How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for? • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by dmurray » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #282

PeterisP wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is this still true for commercial flights? The most prominent airliner losses from the last 20 years were not close to takeoff nor to (scheduled) landing. I'm thinking of Air France off Brazil, the two Malaysian planes, all four 9/11 attacks, and the Germanwings crash. The exception is the Concorde crash on takeoff which just sneaks into the last 20 years (July 2000).

Of course, part of the reason these crashes were newsworthy is that they were unusual. Are there enough takeoff- and landing- related losses to make these statistically irrelevant?

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

#302

Post by StavrosK » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:16 AM UTC

zip1234 wrote: post #186

YetAnotherMatt wrote: post #83

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".

Motorcycling, cycling, and walking are all significantly worse than traveling by car. Is this because of the chance of getting hit by a car?

That and because they're more dangerous per kilometer. I can go 240km in two hours in a car, but only 16 on foot, and I'm going to be crossing many, many streets in that distance.

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

#303

Post by elihu » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:19 AM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #86

DavidPeiffer wrote: post #31

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…

> https://youtu.be/IVEjsvip8kc Starting at 1:30, there's a 1998 vs 2015 Corolla. Manufacturers only started taking the small overlap frontal test seriously in 2015 (it was introduced in 2012). If you can afford not to, you really don't want to be driving a car older than that. The safety improvements that have been made in the last 10 years alone make a new car worth it.

It seemed weird the airbag didn't deploy on the 1998 Corolla. Googling "1998 corolla airbag" brought me to an article about the same video. Apparently, the Australian-model 1998 Corolla they used in the test wasn't equipped with an airbag.

https://jalopnik.com/this-crash-between-a-2015-and-a-1998-to...

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

#304

Post by iamgopal » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:23 AM UTC

wscott wrote: 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…

I've maintained that water heater is the only equipment that is 100 percent efficient. Glad to know that is not the case.

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

#305

Post by dionidium » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #301

dionidium wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is this still true for commercial flights? The most prominent airliner losses from the last 20 years were not close to takeoff nor to (scheduled) landing. I'm thinking of Air France off Brazil, the two Malaysian planes, all four 9/11 attacks, and the Germanwings crash. The exception is the Concorde crash on takeoff which just sneaks into the last 20 years (July 2000). Of course, part of the reason these crashes were…

My information may very well be out of date! This is one of those lines I've been repeating for 20 years and it might be time to update it.

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

#306

Post by WickedFlick » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:46 AM UTC

This was an excellent article, car safety is something I think most people don't take very seriously when buying a new car.

However, the author mentions the 1959 Bel-Air vs 2009 Chevy Malibu crash test as a dramatic example of the progress of car safety. It is indeed a spectacular video, but there's a good case to be made that the 1959 Bel-Air was likely specifically chosen to exaggerate the progression of car safety, as it had a particularly terrible X-frame design that crumples like tissue paper in a crash. Other, more traditionally designed cars from that era would almost certainly fair significantly better in that test.

Take note of the comment below a Jalopnik article on this crash test:

>"Fast_Nel in the last story about this crash-off posted a video showing the deficiency of the X-Frame design of this car and it was an excellent video. If the IIHS would have chosen a car with a ladder frame, like say a 65 Impala or another car of the same year with a standard ladder frame, the results would probably been much better for the older car. I am sure IIHS purposefully used this particular style vehicle with the knowledge that it would fail spectacularly in order to toot its own horn. So yes there was something seriously wrong with the video.

One might ask, "Why GM would use a frame like this?" My guess is that GM attempted to be innovative with the X-Frame concept and they failed, because all the ramifications had not been considered."

Source: https://jalopnik.com/yes-the-iihs-crashed-59-chevy-had-an-en...

That's not to say that newer cars aren't safer in general, they very likely are. But that test in particular is not a good example.

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

#307

Post by wutbrodo » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:50 AM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #54

andykellr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the fact that my grandmother who recently passed away at 96 refused to make left turns. She stopped driving years ago, but before she did, my father would always help her find a way to get to the pharmacy, the grocery store, church, and family and friends houses making only right turns. Sometimes she went miles out of her way.

At what point does the risk of the extra miles on the road outweigh the risk mitigated by avoiding left turns?

Left turns are super dangerous. I would imagine that it would be difficult to find a realistic distance tradeoff that would be more dangerous (assuming it doesn't mean something like "spending a lot more time on the highway")

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

#308

Post by tialaramex » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 2:03 AM UTC

katbyte wrote: post #255

BurningFrog wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cross dressing claims are pervasive but not very substantiated. So we can all believe what we want. I was just trying to be witty when telling a story. Not make any grand statement about anything.

regardless crossdressing != transgender

Indeed. When I'm wearing heels and a floor length flower pattern frock I would say I'm just a bloke wearing a dress, but if you insist that's cross-dressing I shan't disagree.

However my gender remains resolutely unaffected and I have no time for people who expect otherwise. Judge a book by a cover you might, but slipping the dust jacket from Moby Dick onto a copy of The Princess Bride certainly won't make it into a story about whaling.

Also, this word always reminds me of Eddie Izzard: "They're not women's clothes, they're my clothes, I bought them".

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

#309

Post by malandrew » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 2:31 AM UTC

cybrjoe wrote: post #82

wscott wrote: 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…

Serious question, how is this different from what VW did? There was a lot of talk about complicit engineers vs. shady management in that discussion. Did this ever make it to production?

With the following question, I'm not absolving VW from criticism. With that in mind:

Why are we not holding those doing the measurement accountable as well?

If you produce a test that can be gamed and your job is to test things to meet consumer expectations, you've failed at your job.

After all is said and done, what is a better outcome: a) VW is punished for gaming the test b) the test is significantly harder to game

With (a), we have only one less manufacturer gaming the tests, VW. With (b) we have tests that none of the manufacturers can game any longer or at least will take time to game. The testers should be expected to always be two steps ahead.

This is not unlike whitehat/blackhat security engineering. We should pay bug bounties to teams that successfully exploit the tests and we should be actively running red team drills.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_team

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

#310

Post by throwaway0a5e » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 2:31 AM UTC

moonchild wrote: post #296

dublinben wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that there aren't meaningfully significant differences between car brands. Driving itself is just very dangerous. Other forms of transportation like buses, trains, and airplanes are orders of magnitude safer.[0] If you want to make yourself safer, avoid driving as much as possible. [0] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics...

Why are buses safer? They drive on the same roads as cars.

>Why are buses safer?

When was the last time you saw a bus get north of 60mph? Exactly.

And for crashes with other vehicles their mass makes them pretty safe for occupants (in the places buses tend to roam it's hard to find enough space to get a small car up to the speeds necessary to hurt the occupants)