<story><title>The Silent Anniversary: Fifteen Years Since Our Last Major Crash</title><url>http://www.askthepilot.com/silent-anniversary/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CamperBob2</author><text>Obviously that&amp;#x27;s not even remotely true, so why are you telling your daughters that?&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t lie to your kids.  They&amp;#x27;re smarter than you think.</text></item><item><author>markbnj</author><text>I often remarked in the same vein to my daughters as they were growing up and learning to drive. Everywhere you encounter a stop sign, a light, etc., is a place where people were badly injured or killed on multiple occasions. That stuff is there for a reason.</text></item><item><author>THE_PUN_STOPS</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve often heard it said that FAA regulations are written in blood. Meaning, if a rule exists, it exists for a damn good reason.&lt;p&gt;For anyone interested, NASA&amp;#x27;s ASRS [1] (Aviation Safety Reporting System) is what the parent commenter is referring to regarding reporting near misses. The idea is, anyone can submit an incident report with NASA, a neutral separate party from the FAA, which is placed in an anonymized public database and cannot be used to justify punishment against anyone involved in the incident. This promotes transparency and learning from the mistakes of yourself and others, instead of covering them up. Frequently, the person who caused an incident in the first place will promptly report it to ASRS, as the FAA looks favorably upon those who come forward to ASRS on their own and dimly upon those who do not.&lt;p&gt;I think more industries could use this kind of transparency in reporting sketchy situations.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;asrs.arc.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;overview&amp;#x2F;confidentiality.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;asrs.arc.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;overview&amp;#x2F;confidentiality.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>NickHoff</author><text>The effect of culture should not be underestimated here.&lt;p&gt;There really is a cooperative spirit among pilots, air traffic controllers, weather briefers, mechanics, the FAA, etc.  Controllers are willing to help pilots with special requests if able, pilots file weather reports for other pilots if what they encounter aloft is different from what they expected, mechanics take pride in their work and are highly regarded by pilots.  I generally take a dim view of regulators, who generally seem to have less expertise than the people they&amp;#x27;re regulating.  That&amp;#x27;s mostly not the case here.  I&amp;#x27;m libertarian and a pilot - and I like the FAA.  Nobody is out to nail you for a minor technical infraction, but they will yell at you for something that&amp;#x27;s unsafe but technically legal.  This encourages people to report near misses, even if casts them in a bad light.  The regulations themselves are generally reasonable, and frankly feel like they were written by pilots, controllers, and airport operators.&lt;p&gt;The point is this - regulations matter and budgets matter, but if the culture is toxic, people will find a way around it anyway.  When I see a problem elsewhere in society - investment banking in the 2000s for example - people propose heavy regulatory solutions.  That may work, but wouldn&amp;#x27;t be so much of a battle if the culture were better.&lt;p&gt;I haven&amp;#x27;t thought deeply about what &amp;quot;better&amp;quot; means in this context, nor about how to intentionally change a culture.  I&amp;#x27;d rather just fly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mrb</author><text>Napkin math suggests you are wrong, the grand parent is right.&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t find the &lt;i&gt;exact&lt;/i&gt; stats but in the US there are 2+ million injuries per year caused by road traffic crashes. We know there are around 300k signalized intersections [1]. If we estimate non-signalized intersections (ie. those with STOP signs) to 20x that number, that&amp;#x27;s 6 million non-signalized intersections. If 20% of injuries happen at intersections and are randomly distributed across intersections, then on average there will be 1 injury at a given intersection every 15 years.&lt;p&gt;So yeah it is likely that &amp;quot;multiple injuries&amp;quot; have occured at mosts intersections in the country.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov&amp;#x2F;knowledge&amp;#x2F;faqs&amp;#x2F;faq_part4.htm#tcsgq3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov&amp;#x2F;knowledge&amp;#x2F;faqs&amp;#x2F;faq_part4.htm#tcsgq...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The Silent Anniversary: Fifteen Years Since Our Last Major Crash</title><url>http://www.askthepilot.com/silent-anniversary/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CamperBob2</author><text>Obviously that&amp;#x27;s not even remotely true, so why are you telling your daughters that?&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t lie to your kids.  They&amp;#x27;re smarter than you think.</text></item><item><author>markbnj</author><text>I often remarked in the same vein to my daughters as they were growing up and learning to drive. Everywhere you encounter a stop sign, a light, etc., is a place where people were badly injured or killed on multiple occasions. That stuff is there for a reason.</text></item><item><author>THE_PUN_STOPS</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve often heard it said that FAA regulations are written in blood. Meaning, if a rule exists, it exists for a damn good reason.&lt;p&gt;For anyone interested, NASA&amp;#x27;s ASRS [1] (Aviation Safety Reporting System) is what the parent commenter is referring to regarding reporting near misses. The idea is, anyone can submit an incident report with NASA, a neutral separate party from the FAA, which is placed in an anonymized public database and cannot be used to justify punishment against anyone involved in the incident. This promotes transparency and learning from the mistakes of yourself and others, instead of covering them up. Frequently, the person who caused an incident in the first place will promptly report it to ASRS, as the FAA looks favorably upon those who come forward to ASRS on their own and dimly upon those who do not.&lt;p&gt;I think more industries could use this kind of transparency in reporting sketchy situations.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;asrs.arc.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;overview&amp;#x2F;confidentiality.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;asrs.arc.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;overview&amp;#x2F;confidentiality.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>NickHoff</author><text>The effect of culture should not be underestimated here.&lt;p&gt;There really is a cooperative spirit among pilots, air traffic controllers, weather briefers, mechanics, the FAA, etc.  Controllers are willing to help pilots with special requests if able, pilots file weather reports for other pilots if what they encounter aloft is different from what they expected, mechanics take pride in their work and are highly regarded by pilots.  I generally take a dim view of regulators, who generally seem to have less expertise than the people they&amp;#x27;re regulating.  That&amp;#x27;s mostly not the case here.  I&amp;#x27;m libertarian and a pilot - and I like the FAA.  Nobody is out to nail you for a minor technical infraction, but they will yell at you for something that&amp;#x27;s unsafe but technically legal.  This encourages people to report near misses, even if casts them in a bad light.  The regulations themselves are generally reasonable, and frankly feel like they were written by pilots, controllers, and airport operators.&lt;p&gt;The point is this - regulations matter and budgets matter, but if the culture is toxic, people will find a way around it anyway.  When I see a problem elsewhere in society - investment banking in the 2000s for example - people propose heavy regulatory solutions.  That may work, but wouldn&amp;#x27;t be so much of a battle if the culture were better.&lt;p&gt;I haven&amp;#x27;t thought deeply about what &amp;quot;better&amp;quot; means in this context, nor about how to intentionally change a culture.  I&amp;#x27;d rather just fly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>markbnj</author><text>Perhaps you should ask your local roads department how they decide where to put traffic control structures before talking about lying :).</text></comment>