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Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)

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Re: Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like society without cars would be the exact same just without cars. People would live closer to where they need to be. It would be more public transport. More 15-minute cities etc. It's a bit dishonest to argue for continued car dominance just because it's already status quo.

Ok, but that's not the world we live in right now. Where my job is, is also in a quite boring area, almost rural. I don't want to move there.

Me: the world would change to accommodate

You: it's not the world we live in right now

Which is a useless retort.

Re: Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People would live closer to where they need to be. And work the first 25 days out of each month month to pay for it, LOL.

Oooor perhaps it could be the opposite, that things move closer to where people are. Instead of living in dead suburbia, there actually would be stores, cafes etc in those areas, instead of people having to take a car for every little thing they want to do in their life.

Non-remote work cannot be closer to everyone, if every employee of the company lives in a different suburb, on opposite ends of town.

As for stores, suburbanites will still go to the a cheaper, larger store with more selection. That's usually in the same suburb, but still a good drive.

Re: Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)

#83
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like society without cars would be the exact same just without cars. People would live closer to where they need to be. It would be more public transport. More 15-minute cities etc. It's a bit dishonest to argue for continued car dominance just because it's already status quo.

This is why there's such a disconnect between people who have to commute to work and people advocating for your policies. You flippantly suggest something that would make another person's life much more miserable, and then when he protests, you handwave it away by saying that society will just be better and he'll live closer to his job.

No, that's not what I said. I said others things would accommodate the new status quo, hence it's not fair to compare it to "exactly as today, but without cars". Like, you pose that it would be much more miserable. I don't think it would be.

Re: Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)

#84
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What that stat doesn't tell you is the rate of near misses. It's anecdotal I know, but as someone who commutes on a bike, the number of times I almost crash by myself per journey is near zero, yet the number of times a car tries to inadvertently occupy the same piece of road as me is multiple.

motorbike? or bicycle bike?

Motorbike

Re: Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)

#85

If motorcycles require loud pipes to be safe, they should probably be banned altogether - but I don't really think it is necessary to have loud pipes.

That's one, very narrow way of viewing it. Another would be that cars lack the necessary visibility to be safe. No one in their right mind would advocate to banning cars. Instead, sensors could be employed to make up for the lack of visibility in cars. This should maybe be the topic of discussion, to introduce these types of safety sensors as essential. ABS breaks weren't the norm a few decades ago, so why not start…

Sensors form a big issue, though. The newer Teslas especially are excellent at ruining safety sensors for the rest of the industry. Now instead of turning your head left to look left and see your blind spot out of what should be a far enough back window to see your blind spot, you can crouch over to press buttons and then look at the small circle on the big screen which shows your blind spot. Fine otherwise but it incentivises not even looking out of your left window as you begin turning, and takes your sight off the road in general, even if for just a look, and even when automatically activated by the blinker. It's a profoundly unsafe safety system because it acts to take your sight away from where it should go, even if it means you don't have to quickly turn your head, and it allows lazier and less safe vehicle design as you no longer have to make sure the driver has possible sightlines to blind spots.

Worse perhaps are all types of proximity sensors, because you can only trust them when they go off, and even then not always. Most cars get dirt on them, snow on them, rain on them and that tends to mess with proximity sensing enough to either disable the sensors or cause them to go off randomly. I don't think anyone has ever yet trusted the blind spot sensors on their mirrors to do a lane change, only aborted one because of them. Such non-camera sensors would fix almost nothing because at best they would sometimes cause people to reconsider swerving into a motorcyclist, and even then they usually go off way too late to prevent misfires while driving normally.

These are great features when they work but overengineering around fundamental design problems seems to me to only put people too much at ease in their cars and make bad driver behaviour worse, because why spin your head around to check when you can just not do that and stare at the little screen or trust your array of easily fooled sensors to do safety in your place. I think solutions like finding alternative pillar configurations, creating long or short enough front side windows for you to see back, harsher driver's license testing with longer required study periods and in cases where you can't do anything else such as some pickups just doing what semis do and having several well-aligned mirrors instead of one set of nice-looking ones would be a lot safer in the end.

As well as getting people who can't drive for shit off the road. That's sort of included in driver's license requirements but there's surely some other methods for it that I have not mentioned.

Re: Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)

#86
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bikes are perfectly safe. It's car drivers who aren't.

No, they are not. They are an extremely hazardous form of transportation. I like riding motorcycles, but I don't fool myself into thinking that they're anywhere near as safe as a modern car. In fact, they are responsible for more than 28 times the fatalities per mile traveled than cars. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

You're right, I should have added the qualifier "_when operated corrrectly_".

Re: Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)

#87
post #16

If motorcycles require loud pipes to be safe, they should probably be banned altogether - but I don't really think it is necessary to have loud pipes.

So how will they make loud electric motorcycles? As surely we will have to mandate those as well for the green future... What sort of alarm sound they will be mandated to make?

That's already an issue with cars. Most EVs beep or sing or hiss quite loudly when you put them in reverse gear and at low speeds where tyre noise is low they have to augment with ICE and/or whining sounds to not be so silent and deadly. Especially the last few decades from the walkman to ipods to modern bluetooth headphones it's already been really important that vehicles make noise to warn pedestrians of their presence. Suddenly getting reversed on in a parking garage makes nobody happy.

Re: Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)

#88
post #57
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bikes are perfectly safe. It's car drivers who aren't.

As a pedestrian, I want bicycle riding banned from sidewalks and any other pedestrian area.

It is in most places. At least in Europe where I live there's a limit of 12 years old for cycling on sidewalks and pedways marked with only a pedestrian sign, whereas sidewalks which are wide enough and marked with both a bicycle and pedestrian sign as well as paths marked with both a bicycle and pedestrian signs are for pedestrians and bicyclists equally. And of course this has its logical conclusion in bicycle-exclusive bike lanes and bike paths with no pedestrians at all on them. It's especially no issue if everyone gets the rules, generally on wide sidewalks where bikes are allowed the outer side with buildings is for pedestrians and the inner side near the road is for cars. Where no bicycle-OK sidewalk exists you just use the road or walk with the bike.

Re: Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)

#89
post #63
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know, drivers really really hate bicyclists.

Bicyclists earn it too.

Of course they don't. Don't judge a group based on characteristics you don't like from some of them.

In that vein, the hate for drivers should then be a hundredfold. How many haven't lost a dear one to a car driver?

Re: Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)

#90
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are not. They are an extremely hazardous form of transportation. I like riding motorcycles, but I don't fool myself into thinking that they're anywhere near as safe as a modern car. In fact, they are responsible for more than 28 times the fatalities per mile traveled than cars. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

You're right, I should have added the qualifier "_when operated corrrectly_".

Rare.
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