4 HN users recommended this explainer4 months2020–2023score 4
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN cites it for the systems-over-blame view of road safety and for Dutch infrastructure design.
Not Just Bikes explains why cars rarely crash into buildings in the Netherlands, attributing it to street design that forgives mistakes and to systematic crash investigation. It contrasts this with North American acceptance of such crashes.
“tl;dw: because they actually do what you suggest, and they incorporate their findings into better road designs.” (HN, 2022)
This is exactly the problem wit the car culture, almost everywhere outside the netherlands. You give cars so much space, they start behaving like it's the freeway, and then drive into buildings or do other stuff which kills drivers and other users. Of course they are speeding, and they shouldn't do that. But the netherlands thinks ahead, and tries not to give cars the opportunity to speed. So, we make a lot of obstacles and opposing traffic. Somehow drivers still do not like to kill people, slow down, and save themselves in the process. Look at this video's and others from this channel, to see how the netherlands builds infrastructure being more forgiving of mistakes, and find out how our cities turn out more livable: [this video] (Yes, i'm aware the suburban culture is different, hence the relation with cars)
Shows how Dutch infrastructure forgives driver mistakes and avoids crashes
Maybe this is a cause of the increase. But the root cause itself is the really abysmal way we design our streets that creates unsafe conditions. The Not Just Bikes channel addresses this frequently with examples from The Netherlands where they have a stronger focus on acknowledging humans suck and designing for safety, e.g: [this video]
"Why Cars Rarely Crash into Buildings in the Netherlands": [this video] tl;dw: because they actually do what you suggest, and they incorporate their findings into better road designs.
Dutch investigate crashes and incorporate findings into better road design
See the YouTube video by Not Just Bikes called “Why Cars Rarely Crash into Buildings in the Netherlands” for an interesting six minute talk about speed, road design and cultural expectations. [this video]
Short talk on speed, road design and cultural expectations
Car crashes are taken very seriously in The Netherlands. It's refreshing to hear investigation into systemic problems vs personal responsibility regarding crashes, common in many other countries (see link). [this video]
Systemic approach to crashes versus personal responsibility
In America, we blame individuals when systems fail. We don't have to, we can actually design systems to be better. Design isn't just about making things look pretty. Good design reduces entropy. [this video] [link]
Supports point that systems design should replace blaming individuals
> see [link] And a reply to that comment states: […] it does not appear to actually show a per-mile statistic. Where are you getting that from? And as the tabloid paper itself states: > Since 2011, bicyclists have injured more than 2,250 pedestrians — including at least seven who died — according to stats from the city Department of Transportation and published reports. So 6 / 2250 = 0.002666666667, or 0.3%. What percentage of car-pedestrian incidents lead to death? I'm guessing it is >1%. > Nobody is saying cars are good, but at least cars don't run on sidewalks, they stay on the roads and pedestrians don't walk in the middle of the road "just because they can". First off, they do not "stay on roads". See "Car smashes into Toronto bike shop and the metaphor is lost on no one": * [link] * [link] Also "Why Cars Rarely Crash into Buildings in the Netherlands": * [this video] And pedestrians walk/cross the middle of the road all the time, at least where I live. This has been dubbed "jaywalking" as part of a campaign of anti-pedestrian propaganda in the earlier twentieth century: * [link]
Cited as evidence that cars do crash into buildings
This reminds me of this video, about why cars crash into buildings so much in the USA, but not elsewhere: [this video] TLDR It is because in the USA it is blamed on "human error", bad drivers or youngsters going too fast. While in other places, it is seen as a systemic problem, like bad visibility, long stretches of straight roads encouraging speeding, etc.
US blames human error while elsewhere crashes seen as systemic
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
8 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Read more
Citations, criticism and jokes
Read more