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Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

independent.co.uk

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Re: Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

#31

Post by georgeek »

sixQuarks wrote: post #21

Another reason why Tesla is so far ahead of the game. Elon Musk had the engineers design the vehicle to be as safe as possible, period. They didn't design the safety of the car with the crash tests in mind. They passed all the crash tests with flying colors as a side-effect of actually designing for safety.

When you remove the huge chunk of metal in front of the cabin that is the engine, you might expect better performance in a front impact test. The structure of the car doesn't have to circumvent the engine, gearbox and a lot of other complicated and heavy bits that have to sit in a specific place.

Re: Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

#32

Post by geon »

WalterBright wrote: post #25
alkonaut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> designed to require an airbag to be able to stop an adult male not wearing a seatbelt, What? To me it seems obivous that the right thing to do is have the seatbelt be part of the switch for the airbag -- no seatbelt, no detonation!

I'd rather have racing-style belts and no air bag. Racing style go over both shoulders, are wider, and are fixed length. There are some horrific crashes in auto racing and the drivers walk away. That convinces me.

They also wear helmets while driving.

Re: Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

#33

Post by bruceboughton »

WalterBright wrote: post #25
alkonaut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> designed to require an airbag to be able to stop an adult male not wearing a seatbelt, What? To me it seems obivous that the right thing to do is have the seatbelt be part of the switch for the airbag -- no seatbelt, no detonation!

I'd rather have racing-style belts and no air bag. Racing style go over both shoulders, are wider, and are fixed length. There are some horrific crashes in auto racing and the drivers walk away. That convinces me.

Do you also want to wear a HANS device every time you drive? That's a big part of the reason drivers walk away from horrific crashes these days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HANS_device

Re: Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

#34

Post by userbinator »

petewailes wrote: post #6

At the risk of sounding cynical and jaded, is anyone remotely surprised by this? The EU has been pushing car encouraging manufacturers to work harder at car safety for longer, and more effectively than the US has. Seat belts? Volvo. Air bags? First made standard in Mercs and Porsches, at a time when Ford and GM were lobbying against being made to include them. They became optional and then standard between the mid to…

I don't think the EU pushed Volvo though; for the longest time, their slogan was "Drive Safely" and they've always been emphasising safety over other features.

Re: Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

#35

Post by amatix »

alkonaut wrote: post #24
petewailes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because the legislation originates from a time when most cars didn't have them as a legal requirement, so the assumption is that someone won't have one or be wearing it, if the car has it. That bit has never been updated. It's exactly as insane as it sounds.

I'm not sure but I think airbags do detonate on most cars, regardless of the seat belt status. It would be too complicated or unreliable to couple the two systems. However: an airbag isn't very effective (and could even be dangerous) without the seat belt, so manufacturers in Europe aren't really required to worry about the safety without seat belts. Effectively the safety regulations say: those with no seat belts ar…

> I think optional seat belt laws as found in some parts of the US can make some sense there (owing a lot to the fact that there is no single payer healthcare...)

Wat? So because the taxpayer isn't directly picking up the healthcare bill, it's somehow okay to double serious crash-related injuries and deaths[1]?

[1] "Seat belts reduce serious crash-related injuries and deaths by about half." http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/seatbelts/facts.html

Re: Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

#36

Post by WalterBright »

mootothemax wrote: post #30
WalterBright wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather have racing-style belts and no air bag. Racing style go over both shoulders, are wider, and are fixed length. There are some horrific crashes in auto racing and the drivers walk away. That convinces me.

The same racing drivers who have to wear top-line racing helmets connected to HANS devices, wear fire-resistant overalls, have medical teams on immediate standby, and who are often strapped in by their mechanics before heading off? I think you may be overlooking an awful lot of what makes modern motor racing safer than it was in the past. (and that's ignoring the number of serious injuries and driver deaths that stil…

I'm looking at the kind of accidents where an airbag is supposed to be effective. An airbag will do nothing for you if the car is burning.

The first and foremost safety device in a race car is the racing belt. The belt means you slow down with the car, which is much less deceleration than if your body hits the dashboard. (The point of crumple zones in the car is to reduced peak deceleration. In order for that to work, you gotta be strapped in.)

Re: Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

#37

Post by petewailes »

kw71 wrote: post #23
alkonaut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> designed to require an airbag to be able to stop an adult male not wearing a seatbelt, What? To me it seems obivous that the right thing to do is have the seatbelt be part of the switch for the airbag -- no seatbelt, no detonation!

I have two German-made, US-delivery cars with seatbelt switches and pressure mats (occupancy detection) in the passenger seats. I was hoping that this made them smarter than the Toyota and Volvo I own which have no such things wired into their airbag systems, which certainly work as described in this thread.

I'm guessing here, so pinch of salt required etc...

I think you're probably in something safer there. The idea behind airbag activation sensors is that you don't want to trigger unnecessary deployments (for a few reasons, but that's a bit involved). That said, depending on the system setup and what type of crash you have, alters which car I'd rather be in.

TL;DR: don't crash.

Re: Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

#38

Post by bruceboughton »

WalterBright wrote: post #28
sixQuarks wrote: post #21

Another reason why Tesla is so far ahead of the game. Elon Musk had the engineers design the vehicle to be as safe as possible, period. They didn't design the safety of the car with the crash tests in mind. They passed all the crash tests with flying colors as a side-effect of actually designing for safety.

A lot of people think that airliner safety comes from the FAA hammering on Boeing. That's not true at all. It's the attitude of Boeing and Boeing engineers that make it safe. (I used to be a Boeing engineer on flight critical systems.) The worst nightmare of a Boeing engineer is an accident resulting from his design mistake. The worst for me was when the Alaska 717 went down because the stabilizer jackscrew failed. I…

> I also know of instances where Boeing produced safer designs and had to lobby the FAA to get them to accept them. One example is using twin engines on overwater flights, rather than 3 or 4. The twin engines are statistically safer.

Interesting. Why do you think it is that twin engines are statistically safer? I thought redundancy was a normal part of the safety toolkit for planes.

Re: Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

#39

Post by ptaipale »

kw71 wrote: post #23
alkonaut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> designed to require an airbag to be able to stop an adult male not wearing a seatbelt, What? To me it seems obivous that the right thing to do is have the seatbelt be part of the switch for the airbag -- no seatbelt, no detonation!

I have two German-made, US-delivery cars with seatbelt switches and pressure mats (occupancy detection) in the passenger seats. I was hoping that this made them smarter than the Toyota and Volvo I own which have no such things wired into their airbag systems, which certainly work as described in this thread.

When buying French-made used cars, one of the important things is to check that the seatbelt switches, pressure mats and their connections are OK. Otherwise, extremely annoying and somewhat costly visits to a car electricity specialist will be needed...

(This is necessary to pass the annual MOT test here, not just a safety concern - if the OBD interface reports any errors, the car is automatically rejected in the test. Other than that, used Citroëns seem to be fine.)

Re: Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

#40

Post by culturestate »

WalterBright wrote: post #25
alkonaut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> designed to require an airbag to be able to stop an adult male not wearing a seatbelt, What? To me it seems obivous that the right thing to do is have the seatbelt be part of the switch for the airbag -- no seatbelt, no detonation!

I'd rather have racing-style belts and no air bag. Racing style go over both shoulders, are wider, and are fixed length. There are some horrific crashes in auto racing and the drivers walk away. That convinces me.

I'm an amateur racer, and I can tell you that seat belts are only a small part of the equation that makes racing crashes survivable. Racing seats are built to fit individual drivers, for instance, and the cocoon -- the portion of the frame where the driver sits -- is designed to protect the seat.

Additionally, race cars are designed to essentially disintegrate in hard wrecks -- the cocoon stays intact, but the rest breaks away as a means of absorbing energy. Road cars have a similar design with crumple zones, but race cars take it many steps further.

It's also come to light in the last ~15 years that belts are simply not enough in some instances. Dale Earnhardt (possibly the most famous racer in history) died in an average-looking wreck at Daytona in 2001 because his neck snapped in a collision with the wall; drivers are now required to wear head and neck restraints to prevent this.

Track design plays a role as well. You've probably seen tire walls and gravel traps, but newer technologies -- like SAFER barriers (energy-absorbing walls made of steel and foam) -- have come along and are replacing the old guard.

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