Diminishing Returns in Automotive Safety

"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction) 01/12/2018 at 12:06 • Filed to: None

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It seems right now, with the lengths governments and car companies are taking to reduce traffic fatalities, the objective in many developed countries really is to get to zero. I have mixed feelings on this. It’s surely a noble goal to do everything in our power to prevent every traffic death possible, but it just seems unlikely that we’ll ever get to zero when we have vehicles traveling so close to each other with closing speeds of 100+ mph. Even once the computers take over almost all driving, I don’t see the number going to zero. But in that pursuit, governments are requiring more and more safety equipment as standard on vehicles. It started with seatbelts, then airbags, then ABS (all great!) and now we’re into rear-view cameras and soon, auto-braking systems. This is all great tech that does & will save lives, but what it’s done is make even the most affordable new car thousands of dollars more expensive. At some point, cars will have gotten so safe that the additional safety features will become even more expensive and, in turn, burdensome on the poor if they become mandated as standard by governments. Each life is precious and we should try to save it, but at some point we have to look at the diminishing returns, and decide if it’s worth the collateral effects.

Thought experiment on the idea of diminishing returns: is the potential of saving one (1) life worth mandating that every consumer pay an extra $1000 for some safety feature on their new car?

In the U.S., that’d be over $17 billion spent in one year to save one life. That money could surely be put to better use to save or better more lives.

Your thoughts?

For Sweden > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:29

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“burdensome on the poor”

I think they see that as a feature, not a bug

JustAnotherG6 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:30

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Is auto-braking becoming a mandated feature? That’d be a shame. I prefer paying attention while driving rather than knowing the car will pull my ass out of the fire if it came to it.

E90M3 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:33

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I think they need to start handing out more severe penalties for distracted driving. Give someone a 6 month ban for texting and driving and I bet that shit would stop real quick. Things like auto braking is really only needed because the driver isn’t paying attention or is inexperienced; there are other situations, and obviously not a catch all. If people would put the fucking phone down and pay the fuck attention to the task at hand we’d have safer roads.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > JustAnotherG6 01/12/2018 at 12:35

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https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/automakers-govt-agree-automatic-braking-will-be-standard-2022-n540656

Urambo Tauro > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:36

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It’s all happening this way out of convenience. It’s convenient for a government agency to mandate more tech than it is to overhaul driver licensing programs. And it’s convenient for drivers too, who would rather spend more on this crap than have their driving held to a higher standard.

Despite all this, I still believe the only true answer to our safety problem is better driving. I’m not going to pretend that it’s an easy solution, but I’m willing to have to deal with more intense and frequent licensing requirements if it gets other drivers to pull their heads out of their asses.

AfromanGTO > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:36

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We need tougher driving test and more regular checks for driving. If you cannot park your car in a space and cannot stay the fuck out of the left lane you don’t need to be able to drive. Also there should be a death penalty for going 5 under in the left lane.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > E90M3 01/12/2018 at 12:36

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I really want to see getting a license in the first place made much harder in the States as well.

JustAnotherG6 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:37

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Question now is: How does it behave when something fails? All brakes all the time?

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > For Sweden 01/12/2018 at 12:38

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I mean, poor people shouldn’t be buying new cars in the first place, but if the average new MSRP goes up, the average used price will go up as well.

npc58501 > JustAnotherG6 01/12/2018 at 12:39

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I don’t think auto-braking will work on ice or snow. What also happens in my neck of the woods when you have to pile through a snow drift (ye, I have to do this on occasion, never damages the car...)? I still have to feather my abs brakes because abs is great, but will never work properly on ice in my experience. I will find a way to shut it off in the winter if all vehicles are mandated to get it.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > JustAnotherG6 01/12/2018 at 12:40

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Also may be the death on the manual transmission in the U.S. :’(

“Under the agreement, automakers will get slightly longer to add the technology to some vehicles with technical challenges, including some cars with manual transmissions. ”

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > JustAnotherG6 01/12/2018 at 12:42

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My wife’s MDX has this, and it really freaked me out one time on a road trip. It was seeing the shadows under overpasses as something it should brake for. Thankfully it just flashed the warning light a few times, but never actually hit the brakes. A panic stop from 75 for no good reason on a highway is a great way to cause a huge pileup...

For Sweden > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:43

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“Poor people should take the subway”

-Bill de Blasio

Ash78, voting early and often > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:43

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Agree with stronger penanlties for offenders. We could all drive 30,000# cars with virtually 100% accident survival rates, but nobody would accept 3mpg and horrible handling.

So we have to accept that we do choose convenience over safety. That is a given, even for the safest XC90.

The question is then “how far?”

My Honda Odyssey is “one of the safest cars on the road” per the crash tests. But the stiff, airbag-packed A pillar is so thick, I’ve almost had three accidents that never would have occurred in my old car (which was one of the safest in 2001). The D-pillars are so thick, I have to rely on the backup camera. And Honda charges a lot more for blindspot monitoring AND has piss-poor side mirrors.

Rant aside, better penalties for offenders (eliminate No Fault!) and better visibility go a long, long way. Driver training is another option to consider. But we’re on a path to where every car is different and people will have to by hyper-aware of the features and limitations of every vehicle they drive. Just wait for the first “How did this happen, this rental car doesn’t have predictive braking?!”

npc58501 > Urambo Tauro 01/12/2018 at 12:44

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I think driver education should have a portion on a race track, like the training was for police officers where I grew up. This included winter driving such as recovering from skids, etc... For those in snowy climates, drive training in snow before getting a license should be mandatory.

Part of my driver’s ed included training in winter driving and how to drive in it without ABS/TSC...etc.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Urambo Tauro 01/12/2018 at 12:45

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We have to make it harder to get a license, and make the punishments for distracted driving more severe. I’m as tempted by a ding or a vibration on my phone as anyone else - iOS’s Do Not Disturb While Driving is a great feature.

Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:45

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As a certified quality inspector, welcome to my life. People say no compromises, but you have to. It’s impossible to do anything 100%. 0%, sure. But 100% isn’t possible. There is always a failure mode, always a failure point, always something that can only be checked destructively. People don’t want to admit it, but there is an “acceptable risk” point for every activity and every product.

High school football? 12 injuries per 1000 players per year. But this is deemed acceptable for the activity. At one time, an F1 driver per year dying was considered an acceptable rate. It isn’t anymore. But the tolerance from the community has changed.

Mike Rowe said it quite well:

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > AfromanGTO 01/12/2018 at 12:46

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I think anyone who stops at the end of a freeway on-ramp should have their license revoked.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > For Sweden 01/12/2018 at 12:47

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Sheesh...

Future next gen S2000 owner > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:47

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In theory, if self-driving cars are good enough, all the previous mandated safety equipment can go away, reducing costs.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Ash78, voting early and often 01/12/2018 at 12:50

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Yup - drivers are only going to become worse as they start relying on systems like radar cruise, lane departure prevention and auto-braking.

Klaus Schmoll > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:51

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Car design can only do this much. Sweden’s vision zero program for example also focuses heavily on road infrastructure. They want to reduce intersections where motorists have to cross traffic in favour of designs with on and off ramps etc... This is possible in a smallish country with a limited road network, but for bigger countries with a more dense network it is impossible to achieve, hence the thinking that the same can be achieved by mandating more and more tech.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Future next gen S2000 owner 01/12/2018 at 12:52

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“According to a recent study, “Emerging Technologies: Autonomous Cars—Not If, But When,” IHS Automotive forecasts that the price for the self-driving technology will add between $7,000 and $10,000 to a car’s sticker price in 2025, a figure that will drop to around $5,000 in 2030 and about $3,000 in 2035, the year when the report says most self-driving vehicles will be operated completely independent from a human occupant’s control.”

Urambo Tauro > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:52

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Agreed.

The thing about increasing penalties is that someone’s going to point out how terrible it is to take away one’s driving ability, when those people still need to get to work in order to pay off the ticket and their normal living expenses. They might even live in an area without good public transportation, yadda yadda...

But the whole point is that these fines are supposed to be a deterrent. And apparently it’s not a big enough deterrent. People are still willing to take stupid risks, with phones, with alchohol, and with basic driving practices.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 01/12/2018 at 12:53

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Exactly. And this is acceptable risk in some countries:

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Urambo Tauro 01/12/2018 at 12:58

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Exactly. If you’re willing to risk someone else life with your actions, you deserve a serious penalty.

Ash78, voting early and often > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:58

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I wrote a grad school paper on this topic in 2001, almost entirely based on Mercedes advertising the first radar cruise control. Prescient, I guess.

Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 12:59

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Someone actually did ask a GM or Ford executive “Why don’t you sell the cars in India to the same standard as the US?” to which they replied, “Because we believe that for them, having a car is better than no car.”. Consider if in the US, the cheapest car you could get is a Lamborghini Gallardo. How many people would have cars at all? Sure, the quality floor is WAY up! But are people really better off? In the case of India, the average per capita income is $1600 for 2016. The maintenance alone on most new cars here would devastate people there. So that $200 bike that guy is rocking? It’s what he needs that he can obtain and maintain.

Future next gen S2000 owner > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 13:01

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Initially, they will be much more expensive, I agree. I’m thinking once we have reached 90%+ of the cars on the road are self driving - probably 40+ years. Can we roll back air bag requirements, rear view cameras, crash safety requirements?

Will a frontal, partial offset crash test still be required when the cars don’t crash any more? Will crumple zones, pedestrian hood requires still be needed when people aren’t hit anymore.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Klaus Schmoll 01/12/2018 at 13:02

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Right. This all started with a conversation I had with someone who lives near the intersection that had the FP article about it this morning. An excerpt:

“(in relation to driving on the right vs the left) fatalities are much more related to the quality/safety of the average automobile in each country, the training the average driver has had, traffic design at intersections and on highways, road quality, the percentage of drunk driving, the general culture, etc.”

JustAnotherG6 > npc58501 01/12/2018 at 13:03

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I’d be all for mandated days off work/school to go drive with an instructor on a track/frozen lake or really anywhere else one could potentially safely push the limits within a motor vehicle.

E92M3 > Urambo Tauro 01/12/2018 at 13:03

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^This. Answering 18 out of 25 questions correctly, and going around the block once is not enough to allow people to pilot 4,000lb missles.

It takes over a 1500 hours to get a license to CUT HAIR in this country, but anyone can memorize a pamphlet one morning and get a drivers license that same afternoon.

There’s something wrong with that!

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Future next gen S2000 owner 01/12/2018 at 13:05

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It’s an interesting question. There still will be accidents though, just far fewer. No system is perfect, there will still be cyclists and pedestrians and animals entering the roadway, and Mother Nature is always good at throwing in a curveball as well.

Future next gen S2000 owner > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 01/12/2018 at 13:06

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I have a job I am currently working(design stage) on, we are adding so much safety stuff they have become a hindrance to working effectively on the site.

You can add too much safety.

Future next gen S2000 owner > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 13:08

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Ultimately, as with most safety questions, it comes down to the value of a human life. There is a number attached to it. It is different for every industry but it exists.

Snailkite > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 13:13

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Your thought experiment just reduces this to absurdity, and I don’t see any reason to address it when for all the safety equipment we have tens of thousands of deaths and millions of very expensive injuries.

The government does in fact do cost/benefit analyses of regulations (I believe they consider a life to be about $7 million?) so I don’t think you premise ever becomes reality.

Aaron M - MasoFiST > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 13:14

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Adjusted for inflation, a 2018 Chevy Spark costs $700 more than a 1991 Geo Metro. A 2018 Chevrolet Cruze is maybe $1500 more than a 1991 Chevrolet Cavalier. And even if you’re comparing base to base, both cars have thousands of dollars in infotainment and niceties like power windows and locks (and AC) that the originals didn’t. How expensive is all this safety stuff again?

AestheticsInMotion > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 13:14

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Stricter rules for elderly drivers in particular. It’s scary seeing some of the 70+ year old drivers on the road. My grandma’s Prius is covered in scratches and dents from the almost constant minor incidents related to her slow reflexes and worsening depth perception.

Urambo Tauro > Urambo Tauro 01/12/2018 at 13:44

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Oh, and I don’t know if I made it clear or not, but I was trying to be disparaging in my use of the word “convenience”. Fuck convenience. When it comes to safe driving, convenience is not the goal; it’s an obstacle.

Stapleface > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 13:47

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I have a couple of cameras on my Civic. And while they are handy, I almost prefer NOT using them. They’re kind of a last check before I do something. No one should rely solely on the technology in the car, they should be able to function without it.

E90M3 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 13:50

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That would probably also help. I’m pretty sure I broke several laws during my driving test, You needed at 75/100 to pass, I got a 78/100. That said, most of the stupid stuff I did while driving as a teenager came from immaturity.

I didn’t even have texting on my phone when I first started driving; my parents refused to pay for it. I didn’t get it to the senior year of high school when I said F it and started texting this one girl anyways. It was either pay for the individual texts or pay the extra $10 a month for a texting plan, so my parents did that. Randomly, I remember that girl I was texting really liked Porsches, and I’m pretty sure that her family was extremely well off. She mentioned something about her dad saying the deck/pool they put in was half of a GT2.

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 14:03

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I made a post regarding this once when I learned about Mercedes’ “Pink Noise” system. If the car thinks a crash is imminent it blasts a specific frequency through the sound system. This tone cause a reflexive disconnect of our inner ear bones. The system is supposed to prevent hearing damage in a crash.

The point of my post was, if the top dollar automakers are pouring R&D money into such esoteric safety features, does that mean we’re approaching peak safety?

npc58501 > JustAnotherG6 01/12/2018 at 14:53

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Learning your limits in a safe and controlled manner (helicopter parenting/almost all nanny laws and regulations do NOT count) can help bring about a massive amount of harm reduction. This can apply to practically all aspects of life.

npc58501 > E92M3 01/12/2018 at 15:00

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1500 hrs to cut hair is an absolute travesty. Since when did practically all small business occupations require a license? Just a bunch of tripe pushed by rent-seeking leeches. A backwards way of penalizing the act of being poor...

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 01/12/2018 at 15:35

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That’s what it seems like (for human-driven cars, anyway).

MM54 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 16:33

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I travel to NJ a lot for work and I shit you not, there are fucking stop signs on the on-ramps. It’s unbelievable.

MM54 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 16:38

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I have very strong opinions on all these mandated safety nannies, but last time I wrote about it and shared it to Oppo it was removed within hours, ostensibly by some moderator who disagrees. I’ll keep my reply short as a result - if people want safe cars, they’ll buy them. Government mandates on “all these cars have to have these seventeen features” don’t solve anything at the end of the day - just makes cars more expensive and failure-prone (oh and just wait for all the economy cars with auto-braking to break in 10 years as the accident rate skyrockets).

Don’t even get me started on the cost of repairing the “safety systems” - I hope you like paying insurance premiums, because they’re only ever going to go up as bumpers and mirrors get more and more tech.

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > AfromanGTO 01/12/2018 at 17:58

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I don’t think it’s so much a tougher driving test as it is there needs to be a performance driving part of the education. Driving a third world country is in a lot of ways a great way to avoid accidents. You aren’t able to just check out and assume that people aren’t going to hit you. Many of those countries actually have surprisingly low accident rates because having engaged drivers and just a few unwritten rules is a lot better than having people checked out with speed limits and stop lights.

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > Urambo Tauro 01/12/2018 at 18:11

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Actually, I think it’s more that deterrence isn’t a great motivator for most people. Most people will actually follow rules just because it’s easier to follow the rules than not follow the rules. When this doesn’t hold to be true the rate of people breaking rules increases sharply. To wit, old people don’t drive terribly because they want to be bad drivers, they drive badly because they are bad drivers and they don’t have any alternative, or at least perceive that they don’t have any alternative. In other wordsit’s, it’s probably a better idea to put more work and or money into improving (and or improving awareness of ) alternatives to driving (for example among the elderly). Then see how your accident rates change.

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 18:13

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I’m not sure about harder, but I would definitely like to see a driving skills portion taught. Being able to control your car at the limit (and knowing where those limits are and how far below them you can safely drive) is often the difference between dumping yourself into a ditch or having a wreck and having a close call.
tl;dr There should be a mandatory ice racing (or at least time trials) portion of the class.

AfromanGTO > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 18:53

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There’s stop lights in Miami to get on 95. Ives Dairy Road is the only one I can remember. It allows 2 cars per green light.

AfromanGTO > dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter 01/12/2018 at 18:55

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Not true. Most of my friends who have came over from India within 2 years can’t drive. After 3-5 years they start driving decently.

I agree with the performance driving requirement 100%.

Nauraushaun > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 19:17

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On the flip side, economies of scale brings the cost of all this stuff down which is nice. And second hand cars will always be cheap for the poor.

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > AfromanGTO 01/12/2018 at 19:38

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I’m guessing they didn’t take driver’s ed? It’s definitely an adjustment, but I think that has more to do with adapting to a new system than it does the superiority if one system over another. Try sticking your average middle aged American on a motorcycle in India and I expect your results would be similar.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter 01/12/2018 at 20:36

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Yes, absolutely. I play on putting my kids through training like this when they get older.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > MM54 01/12/2018 at 20:48

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Yup. There are plenty of people who still refuse to wear their seatbelts... The rest of us shouldn’t suffer because some are too selfish to look up from their phones while they’re driving.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > MM54 01/12/2018 at 20:50

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Ugh... I have seen stoplights at the entrance to on-ramps before. I assume these are tied to sensors that release cars once there’s a gap in traffic?

MM54 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/12/2018 at 21:01

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In my experience, the stop signs in NJ serve two main purposes. One is to cause more traffic, and two is to cause rear-end collisions.

A side-effect is allowing you to discover just how slow your rental car is as you floor it to merge from a stop into 65mph traffic.

AfromanGTO > dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter 01/13/2018 at 14:22

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Driving in India. Let them try crossing a busy street. lol

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Ash78, voting early and often 01/16/2018 at 10:55

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So, how’s 2030 going to look, oh Great Seer? =)

Ash78, voting early and often > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/16/2018 at 11:35

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After a surge of autonomous car lawsuits, the entire industry will revert back to an early 90s mentality of light weight, efficiency, and 100% manual control, putting all accountability on the driver for 99% of accidents.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Ash78, voting early and often 01/16/2018 at 12:08

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How I wish this would come true!

Maxima Speed > Ash78, voting early and often 01/16/2018 at 12:25

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We can dream.

Future next gen S2000 owner > Ash78, voting early and often 01/16/2018 at 13:06

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Can we start by calling them crashes and not accidents?

Ash78, voting early and often > Future next gen S2000 owner 01/16/2018 at 13:19

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THANK YOU. I still use the colloquial term but in real life I always say crash or collision.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Future next gen S2000 owner 01/16/2018 at 14:02

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My 4 year old still has accidents.

benjrblant > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/25/2018 at 11:22

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I’m still surprised that owners, car manufacturers and their R&D are pouring so much cash into developing these safety features while driver training in the US seemingly has made no progress in years. IMO, it seems like we’re relying on the tech to nanny us while we do stupid shit in cars like texting, playing games, and reading the paper to appease the ever-diminishing human attention span.

Driving is dangerous. Pay attention to what you’re doing. Stop being dumb.

functionoverfashion > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/25/2018 at 11:44

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I’m 100% with you on this. As far as the safety of the occupants in the event of a crash, we’ve reached a near-peak level of safety. Sure, new technologies may produce better designs, new materials may do things we never imagined. But I feel pretty safe in my 2003 BMW or 2012 Volvo if a boulder suddenly fell in front of me on the highway.

Preaching to the choir, I know, but holy hell could we get some better driver training? Defensive driving would save an awful lot of accidents. Worse penalties on DUI? They’re already pretty bad, but come on. Step it up a notch and those violations, and subsequent accidents will go down. I can tell you, a DUI would be a catastrophic life-changing event for me and I refuse to take the risk, never mind the obvious safety implications.

But defensive driving can save you a lot of trouble. I avoided a rear-end collision just last week by realizing it was slippery, leaving extra space, and moving forward when the car behind me couldn’t stop in time. Basic stuff. My car didn’t warn me, it’s not designed to do that. I used my eyes and my brain.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > benjrblant 01/25/2018 at 11:55

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Yup...

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > functionoverfashion 01/25/2018 at 12:03

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Yeah, it makes me crazy how little room drivers give each other travelling at 75+ mph on the freeway...