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Auto Safety Tech May Encourage Dangerous Driving
longacre writes "Modern highway planning schemes designed to make roads safer combined with the comfort and safety technology found in the modern automobile may actually be putting us in danger, according to a compelling piece in Popular Mechanics. Citing studies and anecdotal evidence, the article points out that a driver on a narrow mountain road will probably drive as if their life depends on it; but the same driver on an eight-lane freeway with gradual curves and little traffic may be lulled into speeding while chatting on his cellphone. Quoting: 'Modern cars are quiet, powerful and capable of astonishing grip in curves, even on wet pavement. That's swell, of course, until you suddenly lose traction at 75 mph. The sense of confidence bred by all this capability makes us feel safe, which causes us to drive faster than we probably should. We don't want to make cars with poor response, but perhaps we could design cues — steering-wheel vibration devices, as in video games? — that make us feel less safe at speed and encourage more care. ... In college I drove an Austin-Healey 3000 that somehow felt faster at 45 mph than my Mazda RX-8 (or even my Toyota Highlander Hybrid) feels at 75 mph. That was a good thing.'"
I drove an MG for several years and became a better driver for it. And "driver" is the word. People nowadays expect their automobiles to be living rooms on wheels so it is no wonder they don't have a sense of "road feel". This is the same psychology that attempts to hide from airline passengers the fact you're in an airplane. Compare riding in a small plane to an airliner. The modern airliner is as close to not flying as you can get. We spend an inordinate amount of time watching, using and living in machines.
That is the thing that encourages the reckless behaviour.
And make it a crime to wear pants while driving. Your ass and sex parts should be exposed to the potential danger as God intends.
And add a large spike between the legs of the driver.
And that is why you need a vehicle that gives you engagement with the world, without protective systems or even a windshield. When you've got wind blasting in your face, you don't want to go past 65 mph.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
There are a lot more accidents on windy mountain roads than on motorways.
Do you have stats to back this up, or are you handwaving?
I'd expect most accidents to be in urban centers simply because that's where most of the cars are.
Compulsory big spike in the middle of the steering wheel.
This is why I replaced the seatbelts with deadly snakes, and the airbags with big metal spikes.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
The problem isn't the safe car. It's the idiot driving it.
The Alabama region SCCA has a new driver car control clinic program that teaches kids around the age of 16 how to handle a car when it loses control. The courses look like regular autox courses and it truly makes a huge difference in their ability and confindence, without making them feel like they can drive dangerously. http://www.alscca.org/
Whale
It won't be anytime soon, but I'm looking forward to the day when human drivers are completely out of the loop. I'm sure robotic cars will be highly controversial, and any accidents caused by technical failures will bring out the angry mobs with torches, but improving on the current rate of highway deaths per year seems like a pretty achievable target. If human-driven cars were a new invention today, they probably wouldn't be legal.
People have been saying that ever since ABS brakes came out, saying they are driving faster because they think they can stop faster....Then air bags saying it was because drivers think they would not get hurt in a wreck....Maybe people in general are just driving faster for no real reason.
I'm racking my brains, but i just keep coming back to the car thing.
perhaps we could design cues -- steering-wheel vibration devices, as in video games?
You act like this would be an innovation, but my 1990 Geo Prizm had this feature, in a compact car no less! If ever I got above 75 mph, the entire vehicle would start to shudder.
Just drive on my local highways during moderate traffic. You'll never feel safe again.
Rush hour is actually safer since nobody is moving anyways.
its all about impression of speed. most modern cars dont 'feel' fast at a ton (100mph) where as 1970's level tech is shaking itself to bits at that speed. and certainly not comfortable to maintain that speed for any distance
Basic economics says that we we are endowed with something like safer cars, we will use:
1) Part of it to actually increase safety, and
2) part of it to trade-off against things like speed, convenience, etc.
The fallacy that the headline implies is that safer cars lead to less safety.
It may just take time for people to adjust. Once bitten, twice shy... someone who loses traction going very fast around a curve will think twice before going that fast again. If they die... well, that's one more careless/reckless driver off the roads.
People have been driving cars on raods for what, a little over 100 years now? as time has gone by, the safe driving speed has continued to climb... yet there have always been people driving too fadt for their vehicles and driving conditions. Adding artificial feedback for driving at high speeds is a crutch for people who learned to drive in a bygone era.
Seriously. Just because *some people* got used to driving with different feedback from high speeds doesn't mean that we should all put in feedback mechanisms to 'warn' us when we go fast.
In short... in the US, only old people need high-speed feedback in their new cars. The rest of the drivers can use feedback mechanisms such as "the speedometer" and "vision" to realize they are driving fast.
What would be useful is pushing awareness of how much driving conditions and speed affect traction, etc. And educating young drivers that if they drive fast, they should make sure their car (and tires!) can handle it.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
People will always behave at the lowest level of intellectual output that will keep them safe--if you perceive that the road is engineered to keep you safe (banked curves, wide lanes, etc.), you will put less effort into ensuring your safety.
The issue is that when everyone behaves as such, what you end up with is what we have: a bunch of idiots with rapidly moving large hunks of metal and plastic, most of whom are relatively oblivious to what is around them simply because they don't feel they need to pay attention.
The quote by Hans Monderman in the article rings true: "When you treat people like idiots, they'll behave like that."
Of course, with everything how it is, chances are good that things won't be changing anytime soon--people tend to want to be lazy, and a lot of attempts to change, say, intersections with traffic lights (or stop signs) to circles will be met with stiff opposition by drivers who, unfamiliar with circles, will balk at the lack of "safety" because there's no automatic indicator saying that they can step on the gas pedal now.
Makes you wonder where the hell situational awareness and the general sense of self-preservation up and went, doesn't it?
~EI
Look, I'm all in favor of these advanced cars lulling me into a false sense of safety. That way I can convince girls to give me road head, especially when I'm on drugs!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I use a Speederaser-I that helps me use my cruise control more often, even off-highway.
If I turn the cruise off, it goes away.
Cheap and handy. http://www.gpscruise.com/
This is a well known effect known as "Risk Compensation" (Wikipedia). The most famous study showing the effect was on a fleet of taxis in Munich equipped with Anti-Lock Brake System (ABS).
"In college I drove an Austin-Healey 3000 that somehow felt faster at 45 mph than my Mazda RX-8 (or even my Toyota Highlander Hybrid) feels at 75 mph. That was a good thing."
Not only was it a good thing, but it probably made the Austin-Healey MORE FUN TO DRIVE. That is a very GOOD thing in my book.
I love to point out this blog post to car crazy friends: http://poorbenjamin.blogspot.com/2005/08/i-intended-my-first-posting-to-be-on.html
Don't believe me, consider this; a new stock Honda Accord V6 (boring right?) can out accelerate most stock muscle cars from the muscle car era. This is due to a decrease in car weight, better transmissions, and more advanced engines. You have to wonder why a "boring, practical" car needs to be able to out accelerate some of the fastest cars made.
Think Deeply.
This argument is slightly flawed. Part of the issue is people on the road are more aggressive, drive with the cell phone in their ear, and are not courteous to their fellow drivers. From someone who has driven since the early 80's driving is way more dangerous now. In my state (IL) at least they have parents take their kids out for documented hours and must go through a drivers education course. Some will say that it is not enough but as a parent who just went through it less then 2 years ago it is a start. I made my child wait an extra year. Not ready for the license yet. Designing roads to slow people down won't solve the problems here. The problems in my area are there are not enough roads or enough flow on the local roads for the population. So then people get angry for having to ride in the passing lane of a 4 lane roadway behind someone who is just doing the speed limit so they display how they can whip through traffic even if the person they cut off has to slam on the brakes and almost cause accidents if not cause em. To get to the root of the problem the authorities need to increase the flow capacity of the roads but also need to enforce the current traffic laws and make it so painful to break the law that people won't. A 50 dollar ticket is not enough. Make it 500 and people will think twice. I know I will.
I don't think its the safety technology or performance ability that's mostly to blame. It's the "comfortable drive".
At some point the ability to feel the road and get actual feedback from your car became "uncomfortable". My wife's 2005 V6 Camry was a perfect example. Full of power, features like "traction control", and great cornering, yet it felt like driving a hovercraft. No feedback whatsoever. And the throttle was slow to respond when you needed a quick leap into moving traffic. There was a very palpable "pause & glide". Meaning even the gear ratio was for "comfort". I would describe it as a wonderfully built car that was dumbed down terribly for people who don't like feeling like they're driving. It was a version of "comfort" that made me very uncomfortable.
Her new no-frills Matrix 4-banger is a car for drivers. You can feel exactly what you're doing in that car and it responds very quickly. Much more economical too.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Let us take a look, shall we, at what kind of car the Healey was. Here's a nice pic:
http://www.seriouswheels.com/pics-abc/Austin-Healey-3000-Mk-III-green-fa-lr.jpg
Steel hood, cast iron frame, cast iron block. If you hit a truck tire with that thing, your head is going through the windshield, the car would likely buck straight up, and AH's had a nasty tendency to roll over because they were so rigid.
Driving that car at 45 was inherently more dangerous than driving a modern Caddy at 75 or even 80. ABS, Traction Control, the removal of those bias-ply tires in favor of ones that will shed water easily and grip 100x better.
The problem is - quite simply - speed limits. Re-instate the national 55 limit. There are certainly enough cops out there to enforce it, and enough new cheap portable radar gear to make it enforced. Do not confuse an engineering problem with one that requires a legislative remedy. This is clearly a case where we do not need more technology to let us know we are driving unsafe. We already have cars that can brake automatically when detecting an upcoming collision, can make note of late swerving, and cars that can smell our breath. We don't need cars that tell us when our driving sucks. Just make everyone slow down.
This can be paralleled in the increase in protection used by American football players over the years, and the unchanged number of serious injuries in the game.
Back in 1988, an Airbus A320 crashed at an air show during low-level flight manoeuvres. The brand new fly-by-wire systems made the plane easier to control in situations that a non-wire flight system would have problems. By making it that easy, the system also made it easier for pilots to push closer to the unstable edges of that envelope without the same level of feedback that things could go wrong. Things went wrong. People died.
Twenty years later, we're still learning the same lessons, it seems.
driving 200kph on a highway is fucking legal!
and thats not the limit!
hell yeah!
While driving in ice or snow, the bulk of cars I see in the ditch are SUVs. It seems like the drivers of those things think they don't have to drive more carefully in bad weather like the rest of us.
Make everyone learn to ride a motorcycle for a couple years. Not only will they have an abiding respect for speed, the road, and the laws of physics, but they'll pay more attention to whether there are motorcycles on the road with them or not.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The problem here isn't improvements in technology but rather user expectations. This should be a familiar problem to almost everyone here. What's amazing about this is that there are so many drivers on the road with little or no formal training, there aren't more accidents. These are people who are routinely lulled into a sense of security because they repeatedly engage in dangerous behavior without consequences. Well, what's the natural, human, thing to do when you do something a hundred times without ill-effect? You assume it's safe. You've driven with that 64 oz big gulp between your legs, a cheeseburger propped up on your leg, fries in the cup holder, while talking to a friend in the next seat doing the same thing how many times? Too many to count. And you haven't been in an accident. It's precisely this erosion of standards that leads to accidents, and the ONLY -- and I repeat ONLY -- way to safeguard against it is routine training.
Which is the one thing nobody will ever agree to, because they think driving is a right, not a priviledge. Afterall, it's all those other jerks that are causing problems, not me, right? Just like how something like 90% of drivers think they're "above average", huh. If you want to solve the accident rate problem, the solution is training and certification by a competent authority and stiff punishments for non-compliance with those standards. Hard pill to swallow though, as entrenched as the automobile is in our culture and the sense of entitlement -- even repeat DUI offenders insist they should have their license.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
This has all happened before, and it will all happen again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Peltzman
In particular, how SUVs separate the driver's experience from the road in a dangerous way. And on the shopping habits of American car buyers in general. It's a favorite article of mine.
Big and Bad: How the S.U.V. ran over automotive safety
"In the Jetta, the engine is clearly audible. The steering is light and precise. The brakes are crisp. The wheelbase is short enough that the car picks up the undulations of the road. The car is so small and close to the ground, and so dwarfed by other cars on the road, that an intelligent driver is constantly reminded of the necessity of driving safely and defensively. An S.U.V. embodies the opposite logic. The driver is seated as high and far from the road as possible. The vehicle is designed to overcome its environment, not to respond to it. Even four-wheel drive, seemingly the most beneficial feature of the S.U.V., serves to reinforce this isolation. Having the engine provide power to all four wheels, safety experts point out, does nothing to improve braking, although many S.U.V. owners erroneously believe this to be the case. Nor does the feature necessarily make it safer to turn across a slippery surface: that is largely a function of how much friction is generated by the vehicle's tires. All it really does is improve what engineers call trackingâ"that is, the ability to accelerate without slipping in perilous conditions or in deep snow or mud. Champion says that one of the occasions when he came closest to death was a snowy day, many years ago, just after he had bought a new Range Rover. "Everyone around me was slipping, and I was thinking, Yeahhh. And I came to a stop sign on a major road, and I was driving probably twice as fast as I should have been, because I could. I had traction. But I also weighed probably twice as much as most cars. And I still had only four brakes and four tires on the road. I slid right across a four-lane road. " Four-wheel drive robs the driver of feedback. "The car driver whose wheels spin once or twice while backing out of the driveway knows that the road is slippery," Bradsher writes. "The SUV driver who navigates the driveway and street without difficulty until she tries to brake may not find out that the road is slippery until it is too late. " Jettas are safe because they make their drivers feel unsafe. S.U.V.s are unsafe because they make their drivers feel safe. That feeling of safety isn't the solution; it's the problem."
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
"If you want people to drive safer, take out the airbag and attach a machete pointed at their neck."
...are the bane of my existence. I used to have a '94 Grand Am, and the ABS control chip failed in it-- a failure which manifested itself in a particularly terrifying way: Occasionally when I would attempt to apply the brake, the pedal would go straight to the floor and not actually activate the brakes. At all. I'd have to quickly take my foot off and reapply. Luckily it never happened in a situation where I would have had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. You can bet your ass I got that little problem fixed in a hurry, because there's no feeling like stepping on the pedal and finding that the brakes aren't fucking there.
Now, I drive a Scion Xa with what can only be called an overzealous ABS. If I'm braking and happen to hit a pothole or bump hard enough, the ABS is triggered and suddenly my stopping distance is not going to be less than the distance to the bumper of the car in front of me. Once again, the solution is to quickly take my foot off and then reapply. I have had to learn where the trouble spots are on the roads I frequent and brake very carefully when approaching them, always ready to lift my foot and then brake again if necessary.
I kinda wish ABS was something that could be toggled by the driver... it has its uses, but IME it's been more of a pain in the ass than a lifesaver.
~Philly
Unless you arrive at your destination exhausted because the car was nagging at you the whole way. Back in my college days, I drove from Northern Calif to Southern in a noisy, rattletrap. I pulled into Pasadena around 5 hours after starting and was bone tired from the drive. So tired in fact, I didn't notice a kid crossing in front of a stopped car in the next lane. The stopped car driver realized I wasn't slowing down, saw that the kid was in jeopardy and so he leaned on his horn. Had that driver not blasted his horn, I could well have hit the kid. As it was, I'm sure the kid never realized how close he came to being hit because he stopped and glared at the horn blower.
Quieter, smoother cars just don't fatigue you as much as cars used to. I think that's a good thing. Being in an accident because you're tired, not so much.
We improve cars and people drive more recklessly; we cure diseases and find new diseases or new strains of disease; we improve product and workplace safety tremendously over the past 100 years and get in a panic over peanuts, plastic, and lead paint; we've become a ridiculously wealthy nation and nearly cause a national economic collapse because what we had wasn't good enough.
Is there a good term for these sorts of situations? It's as though we (or in the case of disease, nature) have some sort of compensation mechanism to counter positive things in our lives.
because you're lower to the ground
When he wrote "Unsafe At Any Speed" people were still getting impaled by their steering wheels which didn't collapse and crumple out of the drivers way.
I remember as a kid driving by an accident where most of the car was torn away except for the engine and the steering column which we sticking up and through the young woman who'd been driving the car.
The other car that had slammed into her from the back and propelled her into traffic in the intersection was also dead from the impact with his steering column.
I'll never be able to wipe that image from my mind so ... joke away but realize that the idiots behind the wheels were sometimes innocent victims.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
According to all of the statistics I have seen, injury and fatality rates continue to steadily decrease (latest US statistics). I understand the point the article is trying to make - and in specific cases it is probably true - but on the whole, making vehicles and roads safer does in fact translate into an increase in overall safety in spite of the idiotic driving habits of the general public.
I tend to think that having a more extensive driver training program where drivers are exposed to poor conditions and limits of vehicle handling are a much better idea than purposely making roads and vehicles worse. Maybe even have rigorous enough testing that the incompetent are actually weeded out and not allowed to possess driver's licenses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation
The safer people think they are the more carelessly they will drive.
It's just like Windows, Microsoft has to put all that annoying crap in there to force people to be better users.
err.... wait a second...
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Auto safety tech may encourage higher insurance premiums due to increased dangerous driving. Joy.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I can promise you that if the interior of cars looked like iron maidens with rows of razor sharp spikes, people would be far more likely to drive safely.
It would help with traffic congestion as well (fewer living drivers).
Seriously, we've come to the point in our evolution where it is no longer necessary to protect everyone. We need to start implementing ways to thin the herd, as it were.
-W
This is old news. This was the point of the book "Risk".
i know that better handling and smoother ride definitely makes me a more 'impatient' driver. i've caught myself riding the ass of someone driving an '89 sundance and cursing them for going so slow until I remember how tenuous it felt to go more than 62mph back when that was my car...
Has it occurred to anyone that you are used to the vibration as a form of feedback. Additionally you associate certain vibrational sensations with certain speeds and conditions.
Chances are that your older perception of speed and control may not co-inside with a younger person's perception who has not driven older vehicles?
Even more, take a simple test, drive at 65MPH for a long distance, then drive at 85MPH for a long distance, then go back to 65. It will not feel as fast as 65 did the first time. Why? because your perception of 'regular' speed has adjusted for handling 85MPH.
Perception is simply natural comparison allowing you to compare relative events and experiences. Driving around a tight corner at high speed when you first learned to drive felt risky because your perception has been against not driving fast around corners. Once you force yourself to accept that that speed at that radius is safe, then you get more comfortable and your baseline perception adjusts.
Therefore I argue, you just need to learn how to feel your new vehicle. And face it, newer vehicles do corner better (sway bars, suspension, tires, etc...) and hold the road much better so the fact that your perception allows you to feel as safe at faster speeds is an accurate adjustment.
The poster and the article title also leap to a conclusion not supported by the article itself. The main thesis of the article, the Peltzman effect (as defined in the article) indicates a relatively even trade, not a tilt towards less safety. You are simply trading one set of issues for a different set. Bad road grip for inattentive driving for example. Both can be equally unsafe.
Never meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for you are crunchy and good with catsup.
Almost anyone can get a drivers license. I saw a show once where an 85 year old man that clearly was not all there mentally was still passed on a dmv driving test (he could barely walk and became disoriented after he left the car, no joke). I am all for as much freedom as possible for the elderly, but it was quite scary. Higher standards would yield better driving.
I may be dumb, young, and crazy, but last I knew, the level of speed SHOULD go up on a straight flat road verses a mountain pass.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I saw a show years ago about this same situation. People start to think that seatbelts and airbags will save them and take more risks. The auto-safety expert joked that they should put a big spike coming out of the stearing column and then people might actually drive a little more within their limits.
As for older cars feeling safer, they definitely weren't. Each generation is progressively better no matter how fast their top speed is. I have driven a Model T and a Model A (both owned by my father). They were restored as close to factory specs as one could get, they weren't hot rods.
The Model T was very unsafe just due to the fact that if you got hit or hit someone else you were almost guaranteed to be thrown from the vehicle. The Model A is a huge step forward and had many, many safety improvements over the T. Much better brakes and steering, bumpers, improved headlights, and a much better suspension. With just an increase in luxury and power you would be safer, but the threshold is just pushed a little farther and you still die but at a faster speed. The same steering column to crush your chest, hard surfaces to crush your skull, and a very low chance that the doors will stay closed and not eject you or crush you within on a rollover. Still a net positive but not much.
On a side note, realizing this my father put in seatbelts in the A. That's not what Ford had designed, but he'd rather his family live through an accident.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
The simulators should be available 24/7. It would cost money to build and staff these simulators, but hey, what is a couple of billion dollars now a days.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You need to read Motortrend and Car and Driver to really understand -which- cars you can genuinely drive like a madman. Those are cars that "communicate the road", so that, an attentive driver can understand when the car is nearing its limits.
BMW's are famously good for this, particularly the 3 series, but others are getting better as well. The Caddy CTS is pretty close, as is the Chrysler 300. Of the Japanese cars, the best are said to be the Evo Lancer and the Suburu WRX. Toyota need not apply.
But overall, the moral of the story is that you need to pay attention while you are driving. Any car gives you some cues as to when you are in trouble, but you can't tell that you hit a different patch of pavement if you have the stereo blasting, can't see a sudden curve if you fiddling with the cell phone.
By all means, if you are distracted while you are driving, slow down.
This is my sig.
The obvious answer is to buy an Austin-Healey for every man, woman, and child.
A small aircraft is just as safe as a large one, its the pilots\owners of small aircraft that are not as safe as the pilots\owners of large aircraft.
Jeeper forever.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
...people will drive as fast and with as much care as they feel safe getting away with. Some think we should come up with ways to make people feel less safe than they actually are.
Of course, then people learn to distrust feedback and cues, knowing that they are designed to fool them. End result, people start driving fast again, only now they have no cues that they trust, including the real ones.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
..I want to SKID!
(that's what a mechanic told me once and I found it amusing.)
Pilots are careful because all their moves are logged on a black box.
Cars could have the same feature. I'm just saying.
Human factors and ergonomics literature has been suggesting risk-migration driving behaviour for a long number of years. There is a much cited example in Scandinavia of a local government trialling the switch-off of all street lights, which exhibited a reduction in accidents during the trial. There was also another Scando nation that switched from driving on the right to the left, also with a reduction in accidents. Problem is the effect may only be temporary due to risk injection.
You are correct, the speedometer tells you how fast you are going. The Road conditions viewed by your eyes, and felt by your bum tell you about current conditions, your mind determines wether or not traveling faster or slower is worth the risk. No computer in MY lifetime is going to analyze the current temperature, number of moving objects, locations of stationary objects, wether or not there is an oil slick ahead, or a puddle, or if you're in a schoolzone etc.
Cars don't have better suspensions and steering systems because a rough ride interferes w/ distractions. It's so that You don't get thrown around the car everytime you hit a pothole in the Seattle to Oly stretch of I-5, to force your tires to the road, and mitigate the transmission of shock through the car, keeping all wheels connected to the road all the time, keeping bounce to a minimum, and greatly improving the handling capabilities of the vehicle.
"UN mask" those feelings on an RC car. (a fast one, not a radioshack version) And pull off the shocks. then try and drive around a corner at a moderate speed. Then put the shocks on and drive around that same corner at the same speed.
Yeah, stiffness may help around that corner... but when you go straight & hit a bump you are now in a corner whether you want to be or not. worse if you hit a pebble WHILE cornering.
Me personally I have 8way AGX adjustable shocks, and in the summer I turn em up to 6 (way to rough for my wife, but just right for me) and in the fall I turn em down to 3. Which reminds me that I have to go turn them up when I get new tires next month, Thank You!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Let people be dumb. The better/faster you make a car the harder people will drive it. Your not gonna get rid of the cellphone nor the person using it on the road. People have no respect for the road. ie crusin slow in the fast lane, no blinkers when turning, each person thinking they are "entitled" to the road. If an idiot kills himself on the road, then I curse at the parking lot on the road he's made. That sucker injures my family, I'll butt F*&^ him in court and send them to the streets.
I think the problem isn't your safety features. It's that you folks over on that side of the water drive at ONLY 70 mph.
I CHOOSE to drive 70mph because driving on our autobahns at 130mph just wastes too much gas. But darn if I don't floor it sometimes just to feel better about not living in America anymore. ;)
75 mph? How quaint... that's just 120 kmh - a normal highway speed actually.
When you're doing 120 MPH on the way to your mum we can talk. Extra points if it's raining and you've got snow tires.
Has anyone made a joke about putting a big metal spike on the steering column yet?
Yeah I will accept that some of the safety features may lead "some" to think they can drive harder are more risky than before but I put most risk on the fact too many believe they can use a cellphone without diminishing their driving ability. The biggest threat out there is the cell phone occupied driver. I still see them slip off the road, tailgate, run red lights, and weave.
Until the car drives itself allowing such distractions will undo any advances in safe driving. Simply put, if your on the phone your not focused on driving and moving sixty or so miles an hour; slower as well; requires your attention. Driving should not be the distraction.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Learn it, love it. At a certain point, computer autoadjusting loses to friction coefficient.
I'm amazed by people who ignore the fact that they're moving an object that weighs several thousand pounds at speed.
It's especially bad with 4x4/awd owners; they feel invulnerable because they can get traction to go - ignoring that 4x4/awd doesn't mean jack for stopping and not much for cornering. Those are usually the most dangerous drivers - inexperienced SUV owners.
I've long thought that it's a dangerous precedent how easy it is to get a license. The drivers test doesn't cover the freeway, merging or anything vaguely resembling 'emergency' driving. I think all that should be covered - there should be a few 'evasive driving' courses available in each state, or whatever makes the most sense.
So many crazy distracted drivers out there - I'm surprised there aren't a lot more accidents..
For example, in my previous car, the cruise control wouldn't set higher than 87.5 MPH.
Here in Texas, youngsters can get a license without having to take any kind of test. They just have their parents sign a form saying they've had drivers' ed training.
It's no wonder there are so many bad drivers on the road.
In a excellent essay called How The SUV Ran Over Automotive Safety. If you don't want to read the article -- which is a shame, because it's excellent -- he basically distinguishes between active and passive safety. Active safety is learning to drive well, and that reduces crashes. Passive safety is airbags and crumple zones, and that increases crashes because people drive more recklessly, knowing that they're safer. People keep their (perceived) risk constant, so if someone acts to reduce their risk, they use up the safety margin and go right back to where they were.
Much of the popularity of SUV's and large trucks is precisely because people think that they, individually, are safer driving them, so then they drive more stupidly, meaning that not only are they *not* safer, other people are also less safe.
The lesson being: many people are really stupid and probably shouldn't be allowed to operate power toothbrushes, much less automobiles.
(When I last looked, there were 6 fatal toothbrush accidents in the US per year. Alcohol was almost always involved...)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
they can go ahead and put a steering wheel shaking device standard on all new cars. when i buy a new car, that "feature" will be disconnected before i put in the first tank of gas.
>I tend to think that having a more extensive driver training program where drivers are exposed to poor conditions and limits of vehicle handling are a much better idea than purposely making roads and vehicles worse. Maybe even have rigorous enough testing that the incompetent are actually weeded out and not allowed to possess driver's licenses.
You don't have to spend a lot of time on driver training. Just make the driver test somewhat harder, and make it necessary to retake every three years for everyone under 40, and two years for everyone over 40, to retain their driver license. (I choose those numbers because that's what you have to do to retain your pilot certification.)
That'd force people to drive well for at least 30 minutes once every 2-3 years, actually use their turn signals and not tailgate, and maybe those habits would stick, rather than people just driving however they want until their passengers complain or a cop catches them for doing something egregiously stupid.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
It seems like drivers fall into one of two camps: those wanting to be connected to the road, having a driving experience, and those who want to be as isolated as possible from the road --relaxing in a comfy box while they wait to arrive. I drive a Miata (yes, it's underpowered, but still a lot of fun) and love the sense of control from being able to feel the exact breaking point of my traction, hearing where the other cars are around me, and getting an instant response from the steering and drive train. My co-workers and family can't relate --preferring the ride of a quiet luxury car, with a suspension that could run over a buffalo and you wouldn't feel a bump. To each his own, but big cars make me feel more like a passenger than a driver.
Or we could just consider this as natural selection in action.
Seriously though, "dumbing down" roads, speed limits, and so on does not make most people safer.
Just the stupid ones.
Watch the movie Demolition Man ( 1993) for a vivid example of how this is going, albeit postulated as a comedy.
Why are you wasting my screen estate with this? What pointless B.S.
Either do some proper science or GTFO my screen.
Note to editors, if a story has a bunch of conditionals and wild scenarios or analogies with the word MAYBE in every sentence: Don't Post It.
Liberty.
In the case of driving, a person in a little, old car on a rain-covered highway will adapt their behavior to get into their zone; slowing down, turning down the radio to increase concentration, etc. Change a variable (such as vehicle size) and the driver will recalculate. Wish I had the study, but somewhere it had been determined that when users moved up in vehicle size, seat belt usage dropped. This says nothing about different people in similar situations, but the same person across differing situations.
Related: deaths due to rollover are about four times higher in four-wheel drive vehicles than two-wheel-drive version of the same vehicle (I believe the Ford Bronco was used in that study). The introduction of anti-lock-brakes resulted in an uptick of single car ("went off road") accidents over non-ABS versions of the same cars - turns out drivers were steering into a skid which never happened.
I've been aware of this effect for two decades, and it's all about an absence of feedback from car to driver. Think about the feedback that you get as a "driver" when you ride a bicycle: the faster you want to move, the harder you have to work physically and the greater the feedback you get from both the bicycle and your own muscles.
That is precisely what is missing in modern cars. Not only is there no physical work involved - we now even have power steering, power windows, power everything - but the engine is largely silent at all speeds, the tires don't hum, the shocks are quiet; the interior is like a virtual womb.
The last vehicle I drove, for 14 years, was a 1989 Mercury Tracer (which had the same engine as a Mazda 323). I miss that little vehicle for the degree of feedback that it gave me as the driver: the engine actually made noise and vibration that increased as I drive faster, etc. Even though I still don't drive a "luxury car" by any means, I don't get that so much since then. Fortunately I still have what you might call muscle memory of the Tracer.
If we REALLY want to make cars safer, AND teach people to use fuel more wisely, then vehicles should be made much more an extension of our physical bodies; there should be some tangible or physical consequence and feedback from driving faster or driving recklessly.
The other problem in Texas (my part of Texas) is there's no snow. People never learn what it's like to lose control of a car until it's too late, then they blame someone else for the accident.
steering-wheel vibration devices??? Some of us don't even have power steering our my mid-engine sportsters.. to have it would blasphemous..
Hell, even cup holders are obscene. And who needs a radio when you have 400+ hp roaring 6" from the back of your head?
Kids these days.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If we 'teach' people to ignore warnings that their car is losing tractions, such as wheel vibration, we are taking an active role killing people.
Wheel vibration isn't a useful signal that the car is about to lose traction. It's already "taken" by other problems: It's a signal that a tire has blown out, or you have a wheel out of balance, a misaligned front suspension, a severe engine misfire, or a very cheap car.
Making the wheel vibrate artificially to signal the edge of available traction only makes sense if the rest of the car is in ideal condition (including design).
The big yellow triangle with exclamation point that flashes in the middle of my Mercedes' speedometer is a much better indicator. You really can't miss it, and it can't be mistaken for some other minor problem.
Putting moderation advice in your
A geo at 75 mph? Riiiiiight.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
A small aircraft is just as safe as a large one, its the pilots\owners of small aircraft that are not as safe as the pilots\owners of large aircraft.
First of all: Pilots that fly modern jets don't own the planes they fly but i'll interpret what you're saying as a claim that small aircraft are as safe as large but the pilot skills vary much more.
Now, saying that doesn't make sense either since then there's the fact that the difference between how safe large aicraft are varies at least as much as the variation between some small aircraft and large aircraft so your generalization is too broad. If we compare the usual airliners in the west, the 737 (including the next generation), 747, 757 and 767 are very, very safe but not as safe as the A320, let alone the 777, A330 or A340, which have virtually perfect records (zero pax fatalities but a few hull-losses that were not only according to classification but also in reality survivable for all). So you're generalizing so much that your claim that the parent is wrong doesn't even make sense.
I'm blowing my mod points here, and hoping that I'm redundant to other, earlier and wiser comments, but you are clearly too young to know a simple truth.
Greater Speed=More Energy=More Lethal Crashes
It's just this simple, peeps. There is literally no case you can postulate (including "being chased by tyrannosaurs") in which ADDING energy is the best escape strategy. Don't bother: Asteroids? Tanker truck explosion >just starting in the tunnel behind you? There isn't. Simply because the costs of your GUESS ("oh, hockey-mask-clad killer coming up behind me!") if you prove to be wrong, are fatal. Risk requires understanding probabilities and humans do not have a facility for that. We see the hero survive, we envision how it'll work, we "just know" it was the right thing to do, and it simply never is.
And so, we have this public health problem: too many people, driving too fast, making preventable crashes into fatal ones.
Don't get it? Note all the appropriate agencies no longer call them "accidents" they're crashes, and they all have the same root-cause: someone was going too fast for the conditions. The investigators' jobs are reduced to finding out who and how much.
So let's be done with this "speeding is safe" meme. It's crap. I, for one, cannot wait for our automated-car overlords to take over.
Less throttle, more tunes.
18-25yo males are the most likely group of drivers to have a serious accident due to speed, reading the comments here demonstrates the self-delusions they suffer from.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Just look at fatal accident rates for 100,000,000 vehicle miles: it's been steadily decreasing since 1920, by at least an order of magnitude.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b6/UsFatalAutoAccidentRates.png
Furthermore, if you look at the German statistics, accident rates have been decreasing despite steadily increasing speeds (85th percentile speed is 95mph):
http://www.abd.org.uk/images/mway_sl3~.gif
So: new technologies are making us safer and let us travel at higher speeds. Sorry, but this isn't even a glass-half-empty situation.
Where is the tube technology?
If you lower the speed limit, people will continue to drive the speed they feel safe at - which is around 75-80. Which makes the poor saps like yourself actually following the rules a tremendous road hazard.
Anytime you increase the spread of speed between drivers, you increase the chances for an accident - in any weather. The solution for any road is to figure out what the best natural speed limit is for any given road, and set the limits that at. At least, that's the solution if you are truly concerned about diver safety and not revenue.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The idea that safety equipment and performance makes people drive more dangerously is ignoring the 3000-pound elephant in the room.
Already pointed out here is that many modern cars have a very insulated driving experience. It's the comfort to blame, that's the cause, the effect is cars don't give the driver enough feedback. It's that lack sensory input that makes you think you can talk on your mobile and drive at the same time.
To be specific cars have light throttle action - sometimes the natural weight of your foot, if not held back, would send you up to 90mph. Add to that light docile steering, responsive engines that are well silenced even at higher output and automatic gearboxes that do thinking for you. Combined with the ever winning battle against engine and road noise in car design it makes the experience of driving fast very easy and far less frightening than it should be.
The author is right about the old vs new car example. Lets ignore the fact your more still likely to die in the older car, on the balance of all things.
Boiling it down, accelerating and traveling at dangerous speed is far too effortless. The connection between the drivers senses and the laws of physics is purposely muffled by the car designers. This is a direct invitation for people who are even slightly impatient, over-confident or perhaps just outright reckless to drive dangerously.
This is a patently Not Good thing.
Oh SUVs and domesticated utility vehicles are especially to blame. Your sensation of speed is further reduced in a massive vehicle.
In my own experience, I realised a long time ago as I was doing 170kph in my late model nissan maxima that it didn't feel much faster than 100kph. Infact it was just as smooth. (errr on closed road with professional stunt drivers, your honour). My first car was a much loved 1970s mitsubushi GTO, albeit modified, much more scary at speed. Indeed I found myself slowing down and cruising, accelerating gently, because it was simply more comfortable and I could hold a conversation with a passneger.
This has bothered me for a long time, and with every new car I do modifications to get around some of this, such as a stiffer throttle spring and heavier power steering.
I also have hacks like smoothing the signal from the throttle sensor, as well as lean running and a automatic transmission gear-hold hack.
The vast majority of cars I drive from the last 10 years have very light steering, especially at speed, where a proper sports car has more progressive resistance and feedback at speed (translates into stability directly). Many cars it doesn't feel like the steering is connected to anything, this must contribute to accidents since a small accidental movement at highway speed can run you off the road or into another vehicle.
This also translates into 99/100 drivers have no chance of controlling a car should it enter a slide, which is likely to happen in anything other than ideal braking conditions.
Truth is, ABS and stability control (no I don't have it equipped to my car, I have the meatspace version: car control skill), have saved my bacon on more than one occasion, likely from a potentially injury causing accident.
Braking is also one that gets me. It requires far too little muscle strength to brake at a reasonable pace, I wonder how people manage to put on full emergency braking pressure, especially the eldery or a particularly sedantry obsese person, simply because they haven't got the praciced strength.
If you've ever driven a car without power steering or brakes, you're driving habits are much different in that vehicle. It's human nature to tend to minimize physical energy expenditure, you'll tend to drive slower.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Brakes make cars unsafe by encouraging us to drive at higher speeds. /. for promoting this to the front page
O out of 10 for the person making the comment
0 out of 10 for
No offence longacre, but you just can't drive.
People in Europe will know very well that you can safely drive over 100mph on the highway under the right conditions. Driving appropriately to the conditions is the key, not some set speed limit you think is safe.
Now granted, there aren't many unlimited speed highways in the world, but the Autobahn tracks its accident rates, and they're very good in comparison to lower speed highways.
Michigan raised interstates to 75mph from 55mph and actually had a lower accident rate as a result.
Common sense isn't the issue -- facts are -- and the facts say that speed isn't the problem. The driver is.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
It ticks people off if they think that you're telling them what to do. So, instead, pretend to drive like you were drunk, or falling asleep. Let the car slowly drift to the side of the road, hit some rumbly stuff, and suddenly jerk it back to the center (this is my friend W's idea). Or, to be mathematical, use piecewise linear driving -- no smooth curves and adjustments, just a sequence of straight lines, punctuated by jerky corrections.
Up here in the northeast, you can help out the (non-existent, it seems) street sweepers, by driving very very close to the curb, and pick up the sand and gravel there, to get it out of the road. Driving through mud puddles works, too. Not too many people seem to like to drive behind that.
And once, in Texas, somewhat late at night on US290 between Austin and Houston, someone tailgated me in a pretty creepy way. I leaned down and reached under the passenger seat to retrieve the breaker bar I kept there, just in case -- didn't show it, either -- and the guy behind me backed off all of a sudden.
You've obviously not been exposed to a lot of blue-collar type work...it's much easier than that.
Carry a/an [insert choice here] extension cord, welding leads, or air hose in your carry on.
If something happens to the plane, just throw one end out and try coiling it back up in a neat coil...It will get caught on something, thus saving the whole plane FTW! Instant Hero!
For those of you that have dealt with these items, you know I'm right!
Can you even recount the number of times that you have had to walk/climb to the other end to manually untangle/untie it so you could coil it back up? I thought not!
My all time favorite were the oxy-acetylene torch hoses! Good Times!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Most cars now have "steer with one finger" power steering (except at the low end where there is none at all -- this is not about those cars). This is great when trying to park, or trying to maneuver around a stopped car in creeping traffic. It's not so great when it allows or even encourages drivers to steer beyond the capabilities of the car without even realizing it. A few cars have "power assist" which backs off as speed increases. Not only does this reduce the load on the engine when it is most needed, it also gives a better feel for the road. Tires will perform noticeable shenanigans when they are near their grip limit, and it really helps to be able to feel those cues and not have them dampened out by a "helpful" power assist. It is still possible to get in trouble, say by turning the wheels then flooring it to induce a spin, but returning the feel of the road to the wheel would go a long way toward helping drivers who WANT to drive well.
The next step would be to reduce sound insulation. While tuning out the world is nice at some level, it is not necessarily safe or prudent for drivers to lose an entire sense for dealing with the world. This would have the side effect of reducing weight, but I'm not sure how significant a savings that would be. If this is not deemed desirable, perhaps have a system that listens for sirens and can pump the external noise through the radio when necessary. I see lots of people in their little sensory deprivation chambers on wheels not pulling over for ambulances and fire trucks until the last second, because they can't hear them coming.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
An idea; I have one too:
Automated Rail Synchronized Envoirment, or ARSE for short.
Develop a 'powered rail' system that not only guides, but also powers and recharges the electric car's batteries. As you use your ARSE, it recharges your car batteries so when you get off of your ARSE, you can actually move around in those areas.[1]
While on your ARSE, your car and ARSE would be talking to each other. Your ARSE knows where it is(whether you do or not), and when you punch in your destination, your ARSE guides your car there after having selected the 'best' route, according to road conditions, traffic, construction, accidents/breakdowns, etc....
When you encounter conditions that need you to get off your ARSE, then you take over manually in your electric car. But, and I say but, if you're one of those that can't find their ARSE with both hands, GPS, and a guide, well...just stay on your ARSE. It's for the best.
Get everyone's ARSE on the electrical 'grid'.
Add in annual state (following federal guidelines and standards?) diagnostic inspections of your on-board ARSE gear.[2]
I'm sure I have overlooked some details the ARSEs here, but I think you can get a picture of my ARSE if you try hard enough.
[1] Start with requiring an ARSE be included with all new/future road construction, then upgrade existing roads.
[2] Collect mileage reading(# of miles you were on your ARSE) to be used to determine your annual cost for being on your ARSE. Maybe incorporate the fee into your tax forms, or something.
A lot of detail work goes into making a good ARSE!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Those who would fight it the most are the automakers. First, who would be liable when the autopilot fucks up? Second, if these could be made to drive themselves when you're in them, they can just as easily drive themselves when you're NOT in them -- at which point it becomes unnecessary for most people to own a car. They can call for a cab (strategically parked a mile or two away) any time they want. This means no driveways and parking lots full of cars sitting idle all day, thus fewer car sales overall. How many fewer cars would we need if the same car that drove you to work could be driving someone else to work half an hour later? How much smaller could the parking lots be?
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
You don't have to spend a lot of time on driver training. Just make the driver test somewhat harder, and make it necessary to retake every three years for everyone under 40, and two years for everyone over 40, to retain their driver license. (I choose those numbers because that's what you have to do to retain your pilot certification.)
Just a nitpick, but that's the interval that third class medicals expire at. All pilots need a flight review every two years to stay current.
Risk Compensation
Remove air bags from cars and install a six inch metal spike in the steering wheel. People would drive more carefully. Simple.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation
Watch those corners
I've preached this for a long time. Remove the seatbelts, airbags and install an iron spike that pops out of the steering column on impact. Sure there will be some collateral damage at first; however, at the end of the day people will sure drive safely and all the a-hole drivers out there will either learn to be courteous and pay attention or get quickly weeded out of the gene pool.
People are way to "babied" nowadays.
I think cars and driving are really safer than they once were, but the paradox is that we all drive with less care now that we can.
In general the more "efficient" we make roads and cars the less attention we need to pay to use them. This can also mean that the roads become less safe for other road users like pedestrians, cyclists, and equestrians.
The problem is that we are not paying enough attention to avoid an accident when the extraordinary event inevitably happens.
Being "fairly mechanical" I can state for fact that what you experienced in your Grand AM was not the ABS, but a failing master cylinder. Generally the ABS pulsing unit is hooked to one of these or built as part of it. But again, it wasn't the 'chip' or the 'ABS' it was a mechanical fault that can be common in cars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_cylinder
Being a car-nut I always jump on the opportunity to drive a new (to me) car. And as a result I've driven quite a few cars in my life. I also race endurance (track) racing in a team, so I hope that I have some perspective in this. Also as a car-nut I tend to buy older cars that I can work on, and cars that have a good "road feel".
A while ago I had the opportunity to test drive the new LandRover Discovery. I really loved the comfort and relaxed atmosphere of the car. You could jump in, drive for 10 hours straight, and still feel refreshed upon arrival. - As long as the weather is beautifull...
Unfortunately (or fortunately for the sake of experience) it was spring here in Finland, and the winding country roads still had patches of ice where the trees cast shadows all day. Usually I enjoy these kind of roads, and with a appropriate car they can be really ejoyable to drive, even in above conditions.
Driving down the road with this brand new LandRover I quickly became aware that the car has absolutely no road feel. The drive down the road became agony, as I had no way of knowing wheter the car was close to loosing grip or not. To get safely home, I drove overtly cautiously and didn't enjoy the drive a bit.
What I'm trying to say is that the trusting on these wonderfull abbrevations that modern cars have and letting the computers control the car does indeed aliante you from driving. They give you a false sense of security and confidence that you are in control of the car. They give you no feedback to be able to tell that you are approching the limits. And when you get there, all you can do is let go (as the car is spinning out of control) and hope the active safety systems will spare your life.
Even a simple safety system like ABS (anti-locking brakes) can fail on you. I've had ABS failure just when I needed it. The ABS-light just came on when I slammed the brakes and the wheels locked. Luckily none of our race cars have ABS, so I instictively eased on the pedal and was able to steer away from the car in front of me that had turned sideways and surprised me. No, crash of scratches this time.
So, for me at least my cars will continue to be "unsafe" cars without stability management, brake assistants and other computer controlled "safe" gadgets. Also I will make sure that when my kids start driving, they will get plenty of high-speed practice with cars with no computer systems on closed areas. That is how I learned and I believe practice is the only way to learn these things to become nearly instinctive.
Excuse for rambling, but this matter is so close to my heart.
If all else fails, pull the plug and get out...
The Life is out there...
Like a friend said, the best auto safety device is a giant spike in the middle of the steering wheel and removal of seat belts. Just _watch_ how safely people will drive...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
What's new? It's know as risk compensation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation
Of course I haven't RTFA so I could be wrong.
Is it time to go home yet?
conditions where ABS helps you to stop faster are not uncommon. If the wheels on one side have less grip than another (going through a puddle, mud at the side of the road, tyre incorrectly inflated) tests have shown that ABS copes better than an expert driver. Also rapid changes in adhesion of the road (patchy ice or oil) will be handled automatically, and only the very best drivers can match this. Good drivers will reduce breaking when hitting the slippery patch but most will delay re-applying hard breaking for quite a while after the hazard has past.
A good many drivers will not have hard of cadence breaking, and therefore would not be able to cope with situations where you need to steer under emergency breaking without ABS.
There have been a couple of concepts for rail/pavement vehicles. Popular Mechanics ran articles on them I believe.
I think they solve a lot of issues, but that have one overwhelming flaw. You need government and big auto to provide the resources for production and create demand for them almost simultaneously for them to catch on.
If they took the airbag out of the steering column and installed a pointy spike there instead you could be damn sure that drivers would understand the concept of "assured clear distance".
People arn't driving cars stupid because the cars are safer, they're driving cars stupid because they're stupid.
I bought my present car used after my 1988 Chevy's steering went titsup. My newer car has four huge disk antilock brakes and big wheels, and handles better than any car I've ever owned. Ther have been several instances since I've owned it that if I'd been driving the old Chevy I would have wrecked or ran over a child.
Dumb kids run into the street from between parked cars; thank God for those big disk brakes and my habit of driving under the speed limit in neighborhoods.
When a stupid dumbass woman decided to turn left from the right hand lane right in front of me, she'd probably been dead or spending the rest of her life in a wheelchair if I'd had the old car, because there's no way I could have avoided the accident and I would have t-boned her. You think the dumb cunt pulled that stupid stunt because her car felt safe? No, she pulled that stupid stunt because she was STUPID.
I need my car's braking and handling (and occasuinally acceleration) to avoid getting in accidents with idiots; idiots who would drive stupid no matter what kind of car they're driving.
I've heard all my life that the most dangerous part on any car is the loose nut behind the wheel, and cars weren't nearly as safe as they are now.
If safe, comfortable cars are so dangerous then why are highway deaths statistics staying level despite the huge increase of the number of cars on the road?
I think TFA's writer is making excuses for his own abysmal driving.
Free Martian Whores!
Here around they can even drive AGAINST the traffic on the wrong lane or burn red lights or stops, as long as they have both lights on and the siren (aka: a life is in danger). Same for fire department and police. Normal driver DO NOT HAVE such exception. They have to :
1) respect the maximum speed limit of the road and
2) respect the maximum speed limit for the weather.
So even if a road is limited to 90 kmh , but it is raining or worst snowing, they have to reduce their own speed to the speed limit given by the road authority for snow weather, which might be 40 kmh even if the real speed limit is 90 kmh.
You will get ticketed and in trouble if you go over the road speed limit *OR* if you go over the "weather" speed limit.
So de facto I think the GP did not get it right.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Yeah: I didn't feel like it'd be useful to the conversation, getting into the whole explanation of first class/six months, second class/a year and the difference between medicals and flight reviews. I still think the idea would be good. I don't think the problem is new drivers. They'll learn. The problem (I think) is people whose habits just get worse over time, especially as they get past retirement age. You see lots of crashes with teenagers and a fairly high amount with elderly, if I recall the NTSB reports correctly. The teen ones are self-correcting over time, but the others just get worse.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Removing all road signs and warning signals is know to make the roads safer. This has been done in several localities in Europe. Removing all the distractions makes people pay more attention to driving and to the road. This concept and the psychology of driving and traffic safety are described at length in a nice article in Atlantic Monthly by John Staddon, a psychologist.
"Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens." - Schiller
Steering feedback. Cars used to have it. You do not need artificial means of letting you know that the front end is about to lose grip... you just need suspension and chassis engineers who aren't dumbing things down like they have been for the past 5-10 years (on the vast majority of cars at least).
Of the 3 cars that I currently own, the absolute best steering feedback is in my 1984 Subaru GL. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt when you are about to lose traction with the front tires. You also are very aware that you are driving a 2500 lb tin can with no ABS, airbags, etc. You modify your driving style accordingly.
I bought a 2000 Audi A4 just out of college. One of the major reasons that I got rid of it two years later was the complete and total lack of steering feedback. The front end could (and quite frequently in the rain DID) lose traction and the steering would remain completely calm. This is not a safe way to design a car. It's a hell of a lot harder to correct for understeer/oversteer situations after you're in the middle of them.
Anyway... rant over.
injury / fatality statistics are not crash statistics
Well, I'd like to add the following observation to the speeding discussion. "Excess Speed" is the default cause of an accident. If the police don't know any other reason that is always right.
Because, no accident would have happened in the first place, if you were not too fast to stop before what eve you hit.
I don't try to justify reckless speed, but driving too fast is the obvious cause if nothing more specific overwrites it.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
It's been known for some time that when activities are made safer, people adjust their activity until the level of risk is the same as it was before.
It's long past time to automate freeway traffic and let them sleep or whatever while traveling. It's been possible to do so without modifying the freeways for over a decade.
The major block is the liability issue. Even if automated vehicles have a much better safety record than human drivers (not too hard to do,) in the US the lawyers would go nuts suing e everyone in sight.
If cruise control were introduced today, it would not be adopted because of product liability risk.
Automated traffic can be done by adding GPS, sonar, video and short range radar & radio /laser communications between vehicle controllers. Under this kind of system, you can safely run vehicles in strings a few hundred milliseconds apart, since each vehicle in the string would have exact knowledge of the road conditions ahead, and all vehicles could be slowed or stopped nearly simultaneously.
Strings would form of vehicles with the same or similar destination.
Strings could travel much faster and much closer together with higher safety levels than current traffic. Since automated systems wouldn't keep trying to change to the "faster" lane, traffic would move faster (in congested areas, a major cause of slow-downs is people changing to the other lane because it is moving--this causes it to slow or stop--making the previous lane look good again. This dance is responsible for a large part of the stop & go city traffic. Much of the rest is because people refuse to maintain a smooth, constant speed--accelerating like demons when they start to move, only to slam to a stop shortly after as the cars ahead cannot move faster than the average speed.
With some investment in stationary GPS receivers, it would be easy to provide location data to such controllers to within a few centimeters at worst.
wizodd
What sort of cars are you guys driving in the US that suddenly loose traction at 75mph.
Thats 5 mph over the UK speed limit and we don't have motorways full of people spinning off into crash barriers.