiots don't care." I try and opt to always be the "bigger person" in the relationship as it pertains to me on a bike, and a driver not on a bike. You can get into an ego thing with other drivers, but you'll lose every time -safety wise. Stay paranoid, my friends.

More miles driven per capita than other countries. Cell phones. Traffic signage and enforcement often designed around revenue enhancement. Traffic lights that aren't synchronized. Lack of infrastructure upgrades to keep up with population growth. Speed limits that are not set by traffic engineers. No enforcement of left lane violations. Speed traps.
Pick one, or pick them all. All of them contribute to accidents.

California has some laws that would be good to see required in all jurisdictions that want Federal highway money:
Police are not allowed to write speeding tickets in places where 80% of drivers drive faster than the posted speed limit.
You can basically drive like an officer can when he/she is not in pursuit. That law was the nose in the tent for lane splitting.
If three people are behind you, you are required to pull over at the earliest moment it is safe to do so.

An excellent idea would be for all moneys collected as a result of traffic enforcement to be turned over to the Federal government. This would deincentivize the use of traffic violations as a means of funding local government and law enforcement.

No intention of telling you want to think. My point stands, those countries I have mentioned above also deal with a high proportion of migrants that have arrived, let's say not through official channels…be it as refugees, asylum seekers or economic migrants. Certainly could be a contributor but I just don't think (my opinion) that issue in of itself would really be a unique factor that speaks to US Road causalities being higher than many western developed countries.

we both have opinions, comparing apples to oranges make getting a believable truth difficult and more often impossible . An opinion by itself is never a proof of right nor wrong. the population of countries in Europe is provably different that that of the USA. I stand behind my beliefs other may stand behind theirs.

Different indeed. One example: In 2021 Germany admitted a total of 1.32 Million immigrants in one year. If the United States had comparable rates of immigration, 3.7 Million people would have entered the country in that same year.

Though they didn't. Only 740 thousand were admitted into the US in 2021. Not much right? Especially not in comparison, when you keep in mind that Germany is a little over half the size of the State of Texas with a population that's about a quarter the size of that of the entire USA. Talk about dense traffic.

You are totally right that Europe and the United States differ much. You are wrong to attribute road safety or the lack thereof to numbers of immigration.

And you are completely failing to make a point how this is relevant at all to riding scooters in cities vs the outlying areas.




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Enough Blaming Immigrants For Everything

Politics don't belong on this forum - it's actually a rule

There's a common concept of 'time saving bias' that comes into my mind when reading some of the comments here.

Basically, we, pretty much all of us are biased to feel, that driving a bit faster on fast routes and 'dashing' from point to point in urban traffic gain us time.

A table borrowed from the university of Auckland (just happened to pop up first, internet is full of these...) shows the fallacy behind this bias pretty well.

It sounds like this has a lot to do with the pains of urban traffic.

Hard to have an accident where one never travels.
Driving in an area you are familiar with and often travel would sure be more likely to have an accident yet be a safer area to drive then driving in an area you have not driven in before is. Those that disagree, fine. call others opinion a fallacy because more accidents happen when one drives the most does not always or even often make doing so more dangerous . Having less accidents where on rarely drives does not make the rarely traveled areas safer. Yes, not keeping ones guards up will sooner rather then later cause one harm or worse.