Slashdot Mirror

It's all quite useful but the real question is, is there that many deaths / accidents because of drowsiness?

The 1996 report from NHSTA says 56,000 in the US annually and more recent information indicates 110,000 incidents annually, though the injury and death rates remain the same between both claims. Both are also considered under-reported.

...We can drop nukes in tornadoes too for much less, not that I'm advocating that either.

Just last year, there were 32,850 vehicle fatalities in the good ol' USofA.

Driverless cars would've prevented 99% of the crashes. Let's concentrate on rolling those out first and soon.

Ah, to clarify, stopping people from driving while distracted could have prevented a LOT of those deaths.

Putting those responsible behind bars instead of back on the road again with a slap on the wrist should be exercised first while the rest of the lobbyists argue about autonomous rules and budgets to build infrastructure. Humans have been driving themselves around for over a century now, and yet we're at our deadliest ever every single year we continue to do so. Somehow an injection of personal responsibility should be in order rather than the autonomous solution akin to "nerf the world". When exactly did humans become so irresponsible with 2 tons of steel and why? We put a helmet on to ride a bicycle but won't take a cell phone away from a teenager when they get behind the wheel. Yeah, makes real fucking sense.

$160 million per mile, to prevent an average of 50-60 tornado deaths per year?

1) Build 1000 miles? Only $160 billion? Is that cost of labor alone? What about the cost of land?
2) Build just for cities? Which cities?
3) How does a city afford even 1 mile of wall?

We can drop nukes in tornadoes too for much less, not that I'm advocating that either.

Just last year, there were 32,850 vehicle fatalities in the good ol' USofA.

Driverless cars would've prevented 99% of the crashes. Let's concentrate on rolling those out first and soon.

It's not just about the money. Traffic stops are a major tool that police use in law enforcement. If they think someone is suspicious, they look for a traffic violation as an excuse to pull them over and investigate. Likewise, normal traffic stops give officers a chance to notice suspicious activity.

Someone should dig up the numbers for the percentage of arrests that begin with a traffic stop.

I'll Google that for me:

http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHT...

While there may not be solid data nationally, at least in this one area, traffic stops account for about a third of all arrests.

You say that, but you don't own a car company, do you? Supply and demand, my friend, and nobody is demanding cars that protect other people before protecting the people actually in said car.

I'd be interested in cars like these.

Then you're either A) full of it, or B) an outlier. Either way, it would be impossible to deny that most people buy cars with high crash/impact safety ratings for their own protection rather than the protection of those around them.

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not talking about picking MY car. I'm talking about voting for laws that dictate what choices you are allowed to have when you go to buy YOUR car. Those same laws would also apply to me, of course.

OK, then yes, there has been a misunderstanding.

In regards to this statement of yours, the USDOT does have safety regulations in regards to automobile manufacture, which include protocols for non-occupant safety measures; you can find the list of standards here, if you have the stomach for thousands of pages of legalese.

I'm not suggesting that people would choose a car that doesn't favor themselves given a free choice. I'm saying that it is in everybody's interest to deny themselves and everybody else the opportunity to make that choice.

So, you don't like that people have freedom? That's sad if you're an American. That it's in "everybody's interest" to deny individual freedom is your opinion, one I do not share, and one that makes me think you didn't pay a whole lot of attention during your high school Civics classes. See, the way I was taught about the American system of governance, individual liberty takes top priority, outside the obvious that one does not have the liberty to intentionally and directly deny liberty to others.

If you really have such a problem with other people having the freedom to choose to put their own livelihood above that of others, I recommend moving to some other country, one that does not have a constitution wholly based on the concept of individual freedom. England would be a good first choice, one would think.

If I were given the choice

Ironic that you would use such a statement right after claiming that you don't think people in a supposedly free nation should not, in fact, be given any choice in the matter.

If I were given the choice of buying a machete that I could use to prune my bushes, or a machete which additionally comes with legal immunity if I use it to kill somebody, then I'm obviously going to pick the latter even if just to protect me in case I kill somebody with it by accident. Society would never let anybody sell such a machete, and it shouldn't let people sell cars that will endanger lives unnecessarily.

You should have stopped one paragraph sooner - I can't count the logical fallacies in that last one. Reductio ad absurdum, non sequitur, false equivalence, strawman argument... the list goes on and on.

This mandate will force them to be installed in the vehicles that need them the LEAST. Your RV won't have one. A rig won't have one. Delivery trucks won't have one.

Irrelevant. Even so, most people who have RV's that don't already come with a camera are installing them.

As for truck, read this and get your "Thiy're takin away muf Feedom!" panties in a knot.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rule...

Anyways, I prefer to have as much indormation as possible in order to make an informed decision about important things like backing up in my vehicles so that I don't kill anyone, or damage anything. That backup camera provides that. Cheaply

May I be the first to offer my congratulations on your embracing the Low information lifestyle. Giving people more information so that they can make informed and intelligent decisions is the first step on the road to socialism! Igonrance is strength. and if you want to back over your children, then that's your right, and no government entity should keep you from it.

Now go rip out your rear view and side mirrors. Plus your turn signals Teh guvment mandated them , and they ar interfering with your freedumz as well as adding to the purchase price of your cars. It was in a simpler time, when people trusted teh Guvmint, so it's time to make a stand, bro'.

In the case of the TS, there was a report from NASA that says at page 15 that even at full power with depleted power vacuum brake assist, you can still get the car to stop by braking. And they showed it.

As for your argument of burnout, this is ussuassy done with the hand-brake, that only brake at the rear tires only.

You can get in problems with brakes if you let then run too hot, descending from a hill is a known example of this.

That's just FUD. The creation of the NHTSA made it possible, and that came long before Obamacare.

Well, the NHTSA just made it possible. The ACA made it *probable*. When the Supreme Court OK to forcing Americans to buy stuff from giant corporations, everything is on the table. You'll all quietly go along when a Republican administration forces you all to expensive guns, whether you need them or not, I'm sure.

Indeed, this is in the pre-rule stage. The NHTSA will soon publish a report and submit it for public comment. We won't know if they have the authority under existing law until they publish their proposed rule. They may have to go to Congress and request additional authority. It will be years before any regulations actually change.

Here is is an overview of how the regulatory process works in US federal agencies.

Here's an excerpt from the NHTSA announcement:

NHTSA is currently finalizing its analysis of the data gathered as part of its year-long pilot program and will publish a research report on V2V communication technology for public comment in the coming weeks. The report will include analysis of the Department's research findings in several key areas including technical feasibility, privacy and security, and preliminary estimates on costs and safety benefits. NHTSA will then begin working on a regulatory proposal that would require V2V devices in new vehicles in a future year, consistent with applicable legal requirements, Executive Orders, and guidance. DOT believes that the signal this announcement sends to the market will significantly enhance development of this technology and pave the way for market penetration of V2V safety applications.

The IRS will tax/fine you if your cars don't conform. The AHA has already made it possible.

That's just FUD. The creation of the NHTSA made it possible, and that came long before Obamacare.

That's why there have been standards in place for more efficient applicances and cars. People just don't bitch about those so much.

About 700 crashes per 100 million miles or ~1 crash every 142,000 miles. Google has already doubled that, but yes, so far it isn't enough for a good confidence level, yet.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/olddrive/pub/Chapter1.html

I don't disagree on the quality of reporting. But this NHSTA funded study is real and has been covered several times in the national press. The author of the article assumes the reader is already aware of said study. It's basically a redo of this 2007 study.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/Traffic%20Injury%20Control/Articles/Associated%20Files/811175.pdf

It's covered on Ron Paul's website. I wouldn't call this a "rumor". It's a reality and a poorly written article that makes assumptions about it's readership knowledge about current events. Just because you don't know about these research projects doesn't mean it's rumor. It's good research and helps policy makers understand the real danger of impaired driving. I don't like how it's being done or that cops are used but it's still valid research that's needed in the continuous drive to make our roadways safer.

http://www.pire.org/topiclist2.asp?cms=63

They don't stop everybody, they stop, say, every third car. And they use high-pressure sales techniques to try to get "biological samples". But they actually don't arrest people they find impaired; they try to arrange transportation for them. And they don't claim to actually collect or register DNA, just the presence of drugs. I don't think that makes it right, but let's at least be accurate about what they're doing.

More information and links to past examples of these "studies":

http://www.politechbot.com/2007/09/21/colorado-sheriff-creates/

While that's true, most cars are now required to have yaw control

Do you have a reference to this? I was totally unaware of any such requirement.

All passenger cars have been required to come with ESC since 2012 if you want to sell them in the USA.
New NHTSA Report Shows Federal ESC Requirement Saving Lives

The issue is that many people who run from the police when chased for a minor traffic violation are not running to avoid the the ticket. They are usually running because they are wanted on another, much more serious, charge. By not chasing we would let serious criminals get away. For example ,serial murderer Ted Bundy who killed over 22 women, and the Atlanta child killer, Wayne Williams, who killed 28, were apprehended because of traffic stops.

And no-one is suggesting they simply let them get away. What we are suggesting is that its safer to intercept than to pursue and with modern police technology, it's now more feasible. Most people who run from the police are apprehended within a few hours.

The issue is that many people who run from the police when chased for a minor traffic violation are not running to avoid the the ticket. They are usually running because they are wanted on another, much more serious, charge. By not chasing we would let serious criminals get away. For example ,serial murderer Ted Bundy who killed over 22 women, and the Atlanta child killer, Wayne Williams, who killed 28, were apprehended because of traffic stops.

As another poster pointed out, a publicized no chase policy will just encourage people to run. It does not take long for an accident to happen. For example, a famous computer programmer was struck killed by a fleeing motorist within 2km of the start of the chase.

-November 26: 139,917 Ford Escape vehicles from 2013, Recalled for potential oil leaks that may cause an engine fire.
-November 18: 707,176 Chrysler vehicles from 2003-2008, including RAM 2500 4X4 and RAM 1500 Mega Cab 4X4 models, Recalled for the left tie rod assembly, which may break, causing a loss of steering.
-November 18: 265,044 Chrysler RAM 2500 4X4 and 3500 4X4 vehicles from 2008-2012, Recalled for the left tie rod assembly, which may break, causing a loss of steering.
-November 4: 344,187 Honda Odysseys from 2007-2008, Recalled for software that may cause the sudden application of the brakes without the brake lights going on, increasing the risk of a crash.

Not all are due to fire, but all are potentially fatal, and much higher number of cars recalled.

"Consumer Advisory: NHTSA Warns Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Owners of Fire Hazards Involving Faulty Cruise Control Switches

Owners of Recalled Vehicles are Urged to Bring Vehicles to Dealers Immediately to Disconnect Faulty Switches

Failure to have the switch disconnected could lead to a vehicle fire at any time, whether or not the key is in the ignition, and whether or not owners use the cruise control system. The safety agency said the fire danger is present regardless of the age of the vehicle, and could even occur while the vehicle is parked and unattended. Several dwelling fires have been attributed to the problem.

The involved vehicles are:
[...]
18. 2000 – 2002 Ford Excursion (gasoline engine)
19. 2003 – F250 – F550 Super Duty, Ford Excursion"

[The Excursion is also notorious for roll-overs, and is especially high risk due to weak roof support crushing the passengers. There's a reason Ford refused to submit it for NHTSA testing.]

http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/HS810704/pages/ExecSummary.html

http://www.pire.org/topiclist2.asp?cms=63

They don't stop everybody, they stop, say, every third car. And they use high-pressure sales techniques to try to get "biological samples". But they actually don't arrest people they find impaired; they try to arrange transportation for them. I don't think that makes it right, but let's at least be accurate about what they're doing.

More information and links to past examples of these "studies":

http://www.politechbot.com/2007/09/21/colorado-sheriff-creates/

I thought the NHTSA data ultimately showed that the incidence of "run-away vehicles" was pretty much entirely mappable to the incidence of "old or confused person stomping on the wrong pedal", and that this incidence rate was in line with the average for all passenger cars?

Okay, this prompted me to poke around again on the NHTSA page for Additional Information on Toyota Recalls and Investigations. Of particular note on the NHTSA-NASA Study of Unintended Acceleration in Toyota Vehicles page and the executive summary of the report linked from there:

...NASA did not find an electronic cause of large throttle openings that can result in UA [unintended acceleration] incidents. NHTSA did not find a vehicle-based cause of those incidents in addition to those causes already addressed by Toyota recalls.

...NHTSA's vehicle characterization analysis and testing supported NASA's review. NHTSA found no previously unknown defects in the test vehicles and determined that their braking systems were capable of overcoming all levels of acceleration, including wide open throttle.

Those "other causes" appear to be primarily related to floor mats blocking free motion of the accelerator pedal. There was a recall related to this, to replace the driver's floor mat with a new mat cut differently to avoid the possibility of getting stuck under or behind the pedal. It sounds like Toyota were asshats about that, and they paid sizable fines for failing to tell the authorities about the problems. But a lot of the bad press about runaway cars turned out to be BS, such as these two incidents covered by CBS News.

This is mostly a divergence from icebike's point about PR, which I think is mostly valid. I simply wanted to address what sounded a bit like misinformation about runaway cars. I happen to own a Prius, so I followed up on the stories and investigations in an effort to better understand my own risk.

Cheers,

I thought the NHTSA data ultimately showed that the incidence of "run-away vehicles" was pretty much entirely mappable to the incidence of "old or confused person stomping on the wrong pedal", and that this incidence rate was in line with the average for all passenger cars?

Okay, this prompted me to poke around again on the NHTSA page for Additional Information on Toyota Recalls and Investigations. Of particular note on the NHTSA-NASA Study of Unintended Acceleration in Toyota Vehicles page and the executive summary of the report linked from there:

...NASA did not find an electronic cause of large throttle openings that can result in UA [unintended acceleration] incidents. NHTSA did not find a vehicle-based cause of those incidents in addition to those causes already addressed by Toyota recalls.

...NHTSA's vehicle characterization analysis and testing supported NASA's review. NHTSA found no previously unknown defects in the test vehicles and determined that their braking systems were capable of overcoming all levels of acceleration, including wide open throttle.

Those "other causes" appear to be primarily related to floor mats blocking free motion of the accelerator pedal. There was a recall related to this, to replace the driver's floor mat with a new mat cut differently to avoid the possibility of getting stuck under or behind the pedal. It sounds like Toyota were asshats about that, and they paid sizable fines for failing to tell the authorities about the problems. But a lot of the bad press about runaway cars turned out to be BS, such as these two incidents covered by CBS News.

This is mostly a divergence from icebike's point about PR, which I think is mostly valid. I simply wanted to address what sounded a bit like misinformation about runaway cars. I happen to own a Prius, so I followed up on the stories and investigations in an effort to better understand my own risk.

Cheers,

Sure, weight x distance is generally fairer than just direct gas usage. But if we're going to go there, why not do it properly? Damage to infrastructure is proportional to the 4th power of weight; thus, we should probably tax something like ([miles travelled]/1000miles)*([vehicle weight]/1500lbs)^4 for vehicle registration. That would take into account the proper damage. The average american drives 13476 miles and the average fleet curb weight (in 2004, latest i could quickly find) was 3239 lbs; this would give a result of $293 for registration. If you drove the same amount in a vehicle half that, you'd pay like $17, and if you drove a vehicle twice that weight you'd pay $4466. That would take into account proper damage incurred on infrastructure.

From the article: "Our research found that the fourth power is often inaccurate, " continuing: "More importantly, pavement serviceability is often not the most relevant measure used by highway agencies to trigger maintenance activities."

Google is your friend, it can show you every last killed and injured biker.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/Bicycles
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811743.pdf

OTOH there are 89 car related deaths each and every day in the US, those too do not make the front page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

From the links, bicycle fatalities accounts for about 2% of traffic fatalities each year. I highly doubt that as much as 2% of travelers are using bicycles.

Google is your friend, it can show you every last killed and injured biker.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/Bicycles
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811743.pdf

OTOH there are 89 car related deaths each and every day in the US, those too do not make the front page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

Sure, weight x distance is generally fairer than just direct gas usage. But if we're going to go there, why not do it properly?

Damage to infrastructure is proportional to the 4th power of weight; thus, we should probably tax something like

        ([miles travelled]/1000miles)*([vehicle weight]/1500lbs)^4

for vehicle registration. That would take into account the proper damage.

The average american drives 13476 miles and the average fleet curb weight (in 2004, latest i could quickly find) was 3239 lbs; this would give a result of $293 for registration. If you drove the same amount in a vehicle half that, you'd pay like $17, and if you drove a vehicle twice that weight you'd pay $4466.

That would take into account proper damage incurred on infrastructure.

________
13476/1000 = 13.476
3239/1500 = 2.1593
13.476*2.1593 = 29.552868
29.552868 * 29.552868 * 29.552868 * 29.552868 = 762778.66

That's a lot of tax!

Sure, weight x distance is generally fairer than just direct gas usage. But if we're going to go there, why not do it properly?

Damage to infrastructure is proportional to the 4th power of weight; thus, we should probably tax something like

([miles travelled]/1000miles)*([vehicle weight]/1500lbs)^4

for vehicle registration. That would take into account the proper damage.

The average american drives 13476 miles and the average fleet curb weight (in 2004, latest i could quickly find) was 3239 lbs; this would give a result of $293 for registration. If you drove the same amount in a vehicle half that, you'd pay like $17, and if you drove a vehicle twice that weight you'd pay $4466.

That would take into account proper damage incurred on infrastructure.

I would never take MADD as a reputable source of statistics.

Yea, just look at the difference between their stat and the official numbers from the NHTSA:

In 2010, more than 10,000 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes - one every 51 minutes.

Jackass.

More expensive cars means some people drive their cars longer before buying a new one.

A stellar example of two libertarian ploys. One is to use some generally true, yet unquantified fact - "airbags increase car costs" and then causally relate that to some effect, citing no evidence, just "pure reason" - it must be true.

The other ploy is simply to blink away the totality of the situation- we're talking about people dying. We already have a working example of a functioning market in Europe that includes airbags so the US can have airbags also.

This is the essence of libertarianism and free market ideologues-. Start with some self-selected ideas. . Assert about those ideas that they are facts and then treat them as axioms from which truths about the real world can simply be derived.

The total increase in cost in 2002 dollars (when the anlyssi was done) of ALL safety requirements NOT just airbags came to a whopping 4% of the cost fo a car.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/regrev/evaluate/809834.html

So you're just wrong. You cna't go from "air bags increase car csosts" to "fewer people buy new cars " like that because you want to. Self-confirming wishful thinking is the hallmark of libertarians and free market coke snorters. It's the opposite of science, the scientific method (which you mock later in your post) . It's a throwback to the Scholastics of the freaking dark ages

Wikipedia:

"Not so much a philosophy or a theology as a method of learning, scholasticism places a strong emphasis on dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference, and to resolve contradictions. "

This is the opposite of sciNot so much a philosophy or a theology as a method of learning, scholasticism places a strong emphasis on dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference, and to resolve contradictions. "

The First-- that wearing a helmet actually helps prevent injury: http://www.abate-wa.org/Legislative/DocumentsAndForms/2012/Effect_Motorcycle_Helmet_Use.pdf

That paper does not appear to be peer reviewed. Also there have been some criticisms levied towards that paper from NHTSA stating that:

According to Hurt, whose data Goldstein uses, Goldstein got his physics wrong (the equation for relative impact velocity used an incorrect definition of impact angle) and, moreover, drew conclusions contrary to the effects found in simply tabulating the data. In the data, helmeted riders had much lower chances of serious head or neck injury.

There is also a major flaw in the statistical model. The model contains a cross-product (HI) of helmet use (H) and impact velocity (I), which takes a value of 0 for unhelmeted riders but a rising value with impact for helmeted riders. The model does not include impact velocity (I) as a separate variable. The cross-product variable is the key to Goldstein’s results. Unfortunately, it is 0 for those who are injured seriously because they are unhelmeted, but increases for helmeted riders who are injured because the impact is higher. To make matters worse, when HI was missing Goldstein set it to the mean value, then used the observations in the regression. That procedure cannot possibly yield a more accurate model than omitting the missing cases. In other words, HI yields a confused, uninterpretable coefficient.

A third major problem with the model is that it trades off percentage changes in neck and head injuries, without noting that neck injuries occurred only one-tenth as often as head injuries. Related to this, Hurt says these data contained almost no serious neck injuries, throwing the whole model into question. A fourth major problem with the paper was that it threw out 28 percent of the observations, including 43 percent of the fatalities, because regression variables were missing, so the remaining cases did not represent the injury distribution accurately. Another fatal flaw was that the regression showed helmet weight did not affect injury probability. Goldstein somehow concluded that helmet mass did, ignoring the fact that experimental and simulation data show the two are linearly proportional in typical motorcycle crashes.

It appears that Goldstein incorrectly assumed that all injuries except AIS 6 were nonfatal. Some people die from complications of AIS 1 injuries, and injuries of AIS 3 and up have fairly high risks of death. If the analysis did not recode all deaths to fatal, it may have incorrectly treated dead people as survivors since their injuries were not AIS 6.

If you're impaired, you're impaired. It doesn't matter the cause, nor some arbitrary tests. There are people that can drive fine at over 0.10, and there are people who are entirely dysfunctional at 0.01. There are also people that are wholly impaired at 0.00, generally these would be sleep deprived folks, some even on loads of caffeine or other uppers (witness all those single truck accidents - driver "fell asleep". Note that truckers can only drive 11 hours at a stretch according to federal law .

So is 0.05 ridiculous? Yes, for some it's too high. For the large majority of the population, it's ridiculously low. It's also gender biased. Women are more deeply affected by alcohol so should men be held to the same standard?

What's the real answer to this problem? Making a license a privilege, and losing one meaningful and a much more realistic option.

You do know that this "nonsense" you refer to, a.k.a. a field sobriety test, if done properly, is a quite accurate test? It may well be that there are lapses in training and re-training the officers who administer this, but the science behind the test itself is sound.

According to a federal report, you are paying $839 and adding 125 pounds for a much safer car than you had 25 years ago, so yes. People are willing to pay more for safety.

I don't think ULA prices being 10X have anything to do with more safety, I think its mostly more overhead and lack of competition.

Just to be pedantic - in most situations, ABS will NOT decrease your stopping distance, in fact, by definition not locking your tires reduces friction and actually increases stopping distances.

The NHTSA thinks you are wrong except on very soft surfaces like loose gravel or fresh snow. On dry pavement under real world conditions ABS will often stop the car faster than even a skilled driver without ABS could manage.

We'll use European cars that already get that sort of milage! Not sure if Americans know, but cars in the US are stupidly large for no good reason. Might help the fuel bills to get a smaller, more practical car. Oh yeah, some people in the US are stupidly large, for no good reason either. Might help food bills...

Tell you what, you can put those "more practical" Europoean cars at the dealerships right next to the "stupidly large" cars that are there now. We'll even mandate that each car will have affixed a sticker that details the predicted impact to one's fuel bills. Heck, we can even subsidize that small car and penalize the ones that don't meet efficiency targets.

Then we'll let the car buyer decide whether the double-extra cost of the larger vehicle, both from increased base cost and penalties, is worth it and my bet is still on the larger car because that's where the consumer preference lies. That's the bottom line -- that you are at variance with what people actually want to buy and the "fight" to sell more smaller vehicles is a fight against those desires.

[ Note, FWIW, when I had a car, I drove a small sedan because that's where my preference lay. I would pay no heed to belittling condescension that called my choice stupid irrespective of whether I drove that or a SUV. ]

[ Note2, There are a lot of neat smaller cars (Ford Fusion, VW Golf) that American consumers will buy. I assure you, however, none of them were sold on those cars by someone calling larger cars "stupid" or by insulting consumers. Instead, they actually made a positive contribution by designing a small car that consumers like. ]

You are not alone in that view...

Link to referenced study report:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NRD/Multimedia/PDFs/Crash%20Avoidance/2008/811060.pdf

Page 41:
In 1999, the Commonwealth of Virginia tasked the Virginia Department of State Police to study the need for State standards for recapped vehicle tires. The occurrence of tire debris along Virginia’s highways gave rise to the perception that retread truck tires were to blame. The study would determine whether there was any substance to the perception.

Page 43:
The primary conclusion from the Virginia study “revealed that the quality of materials and methods of producing retreaded tires are not major factors in the problem of tire debris along the highways” (Commonwealth of Virginia, 2000). The primary study objective was not proved through the evidence collected and analyzed. Of the tire debris items analyzed, only one case was directly linked to manufacturing error in the retread process.

Another interesting bit of information can be found on page 48, that a survey of unservicable tires that 31% were original with the remainder being retreads (mostly one or two retreads).

The perverse bit is the more times a tire can be retreaded the more likely the road debris is going to be from a retread tire however the overall amount of road debris should drop.

Oh dear.
Here we go again, "everyone will get 54 mpg"
No, the automakers are behind this because it allows for MORE shenanigans, and they can say "look we're struggling cause we're having to be green"
Remember, this is NOT based on MPG.
It's carbon output. WITH "incentives"
EPA is establishing standards that are projected to require, on an average industry fleet
wide basis, 163 grams/mile of carbon dioxide (CO2) in model year 2025, which is equivalent to
54.5 mpg if this level were achieved solely through improvements in fuel efficiency.11
(This is from http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/cafe/2017-25_CAFE_Final_Rule.pdf )
So have a "good" AC that doesn't leak? That's 24.4 grams/mile credit. No mileage improvement at all. Just a non leaking AC. ;)
Have LED lights? that's a savings.
(NO IT IS NOT)
Have some other vehicle that is electric? That's a savings for your trucks. So some good exhaust cleaning, good AC, good LED lights, and your 22mpg SUV has the emissions of something equivalent to 50mpg.
My motorcycle that DOES get 40mpg, but has no exhaust cleaning systems, no AC improvements, no LED lights, etc, is without the bonuses WORSE for the environment.

To be a stickler, the reason you don't drive on the road within 15 minutes of rain is ALSO due to the "natural" oils in the road coming up. And on new roads, it's vastly due to the oils that live inside the asphalt.

http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr/rmv/handbook/DH-Chapter5.pdf

http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/buses/UpdatedWeb/topic_8/page5.html

The EV-1 didn't meet federal safety standards at the time they were released.

False. The EV1 was tested and approved by the NHTSA.

Even if GM could do that, they had a hard time getting all of their suppliers to even get the parts needed for the production run, let alone 10 years worth of spares.

Which is why you stock them up as needed before any supply lines get shut down, as is standard practice. Unless you actually don't give a flying flip about the vehicle and are just building it to fill a CARB requirement which you're actively suing to overturn. Hmm...

On the subject of parts, you may remember, GM actually sold off the rights to its batteries. Does that sound like a company that *wanted* to be making EV1s?

Not true; I bought my car 2.5 years ago, and some of the included literature clearly spelled out that the bumper was designed to protect against impacts with a fixed barrier up to 2.5 mph. (This is roughly equivalent to a 5 mph impact with a similarly-sized car, though.)

Also, the that the "no damage" part only applied for model years 1980-82, and it wasn't really no damage - the bumper was allowed a 3/8-inch dent and a 3/4 inch displacement from the impact. Since 1979, there has been a requirement of no damage to other safety systems or the rest of the car body, though.

You assume that the sticker price of the car has something to do with it's value when stolen. I'd content that the ability to sell the stolen car or parts are what determines how much it's stolen. The top 3 cars are also very very popular cars, meaning there's a lot of demand for parts, and for the car itself.

Only expensive cars are stolen for parts.
Other cars are simply stolen, had the plates switch with some other plates and sold fir dirt cheap to people who don't worry about license and registration.

The top cars in 2001 (last figures I can find on the net) sorted by Thefts per 1000 Vehicles Produced, is an odd list of cheap and mid range cars. Nothing really expensive shows up till well down the list.

Like breaking into Operating systems, people go with what is EASY, not what will get them the most money. The high price thefts are the work of professionals, and a lot of those cars leave the country intact, without even being stripped for parts.

because the Honda Civic is the most stolen car [msn.com] (and the Accord is #2, down one spot from the last time I looked.)

Your story was from 1995.
If we are going to quote yesterdays obsolete news, can we at least keep it from the same century?

By 2001, the Civic and the Accord had worked their way from the top of the list to about 140th position

Since then Honda has been working very hard to eliminate this, with coded keys and top notch electronics.

* No cup holders to encourage drinking while driving. Drinking/eating anything is also a distraction.

Eating and drinker are both distracting behaviors, although not as much as talking on a cell phone.

* No radios or other music devices. Distractions are distractions.

The kind of audio distraction caused by radios does little to affect driving attention.

* Maybe even a ban on talking while in a vehicle. How different, when you get down to it, is talking on a phone and talking to a person next to you. One sideways glance to see their reaction at the wrong moment, blammo, road carnage.

Passengers tend to share the driver's situational awareness, so they are significantly safer to hold a conversation with than someone on the far end of a cell phone. A sideways glance is no problem - the driver's gaze is often off the road to check, for example, speed.

See this paper for a good overview of distracted driving behavior:

http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NRD/Multimedia/PDFs/Crash%20Avoidance/2008/810787.pdf

Depends on what you mean by "significantly impaired". Impairment is statistically significant at .02-.03 BAC. If you look at accident statistics, you see the same thing. Just .02 is sufficient to raise your chances of getting in an accident.

I'm not for draconian DUI regulation though. What's the point of being alive if you can't have a little reckless fun once in a while? A much more enlightened way to handle the situation would be to encourage the construction and use of public transportation in the US.

When it comes to alcohol, NHTSA is a joke as authorities go. Their definition of "alcohol related" includes ANYONE (active or passive) involved in the accident in any way. For example:

65 year old lifetime teetotaler has a stroke and crashes into a restaurant. The driver and several tables worth of people die as a result. If just one of those people had even a sip of beer, all of the deaths are recorded as alcohol related according to NHTSA!

I know that's unbelievably stupid, and really hard to believe, so I'll give you a direct reference see 'The Definition of Alcohol Involvement'

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the U.S. defines a fatal crash as alcohol-related if either a driver or a non-motorist had a measurable or estimated BAC of 0.01 g/dl or above.

Extra weasel points for allowing 'estimated' BAC as well. Note that for non-fatal accidents, mere suspicion is sufficient to call it alcohol related.

I'll believe their stats when they make at least a modest effort to make their stats meaningful.

At least in the US, where our BAC limits are 25% of what actually impairs driving.

Lies. There's plenty of research to support that any alcohol in a person's system has a deletrious effect on driving ability. citation Mine is from the National Highway Traffic Administration. Yours... is from some attorney trying to make his clients feel better about having just been busted weaving through traffic after having crashed into two other cars, run over his girlfriend, and was still sucking down beers and singing "yankee doodle".

Mind you, I think that 'intoxication' needs to be matched against other driving behaviors that are legal and cause similar impairment in ability. Using a cell phone, having taken cold or pain medication, while having a migraine, or being physically exhausted. If you take that into consideration... 0.08 seems like a reasonable limit to be set, if we have to use a single absolute number as absolute proof.

All that said, it's not drunk driving that is really at issue, but irresponsible and/or inattentive driving. I'd argue that a guy who's just had two shots and climbed behind the wheel is going to outperform someone who has a serious sinus infection and has loaded up on the maximum recommended dosages of cold medication. Let's be honest: We've all driven when we shouldn't have, but we did it anyway because we could get away with it. We can't take the moral high ground and say we should punish just the drunks. That argument is hypocritical.

But the argument can be made that (from a statistical standpoint) people who are caught violating motor vehicle laws and are legally drunk (as it is presently defined) are responsible for the lion's share of vehicle accidents resulting in death or serious injury. It would be very pragmatic to simply remove those people from public roadways, and leave the arguments over why that particular subset of people are over-represented for another day.

"Fact: Speed, 35 in a 25, 50 in a 40, is not necessarily the major factor in accidents."

Citation, please? The sources I find claim that there are substantial differences in safety for pedestrians hit at 20, 25, 30, and 35mph, never mind the ability of the pedestrian and driver to avoid the crash in the first place when lower speed allows more time to avoid the collision. Yeah, I know, you said "not necessarily", weasel words to make your claim actually content-free and uncontradictable.

http://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b4469.full
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8406569.stm
http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/hs809012.html

Interesting that you should bring up New Hampshire. They offer the option to trade your own convenience for your own (alleged) risk; they are not offering you the option to trade on someone else's risk. They're not encouraging antisocial behavior.

just as it's legal nationwide to turn right at a red light after first stopping, unless a right turn on red is clearly posted as prohibited at that intersection.

Wrong (unless the law has been changed in the last 10 years or so). There are a very small number of states, New Jersey I believe being one of them, where it is NOT legal to turn right at a red light after stopping.

Wrong. From the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's index page: "Since January 1, 1980, all 50 states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have had laws permitting right-turn-on-red unless a sign prohibits the turn. As of January 1, 1994, 43 jurisdictions provided for left-turn-on-red (LTOR) and nine did not. LTOR is permitted only at the intersection of a one-way street with another one-way street."

To quote Stephen Colbert, "I accept your apology."

The issue is assholes entering the intersection to turn left when it isn't clear, people refusing to stop when the light does turn yellow, etc.

Former civil engineer here. The italicized "asshole behavior" is legal many places in the US and is an intended result of traffic engineering. In congested intersections without a left hand turn signal, your preference would result in no traffic clearing the left hand turn lane during a traffic control cycle.

In common practice and design, a driver may enter the intersection on green when the intersection is not clear, and complete the left turn on yellow (or red) so that at least one car clears the left-turning lane each traffic control cycle. In practice, where you're typically turning between 3+ lane arterial roads, two cars can turn per cycle (roughly one car per lane the cars are crossing). That doesn't solve the problem of cars charging the yellow the make the left, or entering the intersection on red to make the left, but it does tend to prevent cars from stacking past the center apron and into the travel lanes.

I'd actually want to see a very clear causal link between longer yellows and safety increases, because my gut tells me longer yellows would make people ignore them even more.

You aparently don't, because such links have have already been shown and reported by the NHTSA. Page 9 and cited reference 6, for example. The fact that someone has not shoved the studies down your throat does not excuse your reliance on your gut.

But when I point out that the same happens with pedestrians and crosswalks, you claim that's not the same. I honestly don't see a massive difference between sidewalks and crosswalks to the idea of bike lanes.

You don't see how stopping traffic to let people through isn't a huge difference?

Why are you, as a car driver, so opposed to bikes on the road?

Because I don't want to hit one.

They don't reduce your safety.

Yes, they do.

...implying that there exists causeless actions gives in to helplessness that promotes unsafe behaviors...

Nobody said 'causeless'. I can't believe the ignorance you're displaying here! Are you over-zealously defending your point or are you really so inexperienced at life that you don't understand this topic? I really hope it's the former.

...if accidents are unavoidable, why try?

Because the number of accidents is an integer and not a boolean.

And yes, that defeatist attitude is real, and does reduce safety, that's why the NHTSA removed the word "accident" from the Fatal Accident Reporting System. http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/airbags/Archive-04/PresBelt/crash_accident.html (not a press release on FARS renaming, but an official article declaring "Crashes Aren't Accidents."

Oh that's classic, man. Hahaha. Do you see the world 'preventable' all over the article you sent me? Think about it.