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Inside Virttex, Ford's Driver Distraction Simulator
An anonymous reader writes "After my collision the world went blank but I didn't see angels and harps because the highway and the crash situation were imaginary, created inside Ford's Virttex (virtual text track experiment cockpit simulator). Functioning much like a simulator for pilots, this domed virtual world on pitching and sliding stilts has been used to test car cockpits and instruments since 2001. It played a role in the development of recent center stacks such as MyFord Touch. In recent years, Ford used Virttex driver distraction research to learn more about what causes driver inattention and what countermeasures Ford can embed into cars to keep people like me from becoming another Darwinian statistic. It also gives Ford a leg up on the competition — Ford says it's the only automaker in the U.S. with a virtual reality simulator of this magnitude."
Our cruisers can't repel a virtual reality simulator of this magnitude!
I wonder what they d... Oh look!!! A Squirrel!!
At this point, what automakers /don't/ have some sort of production facility in the US? Do they mean all those, or just traditionally US-associated brands? And if that, do they include Fiat-Chrysler?
Too much wiggle room. Do they just mean 'GM doesn't have one'?
From the article:
Ford says it’s the only automaker in the U.S. with a virtual reality simulator of this magnitude.
From reality:
http://www.gizmag.com/lexus-unveils-driving-simulator/16630/
While speeding is the leading cause for most traffic accidents, one can't deny that unskilled drivers also contributed to a significant portion of traffic mayhem
Current system of testing / passing drivers are often way too insufficient - as long as the driver can manage to drive the test car without any mishaps they are rewarded a driver license - resulted in many drivers who are totally unprepared and unskilled to handle heavy and often very tricky traffic situations (like water planing, ice-skitting, and such)
I believe it comes time to upgrade the DMV with simulator, and those who want to obtain a driver license must first demonstrate their skills in the simulator, with all sort of situational scenario thrown in
This can lessen a significant portion of traffic mishaps and cut down the number of traffic injuries and deaths
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Real-life driving tests are very limited in what they can test. Does the driver continue to drive the speed limit on a slippery road or when visibility is poor? Does the driver stop for pedestrians in unmarked crosswalks? If the car starts hydroplaning, does the driver let off the gas or slam on the brakes?
We have the technology to test all of these situations and more. Why are we still in the 1950s in driver testing?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Stop filling cars with stupid user interfaces for electronic systems that require close visual attention to use! Touch screens are stupid in cars - there's no tactile feedback so you HAVE TO USE YOUR EYES! I think GM are worse than Ford in this respect but they're all at it, even top-end marques like BMW and Mercedes.
I want physical switches with positive tactile feedback whose function is clear and doesn't keep changing in different "modes" just because you're too cheap to provide a separate switch for different things. Cars of the 1960s with great big toggle switches on wooden dashboards were easier to drive than this.
Anyone remember the Toyota Simulator which went public after the brake pedal / floor mat issue? ;)
(Apparently the site is dead, here's what you saw when you went there (on loop): link)
The chloride owes the sodium money.
I would say that speeding is the cause of near zero traffic accidents. It merely magnifies other causes (and effects).
Indeed, the accident requires somebody to stop, if nobody slowed down, everybody would go too feast to hit each other.
Thus the solution is to require all vehicles to accelerate into infinity.
but these now-immobilized people might vote for public transit. that would be catastrophic. we'd better revoke their voter registration at the same time.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Cellphone Jammer enabled al any speed above 10 mph. washer fluid squirts in the eyes when they look down for more than 3 seconds. brakes jam on and airbag deploys at 5X normal force when they change lanes without looking and a motorcycle is detected next to the car.
Electrical jolt from the steering wheel and seat voltage increases with speed and proximity to the car in front of them. Tailgaiting gets you 160,000 volts at 400HZ AC.
Lastly built in taint puncher built into the seat what is triggered every time the mirror is used to check the face or makeup.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I would say that speeding is the cause of near zero traffic accidents.
Speeding vehicles in the hands of the inexperienced drivers are very very deadly
On the other hand, most experienced drivers do not drive like crazy
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Sorry, but speeding rarely is the CAUSE of any accident. Speed differentials can be. And accident damage will increase with speed. But going fast does not, in itself, cause accidents.
And by definition "speeding" is *ANY* speed over the speed limit. Since 98% of people drive over the speed limit (they do here at least), how is it that 98% of cars are not in accidents?
The leading causes of accidents are probably:
* Failure to stop in time because of following too closely
* Not looking/knowing what is in a lane before changing lanes
* Distracted driving of any sort (passengers, phones, controls, etc)
* Falling asleep
* Intoxicated driving
* Reckless driving (weaving, lane splitting, running lights, chicken, etc)
They aught to put an original Shelby Cobra cockpit (or facimile) in this and sell it as the ultimate car racing game/simulator. All the Zuckerbergs of the world would lap it right up.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
It's amazing how much that dome sloshes around to simulate driving G-forces.
AC
1. "in the US". Translation: Everyone outside has this since forever.
;)
2. "of this magnitude". Translation: Everyone inside has one too, but 1 inch shorter because our cars are so huge.
Not saying that's the case. It just highlights how much nonsense their statement is.
...their baseline will be someone that knows they're being tested in a distracted driving simulator. They sure as hell won't be texting while putting on makeup, eating a cheeseburger, reading the paper and watching tv like they normall do.
....that simulates arseholes looks like.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I would say that speeding is the cause of near zero traffic accidents. It merely magnifies other causes (and effects).
But it magnifies the effects by the square of the speed, so driving twice as fast is four times as dangerous.
That's not true. The leading cause for most traffic accidents is "failure to yield right-of-way".
I have to disagree, although it depends on your definition of speeding. Speeding will make you run more yellow/reds, have less time to pay attention to the road and increase your braking distance significantly. The latter could lead to accidents that wouldn't otherwise have happened if the driver wasn't speeding. It depends where you draw the line though. Others could say that the distance between the cars matters more than your speed if someone brakes in front of you on the highway, but at the same time people expect that you drive at a reasonable speed when they change lanes/brake/move in and out of exits.
So is the accident where a driver passes a red because he cannot brake in time due to his speed and then gets t-boned classified as speeding or as passing a red light?
While speeding is the leading cause for most traffic accidents
False. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/cats/listpublications.aspx?Id=A&ShowBy=DocType Document 811630 pages 4 and 6 demonstrate that alcohol is just as big a factor in fatal crashes. In fact, I would argue that it is a much bigger factor because a lot more people speed than drink and drive.
I believe the same thing about marriage licenses.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The problem with the term 'speeding' is that it has two meanings. The first is the simple "exceed the posted speed limit". The second is "too fast for the conditions".
The reality is that an experienced driver will drive to the conditions which in some (many?) cases may include "exceeding the speed limit", and in other cases will be driving far below the posted limit. The same driver is, however, very unlikely to drive "too fast for the conditions".
An inexperienced (or careless) driver on the other hand is likely to do the opposite. In your example, the driver is driving dangerously (irrespective of speed). "Shooting through" red lights is idiocy on the grandest scale (again irrespective of speed), and basically means they weren't paying any attention to the road at all.
Right, just wanted to clear things up.
I believe it comes time to upgrade the DMV with simulator, and those who want to obtain a driver license must first demonstrate their skills in the simulator
I believe the same thing about marriage licenses.
Luckily, for marriage, there is a thing known as "living together", ala the "try-first-if-you-like-it-let's-get-married-if-you-don't-bye-bye" alternative
And then ... there's the totally legal "Prenuptial Agreement" contract available
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
To be a 'Darwinian statistic', wouldn't you have to somehow contribute to your own death in a stupid way. Is the author acknowledging that he is stupid enough that he would die if other people weren't constantly looking out for him?
Because that's what they'll be instructed to do. The idea of this isn't to try and ferret out bad drivers, it is to see what can be done to make cars safer for bad drivers. Bad drivers are a fact of life, we use technology to try and help.
So Ford will do tests like "Please eat lunch while you do this simulation," or "We'll be sending you text messages to read and respond to." I suppose you could refuse to do as they ask but then they'll thank you for your time and get someone else.
The whole idea is to deliberately have people be distracted in various ways and see what things help them avoid problems.
Both the summary and the article have it wrong: VIRTTEX stands for "VIRtual Test Track EXperiment", according to media.ford.com.
With 30-thousand some traffic fatalities a year, it would be well worth it.
I mean, there are like 20-30 some common scenarios that kids could be faced with in the simulator. Experiences they could have without being actual near misses. Or hits, like the unfortunates who don't make it, or are maimed. You get your driver's test after you've completed all the scenarios and have done actual driving time.
Experienced drivers are better because of their experience and near misses over the years.
It would save a lot of lives.
I wonder why people need to go 10-15 or more over the speed limit? Doesn't have to be an interstate, could be a rural highway (one lane) or any road. Most of the time they just get to a red light or stop sign faster. I don't go more than 5 over, because there is no good reason to. I'm NOT sorry if that isn't good enough for the people behind me, either pass or mail me a check I can use for gas or legal fees.
The slower I'm going, the less attention I'm paying. If it was legal to go 90, I'd be paying pretty damn close attention to the road! It actually makes it seem suicidally dangerous to eat breakfast or do your hair so people wouldn't even try it, lol.
By the way, I believe we have a video clip of this simulator in action...
Speeding is the cause of *all* crashes. Just like having a dead hooker who died of a heroin OD in your trunk when your car breaks down on the train tracks makes the train/car crash "alcohol-related", all crashes are, by definition, speed related. And driving too slow for conditions is used to justify laws against going faster.
The problem is that the politicians have more interest in the laws than the engineers, and appearing to do something by doing the opposite of what you say you are doing is better than doing nothing.
The driving tests are "if nothing goes wrong for the next 5 minutes, will you cause a crash?" If you go 5 minutes crash free, you get a license. Even if the first time something "odd" happens you do cause a crash. And testing in simulators helps with that. But I've tested in a cheap simulator, they suck. There is insufficient feedback about speed, it feels like you are sitting still (because in the cheap simulators, you are), so you go too fast. You also stop deliberately slow (simulating average stopping distances, regardless of actual driver performance).
The testing needs to test for the unusual. Fail 50% of people, and you'll see crashes drop quickly.
Learn to love Alaska
What's "danger"? If you define "danger" as the chance of a crash, then 4 times the energy does not result in 4 times the danger. If you define "danger" as damage when you hit a solid wall, then yes, double the speed is four times as dangerous. But I don't know anyone who defines "danger" as "damage assuming a negative event". Even risk, a defined term (danger is an emotional term with definitions that are different for most people), doesn't have that direct link. Risk is the probability of harm multiplied by the value of that harm. So the greater the damage for the same probability of incident, the greater risk. The greater the chance of an incident, when all incidents are the same harm, the greater the risk. The problem is that probabilities and damage are largely ignored and uncorrelated. High speed crashes are much more likely to have lower imapct (pun intended). You side-swipe someone for little damage. The lower the speeds, especially of one of the vehicles, the greater the damage (i.e. one person stops on the interstate, someone hits them at 45 mph in a 65 mph, and the damage will be high, and it will be listed as "speed related" when neither vehicle was speeding.
Learn to love Alaska
If you are a designated driver, and your friend is passed out in the back seat, drunk and you stop at a red light and the car behind you falls asleep (sober) and crashes into you, you do know how that gets recorded in statistics, right? It's "alcohol related" because one of the people involved was drunk (and asleep, even if not in control of either car). When *any* alcohol in either car (including the blood stream of the dead body in the trunk) is present, the crash is "alcohol related'. With a definition like that, I'm surprised how *few* crashes are alcohol related.
Learn to love Alaska
Here's the National Advanced Driving Simulator, which is in Iowa. This not only has a Stewart platform, the Stewart Platform is mounted on an X-Y table about 60 feet square. Toyota has an even bigger one with over 100 feet of linear travel.
The need for huge linear travel comes from the need to simulate the feeling of a hard stop. To some extent, deceleration can be simulated with tilt. But at the end of a stop, deceleration suddenly ceases without a change in attitude. You can't simulate that with a Stewart platform. If you want to test people's behavior during hard braking, you need a huge simulator.
> speeding rarely is the CAUSE of any accident
> * Failure to stop in time because of following too closely
or driving too fast.
> * Not looking/knowing what is in a lane before changing lanes
or not allowing for a car driving faster than expected in that lane.
* Reckless driving (weaving, lane splitting, running lights, chicken, etc)
weaving because they want to drive faster than the flow of traffic and keep switching to a 'faster' lane.
Two guys were killed here recently. They were _speeding_ up a long hill. At the top the curve (well marked with max speed) tightened up. As the curve tightened the _speeding_ car slid over the center line and went under a truck.
This is not an uncommon cause of accidents.
When you crash in a virtual text track experiment cockpit simulator you don't see stars... you see asterisks.
If I am on a dark empty two lane road, I often drive center so that way my lights shine further into the ditch to watch for moose on the opposite side. Obviously not when comming to hills or blind corners.
I also sometimes drive towards/over center in areas with street parking and high pedestrain activity - again, when visibility and traffic permits.
I have on more then one ocasion seen toddlers chasing balls come from between parked cars and animals bolt up from the ditch.
In the UAE, often nobody indicates their lane changes... but if you are driving defensively they don't crash into you. In North America, often we think "well if they hit me, it's their fault, so let them hit me. insurance will buy me a new car" - In UAE we think "No way he's hitting me, I don't want to wait for the police or have my car incompetitantly repaired or get 60% for my car"
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
Do you know that in fact they are actually going 10 or 15 over?
I have oversized tires on my Land Rover, and now when it says 100km/h on my speedo, I am actually doing 100km/h on the GPS. If I do 139 the 140km/h radar does not yet flash and I don't get a speeding ticket. Prior to getting the larger tires, I thought everyone was doing 160km/h... but they weren't... they were all doing 138km/h - because they didn't want a ticket either.
If I had been going 120km/h on my speedometer before, I would have been creating a 40km/h differential between myself and traffic which would be unsafe and would cost the people in the traffic much more in gas (them hitting the brakes and re-accellerating) then I would have saved.
Sure, it's stupid for people to race red light to red light, but some of us would rather not spend the whole day missing every green and fartzing behind some selfish ass in the far left going 10km/h under the limit because he thinks he's saving a few cents in fuel.
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
I've heard that speeding isn't the leading, so some research:
Distracted Driving (speeding #2)
Distracted Driving (Speeding #4)
Not using turn signals 2x worse than distracted driving?
distracted driving
Disparities noticed:
Fatigue: #20 in the first list, #2 in the second
Anyways, I like being distracted; I don't particularly like driving. Bring on the self-driving vehicles! Or other way I can get to work/store without having to be behind the wheel.
I don't read AC A human right
It's not like an accident can't have multiple checkmarks on 'cause' - speeding, tailgating, running red light, AND drunk.
I don't read AC A human right
Per this study, that would be:
#14 Tailgating
#11 Unsafe lane change
#1 Distracted driving of any sort
#20 Drowsy Driving
#3 drunk driving
#4 Reckless driving
#2 is speeding - It says your reactions slow, my correction would be that you need to react faster to avoid an accident at higher speed. The difference between 60 and 65 can be over 100ft in stopping distance, or the difference between just missing the bumper of the car in front of you and plowing through it.
I don't read AC A human right
If it's a rural highway, it shouldn't be known for it's numerous red lights or even stop signs.
In town I tend to attempt to time the lights - if that means going 5mph over to hit the green I'll do it. I'll also do 5mph UNDER to get the green, if that's the way it's timed - I've seen it, and laughed at the cars that pass me doing 5-10mph over towards the red light, and are forced to stop and are just starting up again as I cruise through the light just as it turns green.
I don't read AC A human right
True. However, of those in your example, the cause would be "drunk", which probably led to all the others.
If you took away "drunk", then the cause would be "running red light". If you were tailgating someone, then that is an unrelated stupidity that wouldn't otherwise cause the accident in question (which would probably be a T-boning into or by cross traffic).
The only thing speed would have done would have been to increase the kinetic energy of the impact, assuming you were the one doing the T-boning. If it was you getting T-boned, then excessive speed may have been the reason that while spinning out of control you took out three other cars, two pedestrians and a telegraph pole. In which case speed would have definitely been a contributing factor, but not the actual cause.
I once figured out how much a self driving car would be worth.
1. Safety - The system is better than 90% of drivers. It may not get into the same accidents as a human driver, it doesn't get into as many, but it still has them.
Value: ~$700-2100/year. High end is for bad/drunk drivers, otherwise it assumes a 90% average savings on insurance.
2. Average human values their time at around $10/hour. 15k miles/year@40mph = 375 hours
Value: $3,750
3. Due to driving sedately/optimally, it saves 10% gas mileage. (25mpg average, 15k miles, $4/gallon)
Value: $240
4. System has a 5 year lifespan before needing updates/recertification
Worth it if it costs less than $5k/year, or $25k for the system. For a drunk driver, it's more like $6-7k, $30-35k for the system. Or somebody who drives more or values their time more(as long as they can do something more worthwhile while commuting as a result). As seen in California, if it allows a single individual into the 'special' EV/HOA lanes it could be considered worth it for a substantial population even at $100k.
I don't read AC A human right
In such a case, the cause of the accident was exceeding the capability of that particular vehicle (tires or suspension).
Is the max speed a legal maximum, or an advisory maximum? If it's the latter, then speeding (the crime) was not the cause, but inappropriate speed (too fast for the conditions) was.
This is the main problem with the 'Speeding Kills' mantra: it's not the speed itself, it's whether it's appropriate. Plus, speed doesn't kill; the sudden stop does though.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Then the definition is crap. It should only apply to people actually in control of a car, not some comatose passenger in the back seat.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
"While speeding is the leading cause for most traffic accidents,"
Please cite your source.
The explanation of why speed is an accident cause is childish as if speed alone is the culprit. The cause isn't speed, it's drivers exceeding their skill envelope. If you put multiple people of various driving skill levels into the same potentially dangerous situation you will get different outcomes base upon their experience, reaction times, distractions and situational awareness.
Same thing for a drunken pedestrian getting hit by a sober driver. Alcohol-related, even though there was no drunken driving.
Which is why I don't really want to bother testing all drivers so much as I'd love to see self-driving cars. A car that can determine it needs to slam on the brakes in 1/100th of a second as opposed to the 1.5 that many humans take means a computer controlled car can stop in a shorter distance at 100mph than a human can at 65.
I don't read AC A human right
It's not my study, just listing them out. Under your thinking, one could then call speeding reckless driving, which indeed happens when you're speeding excessively.
Still, given how common it is I wouldn't consider including it as a category out of line. Personally, I'd try to only attribute accidents that could have obviously been avoided if they'd been going the speed limit - IE they attempted to brake, but due to their speed were unable to stop in time, while they would have been able to if they had been going the limit.
I don't read AC A human right
Can you give a citation to that? What statistics is it you're referring to and where can I find the definition you describe? If you're correct that's some very misleading statistics but it's a pretty strong claim so I'd like to see some evidence before buying it.
That one makes sense. After all the alcohol could have contributed to why the pedestrian was in the road.
He can't because he's wrong. Same link Document 811606 "Drivers are considered to be alcohol-impaired when their blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is .08 grams per deciliter (g/dL) or higher. Thus, any fatal
crash involving a driver with a BAC of .08 or higher is considered to be an alcohol-
impaired-driving crash, and fatalities occurring in those crashes are considered to
be alcohol-impaired-driving fatalities. The term “driver” refers to the operator of
any motor vehicle, including a motorcycle."
"Honey, I'm working late again today. Gotta get those TPS reports in by tomorrow morning."
Technically correct, but the statistics are generally (mis)construed as related specifically to drunken driving, so including pedestrians overinflates those numbers.
Nothing could adequately simulate a brother and sister fighting in the back seat.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Alcohol Involvement
"NHTSA Defines A Fatal Crash As Alcohol-related Or Alcohol-involved If Either A Driver Or A Nonmotorist (usually A Pedestrian) Had A Measurable Or Estimated Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) Of 0.01 Grams Per Deciliter (g/dl) Or Above. NHTSA Defines A Nonfatal Crash As Alcohol-related Or Alcohol-involved If Police Indicate On The Police Accident Report That There Is Evidence Of Alcohol Present. The Code Does Not Necessarily Mean That A Driver Or Nonoccupant Was Tested For Alcohol."
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Help/Terms.aspx
If the police indicate alcohol was involved, but nobody was tested, then it is alcohol related. And "non motorist" isn't explicitly pedestrian, just "usually" so, and in practice, police include passengers as non motorists (thought technically driver, pedicyclist, and passenger are mutually exclusive, but cops may see "driver or nonmotorist" as being "anybody", as nonmotorist isn't explicitly pedicyclist (the usual term for other non-motor road user, such as a pedestrian or cyclist, and including 'other' like skateboarders and rollerskaters).
In short, the rule is that the person in charge of the actions that were involved should be the only ones that count, but what a cop says is the *only* measure of what is included, which means that anything and everything is alcohol related, as the cops have been told that for years and supporting that gets them more money.
Learn to love Alaska
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Help/Terms.aspx
You are the one that's wrong. If BAC is 0.01 or greater, then it is alcohol-involved. That's from another NHTSA document. So which NHTSA document is right? Depends on who's quoting it and why. Also note that the document you refer to also includes passengers who are drunk in the statistics. Those are included in alcohol-involved incidents. I never said "alcohol-impaired" so correcting me by quoting unrelated stats doesn't prove me wrong. It just proves your reading skills are poor.
Learn to love Alaska
How exactly does the tire size affect the perception of the speed you're driving at?
"The cause isn't speed, it's drivers exceeding their skill envelope."
Do you mean that, let's say, NASCAR drivers should be allowed to drive at 200mph on normal roads? They're within their skill envelope after all.
"speeding is the cause of near zero traffic accidents. It merely magnifies other causes (and effects)."
Sure. And shooting yourself in the mouth with a gun isn't the cause of death. It merely magnified the effect of the bullet.
"The slower I'm going, the less attention I'm paying. If it was legal to go 90, I'd be paying pretty damn close attention to the road!"
I'd be very interested to see you stop at a stop sign. Must be a hilarious show.
Also, I think you should be allowed to go 200 anywhere. You'll be the safest driver on the road!
The broader alcohol involvement statistic is so meaningless as to draw the ire of the above slashdot commenters. No doubt that is why it is not used. Your original response implied that was the statistic being used in the document, and was interpreted as such by the responders below you. If you were not talking about the data I presented, why bring up an unrelated and useless statistic? Either you did not recognize the difference to begin with and are now backpedaling on semantic grounds, or you were trying to mislead readers. Either way, "wrong" is an accurate characterization of your comment, especially since the numbers for the definition I gave are the same as those in the original document, so it is obvious what definition is being used. Also, the document I referred to only counts drunk passengers as fatalities if they died. The fact that the passenger was drunk does not make the accident alcohol impaired.
No doubt that is why it is not used.
MADD and the news use "alcohol-involved" almost exclusively.
Learn to love Alaska
Tire size changes the distance travelled per wheel rotation, which is how the spedometer works. Changing tire sizes will cause your spedometer to read inaccurately unless you are able to calibrate it to the new size.
7 or so years ago Discover Channel (I think it was them) had some shows on The World Worst Drivers or something like that. They were UK shows slightly repackaged for the USA.
In one piece they showed cars spinning off the curving entrance to an expressway. One reason they had a UK show was the UK has had a lot more video or surveillance footage to choose from than the US. Any, they interviewed a safety expert. He explained that that curved entrance-way had spin outs at the rate of say, once a week. So, hundreds of thousands of pounds later, they banked the curve to make it safer. And drivers spun out at the rate of, you guessed it, once a week.
The safety expert explained that people will access the risk of a situation, and on that entrance way one person per week assessed the risk incorrectly and went too fast. Changing the road to make it safer only moved the risk assessment by drivers. He went on to say that that was a problem: we have been building safer roads and safer vehicles, but people re- adjust their behaviors, thus defeating the new, safer road or car.*
The expert suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that maybe we should make driving more dangerous, but in a manner that the driver really knows it, motivating the driver to drive safer. He proposed a large spike stickout of the center of the steering wheel, aimed the driver' chest. That should make people drive safer!
Although, may it should be pointed about 15 inches lower....
*IN the US there were slow declines yearly auto accident rates, until air bags came along and produced substantial decreases. Air bags are an exception and have actually made a big impact in reducing fatalities. Maybe because that although divers know they are there, it is 'intellectual' knowledge, not sensory sourced knowledge. So they don't jump in a car with air bags and think, "Oh, air bag. I can drive a little faster."
Yes, I guessed that much, but is it really that noticeable?
Yes, it is. Tire sizes are measured like 225/40/17... second number indicates the sidewall height as a percentage of the treadwidth (first number, in MM). Third number is the size, in inches, of the rim.
I went from 205/80-16 to 265/70-16
The circumference of the original tire was 2307.19mm vs 2442.27mm
That is, 433.43 revolutions per KM to 409.45 revolutions per KM
That means there is a 6% difference in my speedometer between the two tires (assuming the old tires were not worn, which they were)
My point is not just about tire size, but in fact, many speedometers are not accurate anyway, especially at high speeds.
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone