This video is sponsored by GiveWell.
When I ride my electric bike,
it won't let the motor move the bike past 20 miles per hour.
I can exceed the limit
if I don't pedal while going downhill,
but otherwise I'm stuck.
This bike has a speed limiter on it to improve safety.
The idea is that if this gets up past 20 miles an hour,
it could pose a risk to pedestrians.
But is that actually true?
Is that historically true?
Well, regular bikes can go beyond 20 miles an hour
and hit people, but how often does that actually happen?
This article from New York City has an alarmist title,
but if you actually read it, you'll find that we have
some journalistic click bait happening.
The number of deaths
caused by cyclists colliding with pedestrians
has gone up from zero in 2018 to two in 2019.
Cars killed 214 in that same year
and cyclists alone were injured
over 4,000 times in New York City.
But you don't hear New Yorkers
calling for speed limiters in cars,
despite cars being the most dangerous vehicle
by a wide margin, or do you?
New York City has recently been rolling out
active intelligence speed assistant technology
to its vehicle fleet.
The car has a GPS so it knows where it is in the city
and what the speed limit is on that street it's driving on.
The vehicle doesn't let the driver
go beyond the speed limit.
The limiters will not be added to emergency vehicles
for obvious lifesaving reasons.
This is an idea that's beginning to gain some traction.
The National Transportation Safety Board,
the federal government agency responsible
for crash investigation, recently recommended
the federal government develop incentives for automakers
to include speed limiter technology in their vehicles.
This could include simple sounds or visual indicators
to let a driver know that they're speeding
or a version of the New York City system,
where the car simply cannot speed.
The European Commission now requires new cars
to have intelligent speed assistance software
that notifies drivers when they're speeding.
And can even reduce engine power
or increase resistance of the gas pedal,
though it's perfectly legal
for drivers to turn off those systems.
But I can't turn off the speed limiter on my bike,
even though I'm much safer going 25 miles per hour on this
than I am going 25 miles per hour in my 3,500 pound minivan.
I think the reasons for this are pretty simple, actually.
One, people like going fast in their cars.
Two, people view it as government overreach
to control their speed.
And three, most people drive
and not as many people have bikes,
so there's no uproar about speed limiters on bikes.
But nearly 43,000 people died on US roads last year
and speed was a factor in most of these collisions.
Road deaths are all preventable
and we have technology to prevent them.
We could do it right now if we had the political will.
This video is all about technologies that could help us get
from 43,000 road deaths down to zero,
if only we cared more about safety
than getting to where we wanted to go a little bit faster.
Let's make some drivers angry after the bike bell.
(bell rings)
Now, I understand that for many,
having the government inside of our car,
regulating our speed, seems like a bit of an overreach.
Well, what about taking the government out of the car
and onto the street, in the form of speed cameras?
For those that don't know, speed cameras are devices
that local governments can place on the side of the road.
It measures the speed of vehicles and
if they exceed the speed limit, the license plate is scanned
and the drivers are sent a ticket.
There are two facts about speed cameras
and these facts are similar to speed limiters.
First, they're very effective
at reducing speeds and preventing crashes.
There have been many, many studies of speed cameras
and there is broad agreement that they can reduce crashes
by up to 50%, compared to times when they're not present.
In particular, serious and fatal crashes
see the greatest decline.
Speed cameras literally save lives.
They do that by reducing speeds.
If people know someone will hold them accountable
for their speeding, they won't do it.
The thing is, people don't really like that.
That's actually the second fact about speed cameras.
They're unpopular, like really unpopular.
I told you drivers are not gonna
like the suggestions in this video.
In fact, several US states have banned speed cameras
and in many states where they are permitted,
the state government won't use them on state highways,
due in part of their unpopularity.
There are some exceptions, like in New York City.
Let's have the governor explain.
We are gonna sign a bill that'll authorize
New York City's school zone speed limit camera program.
Allow that to be operated all day, every day, 24 hours,
365 days a year, and this law be in effect till 2025.
Now, critics will point out that speed cameras
can sometimes give out tickets incorrectly, and that's true,
though technology is improving.
And critics will also point out
that sometimes they're used by governments
as a money making scheme, and that can also be true.
But if nobody sped, that wouldn't really be a problem.
The problem with speed cameras is that they disrupt
a driving tradition of going above the speed limit,
with the assumption that most police officers won't care
if you're going a few miles over.
Thus, many, many people speed.
But police enforcement of speeding is not uniform
and people of color are stopped more than white drivers.
In fact, one study, using a data set
of a hundred million traffic stops,
found that this bias disappears at night
when police can't discern the race of the driver.
Even worse, it's far too common
that a traffic stop can turn fatal,
as police can be over aggressive during the interaction.
Over 400 unarmed people per year are killed
by police in the US during a traffic stop
and a disproportionate number are black.
Speed cameras don't have any racial bias
and they can't kill anyone.
They do the opposite.
They make the roads safer for everyone.
Yet we don't use them because people like to speed.
The close relatives to speed cameras are red light cameras.
These cameras are positioned at an intersection
and meant to catch drivers that enter the intersection
after the light turns red, which is obviously dangerous.
The principle's the same as speed cameras,
increase enforcement of drivers running red lights
and hope that safety improves, as a result.
Intersections are the most dangerous places
to be a pedestrian, as that's where cars and people mix.
There have been many, many studies
on the effectiveness of red light cameras.
Meta-analyses that synthesize past studies,
rebuttals to meta-analyses and further meta-analyses.
What did all this research find out?
Well, red light camera technology may not
be the most effective way to reduce crashes.
They do tend to reduce red light violations
and right angle crashes,
where a car slams into one side of another,
by about 25% when compared to an intersection without them.
But they increase rear end collisions,
as drivers are more likely to slam on the brakes
to avoid a violation,
causing them to crash with the car behind them.
Those kind of crashes increase by about 19%,
so the case for red light cameras isn't quite as strong
as the case for speed cameras.
Yes, they can reduce car crashes, but crashes still occur
and there are the same Big Brother privacy concerns
as speed cameras.
Researchers have suggested that adding warning signs
ahead of the red light cameras
can mitigate some of these negative side effects
and make it an overall better solution.
Speed limiters, speed cameras and red light cameras
can be effective safety technology,
but they're not popular.
And there's yet another set of technologies
that probably meet these same criteria.
These technologies are aimed
at preventing dangerous drivers from driving dangerously.
About 10,000 road deaths in the United States each year
are caused by drunk drivers.
Drivers charged with driving under the influence
can have a small breathalyzer device
installed on their ignition.
They have to submit to a test to start the car,
ensuring they aren't drunk.
If they are, the car won't start.
I think most people are okay
with this kind of technology for drunk drivers,
but this technology or technology similar to it
could be coming to all cars in the future.
That makes sense if you care about safety
because the breathalyzers attached to cars of DUI drivers
only comes after they've been caught
and potentially caused injury or death.
Ideally, you wanna stop a drunk from driving
before they cause trouble.
The most recent infrastructure bill passed
by the US Congress and signed by President Biden
includes a mandate that by 2026,
cars need to passively monitor the performance
of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify
whether that driver may be impaired.
This doesn't call for breathalyzer specifically
and that's probably 'cause they're not as popular
when everybody has to do it, instead of just drunk drivers.
It's not something most people wanna do
every time they get in the car.
But some car models already use infrared cameras
to watch driver behavior.
The cameras collect data on driver attentiveness,
things like drowsiness or impairment.
Then they'll warn the driver,
and if the driver ignores the warning,
the car will turn on the hazard lights
and pull the car over.
This technology relies
on some of the semi-autonomous features
coming standard in many cars these days.
Things like adaptive cruise control,
automatic emergency braking, lane departure warnings
and blind spot detection.
Automakers are already adding technologies
to make cars safer, though at the same time,
they're also adding massive infotainment systems
that may create a world of distracted drivers.
And many of the safety technologies in cars
focus on making the driver safe, but aren't as effective
at spotting pedestrians and cyclists and keeping them safe.
These technologies, speed limiters, speed cameras,
red light cameras and driver impairment identification
are proven to make our roads safer and reduce fatalities.
We have the technology now to make our roads safer,
if only we are brave enough to use them.
There's another research-backed way
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Let me tell you more about them back in the studio,
away from this road.
(sighs)
All right, back in the studio just in time
to avoid some rare California rain.
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