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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

#81

Post by blahedo »

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…

> I am old enough to remember as a kid how people perceived automobiles in, say, the late 1950s, .... Even dissidents of the time, such as Jack Kerouac, .... Therefore, it did not take a secret plot by General Motors (or whomever) to get people to push widespread auto use. People wanted to....

This whole paragraph is missing the point---the purported "plot" was not a product of the 1950s, but of the 1920s. The evidence that you provide in this paragraph does not support the claim that there was no plot; it might actually just support the claim that the "plot", such as it was, succeeded!

(That's not to say there was definitely a plot, although I think it's clear there was. But counterevidence for this claim would need to come in the form of recollections and data from much earlier.)

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

#83

Post by abstractbill »

megablast wrote: post #79
abstractbill wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What they currently do is crumple zones. That's not what I was talking about (the entire skin of the car being a honeycomb sandwich).

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

happyscrappy wrote: post #32
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…

Pretending kids were better protected in any context in 1914 is absurd.

[deleted]

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

#86

Post by kaliblack »

sukuriant wrote: post #57
bunderbunder wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murder? No. Negligent homicide? Yes.

That's not entirely fair. Maybe in some of the cases; but, I've seen people do some really, really, REALLY unwise things as pedestrians that they're lucky someone was paying a huge amount of attention so they weren't hit. The most pressing example in my mind is a woman cross the street in the middle of a rain shower, within 15 yards, probably much less (my mind's eye paints the memory as 'the edge of my car was here…

It's your responsibility as a driver to pay full attention and avoid crashes. Isn't that hour 1, day 1 of driver education?

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

#87

Post by mikeash »

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…

When people decry using the prison system as a cure-all, it's usually for things like drugs or mental illness. In essence, why punish people for things that either don't harm others, or aren't their fault?

You're applying this to a serious crime, at least manslaughter if not murder. If prison isn't appropriate for that, what is prison appropriate for? I imagine an argument could be made that prison is never the right thing, but I don't think you're making that argument.

Harsher penalties don't always have the intended outcome, sure. But this isn't so much advocating a harsher penalty as advocating a penalty at all.

If I'm driving a car, what is my incentive to pay attention and try to avoid killing cyclists? Simple morals, obviously, but that doesn't work on everybody. If I'm a selfish asshole (lots of those out there) and I know I won't suffer legal penalties, why would I care about cyclists?

If you kill someone while driving a car and you are at fault, why should you not go to jail? That is the standard punishment in that scenario without the car, so why should adding a car make it go away?

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

#88

Post by mikeash »

sukuriant wrote: post #57
bunderbunder wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murder? No. Negligent homicide? Yes.

That's not entirely fair. Maybe in some of the cases; but, I've seen people do some really, really, REALLY unwise things as pedestrians that they're lucky someone was paying a huge amount of attention so they weren't hit. The most pressing example in my mind is a woman cross the street in the middle of a rain shower, within 15 yards, probably much less (my mind's eye paints the memory as 'the edge of my car was here…

I'd love to see some numbers on how many deaths are due to bad pedestrian behavior like that.

Anecdotally, I've never encountered that sort of thing from a pedestrian while driving, but I've almost been run down several times by drivers not obeying the law while I was legally crossing the street with the right of way. All it would take is crossing the street at the wrong time with a walk signal without checking both ways and splat.

Certainly there are cases with fault on either side, but I'd love to know which one dominates (if either).

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

#89

Post by mikeash »

LanceH wrote: post #66
kristianp wrote: post #63

No mention of present and future automation options that increase the safety of cars? On hacker news? Reversing sensors Automatic braking at low speed to prevent collisions Driverless cars. For me, these features can't come fast enough. They should be phased into being mandatory too.

Making them mandatory also has the effect of making sure they never again improve.

Like how seat belts and air bags stopped improving when they were made mandatory?
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