I feel that the USA needs a few small, but sensible changes to its transportation laws to approach the level of safety in Germany. This is tricky, as each state has its own laws, but it can be done.
First of all, the drivers' tests in most states need to be tightened up. Many of them don't test you at any higher than 25 MPH because they're done in the city or a closed course. A high-speed element MUST BE REQUIRED.
Second, states need to stop treating driver's licenses as a privilege. I don't mean that they shouldn't be revoked for abuse-- quite the contrary. But states like NJ use them as a carrot on young people. If you get caught for even a stupid juvenile offense like TP'ing someone's house, they use it as an excuse to wait until you're 18 or older. TP'ing someone's house doesn't mean you're unfit to drive! Make them do community service-- but let them earn their license so they can drive to the soup kitchen. Making them wait just results in 20 year old bad drivers instead of 17 year old bad drivers.
Third, the speed limits are TOO LOW. I know this sounds crazy, but the USA is large and trips take too long as a consequence. If we make sure the drivers can handle high speeds (see item 1 above), we can raise the speed limit and make the trips shorter. How does this help safety? If your trip is shorter, you're less likely to get tired and stop paying attention. Sure, people should stop and rest, but the trips are already taking so damn long that we refuse to do that. The current speed limits are largely due to politics. States like Montana had no speed limits on some highways-- and accidents went DOWN. Until lobbyists made them put limits back in-- and accidents went up. Everyone knows they went up, but the limits are still in place. The politicians who signed off on this know their decision is killing people, and they DON'T CARE.
Secondly, the average driver in the US is considered a very poor driver by Australian standards
Australians and Germans appear to be safe drivers according to statistics, but Americans aren't exceptionally bad. We're in about the same number of accidents/km as Belgians and Austrians. Your Kiwi neighbors are surprisingly accident-prone.
The hilarious part is that Connecticut, like most of New England, is from far a conservative state or even nominally Republican. Remember, this is the place that, although it already had strong gun-control laws, took the political opportunity to impose downright oppressive laws that were enough to get a major gun manufacturer to flee the state (taking thousands of jobs with it). They have high taxes, are represented exclusively by Democrats in their capitol, in the US Senate, and the US House, allow same-sex marriage, and voted for a Democrat in the last six presidential elections.
Is that clear enough?
Wires from a home built in the 1970's are often so brittle that they crumble. not just the jacket coatings but the copper itself. This is due to heat. Heat comes from resistance.
If you ever saw 1970s cabling that had the insulation breaking down, much less the copper itself, then it was overloaded far past its design limit. Normal usage does not cause breakdowns. There is one exception, in that the insulation used before the 1980s did have a temp limit of 60 degrees C, which could be exceeded readily when used inside an enclosed light fixture. Since then, the standard is 90 C and you will see a warning on any new enclosed fixtures to make sure your cabling is rated properly.
Copper breaking down? No way. It couldn't even get corroded except where the insulation is stripped away-- and I haven't seen that unless there was a water intrusion problem. If you have water getting on your wiring, your structure won't be around long enough for the copper to "break down".
Think about it: do you think everyone with wiring over 40 years old is about to have their house burn down? I've replaced wiring older than that and it wasn't broken down. I replaced it because it doesn't meet our current heat standard or was damaged by pests.
Fetal stem cells. FETAL.
F E T A L
That is spelled
F
E
T
A
L
The Yamato (largest ever battleship) was closer to 65,000.
Are you sure? The wave motion gun had to weigh at least 40,000 tons by itself.
Business is a good game -- lots of competition and minimum of rules. You keep score with money. -- Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari
