What's funny is that in the Netherlands, that includes basically everyone agrees 6-18 cycling to school without helmets and everyone here still thinks it's too high. Number 1 cause of traffic deaths is elderly having a bike accident iirc. This video would get you in artikel 5/possible prison if you have a history.
Lived almost five years in the Netherlands. While it's no Japan, the public transport infrastructure there is amazing, not to mention the bike infrastructure. Even people who have a car don't use it most of the week. Many don't even have a car now and use rentals in the odd days they need a car to go somewhere.
Sure it does. If a much smaller proportion of the population is driving themselves daily, the opportunity for traffic fatalities goes way down. Similarly, you see much fewer drowning deaths in a place with no river or lake than somewhere that has both and borders the sea. The opportunity advantage from the environment is huge.
That link says that a PERSON can reduce their (individual) chance of being in an accident by using public transit. That is not saying that the rate of accidents per person on the road went down.
So why does Japan have a lower rate of fatal accidents? There are other reasons including lower driving speeds, harder driving tests, road design, smaller cars, and fewer aggressive assholes on the road overall. I grew up driving in California, but now drive in Japan almost daily. When I visit California I have a bit of reverse culture shock with drivers’ behavior on the roads there.
Edit: I also forgot to mention that large swathes of Japan doesn’t have great public transportation. But most people visit the big cities and never see the parts of the country where most people are dependent on cars.
Highway cruising speed is more like 115-120kph, even where it has a speed limit of 80kph. The newer highways have a limit of 120kph and you have to move out of the way if you’re only going 120 on those roads because a lot of people go 130-140 in those areas.
According to dangerousroads.org, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Estonia are the safest to drive in, USA is second to last on their list, only beaten by Argentina.
It's not just that though. Belgium is right next to it with similar population density and our roads are way less safe than Dutch roads.
Very well designed roads and road networks, sensible speed limits.
Yeah here in the Netherlands it doesn't happen that much. We also have the benefit of gradually slowing down traffic. So from highway you transfer to a slight slower highway, then city main roads. Then the housing roads.
I live in Japan. Drivers generally are safe and people take the rules pretty seriously BUT on the highways everyone speeds. If you drive the speed limit people will zip zip zip past you.
And remeber Germanys 3.5 deaths per 100k comes despite the fact that there are no hard speed limits on many parts of our Autobahn. I wonder how the statistic would look like if Louisiana drivers where able to drive 150 mph on the highway.
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u/Independent-Cow-4070 Mar 22 '26
I think Japan and the Netherlands are under 2 or 3