I just heard the dumbest thing ever...

"BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion" (pbs)
12/20/2013 at 06:24 • Filed to: None

Courtesy of the Brazilian traffic department. /rant yo

So the traffic department was on the news last night and this morning flaunting their new speed radars which can catch speeders at distances over 2 km away. Ok, great whatever, nevermind that the limits on some highways can be as ridiculously low as 60 kph (AKA a baby's crawl), gotta keep those speeders in check right? What brought my piss to a boil though was the fact that they truly, seriously believe that excessive speed is the main cause of head on collision and, therefore, deaths.

Yeah, excessive speeds. Not illegal overtakes, which are far more common than legal overtakes in Brazil. Not drunk driving. Not lane drifting. Not illegal maneuvers. Not facebooking while driving. Not irregular, unstable, pothole ridden roads. Not outdated cars that wouldn't even have been sold in 1980's US and Europe. Not the fact that the average Brazilian can't drive for shit, but excessive speed. Let that sink in for a moment.

Done? Good. (Long string of cuss words I won't publish out of respect) those stupid morons! If anything, it's the lack of speed that causes head on collisions during overtaking because a slower car will stay in the opposite lane for a much longer time. Overtaking in my Tipo, for example, which gets up and goes when you punch the throttle is a lot quicker and safer than overtaking in our old Zafira, which lacked anything even remotely resembling torque. Driving the old Zafira required a good measure of strategy and planning with each overtake to increase the revs in time to pass on a legal spot, while the Tipo will get up to speed almost instantly. And you know what they said about that? Those poor, poor idiots, they said that overtaking at higher speeds causes accidents because drivers get scared, slam the brakes and lose control because ABS makes the car unstable under hard braking.

ABS makes cars unstable under hard braking.

ABS (more cuss words I won't publish to save space) makes cars unstable under hard braking, that's still echoing inside my head because it couldn't be more wrong. What a crock of shit, seriously, the lack of any sort of sense among Brazilian authorities is among my oldest beliefs, but I never, not in my wildest dreams, expected them to be so clueless. Now I'm left to wonder about the remaining traffic laws and rules. If the people who made them don't seem to know what a car is let alone how it works (magic perhaps?), how am I supposed to trust that following their laws isn't actually putting me in danger? They say that slower overtakes are safer, when they're clearly not, they say that ABS unbalances a car during hard braking, which is the exact opposite of what it does, next they'll tell me that carrying a bag of (poop related cuss words) and flinging them at other drivers is a safety measure, because that makes as much sense as what they said previously: none.

Now, I'd kind of understand their logic, or lack thereof, if most Brazilian cars weren't (nasty, nasty cuss words. Take that Dilma!) designed over 30 years ago and our roads were silk smooth and people were still dying like crazy, but when our cars barely qualify as lumps of crap and our roads are (they're gonna need some balm for this burn), the government loses the right to blame someone else. They lose the right to alternative solutions. They lose the right to be so obliviously stupid and dear god, are they (is this a word? Sounds painful) stupid...

Also, they may or may not have insulted Mary Elizabeth, so there I'm not overracting.

DISCUSSION (18)

m2m, apex detective > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/20/2013 at 06:37

How dare they insult MEW?

Also, not being used to ESP/ESC will actually freak you out once it kicks in if you don't know that such a thing even exists.

That said, the only way that ABS line would make sense is if everybody's used to locking up their wheels all the time ... which I doubt.

Give 'em hell.

I will personally testify that this is a shit train of thought, as I hoon most of the days and have not once regretted having ABS.

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > m2m, apex detective
12/20/2013 at 06:41

Exactly! I'm not sure if Brazilian cars are equipped with ESP yet, but ABS is now required by law, and the difference it makes in braking efficiency when slamming the pedal is out of this world. I've recently driven similar ABS and non ABS equipped cars with the sole object of comparing them and ABS = glue.

Even though my Tipo doesn't have ABS and doesn't feel unsafe because of that, I fail to realize how a car equipped with it would be any unsafer.

m2m, apex detective > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/20/2013 at 06:47

Most people aren't exactly professional drivers, so I'd think it a great idea to implement a system that makes it easier to brake hard. It sounds silly at times, though ... I have once slammed the pedal down in a Megane R.S. Trophy, and that thing actually purred under hard braking into a roundabout ... down from ~112 mph. :'D

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/20/2013 at 07:07

THOSE FUCKERS WILL NOT INSULT HER AGAIN.

Kinja'd!!!

Naijaflavor, I Love Doritos > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/20/2013 at 07:17

Kinja'd!!!

My favorite part

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/20/2013 at 07:33

most government departments around the world will agree that speed is a major factor in fatal collisions. So I'm not sure why they are singling out head-on collisions.. lower speed crashes result in less fatalities because of physics.

but fuck them and their ABS logic. fuck em

Hermann > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/20/2013 at 07:33

You said pretty much everything there is to say about all this.

Where did they say all this? I'm kinda offline lately, trying to stay as far as possible from the TV and stuff. Was this local in RS?

The Transporter > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/20/2013 at 07:46

There are three things that cops should know a lot about because they are the three tools that they rely upon each day: cars, guns, and the law. I'm often amazed how ignorant most cops are of all three.

Sethersm > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/20/2013 at 08:12

2 km huh?

Just for fun, let's assume a car is 2m wide. Now we can draw an isosceles triangle with a height of 2000m and a base of 2m. Do the trig on that and the angle at the pointy end of the triangle is 0.057º. Assuming no beam spread, the cop will have to aim his gun within that 0.057º angle in order to hit your car. That's a pretty narrow range. Now, if the beam does spread... how do they know they zapped your car instead of the one in the adjacent lane?

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard
12/20/2013 at 10:27

Since brazilian highways (freeways, interstates, federal highways, all of them) are overcrowded single lane affairs (with lots of trucks and buses to boot) with no extra lanes, shoulders or medians, the only way to overtake a slower vehicle is by using the opposite lane. The problem is that brazilians overtake just about wherever, safe or otherwise, so head ons some, some of them woth over a dozen dead among two cars, are among the most common accidents around here.

What they fail to realize is that speed isn't as much a factor in these as driver irresponsibility and inexperience. Even if both cars were doing the speed limit of 80 kph, common on most major highways, they'd still collide at a neck breaking 160 kph, pr 100 mph, more than enpugh to kill the occupants of our sorely outdated and poorly built vehicles.

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > Hermann
12/20/2013 at 10:32

Kinda, I'm in Santa Catarina right now, but if I remember correctly, it was on RBSTV, so it would have aired on both states...

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/20/2013 at 18:28

to me it sounds like a state issue, but I know Brazil probably doesn't have the money to undertake a massive infrastructure overhaul.

the only way to cut down on the ridiculously high death toll that Brazil has is better driver training combined with better roads. Tougher penalties for drink driving too as the University of Sao Paulo paints that as a major factor in the high death toll. (it's roughly 20x higher than the UK or Sweden based on deaths per KM's travelled)

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard
12/20/2013 at 18:39

Money it has, what with the massive amount of taxes we pay each year, but most of that money gets pocketed anyways, so... yeah. Better instruction would be the way to go, along with better enforcement of illegal maneuvers and DUI, as opposed to just speed limits.

Penalties for DUI are already pretty harsh, but people keep inventing new ways to not get caught, from bribes to paying out "clean" drivers to clear out police checkpoints. Another problem on the rise is facebooking while driving. As if texting wasn't bad enough, down here people actually read and update their facebook status behind the wheel, in manual cars no less.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/20/2013 at 19:16

I dunno man, massive transport infrastructure on the scale I was thinking costs billions of dollars and takes decades to complete. Most western countries these days can't afford it without forcing or increasing the tolls on everything.

Yeah you'll find distracted drivers everywhere, I had to catch the bus when I was between cars and I was pretty surprised at how many drivers were looking at their phone all the time, despite massive TV and media coverage on the dangers of using your phone while driving.

The laws were recently updated to make it clearer, you can't use a phone while driving unless it's in a commercially built cradle, and even then only for music, calls or GPS. Learner and Provisional drivers aren't allowed to use one at all. I think it's a $300 fine and 3 demerit points. Learner or Provisional would lose their right to drive for 3-6 months.

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard
12/20/2013 at 19:21

Maybe, but sometimes, something that massive isn't required. The highway I take between home and school, for example, BR 386, could really benefit with a separate lane for trucks and slower vehicles and that would already solve most overcrowding issues at the eastern edge of the state. The government's already doing exactly that, but at such a slow pace I'll be too old to drive by the time they're done...

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/20/2013 at 19:25

sounds like regular state roadworks to me.

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard
12/20/2013 at 19:30

I guess they are, I just wish they happened more often... Duplication of this parituclar highway has been in the talks since the early 90's, why it hasn't yet been done is beyond me

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion
12/21/2013 at 02:37

ha yeah, a similar thing here happened with a high-speed rail project linking Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane. It's been off and on again since 1981. The latest proposal reckons it will be ready by 2050.. the whole idea is to ease the air traffic congestion between Sydney and Melbourne, but none of the airports are too keen on it happening unless they get to control it.