A friend was riding in the passenger seat of a new Buick Lucerne last month. The driver turned left across an intersection—and was met head-on by a pick-up trying to beat the light. All the big Buick’s safety features worked like a charm. No one in the car was seriously injured. In an initial effort to minimize the accident’s significance, the driver bragged that he’d been through much worse. Personally, I don’t think that’s anything to be proud of. Grateful might be a better reaction.
Whether we personally witness– or experience– the savagery of automobile accidents, we all know it’s a meat grinder out there. Yet we continue to drive, purposefully blind to the possibility that our life could be cut short at any moment. It’s easy to ignore the less immediately apparent ways the automobile might be eroding our life span: pollution, obesity or the aesthetic assault on our landscape. But how can it be so easy to disregard the quick and brutal way in which a pleasant afternoon drive can become a violent death? And why would anyone decide that their cell phone, make-up, or Big Mac is more important than their safe return home?
I suppose it’s human nature. Our talent for distancing ourselves from catastrophe, both mentally and emotionally, allows us to get on with life. Under the bright light of rationality, we understand that death is a certainty. But not now, we tell ourselves. Not here, not yet. We banish any thoughts of potential disaster and get on with the task at hand. And why not? Today’s safety-glassed, plasticized, brake-assisted, stability controlled, belted, bagged and crumple-zoned cars are safer than Ralph Nader could ever have dreamed. We can avoid or survive accidents that would have killed us a decade ago. We’re safer, and we feel it. And yet…
There may be a few degrees of separation between us and a road-related fatality, but there’s no separation between us and other accidents. We’ve all survived fender benders; many of us have walked away from serious shunts. Unfortunately, the experience leaves us shaken, but not stirred. Maybe we feel differently about people who die in auto accidents than we do about those who fall victim to crime because drivers make a free will decision to get behind the wheel. But none of us really expect to pay the ultimate price, do we? Like juvenile delinquents, we presume the other guy will foot the bill. And so they do– until they don’t.
I realize that humanity is one big social marketplace. If the automobile exacted a socially unacceptable human toll, we’d all stop driving. Instead, each of us calculates the odds against our own death, determines them to be acceptable, and ventures out onto the streets. There is no choice. Our society is built upon the car; we’re completely dependent on it. But that fact offers no absolution. We must face the reality that death stalks our highways, and take the appropriate preventative measures.
So, does this add up to just another trite and trifling reminder to ‘drive safely’? Maybe it does. But each driver needs to realize that we are playing God with the lives our passengers, our fellow drivers and ourselves each time we head out of the garage. Around 42k people are going to die on the roadways of the US this year. Maybe that’s an acceptable price for our society to pay in exchange for the personal mobility and clear economic advantages of automotive travel. But maybe the cost doesn’t have to be that high. We drivers treat the issue of fuel expense with deadly seriousness. It’s time to treat the expense in human life just as seriously.
Driver’s Ed instructors used to show aspiring motorists grisly images of horrific car wrecks, to make them appreciate the stakes involved. I’m not sure when the scare tactics stopped. I took drivers’ training in 1989. By then the practice was over. It was probably deemed ineffective or politically incorrect. Regardless, we weren’t forced to view the carnage. Of course, what you don’t see can hurt you. Shortly after I graduated from high school, a classmate was killed in an accident not far from my house. That afternoon changed my outlook on life — for a while. Like millions of other motorists, I eventually got over it. After all, it didn’t happen to me.
What would it really take to get drivers to change their potentially lethal habits? If teenagers can laugh off graphic films of accidental decapitations, if commuters can speed by roadside flowers without a second glance, how can we communicate the need to drive with vigilance, caution and respect? It seems that no matter what we do, Darwin and the Grim Reaper stay focused on their ghastly assignment.
Great article.
Using gory films to drive home the point to teenage drivers would have no effect today. They’re not nearly as grisly as the movies and video games most of them are exposed to on a daily basis. As long as they have “driving” games where you can kill someone or get killed, then hit the reset button and start all over again with no aftermath to deal with, they’ll remain desensitized to how serious the situation can be.
Manufacturers will increasingly outfit new cars with ESC, based on the accident reduction data so far. It’s not going to be a replacement for the invulnerable teen brain, alcohol, or other drugs.
Regarding side-impact collision, I saw something not long ago how other countries such as the UK have roundabouts instead of traffic lights which decreases the likelihood of this happening. Does anyone know anything more about this?
Fortunately, I’ve never been in anything more than a fender bender, but a friend was involved in a night head-on collision and ended up performing unsuccessful CPR on the other, unbelted driver.
Somewhat off topic, the Washington Post had something about older motorcycle drivers being a major contributer to motorcycle fatalities. Think twice before getting that Hog or touring bike, Boomers.
This is the reason, misguided or not, that I buy the fastest Volvo I can afford instead of something like a Mustang.
Using gory films to drive home the point to teenage drivers would have no effect today. They’re not nearly as grisly as the movies and video games most of them are exposed to on a daily basis.
How true…
…I saw something not long ago how other countries such as the UK have roundabouts instead of traffic lights… starlightmica
What about all the idiots that would get lost in the roundabouts? :)
I bought the Mustang to get away from people with the fastest Volvo’s.
…I saw something not long ago how other countries such as the UK have roundabouts instead of traffic lights… starlightmica
What about all the idiots that would get lost in the roundabouts? :)
We just got a ton of those things here in Michigan. They should employ someone full time to sweep up the chunks of bumper, glass and metal.
Two things about roundabouts:
One, they work well enough when traffic is not heavy and congested. They keep traffic moving efficiently as opposed to a traditional signal. But as soon as traffic gets heavy they get congested and slow to a crawl, sometimes “locking up”. In New Jersey we called them “traffic circles” and because of this and the numerous accidents they caused we got rid of all or most of them.
Two, the rule is whomever is in the circle/roundabout has the right of way, but no one seems to know this and often you will see drivers slowing down/stopping to let someone in. This just makes the whole thing break down.
Excellent article. It’s amazing how large of a human cost the automobile has on our society, especially when how little attention the issue receives.
Although I understand the thrust of the article, I think there’s a mistake in excerpting out auto fatalities/injuries and treating them as separate from other forms of injury or death.
Take a look at a newspaper from 1910 or 1875, or read a history of those times and you’ll see that sudden death does not require a lot of horsepower or even paved roads. As the death toll on the highways has stabilized at something under 50k/year, many other parts of our lives have become much safer. Deaths due to industrial accidents, home accidents, and product failures are considerably lower now than they were just 80 years ago, for a number of reasons. And if you add in disease, which has always been mankind’s worst killer, there has been a dramatic drop just in the last half of the 20th century.
So, perhaps one reason we are somewhat more cavalier about highway fatalities is that sudden or unexpected death is nothing new to the human condition. People die, yes, but life goes on.
How refreshing to read an article at TTAC that seems written by someone not still clinging to adolescence. And talking about death, no less!
I believe it was in Ohio in 1901 that both cars in the state crashed head first into each other. Cars were outlawed for the next few years.
Accidents have and will always happen.
What no one wants to hear is that 99.9% of deaths could be completely eliminated if automakers applied existing safety technology.
And Gearhead, the fastest Volvo has as much power as your Mustang. Plus AWD.
Great article Bryan.
As a member of the teenage sector (until mid-October), I can say that Frank hit the nail on the head in regards to showing graphic films in Driver’s Education. The continued bombardment of violence in today’s media (all forms from video games to the evening news) is continuing to dull the senses to mortality. Also don’t forget the ACLU would be beating down anyone who tried to enforce a level of responsibility.
For a while, I thought I was invincible, having only been rear-ended once in my almost 4.5 years of driving. That all changed back in April. While I was at college, one of my friends who was a year older than me was killed in an accident. She was riding shotgun in a friend’s early 90’s Chevy Corsica. Her friend tried to make a left turn and beat the yellow light and was subsequently struck by a middle-aged woman driving a full-size pickup truck. Amy was pronounced DOA at the hospital while her friend was treated and released. When I saw the accident photos on the front page of our despicable newspaper, I couldn’t help but look at the twisted heap of metal that was an early 90’s Corsica and say to myself, “That could have been me…”
Talk about a sobering experience.
Joe Public is stupid. When you have stupid people behind the wheel you get accidents. You highest risk drivers are under the age of 21 or over the age of 65. These are the areas that need targeting. It should be fairly simple however to look at the data and see what age ranges and what types of roads and so forth are causing the most fatalities and apply appropriate measures to fix the situation.
Until all cars are computer controlled and you take the human equation out of it you will have accidents.
Steve_S, I am a computer programmer and I can tell you with certainty that computer controlled cars will have accidents. How many I don’t know, but think about this: the software has to be programmed by humans and humans make mistakes. I could give you numerous examples here of faulty programming that was either lethal or non-lethal but I’m sure you or anyone else can look them up yourself.
I took driver’s ed in 1999, and it still consisted mostly of watching videos. Yes, they scared us, but no one told us how to avoid those accidents (besides “don’t drink” and “don’t speed – but don’t tell anyone I told you that 5-10 over is the right thing to do “).
They didn’t teach us emergency maneuvers, or lane discipline either. I drove in the left lane for a few years, wondering why people were mad at me, until I became a car nut and started hanging out in internet forums – only then did I learn that, as well as what’s physically happening when you lose control of your car.
Scare videos are not how driver’s ed should be taught.
I understeered on an unusually greasy turn that I take everyday. Was heading straight for the greenery. I backed off the gas, brakes and reduced the steering angle. I managed to get it back on road without hitting anyone.
After that I stopped, learned to breathe again. I was never so scared shit. After that back to normal, but a little wiser.
A friend of mine who is a real car junkie – he reads more car mags than I do thanks to managing a book store with a good selection of same – said to me recently, “Cars are too easy to drive. They should make them harder to drive.” He went on to explain that the perceived advantages of antilock brakes, and the real advantages of four-wheel disc brakes, along with the prolifferation of high-tech automatic transmissions, had led most drivers to become sandwich-munching, cell-using passive participants in the driving experience.
I understood his point, but told him that since cars generally handle better, brake better – thanks to the prolifferation of four-wheel discs – and as Bryan’s wonderful piece attests, survive a hit better, the new technology – which has increased the costs of cars greatly over the past two decades – might be worth it. Of course, it remains a pretty big “might” to me.
England and here in the States, New York state, have banned cell phone use in moving vehicles. The same should happen everywhere. Of course – sorry for the politics, folks – the cell phone lobbyists won’t let that happen. Well, sometimes they make a bit of concession: in Washington state, these people who function as the government behind the government, were willing to allow a ban on hand-held cell phones, when a proposed bill would allow in-dash cell phone (hands-off). But the gutless and (generally) worthless state legislators didn’t even allow that bill to come out of committee – despite two particularly awful cases, written about in the daily papers. One centered upon a cell phone driving slacked-jawed moron who heard his phone ringing – set between the front seats he thought – and reached down to pick it up; and drove across the centerline, into a van with parents and two little girls; he killed both of those children.
Then, there was the woman in a Ford Explorer – I remember that because Explorers and cell phones seem to go together like cowboys and horses – who was yacking on her cell phone and drove into the back of a car, parked off to the side of a freeway due to car trouble, and killed the family inside it. (The mom and children burned to death; the husband, who sustained second and third degree burns, died about a week later.)
Explorer Girl denied being on a cell phone at the time. However, when the Washington State Patrol recquisitioned records of her cell phone use – there was indeed a paper trail – it showed that she was on the phone, at the time the accidents occurred. But she hired an extremely competent attorney – notice the lack of the modifier “good” although some are and some aren’t – and got off. The State Patrol also, for some reason, felt they couldn’ prove incompetence. Go figure that, eh?
If Explorer Girl hadn’t been riding in an automatic transmission -equipped metal cocoon that made her feel omnipetent – surely her rig had all that braking technology mentioned, plus a plethora of air bags – might she have drive differently. Who knows? But certainly, if she had not been able to use a cell phone, she might – big “might” here – have been more attentive to the task of driving.
My own father was killed by a drunk driver, way back in 1967, who ran a stop-sign at (so I was told) 60 mph. My poor dad was in a bench-seat equipped 1961 Chevrolet Biscayne sedan, with no seat belts and no side impact beams; and the door lock of that time might have been a factor – although in fairness to the Chevrolet division of that time, who expects a lock to survive a 60 mph hit?
I viewed the car my father was driving, after the accident and noticed that there was no turn signal on the steering wheel stalk. My hunch was he grabbed that, before he was thrown from the car (upon which his head hit a sidewalk, or so I was told).
Being able to survive a hit is important. I took a side impact hit – nothing such as took my father – in a 1965 VW Beetle once; and watched this Seventies vintage Chevelle, which had failed to yield (I had the right of way), coming towards me, as the driver’s side door was impacted and my pristine little Peoples’ Car became a door stop. For some reason – fuel economy perhaps, since this was the late Seventies – I bought another vintage Beetle (1966).
But the memories of my father’s passing and what I experienced, led me to purchase a used Volvo, about a year-and-a-half later. I have owned nothing but Volvos since.
I have become aware, in connection with my work, that accident survivability and being able to avoid a crash, no longer means buying only a Volvo. Ralph Nader and his minions have made that so. The Lucerene looks pretty good and it is also good to know that beauty is more than skin deep.
What about all the idiots that would get lost in the roundabouts? :)
A modern roundabout is not really the same as the epic, multi-lane traffic circles some of us have had experience with in the past. And, while they can be safer for drivers, they’re also a safety boon for pedestrians.
New roundabouts tend to be much smaller than in the past. This helps make it possible to retrofit existing intersections with roundabouts without the need to acquire a buch of additional property. It also helps reduce speeds at the intersection, without stopping traffic flow altogether as a signal light does.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, installing a roundabout at a traditional intersection reduces fatalities by 90 percent and all other personal injuries by 76 percent. It also changes the nature of potential conflict points from ‘crossing’ conflicts, to ‘merging’ and ‘diverging’ conflicts, similar to those found at expressway entrance ramps.
Correction to last post: Fourth ‘graph from end, first sentence: the word “drive” should be “driven.”
Terry,
FYI — the comments feature allows you to go back and edit your previous entries if you need to.
Roundabouts can work very well. The congestion issue is real, but in the UK they have traffic signals regulating the flow into the major ones. Presumably it helps.
The reason we botch them so badly in North America is because they are unusual and people aren’t used to them. We have a couple in my area and they are just plastered with yield signs. People still screw it up.
As much as we all hate it, the electronic nanny will save us in the end. People are prone to moods, fatigue and rushes of blood to the head that lead to accidents. I hate the the ABS/ESC electronics in my car but I know that eventualy they will eventually evolve to means to remove more of the human element from driving which will all make us safer (but very bored in traffic)
There is no such thing as an “auto accident.” That term implies that it was some sort of external factor outside the driver, regardless of “fault.” That term is also a little too “oopsy-daisy,” akin to the dog peeing on the floor. Everybody is responsible for knowing exactly what their car is doing as well as what everybody and everything else is doing around them. Period. At the very least, idiots who get into car wrecks delay everybody else, sometimes for hours. At the worst, they kill or maim people. People who have been in “accidents” should not be allowed to drive for at least a year. Every single automobile accident is preventable. It starts with conservative driving, and continues with making sure your equipment is OK and maintaining a comfortable cushion around your vehicle – from all directions. The traffic laws are not there to inconvenience you. They are there so that everybody can get to where they are going. I have no problem backing an aggressive driver off – go around me. I defy anyone to create a scenario for an “unavoidable accident.”
So 42000 Americans will die in car wrecks. Did you know there are now 300,000,000 people in the country? So your point is that all of 1 in 7,000 people might die in a car wreck this year? I don’t think that’s going to keep me awake at night, really.
Yeah everything has both costs and benefits, but life today is ludicrously safe by any historic standards (in no small part thanks to motorized vehicles). People 150 years ago didn’t have cars but they were far, far more likely to get eaten by a bear or die of “consumption” or die in childbirth. Knowing half their kids were destined to die before growing up, THOSE people knew death. They’d think we were major p***ies even talking about this.
What Martin Albright said is so right. We live in truly “the best of times” with regards to personal safety. There are no major ground wars, there are no ravaging disease epidemics, there are no marauding bands of raiders riding over the ridge every few years to sack our village. There are safety considerations put into every object we touch (with the possible exception of cell phones of course ;)
The death rate, if viewed in the context of a percentage of total population, is lower now than at any time in human history.
Great article Mr. Myrkle.
There are many factors that contribute to car accidents including fate. But clearly many accidents are preventable; some by education. You’ve alluded to driver’s ed but I’ll take it one step further.
If this were “Jeopardy”, then the topic of your article might be the answer to that question that sometimes comes up:
“Why is it important for everyone to have basic math and physics knowledge?”
This doesn’t even have to include book knowledge. One of the most impressive things I did as a young driver was a video game at a science museum:
You sat down at a steering wheel with gas pedal and brakes and the game was to hit the brakes as fast as possible. Even while concentrating on braking, there’s a finite limit to reaction time. The corollary is that when driving at high speed, space between vehicles is a must, because not even an expert driver can avoid rear-ending someone.
I can’t wait for the day that cars will be made from Nerf and the driver is suspended in amniotic fluid, rocked to sleep and unconsciously nourished on the way to work. It will be called the Toyota Womb and is powered by puppy dog kisses and ice cream.
“So, does this add up to just another trite and trifling reminder to ‘drive safely’? Maybe it does.”
It definitely does. I don’t understand why people think this editorial is anything other than a tired rehash of the “drive safely” mantra. duh We all know what a nuthouse it is on our roads, and getting worse by the day. I’m convinced that “enthusiasts” such as our group are among the best of drivers. We are highly aware of what’s going on around us and we are far more capable of using our car’s abilities to avoid collisions than the average schmo.
This ed could have pointed out the value of electronic stability control programs more forcefully (our gov plans to require them in coming years) and could have advised a better driver’s ed program, such as that required by the Germans. As it is the editorial says “drive safely because it’s dangerous out there.” double duh
I’m not sure that scaring people is the solution. At the risk of being boring, I’ll return to a consistent theme in TTAC comments – that improved driver education and a more onerous/selective licensing process would greatly improve road safety. It strikes me again as I read the previous comments on this thread – citing examples of drivers unaware of how to use a roundabout / traffic circle, drivers unaware that they should keep right on a highway etc.
I moved from England a few years back. My Virginia driving test consisted of a drive around the block and a few multiple choice questions. I rolled through the only stop sign on the route and still passed. I took a driver improvement course – and was instructed that when joining a highway I should “choose the lane with the least traffic”. It isn’t surprising that accidents are so common when almost anyone can obtain a license and the quality of driver’s education so low. Making people aware of the risks inherent in driving is one answer – but ensuring that everyone on the road is competent to drive strikes me as more important.
Hello!!
I met my wife in Driver’s Ed in 1968. To this day, we still talk about the images in the 2 movies we were shown, “Mechanized Death” and Tragedy on Wheels”.
Well I think everything’s been covered here as far as ways to improve driver safety, but one thing I always wonder about when people talk of ‘saving lives’ is where are all the people going to live? If we get rid of death… we better start figuring out which planet to send people to (I’m thinking mars) cause we’re running out of room and resources on this one.
oh yeah remember ‘blood on the highway’? that was classic.
People who have been in “accidents†should not be allowed to drive for at least a year. Every single automobile accident is preventable.
I would argue with this logic. I don’t think EVERY accident is preventable, but I do think many are. However, if I am in an accident that is no fault of mine, then why should I be punished. There is no way to avoid EVERY possible accident, no matter what you do.
I defy anyone to create a scenario for an “unavoidable accident.â€
1) You are driving down a dark country road at night, and a car t-bones you. The car had no lights on and there were no street lights. On top of that, the driver was going so fast, that even with proper lighting, you would not have seen him coming.
2) You are driving along the road and it is foggy and raining. You, properly, have adjusted your speed to a sensible level and have all your lights on for maximum visibility. Then, a car comes from behind with no lights on and no warning and slams into the rear of your car.
Obviously, the other driver could have prevented the accident, but you could not have. So, for you, these were unavoidable accidents.
Unavoidable accidents? Depending I suppose on the meaning of unavoidable, here are three I can think of off the top of my head that actually happened:
* Barge being pushed up a wide river breaks loose from its tug, drifts into abutment for bridge, bridge collapses and cars drive off collapsed bridge into river.
* Deer, Elk, Sheep or Goats on a Rocky Mountain moving about dislodge a boulder. Boulder rolls downhill, strikes a vehicle traveling at 70 mph on the interstate, knocking it into a canyon, killing both people in the vehicle.
* Section of metal support on an overpass loosens due to heavy rains and high wind. Falls off overpass and strikes a passing vehicle, killing the passenger.
In the first and third scenario, clearly someone was at fault (the barge driver or the construction supervisor) but the car driver could not have anticipated, much less done anything, to avoid the accidents. And in the second one, well, I guess you could blame God, but that’s about it.
Somewhere out there is also a statistic about the number of people who die each year because they either have a reaction to medication they didn’t know they were allergic to, or they are prescribed the wrong medication. I don’t know what the number is but I’m pretty sure it’s over 42k/year.
The 42k deaths/year statistic also doesn’t tell us much about the circumstances. It’s not like the gods of fate are just sending down random lightning bolts of death (except maybe in the case of the boulder above.) I wonder what the statistics for traffic fatalities are once you excerpt out:
– Drunk drivers who kill themselves or their passengers
– Reckless drivers who kill themselves or their passengers
If we excerpted out those numbers (and I believe they are huge) we would have a truer picture of the costs of careless and/or negligent driving and the likelihood that it would impact us.
The other figure that’s missing is the number of miles driven per vehicle per year. If people are driving more miles (which I believe they are) but fatalities are staying steady, then that is actually a decline in deaths per vehicle mile driven.
I think driver education (not just watching movies, but hands on (the wheel) education) could go a long way towards reducing accidents/deaths.
Here is an issue I brought up with my wife the other day:
How long until people diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and other diseases which impare their ability to properly maintain control of a vehicle are disallowed from driving… or uninsurable. It seems like if you were injured in a wreck with the other driver suffering from ADD, it would be an open and shut case. I’m sure there is some slick loophole for this, but it still seems fairly obvious to me that someone that suffers with their ability to focus their attention should NOT be driving a car.
I am amazed at not only how easy it is to get a drivers license, but the level of disability that is allowed…. I’m not saying that the paraplegic shouldn’t be driving… only that there should probably be a fairly strengent test before they are licensed.
Why aren’t people mentioning the super sized, 4000lb+ SUVs that are sold as “cars” and their impact on the other drivers or pedestrians? Momentum is mass x acceleration, and no matter how much safety device we get, it takes more to sustain a heavier truck crashing into you.
I suggest we mandate a maximum weight capacity ratio and charge higher tax on those who bought a larger than needed size car/truck. Those who really wanted will pay a higher tax and insurance for it.
Of course, the insurance industry should be the governing body as our corrupted government are too scared to piss off auto unions and car makers who bought out both parties. The insurance industries, if release crash test rating if drivers hitting another vehicle, should use that as one of the pricing option and force people to buy a lighter car, or smaller truck if needed.
PandaBear –
You bring up a good point (Momentum is mass x acceleration … it’s actually mass X Velocity, but that’s not why I am responding).
Given that Momentum = Mass X Velocity, the smaller car you are in, the faster you should drive to equal things out with the big guys :)… no need for any additional taxes, the answer is right there in your formula.
Here’s a place that might scare the up and coming generation about the dangers of driving:
http://mydeathspace.com/deaths.aspx
Momentum is mass x acceleration
Force = mass X acceleration
Momentum = mass X velocity
The insurance industries, if release crash test rating if drivers hitting another vehicle, should use that as one of the pricing option and force people to buy a lighter car, or smaller truck if needed.
Insurance companies already do this.
When I traded a car for a truck, the property damage premium increased (damage I do to others’ property), as did the liability (covers other people in the accident). The collision premium went down as did the personal injury protection (PIP). In other words, I had to pay more for the damage I might do to others, but less for the damage others might do to me. I would also note that the overall cost went up.
Gentlemen,
My driver’s ed class was way back in ’81 when I was 15. One of the coaches at the high school showed a few films, discussed what various road signs meant, read things out of a book to us, and had us write down and answer about 100 questions in the back of the book. List the 5 steps to starting a car, what distance is required to stop a car traveling 55 mph…things like that. So much for driving theory. Driving practice was driving him around town to take care of errands, pick up his wife’s clothes from the cleaners, 55 mph cruising on lonely roads in rural East Texas. It was viewed as a joke by the other students, and just a hoop you had to jump through to get your license on your 16th birthday. Sounds like nothing much has changed.
To most people, driving and their cars is just something they have to do to get around. If they had a free personal chaufeur, I’m sure they’d take it. Then you have the few like me, and probably alot of the folks at this site. I look forward to my drive to and from work each day. I climb into my old but rock solid Mercedes, buckle up, start the engine and listen for anything out of the ordinary, check that no warning lights are on, watch the oil pressure gauge rise up to 3 bars, put it in gear and go. I don’t drink coffee, talk on a cell phone, or eat while behind the wheel. I’m driving! I enjoy it, look forward to it, and give it my undivided attention. Sometimes I don’t even cut on the radio, if I want to just listen to how the engine responds to my controls.
Hardly a day goes by that I don’t come across an accident scene. Sometimes it is obvious what has happened. SUVs rolled over is a common theme, as well as somebody rear ending someone else.
This business about I should not drive for a year if I am a party to an accident is preposterous. Suppose I’m at a traffic signal and rear ended by some chick in a military style vehicle yapping on a phone, not paying attention. I’m supposed to be able to avoid that accident? How????
“At the worst, they kill or maim people. People who have been in “accidents†should not be allowed to drive for at least a year.”
Sam:
While I nearly agree with you in that MOST car accidents are not really accidents, there are some circumstances that are truly accidental. Beyond that, revoking the driver’s license of anybody who is involved in an accident for one year with no consideration for fault is ridiculous. I’ve been in three “accidents”. First one, I was driving down a public street that had parking spots facing in towards the curb along the road (as opposed to the more typical parallel parking spots). A college professor backed out of his spot into the rear quarter panel of my, before the accident, perfect 58 Chevy truck. He got out of his Infiniti and had the absolute gall to blame me for driving down the road. In your world, I would have lost my license for a year because of this accident. What could I have done differently other than stayed off the street entirely? Second accident occurred about ten years later. A guy backed out of his driveway into the side of my car. I saw him coming and laid on my horn, at which point he stomped on the gas and accelerated. I guess you could say that I should have just kept off the horn, and let him back into my car at 5 mph instead of 25 mph. I’m on the street and a guy backs into me, what should I have done? I had no way to get out of his way. The last accident occurred about six months later in stop and go traffic during rush hour on the freeway. The traffic stopped and so did I. Unfortunately, a teenage girl driving a Taurus behind me did not. In this case, I heard the tires squealing as she locked her brakes, had time to glance in my rearview mirror, and I knew what was about to happen (amazing how time seems to slow down). What could I have done there? In each instance, the fault for these “accidents” was entirely with the other driver, yet you seem to think that I should have had my driver’s license revoked. It seems to me that you didn’t entirely think things through before posting.
– Drunk drivers who kill themselves or their passengers
– Reckless drivers who kill themselves or their passengers
If we excerpted out those numbers (and I believe they are huge) we would have a truer picture of the costs of careless and/or negligent driving and the likelihood that it would impact us.
I’m wondering why you would choose to separate ‘reckless’ driving from careless or negligent driving, as those seem like basically the same thing to me.
I’m wondering why you would choose to separate ‘reckless’ driving from careless or negligent driving, as those seem like basically the same thing to me.
Because being “reckless” is deliberate, being “careless” is not.
The law generally defines “careless” as “should have known about the danger, but didn’t due to negligence.”
Whereas reckless is “knew about the danger and deliberately disregarded it.”
I think you’ll agree there is a different level of culpability with those two scenarios.
What I was trying to say was that if you simply choose not to drive drunk, drive recklessly, or ride with someone that is doing either, then your chances of being killed or injured in an auto accident drop significantly.
Roundabouts are known to double the traffic flow of areas in which they are used in the UK, replacing lights (until traffic gets so bad that, ironically, traffic lights must be used to regulate the flow onto the roundabouts).
But, as gearhead455 alluded to, one must actually have COMPETENT drivers to be able to take advantage of roundabouts. Certainly here in Michigan, I see 99.5% of the driving population as totally INCOMPETENT in the most important function they do on a daily basis – driving their automobiles.
Speeding. Like WAY fast. Pandemic.
Tailgating? I think Michigan drivers must be the most selfish clods on the road worldwide, if this is any measure. Mustn’t forget how nice it is to have BRIGHT headlights in my rear view mirror from SUVs and pickups, thanks a ton, tailgating me is NOT going to intimidate my cruise control, and beside which, if I go faster, I’ll only catch up and tailgate the guy in front of me, then drop back to the speed I’m going – IDIOTS.
Not stopping at stop signs, or for red lights. Pandemic. My son, age 19, was literally run into the ditch twice in three days last winter, thank God he was fine both times. People simply don’t bother stopping at side streets here in Michigan.
We don’t need ever more safe (and expensive) cars. We need a decent level of drivers education in our country across the board, including RE-education of about 99.5% of the drivers out there. And yeah, I know what the chances of that happening is.
About the same chances as our national road death rate being cut by 99.5%.
Ah keeerist, the government is going to mandate that all new vehicles have electronic nannies by 2012:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14821623/
Following is an excerpt. It clearly shows that the government has no idea what it is doing.
“Early in the development of the air bag, she said initial studies predicted it could save about 9,000 people a year, much higher than the 2,300 lives it saves annually.
“Until you get it into production and onto vehicles, you don’t know how large the numbers are going to be,†Claybrook said.
A study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety earlier this year predicted 10,000 deaths could be prevented a year if passenger vehicles had the technology. The study found stability control reduced the risk of single-vehicle rollovers involving SUVs by 80 percent.
One of the benefits of stability control is that it doesn’t require anything from the driver. While other crash avoidance technologies, such as lane departure warning, require the driver to react, stability control senses the vehicle veering out of control and stabilizes it.
“There really isn’t any downsides that we’re seeing,†said Russ Rader, an Insurance Institute spokesman. Electronic Stability Control “is in a unique club with only seat belts and air bags for it’s lifesaving potential.â€
Automakers caution that seat belts will remain the most essential tool in avoiding death or injury in a crash. Seat belts save an estimated 15,000 motorist a year.
Robert Yakushi, Nissan North America Inc.’s director of product safety, environmental, said the technology “shouldn’t be characterized as a cure-all for all handling situations†but something that helps drivers maintain control in some situations.
“If everyone depends on vehicle stability control, I think, to save them in every situation, I think that builds overconfidence in the driver,†Yakushi said, stressing that “the driver is key to vehicle safety.â€
The last two paragraphs are the only voice of reason.
my comment got eaten…
the procedure to get a license in this country is a joke. driving around the block? stopping at stop signs? its more of a test to determine your ability to follow directions, not your ability to drive.
its not just kids either. I’m reminded of the incident a few years ago in santa monica when an elderly man plowed through some pedestrians on 3rd street. mistook the accelerator for the break apparently. shouldn’t the dmv has some responsibility of keeping these kinds of drivers off the roads?
Wow, another article about Buick Lucernes! woot! woot!
46 comments and only the last one even mentions seat belts. Some accidents are unavoidable, but if people would just buckle their seatbelts, they’d be a hell of a lot more likely to survive those accidents. Since I started keeping track in the local papers, I haven’t seen a fatal car accident that didn’t involve unbuckled occupants (and often, the only survivor of an accident will be the only person buckled up). Even low-speed accidents. Face it — there will always be another driver out there that will undo whatever you’ve done to drive safer. Buckling up may not prevent an accident, but at least you have a chance of walking away from one.
Driving a manual car did wonders for getting me to pay attention to what was going on while driving. It’s so bad that when i do drive an automatic, i find myself nearly dozing off in traffic. Keeps you off the cell phone, too. And whoever mentioned ADD people not getting driver’s licenses was DEAD ON. A friend of mine is ADD (real ADD, not ‘i have a lack of discipline’ ADD) and driving with her was terrifying… even if you sat there with your mouth glued shut the whole time trying not to distract her, she was busy distracting herself and almost running lights, hitting pedestrians, etc. Even *on* medication. Someone like her should not have been driving, but hey, what do you do?
I use my stability control the same way I use my radar detector. I drive as if it’s not there, but I appreciate when it steps in and saves me.
Those who drive like maniacs, thinking that stability control will erase their driving sins, simply do not understand the laws of physics.
Kevin:
September 14th, 2006 at 11:38 am
So 42000 Americans will die in car wrecks. Did you know there are now 300,000,000 people in the country? So your point is that all of 1 in 7,000 people might die in a car wreck this year? I don’t think that’s going to keep me awake at night, really.
It’s not just the people who die in car wrecks. Its the people who are injured and maimed. For example, 50,000-70,000 people have severe or moderate traumatic brain injury every year, and motor vehicle crashes is one of the two main contributors (the other is falls, particularly in toddlers and the elderly). OK, it’s still not a huge proportion of the 300 million in the US–that’s probably already at least 305 million, by the way, and I’m saying this not to quibble with you but to point out how quickly the population is growing–but over a lifetime, these statistics add up to a real risk of terrible harm. For example, a friend of my parents, a Harvard University demographer, was reduced to the mentality of a child, and his wife had to be essentially his personal nursemaid for the ten years he lived beyond the accident.
Terry, sorry about your father. That must have been a hell of a miserable experience.
I am somewhat torn about the electronic nanny issue. At one level I hate the electronic nannies. The thought of going about in transportation pods that take control of almost everything undermines my happiness. Better we should have German-style driver’s ed, almost all stick shifts (automatics would be OK for people like my girlfriend’s one-armed friend), and a US where driving across the country remains the great adventure it was back in the middle of the last century, and no electronic nannies beyond electronic stability control and ABS. But I suspect that nannyism is gong to sweet the auto industry over the next 20 years, and I suspect it will save lives and heads and bodies, and even if not that many people stand to be saved.
PandaBear:
As others have pointed out, you had your momentum calc a little wrong. But when it comes to vehicular safety, I believe that kinetic energy (.5 x mass x velocity^2) is the better measurement, as it is the way that energy is dissipated in the collision that causes damage and injury.
I’ve jokingly suggested that instead of speed limits, we ought to have kinetic energy limits.
As an example, to have as much kinetic energy on my motorcycle (about 500lb) as a 4000lb SUV doing 60mph, I would need to be traveling at almost 150mph. I’m including my weight in this calc, too.
I took driver’s ed in 1993, and we were shown all the gory stuff. I guess it just depends on where and when…
I do think it’s WAY too easy to get a driver’s license in most states though. One girl in our driver’s ed class told all the girls “if you fail just cry, and most of the test admins will just pass you cause they feel bad” and it was true about half the time…we just need stricter standards for licensing. The US has made driving a right, when it’s nothing more than a priviledge.
What about all the idiots that would get lost in the roundabouts? :)
My neighborhood association decided roundabouts were more “aesthetically pleasing” then the traditional traffic light intersection. So every intersection was replaced. I was hit three times in the first week they were installed. Maybe it was my fault? But I always thought you yield first or am I wrong?
You can’t fix stupid.
I agree with Jonshaw that driving tests in the USA are too easy. They are relatively easy in Canada too, but at least parallel parking is tested. But that will never happen, because Americans think driving is a right, whereas the rest of the world sees it as a privilege that has to be earned.
If one cannot parallel park, one has no inking of 3D space, and/or the relationship between the steering wheel and the front wheels, and hence should not be allowed to drive at all.
Also, every time one buys a vehicle in a larger or faster class (based on realistic classifications similar to SCCA classes), one should be retested before being allowed to operate it. If one fails the test in the new vehicle, one has to take the test in his previous vehicle, and if one fails that as well, then one has to go to a real driving school (not the B.S. drivers ed) and drive with a learner’s license, with restrictions and all, until you past the test.
This scheme solves the problem of all the trophy wives driving their Escalades badly in my neighborhood because they passed the test in their Corollas before meeting sugar daddy.
Further, anyone who is at fault in a serious accident, e.g., damages to other vehicle > $2500 or bodily injury of others, loses their driving privileges for a period of time. After penalty period, he has to take the test again before being allowed to drive. If one causes another serious accident, the penalty period is double (or multiplied) until one does not get to drive again in one’s life time.
The above includes any accidents resulting from failure to reasonably maintain one’s vehicle (i.e., tire pressure, brake pads, or other basic stuff). I am not arguing that every driver has to DIY, but at least be aware of this stuff and pay others to do it if one cannot or does not want to.
Conversely, anyone who is a good driver gets additional driving privileges, i.e., a special lane, reduced licensing fees, etc.
After two years of driving experience (documented, i.e., people who get their licenses in NYC but never drive do not fall in this category), one gets to take a “challenge” driving test, sort of like Advanced Placement in high school. To pass this test requires decent knowledge of vehicle dynamics, i.e., braking distances, over vs. understeer in relationship to vehicle speed, skid correction, etc.
If you pass, you get an “Elite” driving license, and are allowed to operate your vehicle at speed limit +20mph.
If the above scheme is implemented, safety is increased, while convenience is decreased. True, the decrease in convenience may exceed the increase in safety, but the former will impact those who deserve it (bad drivers), while the latter will benefit those who deserve it (good drivers).
dean –
I’ve jokingly suggested that instead of speed limits, we ought to have kinetic energy limits.
You remind me of that rude, sexist, engineering college joke about brains x beauty = a constant.
Ok, of the 40,000 deaths on the road last year:
-Approximately half were caused by drunk drivers.
-Approximately half were of drivers and passengers that were not belted in the car at the time.
-7-10% were caused by excess speed.
I think that the enforcement of DUI laws, while a lot better than in years past when it was a joke, has a long way to go before it makes a major dent in the death rate. When it does, though, it will have been worth the effort. I think the advertisement of typical penalties for a first drunk-driving offense would help, as would a lot more Breathalyzer checkpoints.
The seatbelt and speed laws should be reversed – instead of primary enforcement of the speed limit and secondary enforcement of seat belts, people should be pulled over for not wearing a seat belt (perhaps with a $500 fine and mandatory overnight jail stay if convicted). Speeding, on the other hand, should be a secondary offense, added to a citation for failing to signal or non-belted driving. It’s just as easy for a traffic cop to look in a car and see whether the front-seat occupants are wearing seatbelts as it is for him to aim a radar gun out into traffic and shoot the fish in the barrel.
My bad, Momentum = Mass x Velocity.
Yuppie, I agree with the harder, stricter testing too, but we also got to be realistic here. If you are not living in a major city there is no alternative to driving (what public transit?), so many people are forced to drive after a long work day or any undesirable condition (drunk?). This is why making a car harder to drive is not really going to help. Which car would be more likely to cause an accidenty by a drunk and sleepy driver? A RWD 300hp one with manual tranny and no stability control, or one with all the safety nanny with an automatic tranny?
The problem, IMO, is that car’s safety is designed with insufficient pre-emption in mind. Alcohol sensor should be installed and inspected at SMOG check every time, vehicle stability sensor should have override authority to slow the car down for the next 30 mins to prevent a near accident (crossing lane) from happening again and cause a real accident.
Education is overrated, IMO.
For every driver who is clueless about how to use a roundabout or which lane to use while cruising on a freeway, there are least 10 times that number who know BUT DON’T CARE.
Does anyone really not understand that they shouldn’t run a red light, but take their chances anyway, just to save THEMSELVES a minute or so? There’s that old saying about leading a horse to water….
Speaking of crashes (not accidents) that are unpreventable, I suppose the worst one I had fell into this category. A deer bounded out from the side of the road at twilight, and I literally did not see it until it was right in front of my car. I hit the brakes, but my son who was riding with me later said that we had already hit the deer.
The interesting thing is though the car did sustain about $1200 in damage, the impact was so light that our seat belts didn’t even lock up. There’s that M x V thing again, where both M and V (of the deer) are small, at least compared to a Camry.
Is it true that crash test ratings are based on theoretical collisions with similarly-sized vehicles? I recollect reading somewhere that if your rated “excellent” subcompact collides with an “average” large car, you’d be wishing you were in the lower ranked car. That sounds logical, anyway.
I disagree with the people who say people with ADD should not be able to get drivers’ licenses. Plenty of people with ADD are competent, safe drivers. And plenty of people who don’t have ADD are incompetent drivers. Licensing should be performance-based, and not based on labels such as ADD, or elderly, or whathaveyou.
Great article, driving without thinking of the consequences is something that will always be done, things will never change as long as there are cars on the road.
Wow, 61 responses and nary a word about one of the BIGGEST causes of accidents… Two lane roads. Look up the statistics on how many people are killedmaimed on two lane roads vs. four (or more) divided highways. While your looking at those statistics, keep in mind the speeds are LOWER on the two lane roads that account for the vast majority of deathsinjuries.
Why is it everyone wants to blame the driver first, the vehicle next, and never even think about the piss poor safety of the roads themselves? I think you’ve got it exactly backwards…
How many Billions of dollars per year are wasted in lost time and wasted gasoline sitting in traffic jams and moving along at speed of the slowest common denominator (road blocking moron)?
In USA, 296M inhabitants. In Sweden, 9M, 3 % of US statistics.
In USA, 42K dead in traffic related accidents. In Sweden, 440 dead, 1 % of US statistics.
Swedish facts: of all road accidents, more than 25 % is caused by alcohol or other drugs. For young drivers under 25 years of age, 50 %.
A cost-effective method, where it is possible, to practically eliminate road deaths is to convert two lane roads into three lane roads and then put up a simple wire barrier alternatively between one/two lanes. Overtaking is perfectly safe at the 50 % road sections, because you couldn’t face anyone in the approaching lane.
I never thought that I one day should recommend this type of roads, because I used to overtake everywhere, but now I actually like them, more so when you think of your wife and children driving.
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittr%C3%A4cke
The 3-lane roads with barriers seems to be a good idea. We already have 3 lane areas with passing zones in northern Michigan, often every few miles, but most drivers here don’t seem to have the patience to even wait 3 minutes to pass and sit right on other people’s bumpers, tailgating (even when there is traffic ahead going the same speed – it’s not like they can intimidate the tailgatees to go any faster).
As someone wrote, you can’t fix stupid. But you can remove stupid from the roadways. Therein lies the problem; if we did remove stupid from the roadways, our economy might collapse because at least 50% of the drivers would not be on the roads.
But think how nice it would be for those of us who actually understand some concepts of how to drive properly, with 50% less traffic!
I agree with the comment about 2-lane rural roads being the most dangerous, and the reasons are obvious.
But can you imagine the cost of upgrading these to even just 3 lanes in segments? Everyone is so much against raising taxes for anything — I never thought this anti-tax sentiment would last as long as it has (since about 1976 as I recall). It’s to the point that the t-word itself is unmentionable; you have to use euphemisms such as “user fees” or “revenue enhancement.”
Easier and cheaper just to upgrade the cars; after all another 17 million new ones get sold in the US every year anyway.
All you can do is “drive paranoidâ€, but that’s no guarantee from distracted idiots. In the US driving is considered a “right” and not a privilege. No attempt is made to teach people how to drive in emergency situations or understand vehicle dynamics at anything above “boulevard cruise†speeds. It’s probably not practical to do more training, but I wish there were more strict enforcement of traffic safety on the road – REAL penalties for poor drivers! You may no be able to “fix stupidâ€, but I vote to give them bus passes…
All it takes is one really bad crash (I’ve had 3…) to make you value the safety enhancements of modern cars. A Saab and a Mercedes probably saved my life – all those safety brochures suddenly had meaning. I recently restored a ’66 Mustang and was acutely aware of no headrests, no shoulder belts, single channel brakes, no collapsible steering column –no nothing! I don’t think I’ll be doing any highway driving in it.
Houston freeways are a nightmare – it’s no longer a pleasure to drive anywhere. Aggressive drivers in SUVs tailgating at 80 mph…? Hello? Dial “1-900-PHY-SICS†for an update on “Kinetic Energy and Youâ€.
Bus passes for stupids, in order to get them off the road is a brilliant idea, TechBob. But there have to be busses for them to get on. Even Europe and the UK are moving away from busses (and just try driving there – the roads are mega-crowded). Not forgetting, of course, that England is roughly the same size as Michigan, yet instead of 9 million inhabitants, Britain has 70 million give-or-take.
I think the Swedish authorities calculates one young person’s death to a society loss of 7 million dollars. In the US, probably more. That’s 42K times $10M…start building safe roads now!
PandaBear, I am not for making vehicles harder to drive. I am for making it harder to earn the privilege of operating a vehicle. I am also for making the privilege of driving commensurate with one’s ability at driving, hence, the retesting when you get a car of a bigger or faster class.
Re: testing, I am not talking about advanced vehicle control, e.g. drifting, Scandinavian flicks, hand-brake turns, or any other racing techniques. We just need to test situation awareness more, i.e., maybe with a driving simulator that penalizes BOTH for going too fast AND going too slow in a given situation.
The testing status quo is, you get 3 chances to take a 20 question multiple choice “test”, then you come back, and putt-putt around suburbia at 5 to 10mph below the speed limit, and viola, you are allowed to drive. That’s just too easy.
It’s true that driving is pretty much essential anywhere in the USA except for NYC. And there is not much the government or anyone else can do about it. Not sure about the whole “collapse of economy” if bad drivers are banned (at least temporarily) from driving and given “bus passes”. But as I said above, if someone causes a serious accident, they should be punished, i.e., inconvenienced, as a result.
However, if we make driving a privilege that is harder to earn and easier to lose (compared to status quo) then people will take driving more seriously, and concentrate while doing so.
Re: two-lane roads, they may be more dangerous, but it’s up to the drivers to adapt to the situation.
Oh and I meant to say +20% instead of +20mph in my first post.
Yup, I think I’ve ranted this exact same thing (I’ll make it shorter) like 4 times on TTAC.
Drivers Ed is a joke. People know what a red light is and how to shift into Drive from 4 yrs old. They need to be taught vehicle dynamics, physics, and collision avoidance. They need cars with dual control for drivers ed and a huge drivers ed lot for training. The instructor uses his controls to send the car into, say, a skid. The trainee must then take over and recover. I can personally vouch for that.
Heres a story:
I enjoy ‘spirited driving’. On a 270* turn fwy onramp, toward the bottom I floored it for sheer fun. I figured, I was in 3rd gear, only around 2700 rpms on a fairly low torque (albeit rwd) car (91 Supra Turbo). Well, said turbo kicked in, and I ended up sideways, on the freeway. I did everything I could to get out of the skid, let off the gas, easy brakes, counter steered, but ended up sideways in the 2 right lanes with 2 cars flying at me at 70mph. Luckily, the plumes of smoke my tires had stirred up on my way into traffic alerted them to slow down, and one car stopped about 5 ft from my bumper (the other quite a ways back). As soon as my tires got traction, I sped to the side of the fwy to get my breathing under control. And I generally have a good idea of my cars limits, but this totally took me off guard. There is NO substitution for experience. That really sobered me, and convinced me that as a teen, I’m actually not invincible (imagine that!)
So, yeah, people need to know their cars’ capabilities and how to respond to accidents, and to pay attention dammit!
Taking away cell phones is not the answer (for most people), putting a million nannies into cars is not the answer. Its taking out seatbelts and airbags, and making all cars manual transmissions. That way, all drivers have to pay attention to what they’re doing, and the bad drivers get weeded out so the good ones have more room! :-P
Long time getting back to this so nobody will probably see this post, but…
I have had one relative lose her baby to a drunk driver and another nearly lose his life and he did lose a good portion of his brain function including his personality. Drunk driving “laws” are a joke. If you hit and kill someone as in the relative who lost her baby, you better be drunk. Then you don’t face nearly the ptential jail time as somebody who was driving sober. The guy who killed her baby was released with time served and something like 5 years probation for what amounted to second degree murder as far as I’m concerned. The guy who nearly killed my cousin ended up serving one year. It was over a year before my cousin was able to work again. Yeah, that’s fair.
As far as cell phones go, I was nearly in an accident yesterday driving back to work from a doctor’s appointment. I was turning right from the outside right turning lane. As this has happened to me more than once, I always keep an eye on the cars in the inside turning lane when I am in the outside turning lane. I think this says it all: two SUVs, two woman on cell phones. The first lady sure enough started drifting out to the outside lane yacking on her cell phone. She couldn’t even see me in the lane next to her, of course that’s because she probably had all of attention on the phone conversation (hands free cell phones do nothing to cure this problem). I honked at her and she gave me the finger. Sure enough the SUV behind did the same thing, turned from the inside lane into the middle lane of the road we were turning onto, forcing me into the outside lane where I most definitely didn’t want to be. Second SUV, same thing, lady on a cell phone oblivious to the cars around her, safe and secure in her behemouth cocoon.
I have no problem with increased driver testing and increased dificulty of testing. Looking back, I shouldn’t have been driving when I first got my driver’s license. I think that my grasp of stopping distances and such wasn’t adequate until I had been driving for about four years. My wife is of German heritage and has visited the country a few times. She says that the drivers over there exhibit a level of ability not seen in this country. I’ve got to believe this has everything to do with the rigorous testing that they require.