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How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?

danluu.com

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Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?

#141
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the water heater company didn't know they were gaming the test. They first design a water heater and it gets a B- on the test. Being overachievers, they work hard and submit a second design that gets an A+. They might not realize that both heaters are basically the same with the only difference being some heating element spacing that works better for the test. Both times they submitted a legit design that was…

> Imagine the water heater company didn't know they were gaming the test. We don't have to. In this case we have clear admission of intent. The intent to deceive is what makes it fraud and not just being wrong.

My point isn't that what the water heater designer did was perfectly ethical, just that it's clearly distinct from what VW did.

Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?

#142
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: you want to be in the vehicle with the most crushable distance of material. That way the force is spread out more over time and there's less going through your body at any moment.

That’s not the entire story. If you value your health over that of all others, you will want to crush the car the others are driving in over its full length before the crushing of the parts of your own car where you are sitting starts. That’s where having the sturdier car can help. You also will want to be in the car that decelerates less briskly. That’s where, in collisions with movable objects, having the heavier c…

I'm trying to be careful how I type this, but the point of crumple zones isn't just to make the car stop slower, but to keep parts of the car you really don't want to crush from crushing.

If you crash into a wall at 20km/hr, it's a lot better if the engine bay gets smashed up, than if the compartment you're in collapses around you.

Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?

#143

Does anyone know of a way to objectively compare safety ratings between different eras of cars? The standards for safety ratings change periodically, and great strides have been made in safety. I'm curious how much risk I'd remove by upgrading from a 2010 to a 2015 or 2018. Driver death data [1] mentioned below may be the best source, just curious if there are any others. Also, [2] is a really interesting crash test…

Also worth considering is that anything after 2018 likely has intelligent crash prevention features. In addition to modern cars being much safer in a crash, the benefits of avoiding collisions altogether have to be worth it.

I’ve been driving a car with the pre collision warnings, lane departure warnings, etc since 2017 and it has saved me at least once.

There’s a concern about moral hazard with the new technologies, but my rule is to drive as if the car has no safety features, and if they activate, then that is a bonus.

It’s hard to compare the collision prevention systems over time since they’re so new, but just going off the narrative reporting from IIHS, and comparing the test standard in 2017 vs 2020, leads me to believe they’ve made great strides in the last few years.

Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?

#144
post #89
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way to make yourself safer is to move to one of the few American cities and towns with walking and transit-oriented development. Seriously! You'll spend a fewer hours in the car risking car accident death. A family can easily downsize to one car or less. You'll also spend more time getting light exercise by walking to the bus/train, walking to the store, walking for enjoyment. You'll also save from no longer buyi…

Unfortunately, we will also have to start taking into account pathogen transmission risk on public transport. If you have a larger family and a limited budget, suburbs are the best of both worlds. Also cars are quite reasonable unless you want new ones before their useful life is exhausted. A modern car will usually last 25+ years, which is more than many homes before they need major renovation (new roof, windows, et…

Although it's too early to see how everything plays out, there's a fair bit of anecdotal data suggesting that people who can, especially renters, are leaving urban areas for more suburban or rural locations. I know a number personally and there have been various stories about many broken leases in places like the Bay Area.

Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For almost everyone 18-40 year old, driving less is one of the healthiest decisions you can make. A little nitpick: Motorcycling, cycling, and walking are all significantly worse than traveling by car. If this interests you, it's possible to find a lot more interesting research by searching for "microlife" and "micromort".

Is that a typo, or do you teally mean cycling and walking are significantly worse than traveling by car? Are both of those activities actually more dangerous? I would have thought cycling and walking - even in urban settings! - are safer activities than driving, statistically.

I would be curious to know what the numbers look like if you broke the driving up by city/highway or something like that. I'm guessing the deaths per passenger-mile are very different between the two.

They're also somewhat difficult to compare at a nationwide level because driving in the suburbs is not really comparable to biking in the city, in part because the miles per trip in suburban and rural areas are so great that biking and walking aren't really feasible, anyway. This poses a big selection bias problem: What if the real underlying effect is that suburban transportation is generally safer per mile, perhaps even independently (as much as they can be separated) of transportation mode? For that matter, are we even measuring the right thing? What if the metric that really matters is deaths per passenger-hour, or deaths per passenger-thing-you-need-to-get-done?

City driving and city biking or city walking, on the other hand, can be much more comparable. For example, I own a car, but typically use a bike to buy groceries. In part because, where I live, it's the quicker and easier option. Similar story for driving vs. walking to go to my favorite restaurant, or to go to the hardware store.

Finally, I think we'd be remiss not to think about how it's being framed: The original data focus on likelihood of being the victim of an accident. It's maybe more properly called "deaths experienced per passenger mile." The numbers would look entirely different if they were framed as "deaths caused per passenger-mile." That's kind of a big deal, because one framing suggests, on an instinctual level, that cars generally increase public safety, while the other, I'm guessing, would suggest that cars generally reduce public safety. It's the difference between saying that Elaine Herzberg died because she was walking across the street, and saying that she died because an Uber self-driving car hit her.

Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?

#146
post #30

The article reminds me of a story from a friend that was an engineer at a major water heater company. Modern electric water heaters are already fairly efficient, but every model gets tested by the government to be given an efficiency rating. The test consists of replacing the anode with a rod that has a series of temperature probes to measure the water at different levels in the water heater. Since water would form l…

[deleted]

Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For almost everyone 18-40 year old, driving less is one of the healthiest decisions you can make. A little nitpick: Motorcycling, cycling, and walking are all significantly worse than traveling by car. If this interests you, it's possible to find a lot more interesting research by searching for "microlife" and "micromort".

Can you explain more about the walking part? Is it because pedestrians get hit by cars a lot? Otherwise it seems walking should be incredibly safe.

Like some of the other comments already mentioned, its indeed on a per distance basis. Also traffic accidents are far more deathly if you're walking basically naked from a safety perspective vs protected by a well designed mass of metal.

When a car and a human collide, it's not the driver that's likely to die.

I got my stats from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort which shows walking approx 12 times as dangerous per mile.

On a time basis walking would be less dangerous than driving I reckon. Walking also has other health benefits.

I mentioned it specifically, because walking to the store instead of driving for safety reasons would not be a smart choice. Doing some daily walking in a park likely would be a smart choice though.

Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?

#148

The whole car safety topic is very confusing. Car accidents is top1-top2 death reason in US for people in 20-40 age group [1]. Probably less in Europe but still one of the leading ones. I was thinking about how I can make myself safer. Which car brand/model is better? Which seat is better for passenger? How much riskier it is to drive during the night? In the rain? How dangerous is it to overtake on road with 1 lane…

Drive the largest vehicle you can. When in a collision the momentum is converted to crushing force, you want to be in the less-crushable vehicle. Hey this may be an unpopular choice, but it is the one with the biggest safety impact! And that was the question.

Reminds me of this:

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/volvo/xc90/103233/no-fatalitie... (2018)

"No fatalities ever recorded in a Volvo XC90 in the UK - Analysis of official figures finds no driver or passenger fatalities have been recorded in Volvo's XC90 since records began in 2004"

Volvo XC90 is a relatively popular SUV there, and for the UK, quite large.

"Around 70,000 XC90s have been sold in the UK since the original model launched in 2002"

I would guess the magic here is:

a) the car is designed with safety as the number 1 design criterium (it's a Volvo)

b) it's quite large (lots of crumple zone mass)

c) it's probably not driven at insanely high speeds by young male drivers with poor impulse control very often.

Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?

#149
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine that it’s not a typo. In a car you have a big shell around you to protect against the environment. While walking or cycling you’re far more prone to be injured by the world - a branch could fall on you, a car could hit you, another person could hit you, you could trip, slip or lose balance, etc. Being inside a big metal shell that can’t fall over and with active safety measures is a great place to be,…

On the other hand, when I'm cycling, I'm typically not moving at >15 mph or so. When I'm walking, reduce that to 3mph. That seems like it would do a lot to counteract the car's crumple zones and airbags in terms of severity of injury. In fact, once you take into account severity, the GP's claim seems extremely suspect: maybe the chance of any injury on a bike or by foot is higher, but I'd be skeptical of claims that…

I knew a lot more people that died cycling than I knew people that died in car accidents. And all of the cyclists got hit by vehicles.

Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?

#150
post #96

When I designed car seats we optimized them for the federal tests. The biggest load on a seat back was represented by a large 95% man leaning back to get at his wallet. We were ready for production when the car had it's first sled test. Basically mimic what happens to the occupants when hitting a solid barrier at 30 MPH. The front seat occupants flew forward, bounced back, and completely broke the seat backs, crushin…

What's a 95% man?

95% man, 5% Coors.
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