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Student Killed Driving Solar Car
Lev13than writes "Tragedy struck the University of Toronto's Blue Sky Solar Racing Team on Thursday when 21-year old student Andrew Frow was killed in a car accident. It appears that Frow lost control of the low-riding experimental car and was struck by a minivan head-on. The team was driving from Stratford to Waterloo (about an hour west of Toronto) as part of a tour of universities in Ontario and Quebec to mark the one-year anniversary of the 2003 Blackout. This is a big setback for solar power advocates, especially as the blackout anniversary will pass with remedial legislation stranded in Congress. More information on the accident is available here." The vehicle's design is not really street-safe - this will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers.
Some people seem more concerned about the car.
The most detailed story I've read about this was in The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, which unfortunately is subscription-only. From a Google News search, I don't see the article duplicated anywhere, so I am copying and pasting the article here. (There were also two photos, which unfortunately can't be linked to. Perhaps someone else with a subscription can set up a mirror.) Andrew Frow, RIP. :-(
U of T student dies in solar car; Vehicle out of control near Waterloo Regulations being followed, police say
A University of Toronto student is dead after the solar car he was driving veered out of control on a highway just west of Waterloo Region yesterday afternoon.
Andrew Frow, 21, of Toronto was driving the university's team car east along Highway 7 and 8, from Stratford to Waterloo, as part of a Canadian solar car tour. The small low-riding car suddenly went out of control at about 4 30 p.m., veering across the centre line of the two-lane highway, said Constable Glen Childerley of Perth County Ontario Provincial Police.
The car then swerved back into its lane, hitting the right shoulder. It then plowed across the highway into the path of a minivan in the westbound lane.
"It zoomed right across the road and was T-boned by the van," said Childerley, adding the driver was alone in the solar car.
The impact destroyed the car. Its solar-panelled roof was flung off and its shell ended up in the ditch on the north side of the highway.
The driver's teammates rushed to his aid. The students were in two minivans, one driving in front of the solar car, one behind, when the crash occurred.
Two of his teammates frantically performed CPR on the young man as he lay in the wreckage, said truck driver David Hackett, who pulled up at the scene moments after the accident.
Hackett, a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Maryhill, offered to take over from the visibly upset woman doing mouth-to- mouth.
"I'm just sorry we couldn't do more," said Hackett, who was delivering groceries to Stratford when he came across the crash.
"I am grateful for the training that I had and that I could respond."
Paramedics, Stratford firefighters and OPP soon arrived on the scene and took the driver by ambulance to another ambulance with a doctor and waiting medical team.
The crew took the young man to a Kitchener hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
After he was rushed away, police began inspecting the mangled wreckage in the ditch to determine why the crash occurred. That section of the highway was closed for hours as they worked.
Hunks of metal, some bearing the University of Toronto logo, were strewn across the grassy ditch.
As police worked, students on the U of T team huddled across the street, many hugging each other.
They did not want to talk to the news media last night.
Rudy Schoenhoeffer, who was driving the minivan that hit the solar car, was also there.
"I'm just saying a prayer for him," the Stratford man said quietly as he stood by his van, its front end dented.
He was on his way home from work in Cambridge when the crash occurred.
Jessica Whiteside, U of T's acting associate director of news services, said it was too early last night for anyone at the university to comment.
Childerley said solar cars have to get a special permit from the Ministry of Transportation to drive on roads and highways, and must travel with a regular vehicle in front and behind. Those vehicles must have flashing yellow lights on their roofs.
The U of T car was following these regulations.
Kitchener-Waterloo Record
[Photo] The U of T solar car drives along Western Rd. toward the University of Western Ontario in London yesterday. Later, near Waterloo, another driver lost control.
[Photo] OPP investigate the scene of the fatal solar car accident on Highway 7 and 8 near the town of Shakespeare, Ont., yesterday.
This doesn't seem to be a setback so much for "solar power advocates" as there really wasn't anything wrong with the power itself, but seems the design of the car was bad...
Maybe make more sturdy solar cars?
Maybe bulky, horribly inefficient vehicles like Hummers shouldn't be allowed on the road..
this only goes to prove that soccer mom's are indeed evil.....
_+_+__+_+_+_+_+_+_+++
when i moo u moo - just like that
if it were a hummer he was driving he would have survived.
Evolution or ID?
Seriously...
They clog up the carpool lane (as well as any other you might want to pass in) and now they're striking out against advances in technology that would surely spell their demise...
Michalangelo Progr
It wouldn't matter if it hit the road with Yugos, it would still get crushed. An unsafe, feather-weight car will lose to anything -- not just a hummer. Nice attempt to jab at large vehicles.
Solar powered cars are not designed for the streets and really should not be on them. They are designed for competition.
Any head on collision has serious risks for fatalities. It's sad that all the hard work of a student who likely had a bright and shining future had to have his life ended so young but I didn't see the need for the comment about Hummers sharing the roads...
I have seen plenty of accidents with 15 passenger vans, two ton service vans, semis (which seem more common than Hummers), etc, that have just as bad (if not worse) impacts with other vehicles.
After all, many of the most popular ones are banned from many roads in California and other states. Since its a MSN article, I''ll elaborate - they are popular because they are big enough to get the large truck for commercial use tax discount... which also happens to be the weight limit for restrictions on most residential streets in Californial (and other places).
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
"the vehicle lost control"
What was the steering mechanism in that experimental car? Drive by wire? What failed? The story would more accurately have specified a collision of an "experimental steering" car, than a solar car, unless the steering was conventional.
--
make install -not war
man, it must have been pretty low-riding for that minivan (higher than most everything else, save monster trucks and aircraft - thus able to see everything on the continent but whatever is in their blind spot) to not see the guy. perhaps underground?
more efficient lighter cars already DO share the road with Hummers. I call them, NOT SUV's =D but really, the solar cars aren't designed with crashes in mind, since they are usually not in traffic. plus they have to stay light to be able to move at all :)
It seems to be the American way to be wasteful these days.
They are there, next to your mother's ones
I am good friends with some of the designers of that car. Hell... I even helped carry the solar panels into the conference building in Scarbrough in January where I met them. It is truly tragic, and my heart goes out to them. That is the problem with this kind of tragedy... this car was designed for racing and not highway travel competing for road space with Cadillacs.
Rest in peace Andrew, and keep them strong Raja.
while(1) { fork(); };
that a highway patrol car or some other law enforcement type vehicle would have accompanied the convoy. It's terrible to hear about the student's death.
"Fortunately, I'm adhering to a very strict drug regimen to keep my mind limber..."
When it's Bus vs. Bicycle, the bus ALWAYS wins.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Should have taken the Jubilee line
The problem has nothing to do with the power source, but all to do with the structural design developed to increase vehicle range. If solar vehicles cannot be made to pass the same crash tests as all other vehicles then perhaps we can convert the carpool lanes into solar lanes. Obviously this will have to wait until oil hits 100 a barrel and people start buying solar powered cars.
He may not have been returning from orbit, or travelled at supersonic speed. But his shadow will always be a mile long.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
this will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers.
Sure, lets blame the big, bad, SUV because your car is unsafe. I realize that the Hummer is the mortal enemy of solar car advoates everywhere but how is this possibly relevant? If you follow that logic we should ban Semi-trucks from the road as well. We've got to make it safe for experimental solar car vehicles, right?
Gimme a break. This is a tragedy, and you're trying to spin in into an anti-SUV infomercial.
Why can't solar-powered cars be built using modern safety technology? What do seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones, etc have to do with the type of fuel the car uses?
I suppose that in many head-on collisions, the mass of the engine itself does a great deal to protect the driver. But surely solar-powered cars can be more massive?
Just reposting a comment that got my goat on UW's general discussion board requarding this.
...
> > Solar cars from five university teams will be on display later today
> > at the Student Life Centre. The appearanace is part of the _Canadian
> > Solar Tour,_ an event sponsored by the Government of Ontario, and VIA
> > RAIL Canada. The cars are travelling from Windsor to Quebec, and will
> Apparently one of the cars didn't make it here. That must put a damper on
> the whole event.
And perhaps put a few people back in touch with reality?
Every time I see these solar car things, I'm reminded of the saying
"Little boys play with little toys, and big boys play with big toys.".
Supposedly the purpose of all these events is to promote solar
energy as a viable alternative to conventional energy sources.
That's certainly an admirable goal, but the whole point seems
to have been lost to the participants long ago.
As an exercise for engineering students, designing and building
such a vehicle can be a valuable experience, but solar energy
is only a small part of the project, and it seems silly to me
to think that these events, in any way but the most superficial,
actually promote the practical use of solar energy.
If that were the real goal, the projects would spend nearly all
their time working on the energy part of the task. But instead
nearly all the time is spent on making the projects look like
solar energy is practical. i.e. they have to completely design
and build the entire vehicle from the ground up, totally ignoring
a hundred years of engineering that have already gone into modern
passenger vehicles. Almost all the effort goes not into the
solar aspect of the vehicle, but into designing something that will
go faster and farther than other similarly designed vehicles.
i.e. extreme streamlining, removing as much weight as possible,
providing as little passenger and cargo space as possible, etc.
It becomes a contest to see who can design the most energy-efficient
vehicle, with solar power itself becoming the constant factor rather
than the variable that they really should be trying to improve.
If solar energy were the real goal, they would start with a
standard passenger vehicle (a mini, or a truck, or anything between)
and put 90% of the work into making that work with solar energy
as the primary power supply. That would be a true demonstration
of its practicality, and would put the experimentation back into
solar energy research rather than into aerodynamics, etc.
But instead, they spend most of the time reinventing the wheel,
and in the process throwing out such things as passenger and
cargo capacity, not to mention the safety and road-worthiness
with which modern commercial vehicles are packed, and with which
these toys are obviously not. I wonder why they are even allowed
to drive on public roads (except as a parade float).
In terms of energy efficiency, these vehicles are accompanied by
several support vehicles, all conventionally fueled. The result
is an expensive, slow, and unsafe vehicle that transports one person
with no luggage, and burns ten times as much gasoline as would a
small inexpensive car.
In terms of promoting the practical use of solar energy,
this project has just proven what a joke it always was.
It's just unfortunate that it had to happen in the way it did,
and we can only hope that it hasn't hurt its alleged goal too much.
Somebody is killed in a collision with a soccer-mom-friendly mini-van, and the knee-jerk reaction is to badmouth SUVs.
I never did trust the sun anyways, being the cave dwelling gnome I am.
I'm wondering why the solar cars are always made lightweight.
A heavier car, once in motion, takes no more power to keep in motion then a light weight car, right?
The energy used to get a heavier car into motion, can be recaptured in the stopping of it.
I suppose there is energy lost in the transfer of starting/stopping, but is that enough of a loss to make the cars unworkable?
And for those of you who point out that information wants to be free, I'd say that the information itself is free. After all, there are innumerable places where you can get the facts of the case. If you want someone else to analyze the facts and call others to present testimony, that's available too, as copied above.
For a fee. Which is perfectly alright - these "value added" services cost money.
What? Not worth it? But you claim that it is "The most detailed story I've read about this." Sounds like the Record managed to add value to me...
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
This may be off-topic, but I think someone has to ask whether it's more in the public's interest to armour the fuel-efficient cars so they can withstand a Hummer, or make the Hummers more safe to get hit by.
Guess they ddn't win. Maybe the glare off of the sun-craft blinded the mini-van driver?
Mini-Van 1, flimsy Icarus Conveyence 0.
do we get rid of HUMMER's or Solar Powered cars?
Ban solar powered HUMMERS.
will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers.???
Dont know about america, but in the rest of the world we have 44 ton trucks, 3 ton vans, 2 ton cars, and 200lb bikes sharing the road, and we seem to cope pretty well.
I agree. The big vehicles have their uses, like towing big loads through rough terrain. But for just going to pick up groceries, come on... Maybe SUVs should have their own class of vehicle, with a different type of licence. Then they could be only permitted in certain areas, where they are actually the right tool for the job.
Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this" in a post is the best way to get it modded up.
....no one has ever died in a gas-powered card. It might stop the production of them all together!!
-Valiss
was there some good lookin hunnie walking by that distracted him. if so, then the real fault was in the low cut tank tops of today.
Evolution or ID?
Anyone else wondering why the solar vehicle was on a public road with oncoming traffic at high enough speed to not be able to react to an out-of-control solar vehicle?
I'm just guessing that the solar vehicle wouldn't be licensed/registered for on-road use without some form of police escort or other safety measures. From the articles, it doesn't seem this is the case.
It doesn't really matter what kind of vehicle hit the solar vehicle. It could have been a Miata and the poor student would likely still be dead.
Really Bored?? http://ivany.org
I don't see solar powered cars becoming the norm since night time would basically put them out of commission, but I could see some type of hybrid. It would be nice to see a solar/electric/gas powered hybrid at some point. In other news, the University of Michigan has a superb solar car team that competes in international competitions every year. They have won the national championship three years and finished 3rd in the world twice. Hopefully the trajedy that happened at UToronto doesn't happen again.
So... do we get rid of HUMMER's or Solar Powered cars? Wouldn't common sense dictate that the bigger car is the threat and should be disallowed?
If your choice is HUMMER's then you should also ban vans, pickup trucks, single-decker and double decker buses, lorries, trucks, not forgetting Hackney taxi's, and anything else that's bigger than a HUMMER.
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Its not fair to slam Hummers like that. Those cars are so light that my Hyunda would have prb done the same thing. ;-(
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Maybe the real answer is to get these SUVs and minivans off the road, and establish weight and bumper-height limits for cars.
Best Buy can have you arrested
If everyone drove light cars then accidents would be much less destructive. The majority of people seem to be ignorant of simple physics. Momentum is what kills not Speed. People flock to big cars for a percieved saftey. Sure they have the advantage when the hit a small light car. However, when they hit with another vehicle of equal size then their size advantage is negated. Not to mention that a bigger car will be at a disadvantage at deffensive manuvers when compared to a small car. I would guess that you are more likely to hit a big car on the American roads than a small car.
My solution for big SUVS and HUMMERS: make those fuckers get a truck driver license. Make them have to take special classes, learn how to drive big rigs. See how many soccer mommies go back to small cars then.
This is a pretty tragic accident - and the article reminds me of one of those "safety first" videos that I had to watch during driver's ed.
He may have fully lost control of the vehicle, but reading the article made it seem like the vehicle started to veer.
In the snowier states, you're taught how to recover from a veering or fishtailing vehicle. Let off the acceleration, and straighten the wheel out. Make SMALL corrective maneuvers.
It's very easy to get panicked in these situations - your car veers one direction, and you're tempted to veer the opposite way. Unfortunately, this often worsens the situation, as power steering is far more powerful than your instincts may "feel."
Likewise, this was a pretty light vehicle.
Regardless of how this happened, it's terrible to see. And serves as a reminder to keep ourselves alert and alive on the road.
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The convoy was supposed to stop here at our company this afternoon because we helped the McMaster University team build "Fireball II." I just found out this morning that today's stop, along with the rest of the tour had been called off due to the accident. Looks like it was a mechanical failure of some kind in U of T's vehicle, and what a tragedy. The engineering student who died was only 21.
The tour was planned to coincide with the one year anniversary of the 2003 blackout, to remind people that we ought to be looking into alternative energy sources. These young engineers are really passionate about these projects and our thoughts are with them at what must be a really tough time.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
this will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers
So once you get all the Humvee's off the road, are you going to go after the tractor trailers which weigh many times more and are far greater in number?
Founder, Americans Allied Against Alliteration
This tragedy has nothing to do with driving a rediculously small, light and unsafe "vehicle" on public roadways. Indeed, this is the fault of conservatives, big-oil and the minivan itself. Evil petroliate loving danger mongers.
As a staff person in the counselling area at University of Toronto who was just told about this only half an hour ago, it was really weird to fire up /. just now and see this as the top story. This is heartbreaking news...
They should be using components appropriate to the scale of the vehicle. Motorcycle components, at least.
seriously your post is just ridicilous. The solar powered car crossed lanes into oncoming traffic. It has nothing to do with whether it was struck by a bigger car or not. It could have been a beetle or a trailer truck.. once you cross lanes there is almost no hope for you.
One could even argue highways ARE for large cars and trucks, not for little experimental vehicles that can't even stay on their own lane
did you forget to take your meds?
I am a member of a solar car team and these cars are built with saftey as teh first prioritry the roll cage that surounded this driver had to pass a number of regulations and is declared legal by both teh us and canadin DOT. And they are almost always in traffic as they are street legal. The down side is the light weight of the car its not going to win agins something over 5 times it weight. But my thouhgts are with the team and the drivers family.
A minivan is a far cry from a Hummer.
At least with current solar technology.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Good for you for saying what need to be said.
There are better alternatives than solar power -- lets wait and see how they turn out.
I'm not popular enough to be different.
Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
According to TFA, it was a Chrysler minivan. So I'm not sure how getting rid of HUMMERs would have made a damned bit of difference. Besides, he lost control of the car to the point that it went into oncoming traffic - it could have been a barricade, or a ditch, and the outcome might have been the same. Those cars don't have to meet the current federal safety regs, you know.
I truly don't understand why the government allows such large cars/trucks share the road with small/midsize cars.
And you're in favor of the government dictating car size, to the point of needing separate road systems (otherwise, good luck getting any deliveries of anything) for minivans and small cars? Wow. Personally, I think the government has enough stuff going on right now, maybe even a bit too much in some areas...
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
And I truly don't understand why the government allows such small/midsize cars to share the road with large cars/trucks.
Should we also ban walls, signposts, stoplights which these unsafe solar powered cars can also crash into? The driver would have been equally dead if he had crashed into any of those obstacles in his vehicle at anything more than a minimal speed.
The problem here was NOT the minivan. Or even a Hummer, had it been a Hummer. The problem was an unsafe vehicle that was not streetworthy and would not have passed any government safety inspection for road-worthiness. It had no business being on the road.
Not a Hummer. The students in the solar car project drove TWO mini-vans. Mini-vans can carry cargo, like semi-trucks. Semi-trucks carry cargo too. They are also heavier than Hummers. Should Semi-trucks be banned from highways too?
I'm willing to bet the solar car didn't have any basic safety features like bumpers or roll cages either. (let alone air bags).
It was an accident pure and simple and the Hummer comment is a stupid and asinine statement from your typical "I'm smarter than you are" IT geek that refuses to fix a mac becasue they're too complicated.
So, Michael, this is the price of socialism?
I go to U of T and I know a few people on the Bluesky team (although not Andrew Frow), and while I mean no disrespect to grieving team members in this hard time, I think that this incident is just the latest of several that point to a deeper problem in the team's goals and leadership.
As the CTV article stated, one of Bluesky's cars was T-boned just south of U of T campus two years ago. But also, at the end of last summer a pickup driven by a Bluesky member with their solar car in tow flipped somewhere in the northern states, resulting in a hospitilization.
The fact that Bluesky is having an accident every year, to me, indicates that these people are perhaps being pushed a little too hard, and perhaps the cars are not being designed with the driver's safety in mind (and I'm not just talking about the durability of the vehical but also such things as the driver's visibilty of the road and reliability of his control systems).
As electric/hybrid cars and such become more popular, they introduce new risks to rescue crews in the event of a crash. A lot of fire departments are needing new training to respond to car accidents involving electric cars, as the risk of electrocution is very real. This article briefly describes the new risks.
"There is no spoon." - The Matrix
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So... do we get rid of HUMMER's or Solar Powered cars? Wouldn't common sense dictate that the bigger car is the threat and should be disallowed?
Since there's no question that eighteen wheelers, moving vans, commercial vans, cement mixers, buses, and pickups are never going to be banned from the road, why the Hell would you ban the Hummer? The economy of every industrialized nation relies on large vehicles of all kinds, so why ban just one, or several, if tons of them are still going to be around?
Cars are held to higher crash standards in the US than probably any other nation. Vehicles which have to be modified to be imported to this country are legal even in other countries with lots of large powerful vehicles - For example the Nissan Skyline was sold in Germany in the same trim as in Japan (except left hand drive) until its recent termination as a Nissan product, but the result of crash testing of several imported test vehicles resulted in retrofits being necessary to import them here and make them street legal.
I don't know of ANY car that can get in a full-speed head on with a humvee and have the passenger (or the driver, who is actually in more danger, what with the steering wheel being right there and all) survive, at least in terms of passenger cars. Someone in a semi would have a fairly decent shot at it, if they were actually wearing their safety belts.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Of course, if we had to get rid of something, it would be the solar powered cars. Why? Because more hummers are in use than solar-powered vehicles. No politician in their right mind would try to disallow the use of hummers, because it would be seen as an attempt to thwart people's freedom.
I'll probably get moderated troll, but it's a bit similar to guns in the US: even if many people think it's a good idea to outlaw them entirely, or just limit the number of people who can get firearms, this will probably never happen.
People will guard their freedoms, no matter how 'bad' the consequences of their actions will turn out to be in the future.
Frankly that car was not street legal, it shouldn't have been allowed on the highway
Well street legal or not, having people lose control of their vehicles, over correct, and slam into oncoming traffic is not terribly uncommon. A scooter is street legal, and if the same would have happened to it, the rider/driver would be in the same boat. Street legalness has nothing to do with it.
The vehicle's design is not really street-safe - this will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers.
Sounds like an excuse to kick the hummers off the road. They are off-road vehicles anyway, right?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I wish this story had been posted without the obligatory message thread. While the technical subject is a good source of conversation, it seems somewhat unimportant and disrepectful in this case.
I do not know anyone involved in the incident, but when posting to this board, please assume that someone who does will read your comment. Let's keep this place a little more sane and intelligent.
share the road with Hummers
Does anyone here know what a hummer really means? No its not a vehicle; it's sexual in nature. Watch to see if someone laughs when you say "I gota have a hummer" or "I'm giving up the hummer for other buisnesses".
Don't get me wrong; I'm not defending Hummers' and SUVs' impact on the environment (not to mention our dependence on Middle East oil) but it drives me nuts when people say that the fuel efficient cars get eaten alive by the SUVs and Hummers and trucks--therefore we should outlaw all of the bigger cars.
If we just take into account safety, we would be far better off banning all of the smaller cars. Smaller cars vs. smaller cars are somewhat safer, but bigger cars vs. bigger cars (and bigger cars vs. trees, telephole poles, etc.) are MUCH safer. Rollovers are an exception, but not all big vehicles have the tendency to roll over.
First off, the car he hit was a minivan. A Hummer was not involved, the submitter just wanted to use this opportunity to bash SUVs even when one wasn't involved.
Chances are, even if he was hit by a Geo Metro he would have been killed. Solar vehicles are built especially light since they don't have alot of power to move them.
This vehicle was built from fibreglass, and not just the shell either. He took a risk piloting that type of vehicle on the roads with normal vehicles and unfortunately paid a price.
Peter Griffin was right; those clouds are plotting against us, waiting for the right moment to make their move. This guy is just the first in a long line of cloud-related "accidents" to come.
vehicle's design is not really street-safe - this will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers.
Because if the driver of an ultra-lightweight car suddenly swerved in front of a Prius and struck it head-on at full speed, the driver would've been okay?
> The vehicle's design is not really street-safe - this will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers.
I realize that bashing SUVs is popular today but driving into oncoming traffic, regardless of your vehicle, is a good way to get killed. Driving a full-sized sedan into another similar car will result in the same thing a lot of the time.
Besides, there's no reason to make rappers feel bad about their choice of "whip".
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
In America, if a vehicle is over a certain weight (around 6000 lbs or so), it can qualify for tax deductions for a business up to at least $25,000. Bush proposed raising that deduction to around $100,000. I'm not sure if it ever passed or not (probably did or some form of it did), but as a small business owner, I actually thought about getting a vehicle that qualified, but my tree hugging wife convinced me to stay with the 4 cylinder Honda.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
The vehicle's design is not really street-safe - this will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers.
On a similar note, I always find it odd that people feel safer with more mass (as in massive SUVs - not massive waist line [though that probably applies too.])
Fatalities have gone up since Regean decided to nix Carter's plan for smaller cars. It was either Frontline or Nova that did a show about the issue 2 years ago.
Similar to this administrations' decision not to listen to FDA's scientists about Plan-B, during Regean's era the head of the Department of Transportation went against its advisors to recommend heavier vehicles.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Firstly i'd like to state that i'm dissappointed with the disrespectful comments posted, contrary to the mostly intelligent discussion usually found here on slashdot. Have a little respect, people. The hummer comment is also needless. Whatever your opinion, remeber that a 21 year old student's life was taken here.
Secondly, I don't see what this has to do with Solar Power - this accident really has little do with solar power, but instead reflects on the steering mechanism employed by the car, and the flimsiness of its construction. Yes, it'll damage solar power's reputation, but it is not to say that solar power in itself is inherrently dangerous.
It does mean however that a more efficient way of using the power may be needed, as better protection for the passenger means a heavier body for the car. From the admittedly small photo on the news report, it would appear that even the smallest of cars hitting this vehicle at any speed would have caused quite severe damage to the passenger.
I don't know what it was doing being tested on a highway, if it was not road safe - surely this is illegal, and irresponsible.
kinda depends on the usage, how many needs a hummer anyways? unneeded stuff can be taxed to hell from those that don't need it for say, professional or hobby(offroad competition) purposes.
there's no need to allow hummers to, say, downtown any more than there is need to allow 12 wheelers to pass straight through a crowded downtown(if you want a truck don't fucking drive it like a hot hatch).
and yeah the goverment COULD do something about it, like tax them so that there isn't an artificial incentive to build a suv(because it's a "truck") over a normal sized passanger cars.
well, USA will get on with the program soon enough with the oil situation being what it is... sooner or later(probably later because else 'the terrorists have won' because 'lifestyle' had to change, like driving a big mofo truck was any indication of freedom to begin with).
that being said I know personally a guy who would've been dead meat had he driven anything less rigid than a mercedes benz(old senile fucktard who shouldn't have gotten extension to his license even came head on, so the problem isn't as much what's driven as it is who's driving.. if you can't remember where you're going even should you be on the damn road?).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
How about banning vehicles that can't be kept under control? The problem in this case was not the minivan. It's like banning the ground because a bungie jumper mistied his knot and got killed.
Of course, if the idea is to save human lives, all we really have to do it is ban any type of vehicle that has ever caused a fatal accident.
Have a nice crawl to work.
KFG
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
The solution is to use solar-powered Hummers, of course.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Uh, oh. You've gone and indirectly supported freedom of choice concerning automobiles. On Slashdot. Prepare to have your karma anally violated.
Maybe everyone is addressing the wrong problem. The primary reason many people buy large cars is so they might have a better chance of surviving a crash. It's exactly why I don't ride my bike to the store only a mile away. I don't even like to walk it. Two lane road, very fast traffic, no sidewalks or bike lane, stockade fence inches from the curb. This is typical in surburban Atlanta.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
It is impossible to design a solar powered car that uses a conventional chassis with the power density offered by current solar arrays. These designs will always remain impractical. A practical design won't happen until (if) solar panel efficiency increases by many orders of magnitude.
I doubt the goal of these teams are to design a practical vehicle.
Your idea shows that you have no concept of the limitation of solar cells.
The solar car that crashed (which I am presuming was Bluesky's latest car, but it could be an earlier one with less power) has solar cells rated at producing 1050 watts (check here, scroll to the bottom) which Google converts as being 1.40807319 horsepower. So about 1.5 horsepower.
Compare this to a regular gasoline engine having perhaps 100 horsepower, and remembering that to retrofit a car to be solar you have to put in batteries (ie EXTRA WEIGHT), I would claim that such a conversion would be either impossible or highly infeasible.
I heard the sun was in his eyes, and he couldn't see the oncoming traffic.
Ha Ha
You don't allow vehicles that aren't street legal (such as this solar powered car) on the road. The vehicle isn't safe except on a test track. Someone has paid with their life for this mistake.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
I hope that this will not set back the development of the use of soloar power. There are many challenges to overcome, but the benifits still outweigh the disadvantages. I think it would be great to live in a world where we don't pump tons and tons of pollutants into the air every day. I also think that the world would be a better place if the oil rich producing countries lost their stangle hold on the rest of the world. The only drawback that I can think of is tragic events like this. Even in this setback we can learn.
Nuttles
Christian and proud of it
The obvious solution is no fvcking hummers on the road. Besides being more efficient (energy *and* materials) lighter vehicles reduce mortality for pedestrians and bicyclists. There's no need for an arms race in vehicle mass. If your manhood is that tied up in "bigger is better" become a sumo.
Were that I say, pancakes?
This dangerous drive (and the resulting accident) happened in Canada. Clearly this will be the catalyzing event that finally will move our lawmakers to declare Canada illegal. This has been a long time in coming. (As Kyle's Mom once said... "It's not even a real country!")
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
> we helped the McMaster University team build "Fireball II."
I don't think 'Fireball' is the greatest thing to be naming a _vehicle_, 'kay?
That's like MS making the official name of Longhorn, 'BSOD.'
Sure, that's the ticket... A small, lightweight, non-street-legal car veers into the path of a vehicle that belongs on the road, the driver gets killed, and it's the fault of the legal vehicle. I say we should ban all large vehicles from the road to make way for these glorified tricycles. Instead of using semis to haul freight, we can haul it in the backpacks of recumbent-riding bicyclists. That is, until a small child is hit by a bicycle while playing in the middle of the highway. Then we'll ban the
bikes, too. Then it'll be human-powered helos for everyone. The highways need to be kept open for playtime and experimental vehicles.
</sarcasm>
I go to U of T and I know a few people on the Bluesky team (although not Andrew Frow), and while I mean no disrespect to grieving team members in this hard time, I think that this incident is just the latest of several that point to a deeper problem in the team's goals and leadership.
As the CTV article stated, one of Bluesky's cars was T-boned just south of U of T campus two years ago. But also, at the end of last summer a pickup driven by a Bluesky member with their solar car in tow flipped somewhere in the northern states, resulting in a hospitilization.
The fact that Bluesky is having an accident every year, to me, indicates that these people are perhaps being pushed a little too hard, and perhaps the cars are not being designed with the driver's safety in mind (and I'm not just talking about the durability of the vehical but also such things as the driver's visibilty of the road and reliability of his control systems).
[This is a repost of an AC post I made; didn't realise I was logged out]
As an out of control vehicle it could have has easily been hit by a truck as a Hummer and had the same outcome, perhaps even an impact with a small hybrid Prius would have had the same outcome (but been far more ironic).
The need to sacrifice weight to gain performance obviously led to some bad design choices. That said, solar power contests should probably be split into 2 categories:
1. No minimum weight, but only on closed courses.
2. Well-defined minimum crash worthiness, minimum weight for vehicle, still require lead and chaser vehicles on public roads. Some well established roadworthiness test by some officiating board before vehicles are taken on public roads.
Breakthroughs in Solar efficiency and conversion to actual horsepower are what this competition should motivate, not design of balsa wood enclosures to hurl down public highways.
I feel for the team and student who lost his life. I'm sure they didn't think they were taking undue risks, but they probably were.
I doubt this will have real long-term negative impact on Solar Power development. It's not like this out of control vehicle also took out a sideline of spectator Nuns. Nor is it hard to imagine the corrective action to keep this safe (as outlined above).
Letter To Iran
Japan allows far lighter cars on the road and yet, has only 60% of the fatal accidents per 10,000 vehicles.
In the US, poeple believe that SUVs are the safest, but the fatality record of SUVs is only about as good as that of a mid-sized car. While a heavier vehicle may be more "survivable", the mid-sized car, with its better braking, lower center of gravity (less roll-over potential) and better handling can better avoid getting into an accident in the first place.
More info on their car.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
And the answer is called flat tax.
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/PRESSWEBSITE/FlatT
The next pasture is always greener
And just how is this a big setback for solar power advocates? Is every automobile accident with a regular car a setback for gasoline advocates? Are solar cars supposed to be accident free? Or all 21-year-olds excellent drivers (I know they think they are)?
This is just an example of muddy thinking that doesn't belong on Slashdot.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Hummers, Ford Extinctions, and the like are already a menace to lighter, more energy-efficient vehicles, regardless of power source. There's an arms race taking place on our roads, as drivers opt for better armament against bigger and more hazardous vehicles. "Drive defensively" has come to mean "make sure yours is bigger than the other guy's" instead of "be careful". You need additional training and a special licence to operate a semi or a bus, but not for a Ford F150, despite the fact that in unskilled hands, they're a serious menace to other drivers.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
but...
Video Killed The Radio Star
Efficiency. With the exception of pickups, the vehicles on your list *need* to be large in order to perform the tasks for which they were disgned. The problem is that the H2 is essentially an oversized family vehicle which, for most tasks, could easily be replaced by a Toyota Echo.
Because all those vehicles you mentionned before the Hummer do perform an actual task beyond the transportation of a person. Therefore, the size is justified.
This is a big setback for solar power advocates, especially as the blackout anniversary will pass with remedial legislation stranded in Congress.
I don't see what the two have to do with each other. Was he carrying the sponsoring Senator/Congressman in the car with him? And I don't know that the anniversary has anything to do with the bill...in fact, I'd overwhelmingly prefer as few arbitrary deadlines as possible when legislators are working on laws that affect my life, thank you.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Guy 1-We'll just turn off the monorail.
Guy 2-We can't! It's solar powered!
Guy 1-Solar power?! When will they ever learn?
Actually he's not. He's saying "everyone should drive hummers", which is just as bad as saying "everyone should drive smart cars"
We put down solar cars because of their survivability, but we drive motorbikes!? Get real!
The issue here was far less about survivability than about control. He lost control. Was it inattention or a design flaw? We don't know, but controlability is far more important than survivability if you are going on the highway.
That still doesn't change the fact that the person driving that Hummer has paid for it, paid for the gas it's burning, and has via sales tax alone paid more towards the construction of the roads it's driving on than a person driving a Yugo. The anti-hummer rant sounds more like typical anti-wealthy rants than any sane reasoning.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Not true, and this seems to be the universal opinion here. Indy cars are designed to take crashes into solid walls at 200MPH. To roll and cartwheel for a quarter mile. Etc. They weigh under 1,000lb. including the engine- much less without it. Rent or buy "Super Speedway"- aside from being one of the coolest IMAX DVDs ever(IMAX camera on a specially prepared indy car driven by Mario Andretti- freakin awesome), they discuss safety and how the car is designed to collapse just enough.
Survivability consists ONLY of keeping the driver from experiencing too high an impact. That means:
Sorry, but it's clear these teams have no idea what they're doing (they're basically using the same excuses the US auto industry did at first- oh, safety would cost too much, we don't know how, it would weigh too much, etc), and their vehicles are not safe enough for public roads. They can hold their little competitions on private roads (universities have plenty of these) until they make vehicles that have reasonable safety measures to protect the driver.
Please help metamoderate.
Did somebody say "Hummer"? Cuz that's the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear about some teenage kid "losing control" and crossing the median. Maybe I'm just perverted. (*Seriously: My sympathy goes out to him and his family and friends *)
I'm as green as the next tree-hugging dirt worshipper, but I don't see how we can blame this on GM for making disgustingly huge wastes of resources or on the people who buy them. If this guy had been on a bike, would this have made it to the front page? Of course not.
Let's stow the "Hummers are wasteful" arguments and just recognize that a brave person lost their life in an experimental vehicle. Let's save these arguments for a topic where it actually matters.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Solar Cars, due to the extremely low amount of energy available to them, have to be extraordinarily light. When I was in the 2001 American Solar Challenge, there were cars that only weighed 2 1/2 times their driver. This is with metal roll cages on the inside. I know people are experimenting with full-chassis composite construction, which will make the cars even lighter. While it's true that F1 cars all have composite roll bars because of their strength, the problem is simply a matter of inertia. When a 1000 kg car hits a 2000 kg truck head-on, it's bad for the car, but when a 160 kg car with an 80 kg driver hits a 2000 kg truck head on, it's absolutely devastating, no matter how strong the material is holding it together.
I'm curious to see how this will affect solar racing rules. It's not like they're going to require crash testing of your half million dollar prototype that you bring to the race. Personally, I think there's probably a lot more room to be stricter with accident avoidance stuff, like making sure your steering and suspension is REALLY secure. My team nearly lost its car to a suspension failure, while going 65 on an interstate down a hill towards a bridge over a very deep chasm. The driver kept it kinda under control, but we got lucky. Turns out there was nothing inherently wrong with our design, aside from the fact that it wasn't sufficiently redundant to resist the force of miniscule human error in construction, followed by 1000 miles of road wear. Point is, wheels just don't fall off of modern production automobiles, but things like that happen with experimental prototypes.
On a personal note, driving a solar car that I built myself was one of the greatest thrills of my life. I was too big to drive our team's car with the top on, but even taking it around the parking lot on battery power was a great thrill. I can't imagine how taking that out on the road feels, but I imagine it compensates somewhat for the very real danger that exists whenever people strap themselves into unorthodox moving objects for the sake of enhancing the body of human knowledge. Whether it's a solar car developed and built by college students or a multi-billion dollar space shuttle designed by one of the largest engineering teams ever assembled, there is no substitute for experience, as NASA has tragically learned twice.
If anyone who knew Andrew is reading this, I hope you realize that he took a risk in pursuit of something greater than himself, for the benefit of everything on Earth.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
There is the possibility of converting water to hydrogen through solar. That seems like it would make a lot more sense. As cool as direct solar cars are, they aren't, and never will be practical. No amount of testing (or human sacrifice) will change that fact.
Using huge solar furnaces, wind, or wave power to make hydrogen doesn't seem as sexy, but that will probably be the reality after oil peaks and people wake up to the possiblity of $10/gallon for gas.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Perhaps the most off-topic rant yet.
But really, Hummers are more appropriate for the highway environment than experimental lightweight vehicles - Hummers are built to government standards for safety and control, experimental vehicles are not (since this vehicle went out of control, I'd say that's a strike against allowing experimental vehicles on the roads). The experimental vehicle could be driven on a closed test track for any distance, without the ever present dangers of highway traffic and the experiment would be no less valid.
The simple fact of the matter is that vehicles that are not designed and built with control and safety in mind should not be on the highways. Semis, Hummers, and more eco-friendly vehicles like the Toyota Prius or even motorcycles are all built with safety and control in mind, but I really doubt that any experimental solar powered car could even come close to meeting all of the braking, handling, and other safety requirements production motor vehicles have to meet before they are allowed on the highway.
Lightweight solar cars have a reason to exist
Yes, that's true, but they have no reason to be driven in traffic on a public highway. None whatsoever.
I heard some sad news on talk radio today, driver/student Andrew Frow was killed in a solar car accident. There weren't any more details. Even if you didn't care much for his work, there's no denying his contributions to scientific culture. Truly an American Icon.
As an alumni of the mechatronics program at U of T, and someone who knew some of the players involved with Blue Sky, I feel like I have to register my condolences even though I never knew Andrew. The Blue Sky group is really a very motivated and sincere bunch of people who go way out of their way for an idea, unlike slackers like me who couldn't spare the time. I have a lot of respect for a guy who knowing the risks decided to pilot a piece of carbon fibre down a highway and ended up loosing his life in the hopes of proving out a concept.
Here's raising a beer to a real engineer.
Officials on the site said he was allegedly distracted behind the wheel when his solar-powered cell phone began to lose reception.
If you think
Where can you get a left hand drive skyline my friend?
He died in pursuit of knowledge, but calling him a hero is a bit much. It was tragic, and hopefully those testing solar powered cars will learn from the tragedy so it never happens again.
Simpson's quote:
Homer: That Timmy is a real hero!
Lisa: How do you mean, Dad?
Homer: Well, he fell down a well, and... he can't get out.
Lisa: How does that make him a hero?
Homer: Well, that's more than you did!
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
I get tired of the same single/no kids/urban dwellers attacking vehicles they can't afford or don't need. It's always fun to limit someone else's freedom. I can drive any street legal vehicle thanks. by the way, when I am taking my three boys to hockey pratices/games, or when I am driving to a worksite carrying tools/supplies,... there is no other choice than a larger vehicle, Whatever happened to tolerance and live and let live....
The kid driving a malformed solar powered illegal car was not killed. He died. Not only was his driving at fault, his vehicle was also at fault which is another traffic infraction. The only thing I can say for the big vehicle haters is, at least people who drive them are rude. Minivan insurance should be at least double the insurance on a corvette, I know from experience they're much more reckless.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
You know, if he had been testing a solar powered SUV, he wouldn't have been killed!
It's my understanding that skylines were sold, in some year model at least, in germany, where they would have been a LHD model. I can't find anything to back it up though, so I could be wrong, which would make me sad. Still, I've heard it from a few sources, so there's a chance I'm right :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Actually, I wasn't saying either. I was simply predicting that everyone would start blaming big evil SUVs (I was right) and that solar powered cars aren't ready for prime time yet (I was right).
But the karma moderation I received was of absolutely no surprise or importance to me.
Yeah, 6000lb+ vehicles used SOLELY for business purposes have some special rules regarding depreciation under section 179. More info here.
The clean car credit applies to personal AND business vehicles, however.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
The problem here today, though, is that someone driving an equally unsafe vehicle (a light, safety-featureless solar powered car) got creamed by a minivan. So obviosuly this is the Clash of the Titans: Big bad car against small efficient solar powered car.
But, still, the person driving such an unsafe light vehicle accepts the same risks as the guy who decides to drive down the freeway on a motorcycle.
AC comments get piped to
They are driven by QUALIFIED people with a special license to drive 10000 lbs machines on the road.
The Toronto solar car, and similar vehicles at universities around the world, serve as rolling testbeds for high-performance solar technology. They are not intended as commercial vehicles, being rather long-distance race cars designed for competitions like the World Solar Challenge) and SunRace.
For a collection of photographs, see the WSC photos from 2003. To keep the scale intact (and because it is the vehicle I have easy numbers for), the "Queens" car in the lower-left corner of the page is approximately 6m long, 2m wide and 1m high. The vehicles are extremely light, with the Queen's car coming in at 410 kg (902 lbs) without driver. [1]
Periodically (*) the Canadian vehicles tour regions of the country to provide a conservation and engineering presentation aimed primarily at high school students. I doubt that CBC's comment relating the tour to last summer's blackout has any basis. It appears that the tour kicked off at the end of July.
My heart goes out to those who knew Andrew Frow.
*: Possible annually, the Canadian Solar Tour site I found is currently down.
[1] Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. <http://www.solarcar.queensu.ca>. Referenced numbers from <http://130.15.142.62/solar/CurrentCar>. (Both will slashdot really easily, so not linked)
I know this is a little off-topic, but the poster mentions sharing the road with Hummers. I find it amazing that the impact points of cars, all the way around the vehicle, are not of standard height. What's the point of bumpers if they are going underneath the car on impact? Yes, I realize that off-road vehicles need higher clearance and need to use public roads to get offroad, but we see the results of non-standard bumper heights everyday, including here.
No. Orrin Hatch will now introduce a resolution outlawing all further development of Solar Cars since it INDUCES accidents and Killings.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
This "accident" is just an example of survival of the fittest, and an omen that the conservatives are going to win. Jesus Christ - were he here today - would drive a Hummer.
This experimental car apparently didn't meet even the most minimum saftey requirements and should not have been permitted on the public road. I seriously doubt (but have not confirmed) it had a seatbelt, airbags, bumpers or any other safety equipment designed into cars today. Its operation should only have been permitted on a track somewhere where other vehicles could have been removed. I know that there are "rallys" and contests where these cars enjoy the privileges of licensed vehicles, but this article points to the reason they should not be allowed to do so. Now the Canadian government will likely pass some idiotic law constraining the privileges of normal road users on behalf of these experimental vehicles,
BC
Note: I'm not against this kind of research, just keep it off the highway.
Sky Blue "Lets see how many accidents a year we can have" Racing Team are notorious for making these paperweights non-street legal cars and setting them loose on public roads. Since no action has been taken in the past with the near fatalities and various other car crashes they've had - now that someone has actually died maybe they can lose their funding and get disbanded or at least replace all the team members with people who have at least half a brain and can think of the drivers safety and oh maybe have the car ON A CLOSED COURSE and not drive their tinfoilmobiles on the highway....fucking morons...
Also Michael - you're a fucking jackass - I hate hummers more than most, but this doesn't have anything to do with that fact. Their car was on a highway and if someones MINI Cooper had nailed it the same damn thing would have happened. Lets put the focus back where it belongs - A solar power car team keeps building cars that are EXTREMEMELY UNSAFE and have injured their previous drivers and now killed one, the team needs to be restructured
or give their funding to someone else with half a brain.
Ave Molech Setting
...he died a natural death.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I was a volunteer EMT for a few years. I've seen more than a few crashes. One of the nastiest was where a Toyota Corolla going 45-50 mph crossed the center line and hit head on to a small Ford Bronco was going about 35mph. The speed limit was 35 mph.
The Toyota was destroyed. Completely. We air lifted the driver to the hospital. Both legs were broken in numerous places, punctured lungs, both arms were broken, numerous broken ribs, broken hip. He was a train reck and he was wearing a seat belt. I saw the guy about a year later when he came to visit the fire house. He was still walking with severe difficulty and will probably never walk normally again.
The driver of the Bronco was also admitted to the hospital, but wasn't nearly as bad. He was lucky because at the last moment the other car turned slightly to the left and impacted slightly to the left of the driver's area.
The only reason I mention this is because physics is physics. Going into a head on collision at even a relatively slow speed is very dangerous when you strike a car going in the opposite direction. If I remember my physics correctly (and I may not), going head on you add both velocities. The toyota basically hit a brick wall going 80-85 mph. Seat belts or not, that's going to hurt.
This won't be the end of solar racing, although it will be a significant setback for the Toronto team. They have lost a friend, a teammate and many, many, many hours of work, spent not only building their car but also convincing people that their cause is worth supporting. The team has a solid history--they placed 11th in the 2003 American Solar Challenge (and won the saftey award), 12th in ASC2001, 14th in WSC2001, and they were the top rookie team in SunRayce 1999 (info from their website).
I imagine that the future will see a serious review of solar car saftey rules, which will result in changes to the specifications for solar cars as well as the conditions under which they should be driven. Even though solar powered cars are not the way of the future, the sport has led to the develompent of new technologies that are nevertheless important (the world's most effiecient electric motors and maximum power point trackers), and it teaches young engineers far more about engineering than they could possibly learn in any other way.
A public show of support (and /. counts as these days) is really what the BlueSky team needs right now. Then, after the incident has been properly observed, a respectful review of the causes and solutions should get underway.
Jeff Thompson
Yale Solar Racing
Unfairly modded as Troll due to conflicting political beliefs. Either that or modded down by an SUV driving pig.
Also rail cannot serve just-in-time delivery that is used by many companies. It is a rare case where rail can be used to deliver more quickly.
Rail is good for bulk items and really bulk shipments. Examples are like Coal, Wheat, etc. You can even more cars by rail but even then it is done in very large numbers going to a major distribution point.
What does this have to do with solar power? Not much except that in a future world we may have to do more in providing separate areas for semis and cars to exist.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The more important issue here IMHO is why was it on the road to begin with.
The articale makes no mention of the school, the students, or anyone involved working with local law enforcement agencies to setup a safe route of travel. MAybe they could not close the entire highway but a police escort with the lights flashing could have made people more aware, of the car and maybe the wreck could have been avoided.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
... except for the fact that he was Canadian.
Wassup drinkypoo! Uh anyways, I 100% agree with you. Here'in lies the rub. You will damn near double the cost of such a vehicle by mandating vehicle safety regs similar to what's in place already. "That's right students, you must now crash test a couple of prototypes before they are deemed safe". Cough, cough, what's one of these things cost?
The one and only real answer in my mind.
IMPROVED INFRASTRUCTURE!
We really, really, really need a transportation network developed for alternative vehicles up to say maybe 1000 lbs. I build ultra-effecient light weight vehicles, but they will never share the road with any large vehicles because the turbulence generated by a large vehicle is enough to flip a little one right off the road. We really need something like a souped-up bicycle trail network.
Big vehicles are inefficient, no 2 ways about it. The only way to a sustainable transportation network is small, light and efficient vehicles.
Check out my racing stuff!
http://www.easyracers.com/racing
Gabriel DeVault
While the driver's death is unfortunate, and the destruction of the car a disappointment and perhaps a setback for the particular program that developed it, I fail to see how this accident is "is a big setback for solar power advocates".
If it were, every automobile accident would be "a big setback" for the internal combustion engine, and every stubbed toe would be "a big setback" for bipedal motion. If the solar panels had spewed "solar waste" everywhere, contaminating the surroundings a-la Chernobyl, it would be considered "a big setback for solar power".
Fundamentally, this was a car accident, not a solar power accident. The operator of the vehicle lost control for some reason, and swerved. It happens with gasoline powered vehicles, diesel powered vehicles, four-wheeled autos, 18-wheeled trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles. Too bad that when gigantic, gas-guzzling, exhaust-spewing SUVs crash it isn't "a big setback" for SUVs.
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law;
The more detailed article says he was t-boned after swerving into oncoming traffic. A motorcycle may very well have killed him too. Bumper heights and weights aren't gonna change that too much. Few cars (short of some new ones) have the strength to survive a hit to the side. My old Opel would probably look the same if t-boned by a minivan. Although a Hummer would probably go over the top and flip itself and crush us both ! Likewise, if a geo metro gets t-boned by anything you are gonna be in trouble. Heck i saw a cop nearly crushed when he spun and got 't-boned' by a telephone pole and he was in one of those monster Crown Victoria cop cars. Side impacts are not good in 90% of cars on the road. As to why it swerved into traffic is, of course, another matter.
Ban Hummers and other show-off cars from public roads. Commercial traffic with large vehicles would still be allowed of course. Vehicles should mainly be for transportation, not for recreation.
Oh wait. Owning and driving a Hummer or a large SUV is the ultimate realisation of the american dream for the american middle class.
Shallow goals for hollow people. The US is going down fast (Canada is limping behind).
Dont mind me, I'm just jealous of your wealth (or make up your own rationalisation).
oops!
That's a really grate rationale for copyright violation. Hey, the website sucks, so violating copyright law is ok.
Let's take that one to it's logical conclusion. "Hey officer, it's cool that I raped and killed the the women. Afterall, she was one ugly bitch!"
I am not sure how this became a discussion on SUVs or the folly of ultra light vehicles. The articles seem to suggest that the cars steering failed and he veered into oncoming traffic. This seems to be user error, or a design flaw and has little to do with the weight or road worthiness of the vehicle.
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
It's almost too bad that I actually submitted this article before my 9am Lecture after hearing about this last night, yet one that gets submitted hours later appears first.
Maybe I should actually registar here.
An expoerimental vehicle such as that should have only been operated on a "controlled course" roadway. The open road is a hazardous place, and vehicles operated threrupon need to meet reasonable roadworthiness and safety standards. The driver's death will hopefully point out and underscore this issue so that it won't be repeated, because to take a flimsy delicate vehicle, that obviously has controllability issues on top of a lack of crashworthiness, out onto the open public roads is just plain careless.
They are driven by people who are very distracted with kids in the back and cellphone talking. This is very common in NY/CT/NJ area.
I am collecting data points about this and will share.
My criteria for bad driving is just a simple one.
"Turn on your blinker before changing lanes or turns"
I am truely sorry and mad at the same time about this.
*** my other data collection project is to find if there is truth to the general observation that most of the road construction work happnes within walking distance ( 1 mile) of the food/rest area.
- People who believe other people have no right to live, got no right to live ...
I am in the Toronto region. All was well when I left Slashdot to go for lunch. It was pouring rain. What is a solar car doing out in such weather?
Now I'm back and I hear of this
Solar cars don't make much sense yet. It's better to use solar in a fixed plant and transfer the energy to batteries, which can run even without light. Solar can be used as auxiliary power
Solar plants in space would make sense since there's plenty of room and sunlight.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
sun burn?
Just because its hip to hate the US these days? Geesh, welcome to my foe list.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Sure, the liberal media will tell you about an accident involving a solar-powered car.
/. on his laptop applying make-up while balancing a cup of coffee.
What they won't tell you is at the time of the accident the driver was talking on his cell phone watching pr0n on a dashboard DVD reading
I think the concern that people put up with SUV's as a threat to smaller car drivers' safety is compounded by the fact that as the bigger and more numerous SUV's become, the more people want to buy larger SUV's. And as more people want to buy larger SUV's, the bigger the manufacturers will make them... and so on, and so on.
Not having worked amoungst a team of students in an effort like this makes it difficult to put in perspective. I have been in a similar group, not making solar cars, but solar houses. The students involved in the project I was involved with, and I imagine this one, gave their all to the project. It was their life. They worked sun up to sun up on the project under grueling conditions while still going to school. They were motivated by the hands on learning experience, the opportunity to educate others, the opportunity to be part of something constructive, but mostly their desire to create a world different from the one they live in today. Nobody on our team got seriously hurt. It seems like a miracle in retrospect. Working on the team was one of the best and most amazing experiences of my life. The team was tight knit; we spent seemingly every waking hour together. I just can't imagine the affect an accident like this has on the rest of the team. It must be utterly heartbreaking. The team has my deepest sympathy.
For those that debate the safety of the car design, the wisdom of highway regulations and current practices, keep in mind that this group isn't a company with vast resources trying to market a solar car. This is not the finished product boing foisted on you to buy. This is an exhibition and competition car. It's an experiment made by students. They do it because they love it.
And yes, bumpers on HumVees are a little high; pulled up behind one at the local just-off-campus-drivethru a few weeks ago in my Honda Civic and noticed how the transmission was at eye level . I gotta say, I drove quite defensefully for quite a while after that (of course, I'm a leadfoot again now...)
BTW, in the Catalina -vs- Escort demolition derby, bet on the Catalina:
I'm not kidding.
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
I can see, if he died while researching say, the perfect doughnut recipe, then I'd totally agree with you. Given the implications of solar, though, well, it's just my 2c.
>>hopefully those testing solar powered cars will learn from the tragedy so it never happens again.
I agree in principle, but the same thing would've happened if he was riding a motorcycle and hit a slick spot. Light vehicles are inherently dangerous. The only way to eliminate the risk is to eliminate the benefits of being lightweight. :(
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
for revealing yourselves to be the freedom-hating liberals that you are. This highly charged article, with an editorial that ITSELF was a "-1, Troll", and proves that the editors don't even RTFA, has provided so many new foes to my list, its been an excellent culling exercise. So many of you rose to michael's bait, that you exposed yourselves for what you are, and thus can now be Foe-moderated off the page.
Cheers!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I work in Stratford and live in Kitchener, this was the accident that I had to go around last night on the way home, first I heard of it.
haha
Sigh, where's the "-1, doesn't understand basic physics" moderation when I need it? There's just not enough energy available from the sun to move a "regular" car at any reasonable speed. End of story.
Others have gone through the actual numbers so I won't bother reproducing them here. I just feel the need to defend these guys (who I didn't know personally, but who many on my former team have met) against someone who clearly doesn't understand in the least what their endeavor is about. This project was enough of a non-joke to these guys to risk their lives for it, and I'm going to guess that it will continue to be so. I hope they don't pay a lick of attention to what you think.
It's offical. Left-wing zealotry has taken hold and reality has left the building.
1) I hate hummers. They're stupid. At no point in my post did I defend the existince of the Hummer.
2) Regarless of the position of the bumper on a semi, if it hits your 500lb. solar car going 80mph. You're toast. It doesn't matter if it's a minvan, and SUV, or a M1-Abrams Tank.
3) True, semi-trucks require a CDL license do drive. This is relevant how? The driver of the solar car lost control and swerved into the other lane.
My whole point, which was evidently overwhelmed by a landslide of anti-SUV rants, what that is accident was a tragedy. Much like the Columbia shuttle explosion, experimental technology failed and people lost thier lives. SUV's are irrelevant. The car didn't even hit an SUV, it hit a minivan. If it had hit a brick wall the outcome would have been the same...the tragic death of a 21 year old working on technology to benefit us all.
But all Slashdot sees is an excuse to bash the Hummer.
Things like this happen all the time. /. evey time some one is killed in a car. I have seen big cars do this many times lucky the on comming cars could move out of the way. I have seen blow outs, wheel lockups,wheels fall off, gusts of wind, cracks in the road, etc all make big cars do this.
Big trucks to small bikes can go out of control.
There is a lot of deaths that happen on the roads.
If the car was bigger there would most likly be two dead not one. Why did it go out of control? It could have had a blowout (happens on the bigger cars )
Could have hit somthing in the road. I had that happen to me and put my car into a spin.(some diesel on a turn).
This kind of thing happen with normal cars all the time. Just because it is not posed on
So I do not see why this is any different. After they check things out and find out why. Then juge but untill that it is just like any other accident.
And some are preventable.
However, this one *seems* to be human error at this point. In x days, it may turn out to be otherwise.
Either way, it sux that the kid died.
All that aside, I remember from the early Trans-Australia or whatever the solar race was, they made sure that the cars showed some chance of surviving being passed by the road-trains. And they were still worried that the air displaced by these semis would cause problems for the tiny solar cars.
As to the wonderful world of hybrid cars, why are they charging 20+k$ for a car that gets worse fuel mileage than a 1980 Volkswagen diesel Rabbit???
Hummers(schoolbus)? I think owning one must be punishment enough. Maint costs on those things are horrific and I can imagine what it costs to insure one here in New Jersey.
I'd rather have my late lamented 1991 Mistubishi pickup than a Hummer(schoolbus) or for *REAL* impractical offroading http://www.unimog.net/
That wouldn't help all that much. You still have differences in frame stiffness and in accessory pieces, such as headlight mount assemblies and grilleguards. You also have dramatic difference in tire size between say a tractor trailer and a Metro. Who's bumper height is correct?
Sounds like someone doesnt want to pull into the hockey game or work in a Dodge Caravan SE with the Dodge Ram sticker on the back window.
Student Killed By Minivan... Humvee to blame? WTF?
That is quite a leap of illogic, even for slashdot. How will banning SUV's affect the proliferation of
a) soccer mom's in minivans?
b) unstreet-safe ultralight solar powered vehicles?
c) hurricanes that like to pummel Florida?
I know that I'll be modded into mush for seeming insensitive but dumb editorial statements are dumb editorial statements.
is an even bigger car.
If you fight the system, you're bound to get hurt.
Further numbers for thought:
Most cars are smaller that 3 meters wide and 5 meters long. Solar power density is peak at 1.44 kW/m^2 (or lower, depending on reference source) as a best case for noon on the equator in a vacuum.
Google gives these unrealistic best case numbers (EG, perfect efficiency, full spectrum, big car, straight down solar intercept, no atmospheric absorption, etc.) a value of about 29 watts.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
"The vehicle's design is not really street-safe - this will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers."
This is the kind of "offhanded" slight to SUV's that does not suprise me. (Take a Guess @ what I drive.)
The fact is a unqualified Vehicle was on a road driving with Qualified Vehicles and was demolished.
A Hummer (or any SUV) may be efficient for the purpose, someone buys it for. If the Hummer is a status symbol, of wealth, power a persons ability to afford said vehicle, then it is perfectly efficient. Or maybe some of us actually use them as intended, alternate terrain Vehicles. Let me see you try and drive one of those touted "Efficient" vehicles, through 20 miles of bad road, Ice, Deep snow, or rising rain water, Sand Dirt, Mud, of the Rural Areas of the South or any Rural region. Not everyone lives in a Metropolitan area, and thinks the world should CowTow to the Efficient'Nics. I'll tell ya this there were many efficient cars left on the side of the Damn road during the Ice storms a few years back, and those Efficient vehicle owners were very glad "US" unefficient SUV's were there to pull them out of a ditch, call for help, or save their Bacon.
My cat's picked up a Hammer. HEY! Put down that Hammer. Put Down that Hamm...THUNK!
There is no question that this accident is tragic. As a solar car driver, my thoughts go out to the team and family of this student.
However, banning solar racing or requireing impact tests of some sort are misguided. People die in closed-course bicycle races from time to time. People die in automobile crashes every day, to the point where it isn't really news when it happens. Should we prohibit bicycle racing? Or prohibit the manufacture of vehicles capable of speeds greater than 30 MPH? I think not.
When the vehicle you've ordered has sprung fully formed from the forehead of an engineer, you will be notified. Until then, I have instructed everyone involved to knock off building these silly novelties.
Also, I have forwarded your note to the various people involved in the Ansari X-Prize competition, for their edification.
Mind the Gap
If he Was in My Landrover he'd still be alive......
You got FP!
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I used to live near a Hummer plant. It's important to remember that this was originally a military vehicle that has been commercialized for civilians.
Here's the only GOOD REASON I can think of:
America has one of the LARGEST non-enlisted standing armies in the world. Think about how many guns we have, how many people own firearms and can use them. If there were ever a ground-invasion in the USA, the enemy would not only have to contend with the military, but every redneck with a sawed off shotgun and a 1/5 of Jim Beam, to gun enthusiasts, to gun salesmen, to paintball players that decide to arm themselves, to... you get the idea.
So, why not equip your standing civilian army with easily-convertible-to-military-use Hummers? I mean, they've turned civilian airliners into troop transports and bombers before. Hell, drive down the cost of Hummer production by selling them to civilians, and have a huge stock of them should they ever be needed (not to mention further bolstering the civilian population's ground capabilities).
You laugh at the idea of a ground invasion, but if anyone were to start launching nukes, or the USA stopped exporting food, or any number of things, you might be glad your neighbor has 2 handguns, a rifle, and an H2.
Of course, they are hell on the enviornment, most people buy them because they are trendy, they are giant for not apparent use other than a symbol of disgusting excess, and uh yeah. So. You make up your own mind.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
Dozens of people killed in other car accidents on the same day, which don't matter as they were driving gas powered vehicles.
I see what you mean. According to this report, the fines are roughly equivalent to what you would see in the US, but the punishment may also include up to 3 years of hard labor. Ouch.
Perhaps then, they should make the Environmentally burglarous Hummers illegal?
I really wanted to say burglarous, I'm not even sure it's a word though
This sig is o Unfunny o Funny
How does this: The vehicle's design is not really street-safe - this will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers.
...
equal this: Student Killed By Minivan... Humvee to blame? or this How will banning SUV's affect the proliferation of
The point was, if you're going to expect to drive a car on the street, it needs to be engineered with large car crashes in mind. No one suggested that a Humvee was to blame (though I think you meant Hummer) and no one was advocating banning SUVs. You added that yourself.
The irony of strawman posts like this is that they purport to identify an incidence of illogic, rather than represent one.
You have to drive it in a business context more than 50% of the time, according to the article
you linked to.
So
1) It didn't "nearly pay for" the Hummer
2) You actually have to drive the thing for business purposes
3) Other expenses are in the picture like gas, insurance, etc.
You can't plow with a Hummer, or put ladders on the top. It isn't good as a delivery vehicle.
The break just brings the price down to something equivalent to a pickup truck.
I guess it might be pretty cool for a real-estate agent's car, but I don't see many delivering pizzas.
Look, it very much sucks that he died. However, the goal that he was working for -- solar powered automobiles -- probably has more potential impact on humanity than his direct living.
To get a slightly more extreme example: If a doctor announced that he had discovered a cure for influenza or a way to purify water cheaply without engergy requirements, and then was promptly killed be a mugger, I'm sure that everyone would feel bad about his death, but I think that it's more than excusable to place as a higher priority finding out what happened to his work than making noises to make his family feel good. They *know* that his dying sucked already. And, honestly, I've never met or heard of the guy. If every person in the world was told "this guy died", should they all be obligated to lay down their tools and bow their heads for a moment? Of course not. The cost would be phenomenal.
If you want grief, let it be the grief from those who can grieve, the people that knew him. Not random, anonymous strangers on Slashdot.
As another example, every day CNN prints up stories about Iraqis dying. Should I stop and express a list of sympathetic things for an hour? No. People die. The fact that this guy had his name printed instead of just being a statistic, increasing a fatality count by one somewhere does not change that fact.
May we never see th
Taxing cars based on their potential for road wear and tear, and taxing fuel make perfect sense - if the money is used solely to pay for road repairs.
After all, why should somebody without a drivers license be forced to pay for roads they do not use? If they receive a delivery, the tax is paid by the delivery company and passed on in the cost of service. If somebody comes up with a way of delivering goods while minimizing driving, then they pay less in taxes, since they are wearing the roads less.
The problem with a flat tax is that it is regressive when compared to a graduated tax. Now, I'm all for simplifying tax codes and getting rid of many deductions, etc. However, these do not require going to a flat tax. The rates on the website you linked were proposed as being in the 20% range. That is well above many lower-middle class people pay.
A sales-tax based system can actually be more progressive, if you exempt basic cost-of-living items or give a cost-of-living allowance. Money spent repaying debt is tax-free. People who can't afford high taxes tend not to spend much on luxuries.
In any case, people who make six figures can generally afford to pay a much higher rate than those who make five figures...
I sure don't have the horsepower to move a normal car for any reasonable distance. You think perhaps bikes (or horse&buggy since I was just in Amish country) should be illegal and only fat gas-guzzling SUVs allowed?
They ought to just outlaw the stupid things. Studies (no URL offhand, look it up in New Scientist cause that's where I saw it.) give trucks/large vans/suvs about twice the chance to kill a pedestrial (or presumably bicyclist and probably motorbiker too, they're all the same height without the protective metal shell) who they hit in a collision than a normal car.
I can understand the need for some people to have trucks or vans. Most people who have them have them for a good reason (except for the jacked-up SUV wannabe twats). I have yet to see a good reason for a SUV that isn't better filled by a minivan. Possible exception of towing a trailer, but there are minis with plenty of power for most towing too.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
I'm going to go way out on a limb and claim that "hitting a solid enough stationary object" will destroy any vehicle that's travelling at highway speeds. The highway speeds I'm thinking of are between 25 and 30 metres per second. The solid, stationary object that I'm thinking of is a vertical rock cut.
Mind the Gap
thanks narc but information wants to be free.
narc.
you'll still be saying the same thing when we get matter creators wont you? that kind of attitude makes me sick. what right do YOU have to charge me money for something? everything should be like free man. why dont you explain your position to the 4 month old baby who cant get the drugs he needs because the government insits on waiting 10 years to authorize the creation of a generic?
arent you thinking of the children at all??
basically i can take from this that you are in favor of letting babies suffer while you swim in your gold plated shark tank full of paper money and broken dreams.
what a narc.
I doubt this will have real long-term negative impact on Solar Power development. It's not like this out of control vehicle also took out a sideline of spectator Nuns.
Frankly, the fact that taking out a bunch of nuns when a steering mechanism failed would probably have a long-term impact on solar power is extremely depressing.
May we never see th
Aside from the personal tragedy, which everybody should regret, I don't see why "This is a big setback for solar power advocates".
i rley0704.asp ) due to nanotech research.
On this article (link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3536156.stm ) we read about solar-powered hydrogen fabrication, not to mention that flexible,cheaper and better solar cells are already a reality. (link: http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/07/fa
Heavy and inefficient silicon solar cells are becoming already obsolete.
And if you want my opinion, we need stricter quality standards for test race vehicles.
Yea i live in the middle of no where..
The problem with these solar cars.. and the highway they were on..
they are very aerodynamic from the front.. however from the sides they look about as aerodynamic as a brick.
A lot of truck traffic plus the combination of normally high winds blowing across the highway was probably a factor. that and the three wheel design (3 wheeled ATV's were banned from manufacture for good reasons)
Wasn't able to get close to the scene of the accident, the had the road closed and traffic detoured.. but you could see it about 100 yards from the detour. lotsa carbon fibre bits and stuff spread anywhere..
kinda neat to see them fly yoru house though.
It sucks that the kid died, but this should be a setback for solar-powered motor vehicle on highways. The safety problems are very probably unsolvable. Bicycles have been on the roads for over a century and motorcycles for almost as long. No technological solution for what happens when car meets bike that keeps the bike or the rider intact has been found. This suggests to me that there isn't one. If a road-safe solar vehicle can't be built, there is no point in pursuing this technology as more than a dangerous hobby any further.
More to the point, this is NOT an environmental solution. Safety issues aside, every barrel of oil that is conserved by the industrialized countries will be burned by an industrializing Third World, unless carbon-neutral solutions to replace fossil fuel cheaper than the current ones can be found. Therefore, conservation-based approaches to either global warming or running out of oil are uniformly unworkable, no matter how cool the technologies are.
We need energy replacement, not energy conservation.
The place for solar cells is in orbital solar arrays as part of a solar power satellite network. Power availablilty 24/7/365, no concerns about weather, and no SUV will ever run into a cell array and take it offline. However, this is better adapted as a solution for central station power generation facilities.
The solution for motor vehicle power? Switch to diesel engines and grow crude oil in energy farms. Even food-grain crop based biodiesel is comparable to price to bin Laden's Finest Middle East oil product, and algae-based biomass grown as part of sewage treatment promises to be quite a bit cheaper than growing it from fuel crops.
For more discussion of the implications of this, check my sig.
Tech Public Policy stuff
He's not a martyr.. he wasn't murdered for his beliefs about solar energy, he ran off the road and got splattered thanks to what was apparently a mechanical failure that had nothing to do with the 'solar' part of the car. If he'd been swiped off the road by a driver with some kind of bizarre grudge against solar-powered cars, then yeah, maybe he would be a martyr.
But in any case, using that word would attach religious significance to the event. Is that what you want?
Before I actually read the article I had this impression of the student being killed by sitting under a giant magnifying glass.
- Thomas;
___ This sig is in boldface to emphasize its importance!
The fact that Bluesky is having an accident every year, to me, indicates that these people are perhaps being pushed a little too hard, and perhaps the cars are not being designed with the driver's safety in mind (and I'm not just talking about the durability of the vehical but also such things as the driver's visibilty of the road and reliability of his control systems).
One of the Wright brothers died in an airplane crash.
Astronauts have been killed.
Those who push forward humanity's knowledge for the rest of us often assume greater-than-normal risks willingly.
Should the team now be crippled, forced to use regular-car safty regulations? Should we slow research for the sake of a few potential lives?
I realize that you're not proposing anything so extreme, but things like the grounding of the shuttle because of the insulation problems (come *on* -- astronauts have flown many times without insulation killing them, and have had many more risks) is ridiculous. People skydive, cliff dive, street race. They know what they're doing. We send soldiers, many younger than the young man that died, to Iraq to die and kill others. Surely this man died in the most noble pursuit imaginable -- forwarding the cause of humanity? The percentage of scientists that die in the line of duty is certainly smaller than the percentage of soldiers that die in the line of duty. Why is it that we demand that science now take no risks? I would not want people to ever be forced to take risks that they don't want to take or lied to about known risks, but none of the Bluesky people were likely to be unaware of the earlier mechanical problems, which I'm sure they had worked on fixing.
Instead, it would not surprise me if the university cancels the program -- they are a business that has to sell their services to many parents of students.
If I could conduct an project that, if successful, would give mankind the ability to build things with nanites, but if failed, would kill me, and my chances of death were 15% (and the alternative, slower, safer methods would delay this knowledge by another 50 years), I'd take it in an instant. Why is it that people in the United States would likely consider this unacceptable, but once *forced* young men to die in the jungles of Vietnam? Where are our priorities?
May we never see th
Nonetheless, large heavy vehicles on the road should be last resort, not a standard. And it is equally true that as long as big heavy vehicles are on the road smaller light-weight vehicles are going to be dangerous to drive- THIS IS OBVIOUS, and it annoys me to all hell that advocates of big vehicles think the solution is to drive bigger "safer" vehicles. The road need not be the spot for our national Darwinian drama. The road is not a place for an arms-race.
Let's face it: the reasons people want bigger vehicles (for the most part) is because a)They think they're cool b)they think they're safer, or at least they think they make themselves feel safer, c)having an expensive SUV broadcasts their financial success (a mating call, no? -for the males of the species, primarily), d)because the SUV is an attractive option because it is largely functional (if wasteful) because of its size AND because it carries an attractive image of independence, ruggedness, sportiness, etc. (look at those SUV commercials of vehicles driving through the wilderness (a morally dubious thing to do (the destruction caused is more than negligible), but hella fun).
The thing that we tree-huggers need to realize is that SUV's and other large vehicles actually serve a function in society, and the individuals who own/use them are acting rationally in the sphere of things that they think are important. HOWEVER, those things are the wrong things, the things that really aren't that important.
Unfortunately, our human species is not well equipped to take the long view of things. In fact, we are exceedingly poor at doing so- and this makes evolutionary sense- although taking a limited long view is evolutionarily adaptive, focusing on the long view is not because our powers of prediction were/are still exceedingly poor- more important to see the tiger about to eat you than to wonder how we could set up the environment so that there wasn't any conflict between humans and tigers, so to speak.
This is essentially a problem of "The Tragedy of the Commons", but in this case the Commons is not some field, but all of our planetary resources (including good air to breathe and fair weather), and each person's taking away of from the Commons, no matter how ridiculously abusive, is only a miniscule portion of that Commons. We, in fact, have a difficult time seeing the impact of our behaviour, or the scope of the situation. And because we do not see so clearly (and I mean see individually in everyday life) the impact of our behaviour, we do not feel compelled to act to change how things work- certainly not as compelled as we may feel to have the glorious feeling of bringing home that gorgeous SUV (I, like others, think that SUV's (minus the HUMMER) are often designed in a pleasing way). And because some of us are so enamoured with that vision of the good life, of independence, of manliness, of success, of Big Americanness (I am a proud American), and perhaps enamoured of actually having that good life (and I believe that it is probably true that a lot of anti-advocates of the SUV are simply suffering from jealousy because they cannot afford such a vehicle), yes, because of all these things, that many of us refuse to believe, sometimes consciously, but often unconsciously, what our scientists continue to tell us about the destruction we are causing, and the deep problems we are getting ourselves into. It is, in fact, a deep rabbit hole- and it is easier to fall than to climb
Logic, macros, and more
This car has had a history, as have many other solar cars. Colorado State University had a solar car, which had several accidents during it's years of operation. Fortunatly, there were no fatalities, but some pretty serious bang ups.
The problem has absolutly nothing to do with the size or type of other vehicles on the road (despite what the anti-SUV crowd would have you think). Most of the accidents with these (solar, expiremental test vehicles) don't even involve other vehicles. So quit blaming the hummer.
Examining my experience with the CSU solar car, it really comes down to the fact that vehicle dynamics and handling are very low on the design criteria list, if they make it at all, in most current university solar car designs. CSU's solar car had several accidents, which sound very similar to the tragedy that occured here. Typically a gust of wind or pressure front from another vehicle caused the vehicle to flip or swerve, and the handling characteristics of the solar car was such that recovery was difficult, especially at any speed. Often times windws would just grab the whole car and throw it in the ditch. You can't say that a lighter vehicle is better when it cannot survive reasonable effects of nature.
It's a catch 22 - The only reasonable way to test these vehicles is on the roads, but they really don't belong there from a safety standpoint. The folks driving these really are modern day astronauts.
Bless his family and friends.
I thought this would be conclusive proof that minivans aren't safe....
The vehicle's design is not really street-safe - this will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers
... more efficient, lighter cars" will also be highly dangerous to occupants when encountering trees, 18 wheelers, garbage trucks, sign posts, curbs, or almost anything else it comes into contact with than comparably less efficient, heavier, but emminently safer vehicles - which stand a reasonable chance of surviving or coming away from entirely unscathed.
And in related news it was revealed that, additionally, such "not really street-safe
Finally, we get truth in advertising from the "lighter, efficient at all costs!" crowd - these things suck for real-world applications. Have fun driving them in a lab though!
(Score:-5, Non-/.-eco-groupthink)
Norm: Say Martha did you feel a bump in the road?
Martha: Why yes I did, I just figured it was some old roadkill.
Norm: Mmm.. ok. Say did the minivan's microwave oven finish popping my corn yet?
Martha: Why yes it did.. sorry I was too busy watching my movie on the dvd player.
I would like to ammend what I said about belief in the end times being responsible for environmental irresponsibility: I did not mean to imply that all environmental irresponsibility is caused by End-timers.
Logic, macros, and more
The poster also mentions that the car isn't really street legal. From the pictures, it appears that the car didn't have any bumpers.
Although Hummers are the easiest to hate, these solar-powered vehicles are too light to withstand a collision with a light pole...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
> Yes, I realize that off-road vehicles need higher clearance and need to use public roads to get offroad, but we see the results of non-standard bumper heights everyday, including here.
Sorry, but RTFA. The solar car was lacking in bumpers, and the vehicle he hit was not an SUV, it was a minivan, which has standard bumpers.
Virg
You, sir, are a fucking idiot.
You are placing human life above everything else, assigning infinite value to human life (and not even human life, but the direct life that you can see being lost). You don't know how many lives solar power would *save*. More lives have been lost over oil wars in the last *year*, and more men have died working on undersea oil rigs than will probably ever die working on solar power.
What are you doing right now? Posting on Slashdot. If you really, truly believed in what you were saying, that human life comes above all else, you wouldn't be posting on Slashdot. You'd be out volunteering to help consel suicidal people on a hotline. Or any number of other things that might save a life. But you know what? You aren't -- you're placing a bit of your short-term *enjoyment* (not even an advancement of human knowledge) over someone else's life. I'll bet you speed too, to get where you want to go five minutes faster by gambling with other people's lives. By your standards, you are one sick fuck. Instead, you are quite comfortable criticizing *other* people because they didn't place human lifes (including *their own*) above all else. Yes, they had to try out new designs. Yes, probably they will make a mistake or learn that something doesn't work when they were sure that it did. You are probably sitting in an air-conditioned house with all the food you want handy. It was shipped to you on trucks, which countless lives were lost in perfecting, running internal combustion engines, the development of which cost more lives. Your AC is powered by electrical power produced (if you live in the United States) almost entirely by coal. Do you have the remotest concept of how many people have been killed in coal mines?
But instead, you jab at anyone who is pushing the envelope, every time something goes wrong. It's comfortable for you to attack them. "Safety first". Christ. There is research going on. The people that blazed trails across America, Madam Curie inducing radiation burns on herself, the men that built bridges (and died doing so, as better techniques were learned), they didn't have soft rubberized surfaces and rounded-off corners. People *died*, you ass. But you can ignore them now, because they're in the past and you can just enjoy the fruits of their labor. You can sit supreme in your self-superiority ("If *I* was running that project, not only would nobody die, but we'd get just as much research done"). You don't have any idea what you're talking about. You haven't worked on any of the systems, or have the faintest grounds to talk about the risk factors involved. If you think that this guy's fellow researchers didn't give a damn about him and sacrificed him because they just didn't care about safety, you're a complete idiot. It's armchair quarterbacking of the worst kind, the kind that damages our advancement of knowledge to make you feel a little more warm and fuzzy inside.
May we never see th
there's no need to allow hummers to, say, downtown any more than there is need to allow 12 wheelers to pass straight through a crowded downtown(if you want a truck don't fucking drive it like a hot hatch).
I suppose that you also extensive taxing of support electricity-hogging cutting CPUs, RAID cards, high capacity hard drives for home PCs, etc? Just because its not your thing doesn't mean that it needs to be attacked.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Frankly I don't care for Hummers, I think they are a waste of money. However I will not begrudge someone for owning one. Anything can be justified and anyone can dismiss another's justification.
The key is, which side are you on?
How do you justify more than one computer? After all millions get by with just one!
How do you justify using a 4 seat car to drive yourself to work?
How do you justify living outside of town thereby making public transportation unable to serve you?
How does a family justify an Expedition over a Camry?
Yes Hummers annoy people, but I know people annoyed that Hybrids are marketed as great environment savers while completely dodging the issue of what happens to the batteries when their life is up.
The best part of personal freedom is also one of its most annoying. You are free to justify and act on your desires just as much as the next guy provided such actions and desires don't have a direct adverse affect on another person, or an unlawful affect. I would gladly have a world full of Hummers than the opposite, and I drive a Miata and ride a motorcycle as well.
Which btw, how does anyone justify a recreational vehichle? Let alone how does one justify a motorcycle? I justify it to myself because I enjoy it and its my choice.
Make your own choice, just don't expect someone to agree with it and don't villify someone because of theirs.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Now if the driver had run over something important, like a skunk, then we'd have a problem.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the majority of auto fatalities are in accidents involving a single car. Your bumper being "compatible" with ever other car on the road, doesn't help when you hit a tree.
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
The whole accident was staged by the EXXON corporation's board of directors!!!
...he'd put on his solar seatbelt and charged the solar airbags
why does it seem to be taken for granted that this will hurt development of the technology? are people really so stupid that they can't separate the "he was so young!!" from "he was driving a *solar powered car*!" of course it sucks that the guy died in the middle of something so exciting. and solar powered cars are a cool idea. both at the same time. cripes.
I agree.
Even cars of different mass would benefit from matching stiffened and zoned parts of the car.
It seems strange to me that we dealt with differences in vehicle height and size only by mounting a third tail light.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Who moded this funny?
He was killed by a minivan, not some big lifted truck. You're way off topic. Minivans share bumper height with most cars.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
The Lotus Elise is this way too (the UK/racing version is not street legal in the US.) There is a US version, though.
Why don't they make adjustable bumpers with off-road and on-road configurations? I'm not a civil or mechanical engineer, but it seems that it should be possible to deflect impacts into the frame from below.
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
I drive a Chevy Tahoe because:
It seems like a lot of the negativity can be broken down into:
I live in California which according to this report, is ranked the second highest in "Average price per gallon". I'm not wealthy by any means, but I enjoy camping so it's worth it to me. I've had no moving violations for 14 years. I also don't consume alchohol. Why is this relevant you're asking? Well let me tell you why:
In the past month two passangers and I, along with lots of gear, were travelling from southern California on a camping and hiking trip. The round-trip drive was just over 1000 miles. My passengers and I had taken several days off work so we would have time to visit two national parks. It was the middle of the day, the weather was sunny and clear, I was traveling the speed limit of 70 mph with very few vehicles around me since I do my best to avoid driving in "wolf packs". We were chatting when the conversation suddenly turned to explatives. "Oh sh*t!" yelled the rear passenger (and quite a bit more) as a I slammed on the brake so hard my knee is still in pain two weeks later. A car "merging" from another freeway came screaming perpendicular to the flow of traffic across all lanes, dragging a rooster tail of dirt from the unpaved highway divider. I braked just enough to watch him collide into the center barrier wall directly in front of us, at which point the cloud of dirt he was dragging engulfed us. There was nothing I could do except hope we weren't going to collide in the short space I had to stop in (No, a smaller car would still not have been able to stop in enough time). Anyway, in the dirt cloud my truck and his Honda Accord collided. It turns out he was drunk off his a$$ at 1pm in the afternoon on a Friday, driving with a su
The I-told-you-so crowd will say "You see solar energy isn't safe, isn't the solution. We must construct nuclear powered cars." The armor protecting the driver from radiation would have protected him from an oncoming mini-van. Not only that he would have had enough power for a car mounted laser that could have vaporized the mini-van before it even got close.
History repeats itself. An accident with the revolutionary Dymaxion car created by R. Bucky Fuller shut that project down. And it too was caused by a driver in a standard vehicle of its day.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I find it amazing that the impact points of cars, all the way around the vehicle, are not of standard height.
I completely agree. Just last week, I was backed into by a guy in a huge pickup truck, and rather than bouncing off of my front bumper, he folded the front of my hood up like a sardine can (Mitsu Mirage). The whole thing was quite disconcerting to say the least.
Um? You're sitting here cracking jokes about the way someone died, just a couple days after the event? Disgusting.
In my local area, a 14 year old girl was killed while driving an electric car designed by high school students.
By that logic, nobody in their right mind would ride a pedal bicycle in the city, either. However, that's quite common. Some of them frequently do more than 30 mph, too. Slamming into a car or a wall at that speed could easily be fatal.
calm down, man.
I'm a pretty sarcastic angry guy myself and I want to tell you that getting worked up over a posting isn't productive. that guy isn't going to listen anyway.
step back get a cold drink or play GTA vice city.
take it slow for a few minutes.
It would be a very sad development if we get an arms race on the roads. Needing ever heavier vehicles just to survive. Perhaps we should do like germany has done with motorcycles. You need a higher license for a heavier car and a proven record of safe driving.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In the US, poeple believe that SUVs are the safest, but the fatality record of SUVs is only about as good as that of a mid-sized car
Part of this may be that SUV's tend to roll over more, but part of it probably has to do with what kind of people drive what kind of cars. According to this article the safest vehicle in terms of crash data is the Buick LeSabre. Probably because most Buick buyers are as old as dirt, and few Buick LeSabres ever are driven above 50mph.
Contrast that with medium-sized SUV's popular with college kids whose parents have too much money. Part of the reason for the stat may well be the vehicles, but the other part is that certain people who drive in certain ways frequently buy certain cars.
I have blog like everyone else
To be exact, it was actually between Shakespeare and New Hamburg on highway 7/8. I live near that area and the road can be pretty treacherous. Some nasty deaths have occurred around there over the years.
Picture at this link (today only): http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/
From the local newspaper "Stratford Beacon Herald".
Solar Car Driver Killed in Crash Just East of Shakespeare
By Brian Shypula, Staff reporter
SHAKESPEARE -- Tragedy marred a tour to promote solar energy when an experimental car from the University of Toronto was involved in a head-on crash on Highway 7/8, killing its young driver yesterday.
The sleek, three-wheeled car and another from Queen's University had just finished a promotional stop in Stratford and were on their way to Waterloo when the crash occurred about five kilometres east of Shakespeare.
The driver was rushed to a Kitchener hospital by ambulance but died of severe head injuries, said Perth County OPP.
He was identified as Andrew Frow, 21, of North York. The U of T mechatronics engineering student was the mechanical systems lead for the university's Blue Sky Solar Racing team, according to the team's website.
Const. Glen Childerley of Perth County OPP said it was Mr. Frow's first time driving the car on the road, but he had tested the vehicle on a track.
He said the student was "confident" and "comfortable" driving the car.
The two-lane highway was closed for nearly six hours as accident reconstruction specialists tried to piece together what happened in the 4:30 p.m. crash.
Const. Childerley said the solar car begin to weave in its lane. The driver momentarily appeared to regain control, but the car suddenly swerved into the oncoming lane, where it was hit head-on by a blue minivan heading west.
The driver of the minivan, Rudy Schoenhoeffer, 45, of Stratford, was not injured.
The racer was being accompanied by two escort vans, both equipped with flashing lights, carrying other members of the U of T team. The racer was immediately behind one of the vans just prior to the crash, Const. Childerley said.
David Hackett, a truck driver and volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Maryhill, Ont., was one of the first on the scene and rushed to help.
He took over performing CPR on the victim from another U of T student until county paramedics and volunteer firefighters from Shakespeare arrived.
He said the victim's safety helmet had been removed but he was still inside the car's roll cage.
The tough roll cage had been knocked several metres from the smashed carbon-fibre shell of the racer.
"We just did what we could," said Mr. Hackett, who was hauling groceries to Stratford when he came upon the accident.
He praised the "cool-headedness" of one of the students, who continued to help him revive the injured driver while also caring for the other teammates, having the distraught group led to a safe spot on the front lawn of a nearby home.
The light weight of the solar car may have been a factor in the crash.
"I think the weight is a lot different in the solar car than it is in a normal vehicle, so maybe the wind was a factor," Const. Childerley said.
The car, named the Faust II, weighed only 420 pounds empty, according to the team's website.
It is capable of reaching 125 km/h, powered by special lithium batteries which store electricity created by 3,000 solar cells on the car's surface.
The car is "a bit tricky" to drive, said U of T student Andreas Marouchos, 21, of Toronto, who drove it from London to Stratford earlier yesterday.
"Because you're low and because if there is a small gust of wind you feel it a lot more," he said during the Stratford stop in front of City Hall.
The driver is also in an awkward position.
"It's like the luge, like looking down towards your feet," he said.
This wasn't the first time a U of T solar car was involved in a crash on an Ontario highway. In August 2002, an earlier model collided with a vehicle on Highway 62 near Belleville. The U of T student piloting the racer received facial injurie
Yup that is our problem.. Must ban mini vans since one intentionally killed this poor college student trying to save the earth..
They are evil and must be removed from the face of the planet..
Then we must sue the car makers for selling the evil devices..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You know, I know a *ton* of people that drive SUVs, and not a single one needs them. Every person that actually does work in an environent where a rugged vehicle is required drives a pickup (generally an older, battered one).
That doesn't mean that other vehicles don't have a use. Minivans are probably the best way to get around if you have a bunch of kids. However, people comlpaining that they are being exposed to danger by people who hae no reason to own their vehicles are right on the money.
May we never see th
In Edinburgh, the city council tried to implement a Congestion Charge for anyone wishing to drive into the city during peak hours. The idea was to discourage car owners from clogging up the main arteries and slowing down public transport, while at the same time, creating a fund to provide for new public transportation. Various groups have now been or are campaigning for exemptions. These include the following:
Cars used by residents in low income estates on the outer suburbs of the city
Cars used for charities
Cars used by nurses, doctors, firefighters and other public service workers workin during hours not served by public transport. For people living in the rural countryside, a four-wheel drive is often essential due to flooded lanes and roads.
Cars used as an essential tool by self-employed people eg. taxi's, plumbers, care assistants
So far, this has practically exempted every motorist from the city, except for out of town shoppers, who are now being driven out by increased traffic restrictions.
There was an amusing fight between the various city councils. After Edinburgh proposed plans to charge outsides to enter the city, the adjacent city mayors announced they would expand their shopping centres to help their residents avoid having to pay the congestion charge. Edinburgh threaten to file a lawsuit to prevent this. The cities threatened to file lawsuits against the congestion charge. So far, it's a stand-off.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
what the fuck dudes this is retarded. fucking kanucks, that's what they get for being so rabidly anti-american. who do they think they are? not only are those crazy kanucks retarded, but they're fucking communists and EVERYBODY knows they want to invade the US so they can impose their canadian moral-superiority on US!
FUCK YOU CANADA and CANADIANS! YOU DESERVE WHAT YOU GET FOR NOT BEING AMERICAN!!!!
There just isn't that much power in sunlight for a mobile vehicle. Period. End of Story. If you want to carry a person for a direct solar powered vehicle, you have to get down to absolute minimum weight. There's no magic to fix that. A direct solar powered vehicle is a stunt, and the most expensive part are the solar panels.
The solar car teams from various universities are race cars - they're designed to go as fast/ far as possible while doing so efficiently. As such they don't have things like bumpers.
In addition they are inspected quite rigorously for safety, including head on crash tests (simulated), before they are allowed on the road. The safety policy is that there must be a lead and chase vehicle between which the car travels. This of course helps protect the car from other motorists.
What is telling in this incident is not the lack of a bumper or its height (it makes no difference since the solar car was T-boned; I read that in a different article).
The car fishtailed - this means either the car was fundamentally unstable to begin with, or the control system was poorly designed so the driver didn't know what to do a blow out happened. If the former were true the engineering team failed in a big way. I don't think that's the case - there are too many checks and balances in solar car design for that to happen. I would say it's the latter. Just like you have to be told many times what to do in case you start skidding in a front wheel vs back wheel drive car and then to really learn your lesson you need to have it happen a few times and try it for your self (notice how many accidents happen the first day it snows). Probably there was no actual training for how to handle a blow out or similar issue while driving the car.
Unfortunatly, that's life. I'm sure the driver knew the risks before sitting down in the driver's seat. Its very sad that this should happen.
Thank god his fuel didn't explode!
-- Terry
"All he was trying to do was further research in alternative energy sources...a very noble cause."
How does driving a solar powered car on public roads further research? Is there some unique interaction between photons and trucks that needs to be investigated? If so where are the research papers?
Designing and building a solar car is an interesting project suitable for a university engineering department's students. Designing a very light weight car that can be driven safely on public roads in normal traffic, by students, is not. In my opinion the university has failed in their duty of care.
Talk about a sunburn!
In other news....Hurricane Charley will be over my house in about 16 hours! Woo Hoo!!
I'm sorry, there is no way that a solar car meets the basic requirements for road safety. The inherent requirement for light weight guarantees that in an accident involving any normal vehicle the solar car's structure will collapse.
In order to have low rolling resistance the tires are much less robust than ordinary car tires. They are more puncture prone, and have less grip.
In order to have good aerodynamics the cars sit very low to the road, so they will slide under other vehicles, and get squashed.
Finally, male students are very accident prone drivers, and tend not to have the driving skills to allow them to cope with emergencies.
Speaking as one of those people riding a pedal bicycle in the city, yes, you pretty much need to be crazy. You're sharing the road with people driving vehicles weighing 100 times as much as yours, driving 2-3 times faster than you, who not only don't really want to share the road with you but many of whom actively resent your presence. Since the city hasn't gotten around to putting in bike lanes/wide enough lanes, you're probably sharing a lane with a car, and that car is likely to get frustrated when your acceleration and top speed aren't as high as his.
Yeah, we pretty much have to be crazy to be willing to put ourselves in this much risk. On the other hand, its fun, and tends to reduce the health effects of pizza and beer after work to nil.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
That's almost what I was thinking....
"Japan allows far lighter cars on the road and yet, has only 60% of the fatal accidents per 10,000 vehicles"
Is that percentage supposed to change with 20,000 vehicles? What's the percentage per 10 vehicles?
We build the cars you will buy. If we build the cars you 'ought' to buy, but you don't buy them, then we go bust.
Th history books are littered with the names of car companies that tried to sell cars that people 'should' have bought.
You, the consumer, make the choice. You, the voter, make the choice.
My condolences to all those close to the tragic accident.
I have no doubt that research into solar-based vehicles will fulfill an important niche in the future.
However, for mass market vehicles, the wave of the future is hydrogen. Alan Alda on "Scientific American Frontiers" on PBS recently hosted a fascinating episode in which he visited various automobile manufacturers around the world to see what their plans were. Some were quite startling, including a revolutionary "skateboard" chassis from the Ford Motor Company that runs entirely on electronics, rather than, say, hydraulics. This is old hat to some, but I'd never seen it before.
The remaining stumbling blocks seem to be:
1) Storing enough hydrogen fuel in one car tank for a 300-mile ride without refueling.
2) Making the hydrogen safe to transport. As discussed on the show, nickel-metal hydrides can store hydrogen in a solid state form, albeit at cold temperatures.
3) Making the hydrogen safe to distribute at the pump.
As shown on the show, Iceland is one country that has the political will-power to go completely hydrogen, but they aren't there yet. So it is not merely will-power, but technology.
Even if you're not in the United States, you can see the show for free at http://www.pbs.org/saf/1403/video/watchonline.htm (no gimmicks, but you do need a broadband connection), courtesy of PBS (which relies on monetary donations from viewers like you).
In the future, that fancy SUV is going to be running on hydrogen, and it won't make a bit of difference to the owner. But a smog-filled freeway is going to be a distant memory.
The car's design is inherently bad. It is not safe for the environment in which it is to be used. Students do not have the engineering judgement to design, build and race a car for use on public roads in normal traffic.
Oh, I lead the mechanical design for two major subsystems (chassis/suspension and wheel motor) for the 1999 World Solar Challenge winner by the way, and I work for a real car company on vehicle dynamics.
What /useful/ lessons are being learnt by racing (which is illegal in many jurisdictions btw) on public roads?
Sorry, but it's clear these teams have no idea what they're doing
Part of the problem is that the 'solar car' community is often made up of people who feel they are diametrically opposed to the Motor Sports community, so they don't act on or even acknowledge the insights that Indy Car designers could provide them with.
Now, if there was just a class of racing vehicles based on Solar Power that could appeal to the motorheads, perhaps this would change. Unfortunately theres a vast cultural divide. Too much influence from Vegan bicyclist types in the solar car crowd, IMHO.
resigned
They do not meet the safety criterion for normal cars. They are driven by inexperienced drivers from the age-group with the highest accident rate. They should not be on public roads.
Andrew Frow was killed near the village of Shakespeare, which is 15 minutes east of Stratford. The area is a farming community. Much of the road has farmer's fields on both sides and can have some pretty heavy wind blowing across. It is often closed for whiteout conditions in a winter snowstorm.
I have never liked this road and have always thought it was dangerous. I never went to visit my parents when it was snowing, and usually didn't like to drive it after dark. ( I once hit a deer on that road at night and totalled my car.)
The city of Shakespeare hosts the Stratford Festival (Shakespeare plays etc) in the summer and highway 7 / 8 gets really busys at times. Heavy traffic on a narrow two-lane highway through farm country leads to accidents every summer.
Last summer I was driving that road after dark and almost hit two different farm vehicles - one some enormous slow-moving thing with only very dim lights on the back. The other was a transport truck FULLY across the highway (so I couldn't see the front lights or tail lights), apparently doing a 10 point turn to back into a farm. This road has had a lot of accidents before Andrew Frow, and will have more after him.
Student Killed Driving Solar Car
Bet someone'll blame it on a popular game that involves killing [innocent] driving solar cars. He's probably an outcast; doesn't have (m)any friends, dresses in a lot of black...
Read; Write; Execute
It sounds like he was not yet at the part of the trip where it divides into four lanes. Speeds really increase there. It is not uncommon to be passed here while going 120km/h (~75mph) some days. Even the section he was at, speeds would be closer to 100km/h (~62mph). The speed limit there is 80km/h, and it's usually only the old ladies that drive the speed limit in this area.
Almost every comment so far seems to talk about how unsafe solar cars are, and how they should not be allowed to drive on public roads.
I'd just like to reply to all of them in general to say that a high speed head on collision can be fatal regardless of what vehicle you're driving. In fact there was a very similar accident on a highway close to that accident where a car crossed into oncoming traffic and was hit by a pickup truck. The driver of the car was killed in that collision as well.
However, if you take a look at photos of the solar car after the accident, note that the driver compartment is almost completely intact. This, people, is GOOD design, not bad. See further the news reports that say the driver appeared undamaged, and that he died of a serious head injury. Again, GOOD design, in that the car absorbed most of the impart, rather than shredding the driver to bits.
Look also at the accident UofT had in 2002 with their vehicle being t-boned. The driver sustained only a foot injury (although the car was destroyed).
Take a look at the safety record for solar cars in general. Solar car competitions have been going on since the late '80's, and as far as I remember, this is the first fatal accident involving one (at least the first in a long while).
The root cause of this accident seems to be the driver losing control of the vehicle. This may have nothing to do with the safety of the solar car itself. It may have been as simple as the driver passing out. Maybe a tire blew (note that even in a regular car, a blown tire can lead to decreased control).
Until we know the facts behind the accident, let's please not jump to conclusions. And let's please not give solar cars an unfairly bad reputation based on unsubstantiated conjecture.
P.S. I am on a solar car team, so this has hit me pretty hard. It really pisses me off, however, when people who don't know the facts start rambling on about how unsafe solar cars are, and how they should be taken off the roads. Please just wait for the facts.
This car would have been destroyed on impact with a Yugo. Furthure more, this car would have be destroyed on impact with most any object along side most roads. Light posts, guard rails, fire hydrants, and much more.
Build em stronger and you'll save more lives than air polution is claimed to take.
Regardless, it's infringement and it should be avoided
Maybe the poster doesn't live in a country where that is true.
I'm a bit surprised that there would be folks here arguing that there should be more safety in a solar car. Given the nature of what it actually is used for I doubt it's possible. Let's say someone died in an F1 car race. The simplest thing would be to have everyone race at walking speeds and presto, next to impossible to get into an accident. Wouldn't make the race very interesting to watch obviously thou. Another good example is that they could actually make normal cars survive head on collisions on the highway but that would require a couple extra feet of shock absorbant bumpers on each end which wouldn't be practical. This is an unfortunate accident and hopefully not too much of a setback for the U of T.
You are free to justify and act on your desires just as much as the next guy provided such actions and desires don't have a direct adverse affect on another person, or an unlawful affect.
Does having double the chance of killing someone else in an accident count?
If not, can I mount thick sheet metal blades to the outside of my vehicle to even the odds up a little?
People of course should be free to choose their vehicle. And pay for the damage they cause. A 4 ton "car" causes 256 time as much damage to the road as a 1 ton car. Therefore the 4 ton car should pay 256 time more. If the roads were run properly as a buisness that's how things would be.
Mish-mashed parentheses in paragraph 3.
This accident was, of course, a tragedy. Not uncommonly, it was one which could have been averted with just one simple precaution...SPF 45.
Having traveled more than 2,000 miles in such vehicles, I can tell you that we are very aware of the risks of solar car racing. FaustII, U of T's car, was built to race in the American Solar Challenge. The safety regulations can be found here. Notable points are that the team must have a lead and chase vehicle to protect the car from traffic, there must be a roll cage (including a steel roll bar), and the driver must wear a motorcycle helmet and a 5 point harness. The body, suspension, and systems of a car are inspected, and the braking and steering are tested dynamically. In the 2003 American Solar Challenge, of the 28 teams that showed up, 8, including the previous champion, did not qualify due to safety concerns. Faust II met these requirements, as well as the rules put in place by Ontario's Ministry of Transportation. Safety is the top priority, if for no other reason than the fact that you won't win races if the car breaks down, or if the driver doesn't feel safe (and therefore refuses to go over 5 miles an hour). The people who run these races and drive these vehicles are not dumbasses; a very real and very large effort is made to see to it that these vehicles are safe.
Clearly, some part of the safety process was inadaquate. I am confident that what ever the cause of the accident was, the problem can be corrected, and solar racing can continue not as the safest sport in the world, but probably safer than, say, mountain climbing. I just can't unterstand how some people get off trashing the efforts of people they've never met in a task they know nothing about.
Some information on solar cars:
They have operated on public roads for about 15 years. They participate in long, cross country races, the two most popular being the American Solar Challenge (various routes, the most recent was from Chicago to Los Angles) and the World Solar Challenge (Accross Australia, from Darwin to Adelaide, on the Stuart Highway, an unfriendly road shared with road-trains (think a semi truck, but around 200 feet long, 180 tons)). Given the number of miles that solar cars have covered, their safety record has been pretty damn good.
From the limited information I've seen, nothing indicates that the design of the car or the actions of the team posed any threat greater than that of riding a motorcycle. A boy lost control of his vehicle. and died. and yes, it does happen every day. and it's sad.
There will certianly be an investigation into the cause of the accident, whether the rules governing solar cars should be changed, or if solar cars should even continue to be operated on open roads.
But now is is the time for grief. My heart goes out to Andrew's friends and family, Blue Sky, and UT.
The same argument can be applied to sports cars; they're notoriously less fuel efficient than most vehicles, they provide something unnecessary for drivers (incredible speed/acceleration), and idiots driving them are a large source of traffic accidents (though also a large source of government revenue for speeding). There's no good reason to have a sports car unless you race for a living, and in that case there's still no good reason to drive it on the road. So why not apply the same argument to sports cars? Or for that matter pickup trucks not owned by farmers?
The truth is about 90% of the things human beings produce and buy are completely and totally unnecessary... So your point is, well, pointless.
This is simply not true. Solar cars are made of composite materials and have composite or metal frames. These materials allow them to be extremely light but they are still very strong. I have personally seen the results of a lower speed rear end collision between an SUV and a solar car (solar car was stopped, SUV rear ended it). There was almost no damage - the SUV was stopped by the composite body of the car - it never even impacted the frame ebcause the body was so strong. The yale solar car has a carbon fiber lower shell with a kevlar top and a titanium frame surrounding the driver including a titanium roll cage. Other cars are built similarly. Hitting an object with a combined speed of 120mph will destroy any car. The fact that the minivan wa only minimally damaged is just a testament to the fact that the solar car was light and didnt have the energy to damage the minivan. This is a GOOD thing - If it was a head on collision between two minivans, both drivers would probably have been killed. If you can't see why heaviness is a bad quality for a vehicle tha is going to crash, just look at any train wreck. The trains are usually going less than 60mph and they do a LOT more damage when they collide because they are HEAVY.
What would happen with his license would vary from state to state. Here, that could go as reckless driving which could get your license suspended. However, at the very least that would raise his insurance through the roof.
"But your suggestion that idiots to good driver ratio is the same for truck drivers(or worse) than normal licenses is moronic to say the least."
No, no, no. Don't get into strawmen with me. I made no comparision of the ratio of good truck drivers and good car drivers. Format your arguments to counter what I did say, not what you wanted me to say.
"Most truck driving companies will not hire you in order to train and eventually help you get your commercial license if you have any points or accidents on your normal license."
I'm sure they do everything they can to get rid of bad drivers, but some do get through. Not having any accidents or points on your record doesn't mean you are a good driver, it means you havn't been caught.
Add to that there are other issues that affect how truck drivers drive. They are often driving for long periods of time which negatively affects their saftey. Also they often become cocky, which also makes them less safe. Again, you just need to go out on the nearest interstate to see poor truck drivers.
"But the day you get your normal license you could hop behind the wheel of a hummer or other large non-commercial vehicle, drive that around and be a menace to the other drivers on the road."
And if they do so they must be only driving a large car to compensate for their small penis size, right? Believe it or not, there are legitimate reasons to drive a large car. For instance would you prefer one soccer mom carpooling half a dozen kids to practice in a minivan or half a dozen soccer moms each driving one kid to practice?
"Seems big monetary settlements are all people who pose your argument seem to understand."
Oh I get it. I don't subscribe to your blind ideology so I must be in it for the money. Fuck you you bigoted piece of shit.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
"this car would have be destroyed on impact with most any object along side most roads."
Perhaps, but the driver would have walked away from it. (For that matter, if it had been another similar vehicle, both drivers would probably have walked away from it, which is Rather Unlikely with a head-on collision between even small cars at highway speeds.)
As long as you have an order of magnitude weight difference between vehicles on the same road, you're going to have non-surviveable crashes, whether it's a solar car and a minivan or a Honda Civic and a tractor-trailer. The risks here weren't any bigger than the risks you take every time you get into a car.
"Probably there was no actual training for how to handle a blow out or similar issue while driving the car."
What actually happened was that he was drifting into the oncoming traffic lane (not uncommon, and not a problem if it's corrected soon enough); going back into the right-hand lane he hit the shoulder, and that was what put him out of control.
I doubt many drivers would know how to handle this, no matter what they're driving. I don't think it's been established (or even whether there's enough of the car left to tell) whether something in the car failed, or if it was just a gust of wind or an overcorrection at the wrong time.
"I'm sure the driver knew the risks before sitting down in the driver's seat."
Seconded.
Yes, he had a permit from the MTO to drive on the road. He also probably had more training for it and stricter standards to meet than you do to drive your car.
When you drive home today, will you be endangering your own life and the lives of others with the consent of public authorities, or at your own discretion?
I will be doing so with the full consent of the public authorities, and I have been determined by the insurance companies to be LESS of a risk than most of the other people on the road.
I admit that he probably had stricter standards to meet (like dual chase cars), but I believe I have had more training for driving vehicles in traffic.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.