Accidents happen, surely it is a good idea to reduce the impact of such accidents by using side impact protection ? These accidents also happen with ICE cars as well, right ?
Why put up with a poor design of semi-trailer, ask yourself that ?
The primary failure is the poorly designed semi-trailer that allows car's roofs to be ripped off in side impact accidents. The secondary failure is the car taking no action to slow down before impact.
Had the semi-trailer had side impact protection, then the emergency braking radar (not autopilot) in the Tesla might have detected the side impact protection of the semi-trailer because the radar should have bounced off the protection instead of the radar beams all going through under the semi-trailer.
At least 30 years ago, Europe mandated that all trucks and trailers had side impact protection. When will the USA catch up ?
In order for an impact to have occurred, the driver of the tractor-trailer had insufficient time to clear his vehicle off the carriage, Clearly, this points some responsibility to the driver of the "big rig".
In Europe, all tractor-trailers (articulated lorries) must have side impact protection. I cannot understand the logic applied in the USA of having vehicles on the road that allows cars to not to use the car's frontal crumple zones in side impact accidents with "big rigs".
It would be highly illegal to drive a USA "big rig" in Europe without side impact protection.
I suspect these type of accidents occur daily with ICE cars in the USA but no-one decides to do anything about it. If you fix the design of the semi-trailer then at least the front crumple zone of the car would be used in a side impact. At least that should increase the chances of surviving the accident by not ripping off the car's roof.
Indeed, had the semi-truck had side impact protection as in Europe, then the front of the Tesla would have been able to use its crumple zone as intended in a frontal crash. This might have saved the driver's life because the safety systems would of deployed.
I recommend that the USA implements side impact protection on all their trucks like in Europe.
From at least 30 years ago, all European tractor trailers must have side impact protection so that the crumple zones on cars will work as intended.
It would be highly illegal to drive a USA tractor trailer in Europe without side impact protection.
Now I wonder how many cars per day in the USA run under a trailer which kills the driver. I suspect it is a common occurrence. Perhaps the USA should look to Europe to see how to avoid these deaths ?
In the UK, cars are taxed on the amount of CO2 emissions generated. If the car generates less than 100g / km then there is no road tax to pay. This means electric cars and clean fuel efficient cars pay no road tax. In London, these low emission cars also do not pay any daily congestion charges to drive in London at peak times of the day. This is acts as an incentive to use clean fuel efficient cars and pushes manufacturers to create clean low emission cars. There are tax bands for CO2 emissions so the more emissions per km the higher the road tax is.
In the horizontal direction you mean mass and not weight as a ton or tonne is a unit of mass and not force. Force = mass x acceleration. This means the fuel is used to generate an acceleration on the mass of the vehicle via torque from the driving wheels.
Next time someone asks your weight, say about 800 Newtons due to gravity (assuming you use the metric system)..
That said, yes we need to be plowing money into renewables, it's an investment that will pay itself off many times over...but unfortunately over a number of decades and so private industry simply isn't going to do that.
I think you will find that Ecotricity [http://www.ecotricity.co.uk] is providing wind generated electricity to the UK domestic market. I think the revolution has started...
What I like is the number of suggestions to "just install Linux", as if Linux needs less configuration than the above. I think people who make that suggestion are ignorant, biased, or would always recommend Linux simply because it's their preference. The last one is fine in certain circumstances, but those people should be honest about it.
Installing Desktop Linux is very similar to installing Win7. The main part is partitioning the hard drive and selection of some general items. Flexibility is why configuration is available.
Strictly speaking Linux is the kernel. A Desktop Linux distribution provides KDE and/or gnome (and/or other graphics environment) on top of GNU/Linux. Embedded Linux systems run proprietary or open User Interfaces on top of Linux with or without GNU such as Android.
The Linux kernel supports multiple processor architectures (x86, ARM, MIPS etc) and multiple bus technologies. When a bus technology is common between platforms such as USB, there is some crossover of Linux Device drivers between the Desktop and Embedded Linux markets. This means Linux Device drivers for the Desktop may sometimes initially come from an Embedded project (and visa versa). In other words, the Embedded Linux market is contributing to indirect support of the Desktop market and visa versa. As a result, the Linux kernel quickly acquires support for popular devices from the Linux community as a whole and not just the Desktop market. There are many companies providing Linux Device drivers to the Linux community via the need to support Embedded Linux systems.
The Linux kernel needs less user Device driver configuration than Windows because a Linux Desktop Distribution builds most of the available Device drivers from the kernel's source tree. In modern times, it is usually unnecessary to go to a 3rd party vendor unless you have a bleeding edge device or an unpopular device or the driver is proprietary. When you install a Linux Distribution, most of the Device drivers are installed on to the hard drive. When the kernel boots, it probes the system and loads the needed drivers from the superset of available Device drivers. Sometimes special configuration files are automagically written to improve boot efficiency or to prevent blacklisted drivers from being used.
In conclusion, the Linux kernel probably has better Device Driver support than Windows because there are more engineers working on the Linux kernel than Windows. In the modern market place, Embedded Linux is king due to the popularity of Android (phones and tablets), TiVo and other settop boxes, Internet TVs, home routers, car infotainment, Raspberry Pi, etc.
Look around your house to see how many of your consumer devices are running Embedded Linux...
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Accidents happen, surely it is a good idea to reduce the impact of such accidents by using side impact protection ? These accidents also happen with ICE cars as well, right ?
Why put up with a poor design of semi-trailer, ask yourself that ?
The primary failure is the poorly designed semi-trailer that allows car's roofs to be ripped off in side impact accidents.
The secondary failure is the car taking no action to slow down before impact.
Had the semi-trailer had side impact protection, then the emergency braking radar (not autopilot) in the Tesla might have detected the side impact protection of the semi-trailer because the radar should have bounced off the protection instead of the radar beams all going through under the semi-trailer.
At least 30 years ago, Europe mandated that all trucks and trailers had side impact protection. When will the USA catch up ?
In order for an impact to have occurred, the driver of the tractor-trailer had insufficient time to clear his vehicle off the carriage, Clearly, this points some responsibility to the driver of the "big rig".
In Europe, all tractor-trailers (articulated lorries) must have side impact protection. I cannot understand the logic applied in the USA of having vehicles on the road that allows cars to not to use the car's frontal crumple zones in side impact accidents with "big rigs".
It would be highly illegal to drive a USA "big rig" in Europe without side impact protection.
I suspect these type of accidents occur daily with ICE cars in the USA but no-one decides to do anything about it. If you fix the design of the semi-trailer then at least the front crumple zone of the car would be used in a side impact. At least that should increase the chances of surviving the accident by not ripping off the car's roof.
Indeed, had the semi-truck had side impact protection as in Europe, then the front of the Tesla would have been able to use its crumple zone as intended in a frontal crash. This might have saved the driver's life because the safety systems would of deployed.
I recommend that the USA implements side impact protection on all their trucks like in Europe.
From at least 30 years ago, all European tractor trailers must have side impact protection so that the crumple zones on cars will work as intended.
It would be highly illegal to drive a USA tractor trailer in Europe without side impact protection.
Now I wonder how many cars per day in the USA run under a trailer which kills the driver. I suspect it is a common occurrence. Perhaps the USA should look to Europe to see how to avoid these deaths ?
In the UK, cars are taxed on the amount of CO2 emissions generated. If the car generates less than 100g / km then there is no road tax to pay. This means electric cars and clean fuel efficient cars pay no road tax. In London, these low emission cars also do not pay any daily congestion charges to drive in London at peak times of the day. This is acts as an incentive to use clean fuel efficient cars and pushes manufacturers to create clean low emission cars. There are tax bands for CO2 emissions so the more emissions per km the higher the road tax is.
In the horizontal direction you mean mass and not weight as a ton or tonne is a unit of mass and not force. Force = mass x acceleration. This means the fuel is used to generate an acceleration on the mass of the vehicle via torque from the driving wheels.
Next time someone asks your weight, say about 800 Newtons due to gravity (assuming you use the metric system)..
That said, yes we need to be plowing money into renewables, it's an investment that will pay itself off many times over...but unfortunately over a number of decades and so private industry simply isn't going to do that.
I think you will find that Ecotricity [http://www.ecotricity.co.uk] is providing wind generated electricity to the UK domestic market. I think the revolution has started...
What I like is the number of suggestions to "just install Linux", as if Linux needs less configuration than the above. I think people who make that suggestion are ignorant, biased, or would always recommend Linux simply because it's their preference. The last one is fine in certain circumstances, but those people should be honest about it.
Installing Desktop Linux is very similar to installing Win7. The main part is partitioning the hard drive and selection of some general items. Flexibility is why configuration is available.
Strictly speaking Linux is the kernel. A Desktop Linux distribution provides KDE and/or gnome (and/or other graphics environment) on top of GNU/Linux. Embedded Linux systems run proprietary or open User Interfaces on top of Linux with or without GNU such as Android.
The Linux kernel supports multiple processor architectures (x86, ARM, MIPS etc) and multiple bus technologies. When a bus technology is common between platforms such as USB, there is some crossover of Linux Device drivers between the Desktop and Embedded Linux markets. This means Linux Device drivers for the Desktop may sometimes initially come from an Embedded project (and visa versa). In other words, the Embedded Linux market is contributing to indirect support of the Desktop market and visa versa. As a result, the Linux kernel quickly acquires support for popular devices from the Linux community as a whole and not just the Desktop market. There are many companies providing Linux Device drivers to the Linux community via the need to support Embedded Linux systems.
The Linux kernel needs less user Device driver configuration than Windows because a Linux Desktop Distribution builds most of the available Device drivers from the kernel's source tree. In modern times, it is usually unnecessary to go to a 3rd party vendor unless you have a bleeding edge device or an unpopular device or the driver is proprietary. When you install a Linux Distribution, most of the Device drivers are installed on to the hard drive. When the kernel boots, it probes the system and loads the needed drivers from the superset of available Device drivers. Sometimes special configuration files are automagically written to improve boot efficiency or to prevent blacklisted drivers from being used.
In conclusion, the Linux kernel probably has better Device Driver support than Windows because there are more engineers working on the Linux kernel than Windows. In the modern market place, Embedded Linux is king due to the popularity of Android (phones and tablets), TiVo and other settop boxes, Internet TVs, home routers, car infotainment, Raspberry Pi, etc.
Look around your house to see how many of your consumer devices are running Embedded Linux...