I had the same initial reaction as Tom Casady to the report that Lincoln is the 10th most dangerous city for drivers. What a load of hooey! Chief Casady calls it junk research, and he's right. Its only purpose is to generate headlines. Casady notes that one of the things the "study" actually measures is truthfulness. Since the data are entirely self-reported, the overall truthfulness of a community's population will factor heavily into the results.
We shouldn't automatically assume, however, that Lincoln is any more truthful than any other city. I have an alternate explanation for the results, one which I'm a little surprised Casady missed. After all, he has blogged about it several times. Simply put, LPD responds to non-injury crashes more often than police in most other cities. People will assume that if the police were there, a report was written; if a report was written, the accident "counts"; if the accident "counts", then insurance companies can find out about it; if insurance companies can find out about it, then people will report the accident when asked about it. In other words, I suspect truthfulness is involved, but Lincolnites are only more truthful because we are more likely to think we could be caught in a lie.
For what it's worth, I don't think Lincoln's drivers are particularly bad, on average, despite their reputation to the contrary. We have our oddballs, sure, but that's true of every community. And I don't think our oddballs are all that odd. One complaint I hear often is that a driver was driving under the speed limit. What a maniac! I suspect that "bad" behavior can be explained, in part, by the fact that many of our arterials are still two lanes, whereas in many cities they would have been expanded to four lanes long ago. You are less likely to notice a slow vehicle if you can easily get around it.
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It’s all the people from outside of Lincoln that come here and cause the accidents (isn’t that the thinking around each state tournament anyway?).
Just think, our shiny arena will attract all kinds of newbies heading the wrong way down one-way streets. I can’t believe the anti-arena people didn’t make that one of the planks in their platform.
*(Nothing else to discuss since election is over and the newness has gone from Five Guys)*
I have 2 major complaints about Lincoln drivers.
1. Failure to use turn signals. As a predistrian/biker, it’s nice to know what people in cars are intending to do. Most, it seems, only signal when there is a car behind them, and then only sometimes.
2. Running red lights. I cross 14th and O twice a day if riding the bus. The odds of a car on O running a red at 14th is about 70%. Too many drivers rely on the 3-5 second delay before the perpendicular light changes and pedestrians be damned. If the city put in a single red-light camera there, it would pay for itself in a week.
1. Amen
2. Amen
I live on A street, near 27th. I’ve been there for 4 years. In that time, I have probably heard and/or seen 50-75 accidents. The vast majority never require the police to be involved.
Coming from the L.A. area, with many, many bad drivers, I feel confident in my authority to say that Lincoln has very, very bad drivers. If you don’t believe me, come sit out on my front porch and watch how people drive down A street with me some time.
I would agree with both of those. We have to cross/use Highway 2 multiple times a day. Not only are there a lot of red-light runners, but many are semi tractor/trailers. My wife’s car was totalled by someone running a red light on Highway 2. I can’t believe there are not more fatalities along that whole corridor.
are bad. I am very young, but have lived in every region of this country and besides Texas(I don’t think they even have driving laws) Lincoln, NE has been the worst. Mostly it seems as though many drivers are completely oblivious to everyone around them. I feel that a lot of that is due to the fact that many people who live here are from rural/western NE. Driving in the city is a LOT different. Also, you mentioned that LPD responds to non-injury crashes more, which I would have to disagree. Ironically I have been in three non-injury accidents where the police weren’t even notified because no one involved wanted to wait around for an hour. I have followed two cars that resulted in horrifying accidents, one in a fatality that was down town at a very slow traffic time. I called the police both times because of erratic drivers and particularly the fatal accident I called at least 10mins before it occurred and they didn’t show up until 5mins after.
I consider myself very lucky only to have had one traffic accident here in Lincoln in the past 6 years.
One thing to keep in mind about non-injury accidents and police response: There are only so many active duty police at one time assigned to so many areas. If something high-priority happens, i.e. a suicide threat, a robbery, a domestic violence call, then that’s going to wrap up an officer(s) for a good hour or two, decreasing the amount of availability for police to respond to non-injury accidents.
Accidents with injuries are a different matter completely.
But anyway my point is that there are only so many resources available to respond to all the law enforcement needs that exist.
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