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Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

collectorsweekly.com

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Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#71

Post by megablast »

nostromo wrote: post #38
tokenadult wrote: post #25

The death rate per miles driven in the United States has fallen dramatically in my lifetime, and I can remember when the annual number of deaths was much higher.[1] That said, the article makes a very interesting claim about attitudes that we should all follow to the end of the article for further discussion here: "There’s an open secret in America: If you want to kill someone, do it with a car. As long as you’re sob…

I don't think the solution to unsafe roads is to throw everyone that is at-fault in an accident in jail. I understand the frustration cyclists have with auto traffic, but we've seen a million times that harsher penalties don't always have the intended outcome. And we have a habit in the US of using prison as the answer for every malady. Instead, I think the answer is better road design, separating cars and cyclists u…

> Instead, I think the answer is better road design, separating cars and cyclists using dedicated lanes, and automated vehicles.

One way of keeping the status quo is to suggest things that are incredibly expensive and time consuming will never be done.

Making driving more expensive however, does reduce traffic and fatalities.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#72

Post by cek »

Crito wrote: post #36
ansimionescu wrote: post #2

In Romanian 'car crash' is called literally 'accident' [0]. Something that's always baffled me is how friggin' thin the metal plates that make up the car are. Why the fuck does a whole industry consider this normal?! [1] Edit: thanks for the info (and for the downvotes 0: http://translate.google.com/#en/ro/car%20crash 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhCXFsQ6kKQ

Car crashes are often called "accidents" in America too. I found it interesting and insightful when my driving instructor back in highschool spent a good 10 minutes ranting about there not being any such thing as a car 'accident' (students mentioning the word "accident" later in the course were scolded, to drive home the point). Obviously you can dream up scenarios that you might be able to really call an accident, b…

In firearms circles there's a saying "There is no such thing as a firearms accident. There are only negligent acts."

SOMEONE is always responsible, and should be held accountable.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#73

Post by quahaug »

dxbydt wrote: post #43

What happened to those concept cars that were encased in rubber/(or some other bouncy material) so when they bumped against each other, they would harmlessly bounce off ? I distinctly remember reading about them in Wired some years back.

Yeah, wired runs lots of stories about stuff that quite simply never happens.

I used to keep a lot of back issues of wired, which I saved because I thought they had some cool stories. Surprisingly, many are packed with examples of very obvious vapor ware, and have aged really poorly.

A small handful, however, still read like notes from an exciting future, and I find myself returning to them, when searching for inspiration.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#74

Post by sp332 »

revelation wrote: post #62
nostromo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the solution to unsafe roads is to throw everyone that is at-fault in an accident in jail. I understand the frustration cyclists have with auto traffic, but we've seen a million times that harsher penalties don't always have the intended outcome. And we have a habit in the US of using prison as the answer for every malady. Instead, I think the answer is better road design, separating cars and cyclists u…

Sure, lets do all of that. But there is plenty of low-hanging fruit. Maximum of 20 mph everywhere you have pedestrians, certainly in any city or city center - the simple reasoning being that higher speed only reduces time to travel some distance linearly , but the forces at work in a potential collision increase quadratically . So this is a complete no-brainer tradeoff that is directly reflected in survival rates for…

This sounds like an argument for introducing a separate class of "city car" to the USA. On a highway, I want a big comfy car that can be efficient at 55-65 MPH, and protect me in a collision at those speeds. In a city, I don't really need that.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#75

Post by lutorm »

grellas wrote: post #64

As the article points out, "auto safety" itself has had a huge push from consumer advocates at least since Ralph Nader highlighted the risks of car design defects in the 1960s. That said, a few points about the law and auto safety: 1. U.S. law is tied to individual responsibility for conduct that is wrongful. As the auto industry developed over the past century, that meant that those who sought to drive by what the l…

... those who sought to drive by what the law declared to be the rules of the road were deemed to have done something wrong only if they failed to meet a reasonable standard of care in driving - that is, if they were negligent, careless, inexcusably inattentive, or otherwise failed to exercise a sufficient degree of caution

But the letter of the law seems to indicate otherwise. The California "basic speed law" says: "22350. No person shall drive a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable or prudent having due regard for weather, visibility, the traffic on, and the surface and width of, the highway, and in no event at a speed which endangers the safety of persons or property." (my emphasis)

That seems to me to pretty clearly say that if you hit someone you were in fact breaking the law, not just "failing to meet a reasonable standard of care". Do you have any insight in how this plays out?

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#76

Post by the_cat_kittles »

bdcravens wrote: post #29
kiba wrote: post #7

It's such a shame. The automobile is built as a requirement to live in society rather than something that complement and argumented our lifestyle.

The same could be said of telephones and the Internet.

which dont kill people in quite the same way

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#77

Post by Crito »

cek wrote: post #72
Crito wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car crashes are often called "accidents" in America too. I found it interesting and insightful when my driving instructor back in highschool spent a good 10 minutes ranting about there not being any such thing as a car 'accident' (students mentioning the word "accident" later in the course were scolded, to drive home the point). Obviously you can dream up scenarios that you might be able to really call an accident, b…

In firearms circles there's a saying "There is no such thing as a firearms accident. There are only negligent acts." SOMEONE is always responsible, and should be held accountable.

Similarly "the gun is always loaded".

On it's face, it is a silly thing to say because obviously a gun can be unloaded. The point however is to drive home a respectful attitude towards guns, for the sake of safety.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#78

Post by sp332 »

abstractbill wrote: post #8
TylerE wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you WANT it to deform. A stiff structure would increase deceleration on the occupants - in addition to being more likely to get in accident in the first place - additional weight will cause the vehicle to brake less rapidly, be more likely to roll over, etc, in addition to reducing efficiency.

I've often wondered about this. Instead of just having a single thin metal skin that deforms, wouldn't it be even better to have multiple skins sandwiching a kind of honeycomb structure? That way you have even more stuff to deform and absorb the impact.

In a frontal collision, the engine is directed down underneath the drive and passenger. That design alone gives you a few extra feet.

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#79

Post by megablast »

abstractbill wrote: post #8
TylerE wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you WANT it to deform. A stiff structure would increase deceleration on the occupants - in addition to being more likely to get in accident in the first place - additional weight will cause the vehicle to brake less rapidly, be more likely to roll over, etc, in addition to reducing efficiency.

I've often wondered about this. Instead of just having a single thin metal skin that deforms, wouldn't it be even better to have multiple skins sandwiching a kind of honeycomb structure? That way you have even more stuff to deform and absorb the impact.

You have often thought of this, but never did any research into what they currently do?

Re: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year

#80

Post by bunderbunder »

nostromo wrote: post #38
tokenadult wrote: post #25

The death rate per miles driven in the United States has fallen dramatically in my lifetime, and I can remember when the annual number of deaths was much higher.[1] That said, the article makes a very interesting claim about attitudes that we should all follow to the end of the article for further discussion here: "There’s an open secret in America: If you want to kill someone, do it with a car. As long as you’re sob…

I don't think the solution to unsafe roads is to throw everyone that is at-fault in an accident in jail. I understand the frustration cyclists have with auto traffic, but we've seen a million times that harsher penalties don't always have the intended outcome. And we have a habit in the US of using prison as the answer for every malady. Instead, I think the answer is better road design, separating cars and cyclists u…

I'm actually not fond of separating cars and cyclists using dedicated lanes. My experience has been that roads with bike lanes tend to be more dangerous - cars stop paying as much attention to bikes, so you get a lot more instances of them forgetting you're there and making a right hand turn right in front of you. Not to mention that they often force cyclists to ride within swinging distance of car doors - which is a far more popular way to injure cyclists than actually running into them is.

My preference would be to have designated bike thoroughfares where cars are permitted, but the speed limit is kept to something low enough that cars and bikes are going at approximately the same speed so bikes can ride in the lane without (reasonable) motorists feeling obstructed.

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