Earlier quoted context omitted.
Haven’t you heard of DredMorbius’s Law of Eponymity?
But bananamerica really discovered it. ... oh, wait: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy
The patent system in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen.
How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?
281–290 of 352 posts
Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Transportation safety is generally measured on a distance basis. If you compare one hour of driving vs one hour of walking, then walking is safer, but if you compare the traffic risks of driving a hundred miles and walking a hundred miles, then that's a different story.
This is also why the safety of commercial air travel is (sometimes) overstated. Since most crashes happen on takeoff or landing, the risk profile of a 100-mile flight is about the same as for a 1000-mile flight, but on a per-mile basis the latter flight appears safer.
Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure that this is a helpful way to look at things. Cars are much safer than they could be and the risk per mile is low, but driving is still one of our big sources of risk, precisely because we do it so much. Similarly, I estimate ~2 deaths per million cigarettes smoked (~1000 cigarettes/year/person >= age 15, 480k deaths/year), and while driving a hundred miles in a day is unremarkable, smoking 100 cigarette…
Driving is still the biggest source of risk because the risk from everything else is now basically zero.
[deleted]
Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, why would the water form layers of different temperatures?
I think because with a modern water heater especially electric models the heat loss is so low convection often stops completely. So the water in the tank doesn't mix. I think you can get situations too where the water at the level of the heating elements gets hotter and hotter and the water away from it gets cold. My water heater strongly suggests adding a mixing valve for that reason.
> "water at the level of the heating elements gets hotter and hotter and the water away from it gets cold."
Eh? How come that temperature differential doesn't cause convection? The colder water being more dense and sinking down, the warmer water being less dense and rising up.
If the heating elements aren't at the bottom, specifically for this reason, how come they aren't?
Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always found it a bit amusing how common this belief is, especially in snowier areas. Most people would be safer without 4WD/AWD -- less likely to oversteer around a curve, and less likely to drive aggressively because of a false belief that AWD will help you stop faster or have better control of your vehicle in low-traction conditions. It's still a really nice feature that has its uses, but most people I talk t…
Comments like this remind me of the Principal Skinner quote "surely I am right and it's everyone else who's wrong" or something like that. Everyone(TM) prefers AWD for it's superior go-ing abilities even if the turning and stopping abilities are unchanged. An obnoxious vocal minority tells them they're wrong. Since it's a matter of performance and consensus the overwhelming majority can't be wrong though. Anecdote ti…
edit: "a matter of preference and consensus"
Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Rather immoral. Not just offloading, but also exacerbating the burden onto others. Vehicles and Crashes: Why is this Moral Issue Overlooked? by Douglas Husak https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447?seq=1
It's the arms race itself (and the fact that we allow it to continue) that's immoral. Acting rationally within the arms race is not immoral. Our laws should address the core causes of this arms race.
People are starting to wake up to the notion of "systemic issues," but still too slow to apply what they've learned about that topic to other matters. It's a mistake to focus on the behavior of individuals in a system that's sanctioning and encouraging bad behavior.
Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
But what if you are overly cautious and this bothers you and wearing safety gear makes you feel more normal?
Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're on to something. First: there's vehicle-to-barrier crashes (think trees, etc): Having a vehicle with a large well-designed crumple zone seems obviously good from a survivability POV. Second: there's vehicle-to-vehicle crashes: Is it really a zero-sum game? If a small car crashes head on with a large car, will the people in the small car suffer worse than if they crashed into another small car? To what…
> Is it really a zero-sum game? If a small car crashes head on with a large car, will the people in the small car suffer worse than if they crashed into another small car? To what degree? Well it's zero sum in the linear sense as the relative total velocity change is the same, but crash survivability isn't linear. Rather, it decreases exponentially, since kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity - so…
It's hard to disagree with physics.
However, please read what I wrote here:
Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
Motorcycling, cycling, and walking are all significantly worse than traveling by car. Is this because of the chance of getting hit by a car?
Yes, but morticians don't care whose fault it is.
Here lays the body of William Jay,
Who died maintaining his right of way,
He was right, so right, as he sped along,
But he's just as dead as if he were wrong.
Re: How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Car accidents is top1-top2 death reason in US for people in 20-40 age group [1] Car crashes where the top 1-2. I am willing to bet most of those involved DUI, and therefore negligence, and shouldn't be classed as "accidents" #CrashNotAccident.
I don't have statistics to back it up, but I would be willing to bet money that at least 95% of crashes are from negligence with slightly less than 5% being from a sudden unexpected mechanical failure (Such as a tire exploding), with less than 1% being something you could truly call an "accident". The usual counter-argument is that the use of the word "accident" is a statement of intent, and outside of extreme road r…
People don't have perfect reflexes, physical coordination, and situational awareness. Someone could be checking their blind spot at the exact moment the person in front of them slams on their brakes. Someone could move their foot over from the gas and for no particular reason completely miss the brake pedal, or sneeze at the exact wrong time, or be stung by a hornet they didn't know was in the car, or simply not react fast enough.
Humans are fallible and make unintentional mistakes. It's surprising that humans are as good at driving as we are and that most of us aren't making catastrophic mistakes on a regular basis.