Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

danluu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 352 posts

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

#221

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

csours wrote: post #153
mumblemumble wrote: post #132

Somewhat related anecdote, related to me by an acquaintance who works at a major US crash testing facility: I don't know about now, but, once upon a time, not too long ago, US safety standards included crash tests where the dummies were not wearing seat belts. This naturally leads to cars sold in the US having air bags that are tuned slightly differently, so that they are less likely to cause injuries to people not w…

As far as I know, this is still the case. A significant minority of people in the US do not wear seat belts; thus the timing on airbags has to accommodate this, or the airbags themselves would cause injury.

I feel naked without my seat belt.

Occasionally, I'll get into my wife's car to simply move it into the street so I have room in my driveway to wash mine, and even though I'm driving less than 50 feet, I still feel awkward not putting on the seat belt.

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

#222

Post by dredmorbius »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #185
BurningFrog wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transgender icon J Edgar Hoover did the same. If it was for safety or because he hated lefties is not clear. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/05/27/archives/exagent-says-hoo...

>Transgender icon J Edgar Hoover Citation please. This is the first time I've ever heard him called that. There was some speculation he was gay but nothing conclusive AFAIK. In any case he's one of the last people anyone should pick as a positive representation of their group.

The claim seems unlikely:

https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2423/was-j-edgar-h...

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

#223

Post by sangfroid_bio »

vngzs wrote: post #214
sangfroid_bio wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a scandal a few years back when a Kaggle team did something simar with ML. They were treating the competition as a black box and optimising for the unknown dataset instead of actually building better AI algorithms.

This? https://www.kaggle.com/c/petfinder-adoption-prediction/discu...

It goes back way further than that, the incidents that I am recalling involved academic teams and I think ImageNet. It happened quite a few times.

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

#224

Post by macleginn »

amelius wrote: post #204
macleginn wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This theory (known in literature as ‘risk compensation theory’) has been debunked. See some references here: https://twitter.com/whitequark/status/1264486505168482304

To be fair, it seems the debunking applied to people who were obliged to wear safety gear, not to people who were more cautious than average people.

If you are more cautious to begin with, you do not need to compensate for anything, so the theory does not apply.

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

#225

Post by MereInterest »

Daneel_ wrote: post #117
fractionalhare wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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,…

Exactly. Just like air conditioners cool a container while increasing the overall heat of the system, cars make the car occupants safer while increasing the overall danger of the system.

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

#226

Post by AgloeDreams »

laegooose wrote: post #5

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…

You are spot on. What's really interesting is when companies publish death rate numbers. In everything I've seen, most low-cost car models suffer on safety, generally due to lower cost construction, materials, or cheaper safety/avoidance systems. Volvo obviously has historically been the best at reducing mortality, Tesla is seeming to be beating them but I don't know how many of the numbers actually match reality, that's not clearly published. To better test this it's about time we added a sixth star, for sure. Left Turns across traffic are generally the highest danger factor, notably for motorcyclists. Many states in the US are replacing traffic lights with roundabouts and are removing two-lane passing zones.

Oh and SUVs are markedly LESS safe. They are more prone to rollover, less likely to avoid an accident, stop slower, and generally have less safe body structure.

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

#227

Post by kube-system »

ohples wrote: post #165
kube-system wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-...

Those are just driver deaths.

The request was vague, but insurance industry figures are going to be the best breakdown by vehicle you can get in the US. NHTSA stats are usually broken down by category of vehicle.

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

#228

Post by Gibbon1 »

Bartweiss wrote: post #189
ebg13 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the efficiency ratings also exist for public health and environmental reasons. Why does it matter to you that one is a mandate? They're both intentionally deceiving regulators and consumers (vs accidentally acing the test without cheating). Both are fraud.

I do think that manipulating a purely instructive measure is less extreme than manipulating a compliance test; consumers can seek alternate tests and reviews, but the state emissions test has special status even if a dozen other tests give a different result. That said, I believe Energy Star ratings affect tax rebates and electric bills, and they're required to be printed on products - so that's not really an arbitra…

The flip side of the water heater test is, you could game the test the other way too. Making your water heater look worse than it is. Would you do that? No.

The difference between the water heater and VW is the water heater manufacturer is providing a representative sample. And VW was not. It'd also be dubious to say that the water heater company is acting in bad faith. Where VW's bad faith rose to the level of criminal. On the other hand Volvo appears to be acting in strictly good faith.

Bad faith for a crash test would be crafting a silver plate model for testing. Reminds me that's what my uncle said the power supply manufacturer he worked for did.

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

#229

Post by Karstographer »

mumblemumble wrote: post #132

Somewhat related anecdote, related to me by an acquaintance who works at a major US crash testing facility: I don't know about now, but, once upon a time, not too long ago, US safety standards included crash tests where the dummies were not wearing seat belts. This naturally leads to cars sold in the US having air bags that are tuned slightly differently, so that they are less likely to cause injuries to people not w…

OEMs in the US market still absolutely have to meet unbelted crash performance requirements.

Fortunately modern airbags can be a bit more advanced than just having one "tune" for all situations. Depending on whether an occupant is buckled or not, the airbag control unit can elect to provide different amounts of restraint by controlling the timing of dual-staged inflators, and also cushion vents can be opened or closed either passively or electronically based on what cushion stiffness characteristic is needed.

I've heard that people buy seat-belt extenders or plug in a seat-belt behind their back in order to make the seat-belt reminder chime deactivate (and these chimes are only getting more aggressive) but it's worth noting that in any of the vehicles with this kind of conditional deployment logic they're exposing themselves to an even higher likelihood of being injured. Not to mention the people who straight just cut the wires to their seat-belt sensor.

I'm sure many people would love if the unbelted requirements could just go away, but until unbelted occupants stop accounting for such a large share of injuries/fatalities I don't think they will.

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

#230

Post by esja »

dredmorbius wrote: post #208
bananamerica wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did I know this linked to some kind of general principle with a cool short name even before reading or opening the link?

Well, there are several such: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws Though I'm not aware of a law stating that for any given principle there is an existing eponymous law.

Haven’t you heard of DredMorbius’s Law of Eponymity?
Post reply on HN