Making driving more dangerous forces drivers to focus harder, and focusing harder makes drivers less likely to screw up. The thing the article fails to address is the stress this adds to everyone's commute. The stress of a daily commute can have a serious impact on a person's health. Deliberately increasing the stress associated with driving without considering the ramifications is irresponsible imo.
"Making driving more dangerous forces drivers to focus harder, and focusing harder makes drivers less likely to screw up."
The inescapable conclusion is that we should get rid of seat belts, mount the driver in a plexiglass bubble in front of the front bumper, and put a bloody great spike in the middle of the steering wheel.
In a related question, there is some evidence that bike helmets may lead to greater risk taking and thus increase the likelihood of a crash (though bike helmets pretty definitively reduce the risk of head injury should a rider be in a crash).
Your "inescapable conclusion" would probably depend on whether the driver actually perceived the increase in risk. The spike and bubble might, but removing airbags might not.
That is a pretty far off base conclusion, the goal is to make roads feel unsafe for drivers so they go slower, and reduce or eliminate commute distance, that is how roads are made safer.
For example, a common strategy is to narrow a road from 4 lanes to 2 with a center median, being either a turn lane, planter with half height jersey barrier (directs cars wheels back onto the roadway), or barrels filled with water (which absorbs impacts and makes roads much safer). Tactics like these make roads feel more claustrophobic and thus "dangerous", but the road is ultimately much safer in the event of an accident, and accidents are less likely due to drivers being more alert because of the narrow roadway.
TL;DR: Wide roads lull you into a false sense of safety, narrow them!
I had an other smart acquaintance who believed replacing airbags with spikes would make people safer.
Ridiculous.
That's like saying that decreasing did production will make people use food smarter and starve less. It'll improve the efficiency of food usage, but fewer people won't starve.
Steering wheel spikes will improve driver habits, but people won't be safer overall.
I agree with you up to the stress bit.
Until we have reliable autonomous driving we should be fully alert while piloting heavy objects through shared space at high velocities.
It adds to your cognitive load sure, but so does killing an equally distracted pedestrian.
Can you name a city where it's normal for public transit commuters to get seats at all (unless they live an hour+ ride out of the city, where the train starts), let alone comfortable ones? I'm skeptical that there is such a thing as efficient and comfortable public transport. In my experience only underutilized public transport is comfortable, and public transport is only underutilized if it's slower than driving.
The trend in most systems is towards inward-facing seats along the sides for the very lucky few, a huge mass of standees in the middle (the denser the better until additional passengers physically can't make it on), and width of seats/separation between seated passengers makes basic economy on a budget airline feel positively luxurious.
Off-peak errands and entertainment on public transport can be fine, but not commuting. How anyone can find physical contact with strangers in a cramped, enclosed space less stressful than driving is way beyond me.
First of all, I didn't say you get a seat, I said comfortable. I can stand for quite a while, read a book on my phone and be comfortable. Secondly, there is a huge margin between having to stand but getting your own little space and being cramped. Former is expected, the latter is something you can plan around when choosing workplace and home. Also, how annoying cramped spaces are is heavily dependant on who else is there. That ranges from drunk football (soccer) fans at one extreme to Japanese. With the latter I don't care at all being cramped, everyone stays relaxed, gives way when needed and is perfectly behaved in queues. I'll take that any day over standing in traffic - because I can completely switch off, no responsibilities apart from getting off at my stop.
Yes, narrowing lanes will increase drivers' stress (whether by a significant amount, I don't know). But it will also decrease the stress of cyclists, pedestrians, and other people using the same roads. So this is not a straightforward consideration against narrowing lanes, or any other measure that will increase safety but increase drivers' stress as a side effect. To me, it sounds like a good trade: when the stress of driving goes up and the stress of cycling or walking goes down, more people will switch away from driving, and there are many reasons why that would be a good thing.
Actually will narrowing lanes increase driver stress?
Presumably, the increased stress is why they drive slower in the first place, which should then have a canceling effect lowering their stress back to the original level.
http://time.com/9912/10-things-your-commute-does-to-your-bod...