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The Engineer's Lament -- Prioritizing Car Safety Issues
An anonymous reader writes: Malcolm Gladwell has an article in The New Yorker about how automotive engineers handle issues of safety. There have been tons of car-related recalls lately, and even before that, we'd often hear about how some piece of engineering on a car was leading to a bunch of deaths. Sometimes it was a mistake, and sometimes it was an intentional design. But we hear about these issues through the lens of sensationalized media and public outrage — the engineers working on these problems understand better that it's how you drive that gets you into trouble far more than what you drive.
For example, the Ford Pinto became infamous for catching fire in crashes back in the 1970s. Gladwell says, "That's a rare event—it happens once in every hundred crashes. In 1975-76, 1.9 per cent of all cars on the road were Pintos, and Pintos were involved in 1.9 per cent of all fatal fires. Let's try again. About fifteen per cent of fatal fires resulted from rear collisions. If we look just at that subset of the subset, Schwartz shows, we finally see a pattern. Pintos were involved in 4.1 per cent of all rear-collision fire fatalities—which is to say that they may have been as safe as or safer than other cars in most respects but less safe in this one. ... You and I would feel safer in a car that met the 301 standard. But the engineer, whose aim is to maximize safety within a series of material constraints, cannot be distracted by how you and I feel."
For example, the Ford Pinto became infamous for catching fire in crashes back in the 1970s. Gladwell says, "That's a rare event—it happens once in every hundred crashes. In 1975-76, 1.9 per cent of all cars on the road were Pintos, and Pintos were involved in 1.9 per cent of all fatal fires. Let's try again. About fifteen per cent of fatal fires resulted from rear collisions. If we look just at that subset of the subset, Schwartz shows, we finally see a pattern. Pintos were involved in 4.1 per cent of all rear-collision fire fatalities—which is to say that they may have been as safe as or safer than other cars in most respects but less safe in this one. ... You and I would feel safer in a car that met the 301 standard. But the engineer, whose aim is to maximize safety within a series of material constraints, cannot be distracted by how you and I feel."
Listen to the engineers and not marketing or the media? You must be crazy!
Maybe the brakes were too good, resulting in all the rear-endings?
Seriously, our scientifically-illiterate society is rife with unintended consequences and cures that are worse than the disease.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
I believe Ford lost the Pinto case because internal tests discovered the problem and also found an inexpensive fix: a $5 plastic wall between the gas tank and the impact zone of the tank.
In other words, the jury decided the company consciously bypassed a cheap and easy fix to shave a few bucks from manufacturing cost. It was a pretty simple tradeoff. I have to agree with Jury in that case. The car's statistical risk compared to other brands is moot (unless the other brands also discovered and skipped the easy fix, in which case, they may also be liable).
Table-ized A.I.
"It's how you drive that gets you into trouble"
I've found that those who drive with blood alcohol levels above 1.0 lead to lots of trouble. Far more than any recent engineering defect I've heard of.
The biggest safety related maintenance problem is usually the loose nut behind the wheel.
had and probably still have more control over production than engineering. Ford figured it would add an $11 per car cost of manufacture to make safe and dead bodies were cheaper. I doubt it's changed..
http://www.cnbc.com/id/1025899...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
While I have successfully avoided being rear-ended by inching up into an intersection before, rear-end collisions typically have a lot more to do with how others drive than how you drive.
Why drag up a nearly fifty year old car as a reference? A known POS that was an engineering disaster.
"But the engineer, whose aim is to maximize safety within a series of material constraints, cannot be distracted by how you and I feel."
and that boys and girls is how American car manufacturers rationalize producing the crap that they produce.
This is not surprising. GM or Ford would have to be one fscked corporation to walk out of a meeting with the mandate "let's make crap cars". Instead they manage to convince that their junk "had to be done this way", even though most other foreign car manufactures have much lower design failure rates.
You are painting that one with an awfully wide brush. The Fiero was a mid-engine design. It was far from powerful, and not ridiculously expensive. Weight was on par with the other models of the time. And coming apart in a crash is a good thing. It dissipates energy that would have been transferred to the driver and passengers otherwise. Have you ever seen a Formula 1 car crash? The car practically disintegrates leaving only the cabin intact. And the driver gets out and walks away unharmed.
http://shameproject.com/report...
http://mikethemadbiologist.com...
Malcom Gladwell is the product of conservative institutes and think tanks; he has worked for racists, the tobacco industry, oil companies, big pharma, and more. His books popularize the kind of thinking that said industries have used to defend their practices.
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Modern approach to car safety is wrong, instead of focusing on training and testing drivers it was decided that cars must be equipped with automatic systems that take away control from you. Like systems that will override the driver and try to stop the car for you, never mind that tractor trailer behind you that won't be able to stop in time.
I think there's a blurry line here.
I'll accept for the sake of argument that the ford pinto with the gas tank problem was statistically not a problem.
That being said, any corporation that accepts a casualty/loss over safety/loss deserves punitive damages. If it was your family in that wreck that killed them to save the corporation money - would you be as forgiving?
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Excessive speed, for example, is implicated in an overwhelming number of fatal crashes. Traffic enforcement cameras—“speed cameras”—have been shown, conclusively, to reduce road fatalities.
What? Where is your evidence? It certainly doesn't bear out in the road crash fatality figures. I see this every day: people slow down as they pass a fixed speed camera then, as soon as they pass, they accelerate again. It's an idiot tax: speed cameras raise revenue from people too dumb to slow down as they pass them. They do nothing to improve traffic safety.
The biggest danger to driving, drivers and pedestrians is the cell phone. Folks walk out into traffic staring at the samsung. Go 10 blocks in Manhattan, you will get at least a dozen of these folks. No spatial awareness at all. In public. I saw a guy holding a cell phone conversation on speaker while bicycling yesterday. The guy who doesn't move from the light when it goes green didn't stall his manual, he's texting. Left Lane blocker ? contractor or housewife in huge SUV/Pickup...62 in a 70...ON THE PHONE. Really, just close your eyes instead and go lalalalalalaaa
Fiber glass doesn't have to mean that things come apart. Formula 1 cars have always been the lowest weight cars yet they are probably the safest cars to have a crash in. Look at the Tesla - goes fast but it is designed to safeguard the occupants in the most spectacular crashes.
The problem is that most car companies are designing cars with frames that minimize cost and maximize profits. A single frame is designed to support 2 or 3 brands and several years worth of value cars to luxury sedans and crossovers, then the rest (mainly market branding) is simply slapped on top and the guts are squeezed in. There is no reason that a company couldn't custom design a safe frame first and build a car around that, but the big (3?) names aren't nimble enough or interested to become that until more Tesla-like companies come along to shake up the market.
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Give and take. Sports cars also tend to be the safest cars on the road in that you have more options to avoid getting into an accident in the first place rather than just slamming down on the brakes and hoping for the best. Especially for top tier sports cars, their capabilities far exceed legal limits and cost too much in insurance and repair costs for much risky behavior.
I remember a bit of design in a small aircraft. In order to address the problem of gear-up landings, Piper came up with a system that, when it detected the appropriate combination of airspeed and engine conditions, would automatically lower the gear. It had an override so the pilot could indicate that this was not accidental and to not deploy the gear.
The system was very popular and copied onto a variety of aircraft. Nobody knows how many gear-up accidents were prevented since nobody calls up after a fine landing to report that they had actually screwed up and were saved by the auto-extend system. But the one person who failed to override the system after an engine failure and had the gear deploy filed and won a lawsuit claiming that the auto-deploy system was what caused them to be unable to glide to the airport. As a result, the manufacturers ceased making them and directed their removal from existing aircraft.
How long will it be before someone sues claiming that the auto-braking system in their car caused whiplash?
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Driver: "Open the door, car."
Car: "I can't do that <insert name here>. You're too stupid to let behind the wheel."
Problem solved.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Ford Explorer roof pillars were initially spec'd with a fairly high-grade steel. Citing costs, management refused to use the high-grade steel and instead used a weaker steel.
Result? Lots of roof-cave-ins on a vehicle that was prone to roll over.
http://www.autosafety.org/memo...
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See? All you techno-libertarians just want to sell us shoddy crap now. Why should we let you participate in society again?
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
You work for authority. You work on commission. Therefore you can not be trusted.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Because the real idiot is the one who thinks that professional police exist to enforce the law fairly, whereas, in fact, they exist to reproduce a subordinate, beaten-down working class.
You know, the "idiots" that make your enchanted techno-life possible won't have to worry about you when you're riding a lamp post. You might want to think about that real hard before you open your arrogant fly-hole again, child. Americans have overstayed their welcome in the world and should all STFU.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
... bourgeois neoliberals love to use to defend their sycophancy.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
There is no reason that a company couldn't custom design a safe frame first and build a car around that, but the big (3?) names aren't nimble enough or interested to become that until more Tesla-like companies come along to shake up the market.
It costs a lot to build a safe car. Tesla and Audi A8 drivers walk away from accidents that tear their cars in half. But you'll note that these are some of the most expensive cars to produce. Cadillac is now using the same techniques (plus some, so they can build an aluminum unibody with steel floor pans) so your wish has been granted, the first genuinely safe cars are coming out from a big 3 automaker. Problem is, they're coming from the marque that doesn't share platforms.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Traffic accidents are almost always caused by driver error. Mechanical failure is lost in the noise at less than 5% of all crashes.
Well I was in the steel industry afterwards which is why I can tell you that they barely tried at all in comparison to the Japanese cars that took their market from them.
And a few hundred bucks could be shaved off the price by using a different steel, just as strong but cheaper, as was done by the Japanese and as was done by Ford later.
The article's main point was that given limited resources an engineer tackles the problems that have the biggest impact on safety, not the most publicized or scary ones.
But the article missed the point of a key quote from an engineer: "Then how do I have enough information to make a compelling case to convince an executive panel that they really should spend thirty million dollars on a recall". This is the core problem; safety resources rely on someone taking initiative to make a compelling business case against other competing objectives like features, sales, marketing, etc.
If safety were truly taken seriously then the way safety is approached should be the opposite: all observed safety issues should be on the docket to be fixed by default, and then the case should be made why it does not make sense to fix particular problems (for exampe, unlikely to happen, a rare defect, etc).
Tesla's latest lot seem to be on par with other luxury sedans, if you count in 5-10y fuel costs it makes sense to buy a Tesla over any other maker. The main cost in the Tesla is not the design cost nor the car's construction, put an ICE in the Tesla and you could cut the price tag (and performance) in half.
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For every case like this, you can find cases where engineers and/or their employers made really bad choices when left to their own devices. The outcome of the Pinto case, and others like it, should not only be judged by the specific issue, but also by their cumulative effect in encouraging manufacturers to be proactively cautious (though that is hard to measure.)
Ok apparently no one here actually owned a Pinto. The problem wasn't that they would catch fire in a crash. The problem with the Pinto is they would catch fire for no reason at random intervals through out the day.
Bring on the autonomous cars, humans are crap drivers including the 'professionals' who drive for a living and think that their crap driving is somehow ok because "I passed an advanced driving test".
Cars right now are built like tanks to protect the occupants, if they weren't prone to crashing they wouldn't need to weigh 2 tons. If people hired autonomous cars they could hire small vehicles when they are going alone and larger vehicles when they are taking the family etc.
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Umm... no. NASA explicitly rejected monolithic SRB's because of the significant (and costly) technical challenges involved.
That sounds damming - unless you know the history of the joint, as opposed to the sound bites.
The joint was failing (the o-ring was being severely damaged by blow-by, even when the specifications said there would be zero blow by) even at temperatures well within the specified range. On at least one flight, it came within a few seconds of complete failure despite the launch temperature being in the 70's.
And there is precisely zero evidence that the engineers ever objected to continuing to fly despite these ongoing failures.
Yeah. Engineers designed cars that killed people for decades - and didn't change their ways until forced to by legal and stay on that course because marketing has determined that safer cars sell.
Yeah.
That's a reason to trust engineers.
There is no such thing as absolute safety.
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The link has precisely fuck-all to do with what I wrote.
The Pinto had plenty of modern safety devices planned by engineers: ABS, air bags, double-lined gas tank, etc. It was that clueless managers cut all that out forcing a car that was cheaper to manufacture, but that really cost Ford more money in the end. Without the cuts the Pinto would have been the safest car made at the time. I do agree that a lot comes down to how people drive. The biggest problem is the ridiculously low requirements for obtaining a driver's license in the US. No professional training is required, only mildly phased approaches, and a way too low eligibility age. A 16 year old is considered mature enough to drive a Porsche or Hummer, but not mature enough to drink a light beer? Look at the requirements for getting a driver's license in Germany....noticeably less whackos on the road and noticeably less accidents and vehicle accident deaths.