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Building the Zero-Fatality Car
CWmike writes "In the future, new cars might include an appealing sticker: 'This car is rated for zero fatalities.' John Brandon reports that Volvo, for instance, has launched a program called Vision 2020, which states, 'By 2020, nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo.' It includes not just new protective measures in the car, but technology for communicating dangers to and from the car. Other car companies have similar, less formalized programs. As ambitious as it seems, Ed Kim, an analyst at automotive research firm AutoPacific, says the zero-fatality goal is achievable. In the next 10 years, there will be a confluence of safety technologies — such as road-sign recognition, pedestrian detection and autonomous car controls — that lead to safer cars, says Kim. Will your next car look something like this?"
Come talk to me when they figure out the "zero fatality life."
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Zero is a figment of your imagination. You can only ever approach it, more and more expensively.
I'm really interested in the promise of an automated car that you don't have to get a license for or actually drive. They would be inherently safer, even taking failures into consideration. Of course, this will never fly (in America, at least) because we have this mentality that we need to be actively behind the wheel of a six ton three-story tall truck with twelve wheels, wider than two lanes of traffic, with a pair of truck-nuts dangling off the back. To pick our snot-nosed kids up from the grade school.
The zero-fatality car is stationary and has no passenger or pilot space.
The way to achieve perfect security for a computer is unplug it from the network, and never turn it on. I guess the only way to prevent anyone from ever dying in a new Volvo is to prevent them from entering it...
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Think of the military applications! The Army should start putting every soldier in a new Volvo. You can shoot at them, you can bomb them, you can even throw tactical nukes at them...but they keep coming!
Should we be worried about the coming Swedish blitzkrieg?
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
'By 2020, nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo.'
By 2020, nobody may be able to afford a new Volvo, so we'll keep driving the 20 year old deathtrap ones.
As much as Id like to believe all these new and wonderful technologies, I wouldn't underestimate the ability of human beings to inflict a grevious harm on themeselves in the most creative ways. You may have the zero-fatality car but the guy plowing into you head first might not and the result would most likely be just as fatal. OTOH, every bit of safety counts.
My car hasn't killed anyone yet either, meaning it too is a zero-fatality car. And I'll get a new one, if it does. Also how much are these cars going to cost for this improvement in safety? I'd rather occasionally kill people with my car slightly more often than pay a huge amount extra for a minuscule safety improvement. More important, the insurance costs on my car (a 92 Honda Civic BTW) are pretty low (around $50 a month in insurance). That's a concrete measure that indicates I already don't have much risk associated with the vehicle.
...a semi truck falls off of an overpass and lands on top of one?
...a semi truck going 200mph the other direction crosses the median?
...a semi truck going 200mph on the other road runs a red light?
...that logging truck in front of you loses its cargo?
...that banana truck in front of you loses its cargo, and sends you through the guardrail?
...you run out of gas while crossing the train tracks?
...some idiot leaves their kids in one with windows up for "just a couple minutes" during the middle of summer?
...someone decides to carjack you?
Why wait a decade when you can just remove the seat belts and install a big spike in the centre of the steering wheel? I can't see very many people who are going to drive dangerously in *that* vehicle.
Well, not more than once...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Is that something like the unsinkable Titanic?
Volvo has just been bought by Geely, a chinese firm.
Sure the chinese have promised to keep volvo volvo, not to mess with the whole swedish safety stuff, but what car brand has ever been taken over and NOT changed significantly towards the new parent company? Hell, all current volvos sit on Ford chassis.
Good luck making a zero fatality car with the chinese at the helm...
People, what a bunch of bastards
The more likely you make it that you'll survive an accident in the car the more likely you make it that people will take chances when driving and so produce more accidents. And, there are simply accidents you will not survive.
On the news last night was a note about a pickup tuck that hit a truck cab from behind, riding up onto the hitch, followed by a school bus and then a second school bus rear-ending the first. In other words the pickup truck got turned into compressed scrap between the truck cab and the first school bus. I cannot imagine any car engineered to survive that and remain affordable. The driver of the pickup truck was killed as well as one student on one of the school buses. I cannot imagine anyone engineering an affordable gasoline efficient (for these days) car that would survive such an accident.
On a lighter note, one comedian, I cannot remember who, made a suggestion that I think had some merit because it would make people pay more attention to their driving and really make them want to avoid accidents as much as possible; a six inch steel spike standing up from the middle of the steering wheel. I had a similar experience owning my first car, a 1962 Volkswagon Van. There was nothing between you and the traffic ahead of you except a single sheet of metal and the control console. You rear-end anything with any force while you were driving that and you'd lose your legs at least.
It won't matter anyway. The city I live in is doing everything it can to banish cars from the city. They're putting up so many bicycle only permeable barriers, barricades and traffic calming measures they'll eventually decide that it will be simpler to try and enact a ban on private vehicles.
So we'll cocoon ourselves in masses of materials designed to make us safe? You can talk about light materials but the overall trend is the opposite. Cars used to be under 2000 pounds and now they are 3500+ pounds, even with the materials technology gains we've had. Weight is the number one factor in determining fuel mileage. So we may avoid crashes, but then we will die from air pollution and other environmental footprint due to cars. We will feel safe driving air conditioned cars through globally-warmed deserts. Until gas is $30 per gallon, people (Americans especially) will slurp gas like there's no tomorrow.
Birth is the leading cause of death.
Well your old car might look like it comes off better than the volvo. But likely your V8 engine will end up up crushing you while the volvo will crumble everywhere but the passenger compartment.
Please heed this advise kids before its to late, and you make an ass of your self.
For instance, by failing to correctly spell common English words generally taught at the 4th grade level while condescendingly lecturing others.
Ditto for mis-punctuation and general poor communications skill.
But kudos for violating the long-standing Slashdot taboo against reading the article.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Remember the fundamental law of the universe.
Just when you think you have idiot-proofed something, Nature will design a better idiot just to spite you.
Thus the reason we have to have instructions printed on a package of toothpicks, and my clothes iron has a tag on the power cord saying "warning: do not iron clothes while wearing them."
Pretty much anything on this list.
I'm waiting for Idiocracy to occur. After all, we already have "Ow, My Balls" on TV - ABC just calls it "Wipeout."
Yes, "zero" is not feasible on an open road where other people can drive cars that don't prevent them from doing stupid things.
However, smarts that decrease the risk of being involved in an accident and which decrease the speed and increase control during an accident go a long way to reducing not only fatalities but injuries.
Mechanical safety features like stability control, rollover and cabin-crush-in prevention, improved air bags and seat belts, and other features increase survivability.
So, can we ever get to zero fatalities and still drive on roads where other drivers have non-computer-controlled cars? No. Can we have a car that's a lot safer? Yes. Will we be able to afford it? That's the real question.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
How about we stop giving driver's licenses to anyone who can manage to stand up? Make them more difficult to get, and remove drivers from the road when they become unsafe.
I know, what a concept, right?
I bet if the drivers on the road were better tested and more competent, the rate of serious injuries and fatailities might not get to zero, but it'd be way closer than it is now.
"What's that clicking? Oh my left blinker's on. Wonder how long that's been on for. I got in the left lane doing less than the speed limit only a few minutes ago, so it must have been then."
Actually 4 wheels aren't necessary; 2 will suffice.
However studies show that 4 wheels do tend to degrade operator attentiveness much more than 2 wheels do. Motorcyclists usually focus better on the task at hand (i.e. operating the motorcycle) than automobilists do, because they have fewer things such as passengers, radios/CD/MP3 players, heating/cooling systems, phones, computers, etc. to distract them from it. They also get direct feedback (in terms of wind, seeing the pavement rush past their feet, etc.) of how fast they're going, which helps in making judgments about (for example) how much to brake before making a turn. The more that vehicles mask the vehicle's speed from the operator (smoother ride, better soundproofing, etc), the more dangerous they become.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I just googled "unicycle accidents" and there's a lot of good stuff there... which brings us to zero wheels. People have been removing themselves from the gene pool without the use of a vehicle on a regular basis. The problem is not the number of wheels, it's the number of idiots.
Just when you think you have idiot-proofed something, Nature will design a better idiot just to spite you.
Currently, the worst drivers tend to remove themselves from the gene pool, or at least have the possibility of death place some sort of upper bound on how moronically one can drive. Just imagine the type of idiot nature will be able to design once Volvo removes these constraints.
Unfortunately they tend to remove others... Like the one who used to signal a lane change (without looking), wait 5 seconds, and change lane (again, without looking). Never had an accident, but probably ignored a trail of accidents in the (unused) rear-view mirror.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling