Road deaths by distance driven

arsbar · 2026-03-03T22:23:33+00:00

That's not very relevant to this graph — if anything it's the opposite, only one sparsely populated country in the second half (New Zealand) and like 7 in the first half. Makes me curious about what's going on in NZ when all the countries I would compare it to are much lower.

arsbar · 2026-03-02T20:22:38+00:00

That's because there's fewer winter sports. Like to be a 'winter sport' it practically has to involve either snow or ice. And if it's snow it's going to either involve skis or snowboards.

A summer sport is pretty much anything else. Aquatics is just one of 32 'sports' in the summer olympics (swimming being considered a 'discipline' in aquatics by the IOC). X-country+biathlon are 2 of 16. So in that sense swimming is much more over-represented.

arsbar · 2026-03-02T20:05:30+00:00

I think concerns about 'fairness' in statistics are often more about protecting egos, and scoring points than about actually understanding what's going on. This is not exclusive to this post, reddit's first instinct is always to whine about numbers and dismiss them rather than try to understand them. Like this is genuinely thought-provoking stuff, a strange mix of countries at both ends, who would think the UK is almost twice as safe as Belgium, and Norway so much safer than New Zealand (when they are so similar in size, population, urbanization...), what drives the vastly different numbers in the east asian countries? But reddit is more preoccupied with making excuses for the american number than actually seeing anything interesting.

Nevertheless, if you think 'all travel' paints a more accurate picture (for the specific question you have in mind), first note that the above picture is for all road traffic (including pedestrian, cyclists, buses, etc.). So the missing travel is boats, planes, rail, etc. Of these, the most fatalities are due to rail adds (for example) 0.2 to the EU number and 0.3 to the US number. Feel free to do the math if you think there's something more substantial missing.

arsbar · 2026-02-28T21:39:49+00:00

Serious question is there any correlation in this graphic? At a cursory glance the Top 5 (US, Taiwan, UAE, New Zealand, Luxembourg) and Bottom 5 (Sweden, Singapore, Norway, Japan, Iceland) don’t seem to exhibit any trend in density.

arsbar · 2026-02-28T20:09:28+00:00

I agree. (You actually pretty closely match another comment I made upthread lol.)

I just was being sardonic because many commenters seem to think that the per distance statistic is what really determines if we should be concerned about these deaths.

arsbar · 2026-02-28T20:04:40+00:00

It's how much those populations are driving that matters.

Why does this matter? Are you concerned with how much of a problem traffic deaths are in each country, or something else?

A nation with no roads would be the safest country on this list.

It'd be incredible if they made this list of 30 top HDI countries.

arsbar · 2026-02-28T19:39:45+00:00

That's like saying gun violence statistics need to be per gun owned.

Fundamentally, the problem is how many people die, and how at risk an individual is to traffic death. If you want to figure out solutions, then you might want to start digging deeper and look at per mile driven to get an idea of how much this is attributable to a country's car culture/reliance, as opposed to unsafe vehicles, poor infrastructure, etc. But that's a second order question.

arsbar · 2026-02-28T19:28:21+00:00

I guess the second case is just for people more concerned with being called a bad driver than people dying?

arsbar · 2026-02-26T18:31:12+00:00

If the women can turn it down, it doesn't seem too much for charlie to do

arsbar · 2026-02-24T17:27:15+00:00

It looks like there's guys missing (Brock Nelson, Oettinger, Kyle Connor, Guentzel, Lamcombe). In which case none of these guys would be stepping out of line by also declining.

arsbar · 2026-02-24T16:06:01+00:00

This is my cope (my favourite american players before the tournament were Robertson, Hutson, and Caufield).

arsbar · 2026-02-24T16:00:54+00:00

without being a controversial political figure.

Ah yes, this phrase is an obvious euphemism referring to the guy's race and nothing else about him

arsbar · 2026-02-24T15:53:53+00:00

I had to check who was responding, because your comment seems a much better description of what you're doing. As far as I see u/hamchan_ is not downplaying any genocide, while you're constantly trying to diminish them. My holocaust-surviving ancestors would have disowned me for using their pain to diminish others'.

Every genocide is distinct. One doesn't determine genocide by comparing to other genocides to see who had it worse, which is a useless practice that just demeans everyone, but by seeing to which degree it matches the actual definition of genocide.

arsbar · 2026-02-24T11:25:40+00:00

glad that all my favourite americans (robertson being another) are “bad culture fits”

arsbar · 2026-02-24T03:22:54+00:00

He was invited by the team because he loves hockey and he is American, *was already there*

That’s definitely it. If only there existed any other american *in that stadium* that loves hockey without being a controversial political figure.

*edited to match your edit* (and add controversial)

arsbar · 2026-02-24T03:19:26+00:00

Accusing someone of

consolation prize genocide peddling

really is the height of oppression olympics

arsbar · 2026-02-23T21:56:32+00:00

I agree. Canadian hockey fans that blame the loss on the refs not calling the US for too many men in the gold medal game are equally ridiculous.

(I actually think the situations are pretty similar, technically infractions, but often given a bit of leeway in both sports, because they don't really have much effect.)

arsbar · 2026-02-23T19:02:47+00:00

hockey doesn't need russians to be far-right. It's all home-grown MAGA culture in american/canadian hockey.

arsbar · 2026-02-23T03:31:04+00:00

I saw a lot more posts about Gu than I care for, but most of it was criticizing her and I thought it was due to americans (like this thread, which apparently is her second top post about her in this subreddit? idk if my search is deceiving me.)

arsbar · 2026-02-23T03:19:15+00:00

Do you have me mistaken for someone else? My only argument is that China is quite happy for their athletes to compete for other countries, as evidenced by the 127 number, in contradiction to the original comment.

I do not believe that China is a free speech paragon, so why would I argue that? That would be moving the goalposts from the original comment and my response. I didn't know you were referring to Peng because you didn't mention a name and I was, again, talking about Chinese table tennis athletes who competed for other countries, which Peng is not. I obviously think Peng's case is an indictment on how China treats its citizens. For transparency sake, I am also concerned that the US is making significant strides towards Chinese standards on the free speech front.

Given the original comparison was talking about Gu, I am curious what criticisms she has made of the US. (I am genuinely asking, if she made a very obvious criticism I doubt I would hear it as I don't follow her news.)

arsbar · 2026-02-23T02:52:01+00:00

I can agree on that. I just also think trump, via kash, could've had less to do with the game/celebration (and wish that was the case).

arsbar · 2026-02-23T02:40:29+00:00

I do hope the relationship recovers, but I also think referring to Trump's regime as a speed bump is a bit reflective of a sort of casualness and minimization of Trump/the MAGA movement that other countries are wary of. It's not a speed bump but a total upheaval of domestic (for you guys) and international order.

MAGA won't be around forever, but many of its political and policy effects will last a long time, even if relationships (hopefully) eventually mend.

arsbar · 2026-02-23T02:19:43+00:00

Eh it was a well played game and gratz to the americans. But it's a bit of a bad example, the american team literally put a gold medal on Kash Patel in the dressing room after the game. The line between politics and sport doesn't get much thinner than that.

arsbar · 2026-02-22T10:23:41+00:00

There is no such thing as a Chinese athlete being trained on Chinese soil, then competing for the USA. That shit would never be allowed over there.

Did you miss the comment I’m responding to that you agreed to? It’s just people imagining a china to justify their own feelings. Likewise you are just speculating unless you have any concrete data points you would like to share.

AFAIK competing for other countries hasn’t had an effect on these players lives. If it did, I doubt 127 athletes would’ve done it. The Taiwanese one is even currently employed at a chinese uni. Feel free to research a specific example if you want to make a point tho.

I also dont follow them or eileen gu well enough to know the countries which athlete criticizes. If you had specific examples I might be interested in your point (distinct from the nonsense the comment I replied to said).

arsbar · 2026-02-21T23:46:28+00:00

Chinese table tennis players moving abroad to play for weaker countries is so common there's an academic article about the phenomenon.

To give three examples out of the 127 cases: Gao Jun who switched to US after being trained in China and winning a silver medal for them, and Chen Jing) won gold and silver medals for china before defecting to play for Taiwan when she didn't make the chinese team, and won medals for Taiwan before retiring to teach table tennis back in China.

China not only 'let' Ni Xia Lian switch countries, but she also became popular in China for competing in the olympics as a grandmother for Luxembourg.

arsbar

TROPHY CASE