Why do manufacturers of high end cars think I’m an idiot? Their automobiles tell me when their tires need air, when the coolant is low and when it’s time for an oil change. They [still] remind me to buckle-up, close my door and take my key. They warn me of approaching objects (front and rear). Yes, I know: this dumbing-down suits the majority of wealthy car buyers, who’d rather read a treatise on Keynesian economics than check their oil. Still, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. Sun visor stickers are my personal line in the sand.
I just spent $270 replacing my Mercedes’ sun shields with virgin visors– just to rid myself of those bothersome airbag warning labels. I used to peel them off myself, but the stickers have become tackier and tackier (in every sense); my patient peeling and wiping is no longer effective. In my Audi and BMW, I’m not as lucky: the warning labels are embossed into the visor, both OEM and aftermarket.
For all I know, it’s illegal to remove airbag warning stickers. I’m not concerned. For years, I have been removing stickers from my pillow which read, “Warning, these stickers are not to be removed under penalty of law!” I’ve never been arrested for this desecration of my own personal property. As far as I know, there is no warrant out for my arrest. The day the cops check for missing airbag stickers is the day I buy a big bore shotgun and join Oregon’s survivalists.
The airbag stickers warn you that short people and small children can be injured by airbags. No, really? More importantly, what’s it got to do with me? First, I’m not short and I am childless. Second, I don’t let kids ride in the front seat of my cars. (If I had kids, I’d consider it my responsibility to discover the safest way to carry them.) Third, short people have free will; they can weigh-up the dangers of front seat airbags and decide whether or not to drive a car, sit in the passenger seat or sacrifice their pride and jump in the back.
Why can’t I just sign a release when I purchase my vehicle stating that I understand that airbags are dangerous? After I purchase a vehicle in California, I have to sign statements saying I understand that there is no cooling off period and that the dealer can check my credit and invade my privacy and charge me $2.00 to inspect my tires. I never saw a sticker that warned me about this.
I want to know which lawsuit made these stickers a requirement in every vehicle sold in the U.S. Who determined that airbags were the foremost danger facing automobile drivers (literally)? Can a brightly-colored written warning label immutably attached to the most obvious (and therefore most annoying) location in our cars solve the problem? Are the people that need these labels even reading them? Can they even read?
Manufacturers should be concerned about more perilous threats to our safety. What about yakking on the cell or wiping snot off the kid in the [airbagless] backseat? How about drinking and driving? Fastening my seat belt? Speeding, not checking my mirrors or aggressive lane changing? Eating? Smoking (imagine how long that one would be)? Don’t these behaviors cause more accidental deaths than “killer airbags”? Perhaps there should be a warning label telling me to never attempt to drive in the city of Boston. No, instead I’m warned about a passive safety device that I’ll probably (hopefully?) never use.
Other than killing all the lawyers, there is an answer to this litigious lunacy: a test to determine whether or not you need to be protected from your own stupidity. (Once upon a time, a high school diploma or a driving test would’ve done the trick.) If you prove you possess a modicum of intelligence and simple common sense, you could carry a card that exempted you from these Nanny State warnings.
Your car’s owner’s manual would be half the size. You could just know that objects in the side mirror aren’t as close as they appear. And there'd be other benefits. When you bought a coffee from McDonalds, you could drink a cup of hot coffee that didn’t warn you not to burn yourself. You could fall asleep on the airplane in front of the flight attendants while they demonstrate to the knuckle-draggers how to buckle a seatbelt. Instead of a warning on cigarette packs, it would simply say, ‘enjoy.’
And the next time I visit a dealer, I could present my card and they would say, “Ah, Mr. Shoemaker, you want to look at these cars over here.” And there would sit my dream car: an automobile without idiot lights or warning labels.
“Warning, these stickers are not to be removed under penalty of law!â€
I think they say something about not being removed except by the consumer.
Other than killing all the lawyers, there is an answer to this litigious lunacy: a test to determine whether or not you need to be protected from your own stupidity. (Once upon a time, a high school diploma or a driving test would’ve done the trick.) If you prove you possess a modicum of intelligence and simple common sense, you could carry an card that exempted you from these Nanny State warnings.
I couldn’t agree more with the general sentiment of the article. Perhaps tougher driving tests in and out of the classroom would help. I think it would be a good thing for every driver to have some track experience, or at least some experience driving fast on a parking lot course. Also, the written tests are ridiculous. Anyone who fails them should be sent to live in the jungles of South America. ;)
I’m not familiar with the European (especially the German) driving tests and licensing process, but maybe TTAC could do a write-up on what German drivers have to go through to get licensed.
Gosh Jay, it’s too bad your Audi, your BMW, and your Mercedes all have those nasty stickers. Whatever is the world coming to! You clearly have more money than sense, and you really need to get a girlfriend.
Meh, thats life, deal with it. There are bigger issues in life and the world than stickers on a car.
It’s the stupidity of the auto manufacturers that really comes to light here. In Topgear’s track test of the Viper SRT10, Clarkson pointed out all the lame warning labels. The 2-seater Dodge has the standard airbag sticker declaring “children are safest in the backseat.” On top of this, he showed stickers warning that the humped metal bars behind the seats are not actually rollbars, and that the car door threshold gets unusually hot because the exhaust conduit runs underneath -and it actually did flame up on their track!
Point is, the manufacturers should design cars that don’t need these stupid stickers. Airbags that don’t fracture ribcages, convertibles with real rollbars, and no flaming door panels! And if someone really wants to drive an ultimate performance deathcar, let them sign a waiver at the dealer.
I am afraid to say that I want my ten minutes back. Ed please do something about QC.
My Miata also has “children are safest in the backseat” warning labels – permanently printed onto the damn visors!
I agree with Jay.
These are a peeve of mine too. It’s like they’re reminding us that the government thinks we’re ALL stupid.
Plus, they’re just ugly and tacky. And if I had just spend $100k on a car, I don’t want ugly & tacky ANYWHERE near it.
I enjoy reading commenters who think that since someone can afford a luxury car, they should just be happy and submit to all this “NOT A STEP” sort of nonsense. That somehow owning a better car obviates your right to complain. If I pay that much for a car, I have every right to voice my displeasure. A $40K+ purchase should be exactly what I want, not what some corporate lawyer thinks I need. For that matter, so should my $14K purchase.
I have heard Jay’s opinion elsewhere, and I’ve heard it funnier (David Cross?), but it bears repeating. We are not stupid. Well, not all of us.
You can pry off all the stickers you want, Jay, but there’s no force in this world that can stop stupidity.
Being a midget, I am too short to reach my sun visors. Do you mean to tell me that there are warning labels about airbags on the back side of my sun visors; warnings that hint at the danger of short people or children being injured or killed by sitting too close to airbags?! I am calling my attorney this instant! These airbag warning labels should be in the middle of the steering wheel, which is about level with my chin.
really? is it a slow news week or something? Its a sticker on the back of a sun visor. what are you doing looking at that while your drivng anyway.
Best interior warning ever ?
BMW’s I-Drive display.
It’s not a label, but the system does ask the driver to agree not to sue BMW if you crash the vehicle while attempting to operate I-Drive.
Several years ago, Mazda sent me a pair of stickers to put on my decade-old Miata’s visors.. Needless to say, they’re not where they’re intended to be.
It’s not the warning labels that bother me that much but the general direction where all of this is heading: when you are considered incapable of making good choices and when the systems that evolves to be “safe”, in fact evolves to exclude you from the decision process. In Eastern Europe where I grew up kids used to hang from the open doors of buses. Nobody ever got hurt. When I visited the Grand Canyon the driver in the park service bus insisted that everybody needs to sit down before she can drive the bus (I was standing INSIDE the bus, doors closed). Recently I was sitting in a passenger seat of an HHR and noticed that if I lift my weight the passenger airbag goes off.
There are just two concerns that I have with this: one is exemplified by school buses in the US: when they stop (and all traffic stops) the kids jump off the bus and run straight across the street without looking either to the left or right (one of the important lessons for first graders in Eastern Europe). With all the pampering they get I wonder if they’ll ever learn the survival skills that seem common sense to me: how to cross a street with traffic, etc. By making them “safe” we dumben down the lessons to be learned or they are not learned at all. The other one is that no machine should say the final words about what should be possible to do. Forbidding safety measures that cannot be switched off might lead to situations where they become dangerous and where a human would see the solution and the machine would not.
WARNING: Pressing the accelerator will cause the vehicle to move forward, possibly resulting in death or injury from collision.
My friend with a 5-Series steamed his off.
They really do wreck an otherwise nice intereior.
Worse though, and this afflicts ALL modern cars, is anything that beeps, at all, ever.
In that same BMW, you can adjust the length of time the headlights stay on after you shut the motor off but you cannot turn the stupid “bong-bong” off when the door is open or your seatbelt is off.
In the morning, especially when I’m in a new car parked in front of my house (which is up the side of a mountain), I like to get the engine going and have a look around — see what’s what. Even if it is my own car, I’ll sit in it for a few minutes and fiddle with the iPod or whatever… just relax.
But come thirty seconds and “boing boing boing boing boing!”
Infuriating.
If anyone knows which fuse to pull in a WRX, let me know.
Unless the litigous nature of the average consumer is halted, do you blame the manufacturers for trying to cover their asses?
On the other hand, it might be because they CARE.
Alternatively, if you need sensors to park or auto wipers or lights you probably require all the other beeps, blongs, stickers and “driver aids”…to protect you from your own stupidity
Captain Neek Wrote: “On the other hand, it might be because they CARE.”
AH HA HA HA HA HA…. HA HA HA…. AH HA HA HAHA… sniffle… HA HA!
HAR HAR!
HA
ha ha ha
Yeah, “might be”
It’s not the automakers fault that they get sued every time someone dies or injured in a car they produced. You should be blaming the lawyers for filing ridiculous law suits and congress for not doing something about it. I remember studying a case in business law about some moron who flipped his blazer, he was hurt badly and he sued GM. Despite the fact that that he was speeding in a rain storm and that the blazer had bald tires and faulty suspension from a previous accident, the jury actually found GM partially to blame and awarded him millions. The award was overturned on appeal but GM spent lots of money to fight this case. The labels are put there to give the manufacture some leverage in court cases. The bigger issue here is that the government is putting way too many requirements on the manufacturers and not enough on who should be allowed to drive.
It’s due to The American “Jackpot Lawsuit Mentalityâ€. The reason manufacturers put these things on is because they got sued or are afraid of getting sued. I don’t blame them I blame the courts and lawyers who condone the actions. Why was the VW 3 wheeler concept axed? Because the U.S. is too sue happy and VW wouldn’t take the risk. It’s a shame but I can’t say I blame them. When I guy can rob your house, trip over your couch, sue you and win there is seriously something wrong with the system.
I think the stupid people should just wear signs like the comedian on the Blue Collar Tour says. Then you can say “Hey you @#$%…oh sorry I didn’t see your signâ€.
Jonny,
It’s because they care about getting their butts hauled into court every 20 seconds…
As I understand it, unless the principle of “no fault liability” is abandoned by the US courts, the suing will continue unabated. There are, however, certain social ideals tied up in this, e.g. that those with the “deepest pockets” recompense those that have been injured or suffered loss.
While Nader was no “car guy”, he certainly deserves thank from every person that’s been in an accident at over 30mph. How did he do it? Yup.
Remember, we are dealing with firms here that testified before Congress that it was safer for occupants to be thrown out a vehicle in the event of an accident.
I find it ironic there’s a warning about the perils of a safety device. Maybe the sticker should really say, “WARNING: explosive charge ten inches from your face. We didn’t really want to put them all in, as they cost 1000 bucks each that eats into our profit margins, but the government forced us to. They’re twice as powerfull as necessary just to protect darwin award hopefulls who don’t buckle up (another government mandate) so if it blows your little cherub’s head off her shoulders, sue them not us.”
It’s said the Japanese were flabberghasted to learn (in the 70’s) that highly explicit contracts were necessary to do business in the US; a simple written statement of intent and a handshake usually sufficed in Japan at that time. Probably still does a lot of the time. But the Japanese have a concept of personal honor and shame, where most Americans don’t, or at least fail to push into the area of personal responsibility.
Don’t blame the lawyers or the congress; it’s the people (i.e. american citizens) who let them get away with it who are to blame. We — not the lazy, incompetent, sometimes sycophantic media — are the watchdogs of democracy.
I remember reading somewhere that the ratio of lawyers to populace in Japan is soemthing like one one-hundredth of what it is in the U. S.
Jonny, I think the days of being able to pull a seatbelt-warning fuse are long gone. I have a friend who has a Cayenne, and he actually uses it as an off-roader, on his Virginia horse farm. (He raises Clydesdales.) When he’s driving across pastures at 10 mph, he feels he doesn’t need to wear a seatbelt, but he can find no way of turnign the alarm off–no fuse, no relay, nothin’. Dealer can’t even do it. Apparently, the only thing that can be done is to remove the dash, find the actual ding-ding mechanism and put a stake through its heart.
Jay, I got the sunvisor stickers off our first Boxster with some effort and a mild solvent of some sort that was recommended, but now I can’t remember what is was, so they’re still in place on our second Boxster. And on a roadster with the top down, they’re really ugly from outside the car…
The US does try to simplify some laws: just look at the UCC.
Inasmuch as I don’t like the airbag stickers on my sun visors (coincidentally enough I was just thinking about the very issue this morning on my commute to work), I think other contrivances are much more infuriating. Such as:
1) The yellow ‘passenger airbag is off’ light which is always on save for when a passenger sits in the seat, then it turns off, as if I couldn’t figure out that the airbag might turn off all on its own when a passenger wasn’t sitting in the seat. As well, the light is yellow, yet every other control / light on my Audi is red, thus at night it completely ruins the theme.
2) The (aforementioned) noises which pop-up when you do anything: remove your seatbelt, open the door while the key is still in the ignition, etc…
3) The warning message which you must accept every time you use the ‘Multimedia’ Nav system on any German car.
Jon.
A piece of electrician’s tape is wonderful for taking care of warning lights that glare in your face.
I guess our only consolidation is that the voice warning systems that were popular with various Japanese and American car companies in the late 70s and early 80s (which actually told you “Please fasten your seatbelt” or “Your door is ajar” in the same perky voices that plague telephone voice menus) died a quick death.
Despite the fact that that he was speeding in a rain storm and that the blazer had bald tires and faulty suspension from a previous accident, the jury actually found GM partially to blame and awarded him millions.
That’s not the lawyers’ or congress’ fault. Blame the stupid jurors.
I got the sunvisor stickers off our first Boxster with some effort and a mild solvent of some sort that was recommended, but now I can’t remember what is was, so they’re still in place on our second Boxster.
Goo-off. Got (and applied) mine at Home Depot the day I picked up my A4.
What can I say that sitting@home hasn’t already said (stole my thunder they did :-) ?
I could point out that my chainsaw has less safety devices and warning labels than my car does. Heck, I think my computer keyboard has more warning labels than my chainsaw does. Therefore, I must conclude that keyboards pose a bigger danger to my health than chainsaws.
Auto makers would serve us better with more useful and relevant stickers and labels. I hereby launch a campaign to suggest good “advice” stickers with valuable information, instead of legalistic nonsense.
My submissions:
WOMEN DIG HORSEPOWER
or
THIS IS A FORD FOCUS, DON’T TRY TO PASS GOING UPHILL
or even
DON’T PUT POTATO PEELS INTO THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL
Wouldn’t that be much better?
Stephan,
Stake through the heart, got it. I’ll assume that a silver bullet would work, too.
I just remember that every time the old man purchased a new car, he was immediately on the floor pulling out any fuse that made any sort of sound. Furthermore, my father actually had shoulder belts installed in his Renault 8 and considered Ralph Nadar a personal hero (pre-campaigning). He just didn’t want to be reminded to be safe by a bong-bong.
And those stickers look horrid on all convertibles, not just Boxsters.
I’ve been wanting some sort of not-an-idiot certification since I took my car in for warranty service. I told them a week in advance I needed a fuel level sending unit. A day later I got my car back (unrepaired), and I was told “You need a fuel level sending unit. We’ll have to order it.” If I had my not-an-idiot card, i’d have saved myself one trip to the dealer. Reminds me of when Homer Simpson was certified as “Not Insane.”
Two Words:
Goo Gone.
The problem isn’t with the auto manufacturers it’s with the court system. Asking the government to fix it is the last thing we need; it’s their education system that has led to the entitlement mentality of the people who sue when they fall off the top of a ladder. The problem is rooted in the attitude of the people on the juries and in judges (who were previously lawyers) who buy into this ridiculousness.
Another quiet week in the automotive business??
I’d think that with all that’s going on, you’d have been able to write about something with more substance.
Regards…..
Yes, Goo Gone is great if you have plastic, vinyl, or leather visors. But what if you have (as I do) a cloth finish? I’ve tried everything, but it all just soaks in and creates an awful mess. The matted brown spots look only marginally better than the yellow-and-white warning labels.
Just leave ’em out.
By the way, while wiring my aftermarket car stereo, with the dash disassembled, I found the source of my car’s warning bong-bong. Bong be gone.
My BMW M6 owners manual comes with a fascinating warning..it states that the tail lights are LEDs;;(true) and the removal of the covers and staring into the tail lights for more than two hours can cause retinal damage….
( I assume this is after the brain damage needed to sit and stare at the tail lights for two hours)
On the M5 (E39) navigation system, there’s a way that you can change the “country” setting to UK. Presto, no more lawyer intro screen on startup warning you not to drive while using the nav, etc.
Only catch is that from then on, the on-board computer uses the Imperial gallon to calculate fuel mileage. 1UK Gal. = 1.2US Gal.
I’ve gone so far as to remove those visor stickers from cars that do not belong to me. I feel like I’m vindicating the designer of the corresponding interior. I doubt he/she had airbag warning stickers in mind when penning their work.
People must be able to sue for damages — it is the basis of a lawful society.
Torts are what took us from “an eye for an eye” mentality to “you took an eye, now you are obligated to replace that eye.”
Automakers are (and definately have been) notoroious for not caring about our welfare at all. Again, all they need do is prevent shear in accidents (deceleration is inevitable) and highway fatalities drop to basically zero (freak accidnets excepted). As it stands now, over 40,000 Americans die a year in cars.
I still have a copy of Lido’s auto-biography where he goes on and on about personally lobbying Nixon with hank Ford II to prevent airbag laws and how it was a vicotry for consumers.
Those paragraphs were expunged in previous editions. And you’ll remember him on TV bragging about Chryslers are the first line of cars and trucks to offer airbags circa 1997.
However, commom sense must play into it. Stickers on visors are just ugly bandaids that make no one happy. Even the lawyers who think that nonsense up.
Jonny:
Subaru seatbelt chimes can be easily defeated:
http://www.scoobymods.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5836
Only problem is that when you disconnect the battery you have to “fix” it again.
BTW: It’s dissabled in both my scoobies!
Sorry, this article goes under the lame-o category (right along with that one a few weeks ago in a horrible Brit auto blog where the author described how to shift smoothly (part of his advice: shift slowly)).
The labels issue has been ranted on ad-nauseum by every automotive journalist alive, but unfortunately, there are no large-scale public revolts, so it ain’t goin’ away.
Yep, I’ve got yellow decals sewn into my sunvisors, an incessent seat belt chime that goes off only after about 90 seconds of noise, and the i-drive legal disclaimer. Life sucks and then you die.
By the way: please don’t kill ALL the lawyers – I happen to be one of them, but you should know that alot of us practice ‘good’ law — in other words, I don’t sue people, I don’t sue manufacturers for what my torts professor called “DUD’s” (defective, unreasonably dangerous goods), and I don’t practice Chinese water torture on anybody.
Instead, maybe you should concentrate your efforts on coming up with better topics to fill the space of Robert’s outstanding newsmagazine.
TW:
IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!
I drove around for ten minutes with my bel off just to celebrate.
Thank you, a million thank yous!!
Yeah, I shouted for joy in my work parking lot when I discovered that.
My coworkers don’t look at me the same anymore. :)
What’s wrong with killing off all the lawyers?
The manufacturers don’t think your an idiot. Your Government does as they are responsible for 90% of your peeve. Why must the manufacturers always be the scapegoat for Ralph Naders agenda. You as a journalist should have been wise enough to have known that and saved the bandwidth.
Ralph was responsible for interfering with the natural selection process here in the United States so our government stepped in in its infinate wisdom (scary thought) to protect the morons.
durailer: Manufacturers should make airbags (to stop an adult’s head from slamming forward at full impact speed) that can’t break ribs in children?
Well, unicorns should make me lunch out of pixie dust, but that’s probably not possible either.
Jonny: And what about the stats arguing that airbags may, on balance, have no significant safety effect (or a negative one), and raise the price of cars by thousands of dollars (and the cost of any collision, as well)?
I think making them non-mandatory would be a huge win for consumers, who could then make their own decisions about what risks they wish to take in what forms and at what costs.
(And how shall automakers “prevent shear” by fiat? What will that cost, to get the death count to zero, assuming everyone is driving a brand-new car in good condition? You can even get killed driving a new Volvo, and Volvo’s had a corporate commitment to safety for decades.
Maybe it’s because there’s no way to make driving around a few tons of metal at high speeds entirely safe, and the cost and difficulties involved make people unwilling to pay the prices to reduce that 40,000 to even 5,000?
[Not to mention, how many of that 40,000 were either suicide attempts or stupid people refusing to use seatbelts? I’ve heard many times that it’s enlightening to ask first-responders how often a single-vehicle fatality crash is a suicide attempt. Evidently the rate is surprising if you’ve never thought about it, though I don’t know where to get hard data on it.])
It’s convenient to blame carmakers for automotive fatalities, but remember that drivers complain about airbags and crumple zones and increased prices, as well. Just like it’s easy to complain about low mileage big cars, but people who aren’t the complainers keep buying them. People’s desires are not identical.
A free society, I think, ought best let them make their own decisions of power vs. economy and cost/performance/weight vs. personal safety, as long as they buy their own fuel and their cars aren’t especially dangerous to third parties. Voluntary assumption of costs and risk is basic to human autonomy. (Yeah, I know, too much economics and libertarian/liberal theory.)
(Also, to turn off a door buzzer, you can simply tape the door-closure-detection switch shut.
Or, if you’re more inclined, get a switch from the dealer or wrecker, modify it to be always-closed, and replace it.
Similarly with the seatbelt buzzers, though especially with them you should, possibly under threat of tort later, replace them to full operating capability if you ever sell the car.)
Sigivald:
>>Jonny: And what about the stats arguing that airbags may, on balance, have no significant safety effect (or a negative one), and raise the price of cars by thousands of dollars (and the cost of any collision, as well)?
>>I think making them non-mandatory would be a huge win for consumers, who could then make their own decisions about what risks they wish to take in what forms and at what costs.
I differ with you in that I think it’s good to have crash protection standards. However the gov should have established them and let the manufacturers decide how to achieve them, rather than mandating airbags.
What Holzman said — everytime I see a NASCAR accident at 180mph and the guy walks away… I get angry.
They live because shear has been prevented.
Passenger cars could do the same.
Suicides?
Sigivald, I _am_ a first responder and have been for some years now. Many, many MVAs, including those on the stretch of the New York State Thruway that our volunteer corps is assigned to. I have never once heard the suggestion that a single-vehicle crash–or any crash–was possibly the result of a suicide attempt. Never.
Frank:
I am not putting electricians tape inside my Audi…it really doesn’t match the décor, maybe if I had a old Chevy pickup I might be more inclined.
Jon.
Jonny, not to belabor the point, but I question your terminology of ‘shear’. Shear is a component of the application of a non-normal force. It acts tangential to an object.
A baseball bat striking an arm breaks the bone as a result of a normal force acting on the bone. The normal force applied is greater than the strength of the bone. A tangential, or shear, force applied to this same bone would not cause it to break.
What do you mean that ‘shear’ causes injuries? Soft tissue damage? Blunt force trauma (that would be a normal force)?
KTM,
I’m going to have to do a full blown rant on this, but… there are two and only two forces involved in an accident.
Deceleration
and
Shear
As far as we can tell deceleration (even extreme deceleration) does not kill people — only shear does.
Eliminate the shear, eliminate the death.
You can iron those pesky stickers off.
Um… but take the visor to the iron, ‘kay??
If that’s the case, I’d try a hair dryer on high or a heat gun on low first. More controllable.
I’m gonna try it on the Boxster, and if I melt the visor, Lesley, your ass is grass and I’m the lawnmower.
Stephan,
Be careful… it depends on the texture of the visor… my friend tried the iron trick on his Bimmer, and the sticker half-disintegrated.
He eventually got his girlfriend to sew him new visor covers — which look fantastic.
She’s a pro though, so…
Jonny, I’m going to play the physistist card (and maybe the smart ass card too) here
There are 4 and only 4 forces in the entire universe
-Gravitation
-Electromagnetic
-Weak Nuclear
-Strong Nuclear
Any other force you are talking about is the application of one of those forces with respect to other bodies. So when you say there are two and only two forces in a car accident and those are Deceleration and Shear, you need to define the forces (and more specifically you need to actually be talking about forces).
Deceleration is not a force, it’s a (negative) acceleration. Remember Newton: F=ma? So you can say there’s a force proportional to your deceleration, and that proportionality constant is m.
Shear (as described by ktm) is just a direction a force is applied and is generally a force tangental to something, but you need to decribe what it’s tangental to. Saying shear alone, doesn’t mean anything.
I’d love to hear your rant on car accidents, but unless you define what your terminology is, I (and no one else) wil understand you. I can make a broad and technically correct statment that the only two forces in a car accident are gravity and electromagnetic (the nuclear forces don’t come into effect in macroscopic things). But my statement, while true, doesn’t really mean anything and it doesn’t make anyone safer in a car accident.
“Yesterday I couldn’t even spell physistist, but today I are one.”
“These are a peeve of mine too. It’s like they’re reminding us that the government thinks we’re ALL stupid.”
But we are all stupid. We all voted the idiots in. We have the government that represents us. We are them. They are us.
In other news, the airbag warning is the most ironic thing.
“Your car contains a device, imposed by law, designed to save you in case of an accident. However, this device can kill you. We wanted to make sure you know it can kill you, even though it is supposed to save you life and you don’t have a choice to opt out because it’s mandatory.”
“Yesterday I couldn’t even spell physistist, but today I are one.â€
Hilarious…
I believe we are looking for “physicist”.
How did this line of discussion evolve from one of pesky irritation regarding pedantic car stickers, to one of car safety and mechanism of injury?
While I agree that kids should not be allowed to make decisions about safety belts, or helmets, I’m not sure if I agree that I should be allowed to decide if my seat has an airbag, or a seatbelt.
Also, I can’t believe that if you’re in an accident, and you get hurt, and you deactivated your airbag and removed your seatbelt, that you will be covered by your insurance.
The idea, however, that these decisions only affect only you is, however, extremely myopic. Forget about family, friends, and abandonned committments – you get into a major accident and you’re either going to become an organ donor (which would be a bonus to at least a half dozen sick people) or you will go to a major public trauma center where you will spend 2-5 thousand dollars per day of your fellow taxpayer’s money. For you, this is bad. For me as the taxpayer, I don’t really care if a few cents helped extend your life. For society, this stuff adds up, and taking care of these injuries is extremely costly. Put that in your libertarian pipe and smoke it.
Johnny – to paraphrase the EAST trauma report of 2002, “injuries occur when the occupant contacts the vehicle interior.” Simple. Regarding decelerative injuries, i.e. when you contact the interior – I believe that physics and most current automotive safety devices are actually geared to address exactly the rate of deceleration. Crumple zones increase the stopping distance, slowing deceleration for the passenger. Airbags inflate, and then slow the stopping distance of the passenger. New seatbelts are also designed to give a little under extreme stress, to slow the rate of deceleration.
When your head impacts the window(front or side) and you have sudden deceleration, you get what is commonly referred to as either diffuse axonal injury or “shear” injury. In layman’s terms, you hit your head so hard that you scramble all those delicate neurons that make you “you”. Truly sad and unfortunately a frequent description for automotive trauma patients.
Before you go on your own personal rant about automotive safety and the benefits or drawbacks of safety devices, why not call in an expert for a guest editorial – perhaps a trauma surgeon who sees, um, maybe 5-20 car crash patients per day? Ask any of them and I’m sure they love to rant. I’m fairly confident they’ll swear by airbags, both front and side, and by every other device that can be put into a car to help reduce the carnage they care for on a daily basis.
wstansfi
Guys, guys… you cover it, with a towel first!!
(hmm, is there a sticker for this??)
perhaps a trauma surgeon who sees, um, maybe 5-20 car crash patients per day? Ask any of them and I’m sure they love to rant. I’m fairly confident they’ll swear by airbags, both front and side, and by every other device that can be put into a car to help reduce the carnage they care for on a daily basis.
wstansfi,
Your comments above would have us driving with helmets and five point safety belts. Or how about electronic speed and acceleration limiters for today’s 200+ horsepower engines? How about BANNING motorcycles as an inherently dangerous ‘device’.
Actually, I can see those things being proposed, but the effect on auto accidents and death will be minimal. More ‘devices’ may be reasonable, but very costly for some drivers to maintain and repair.
Furthermore, focusing on ‘devices’ ignores all discussion of the current horrific status of traffic law enforcement or driver ability/responsibility. Improvements in those areas may actually save more lives. But such actions can’t be done – the Elite’s 11th Commandment – “Thou shalt never judge another’s actions – no matter how idiotic” – intervenes.
Trauma surgeon may thank the Government Gods that SUV operator’s dozens of airbags ‘saved’ his/her kids and passengers from serious injury when their vehicle left the road for a ditch. The fact that SUV operator took the dry pavement offramp at twice the recommended speed with underinflated tires while talking on a cell phone and yelling at the kids is currently NEVER MENTIONED IN OUR SOCIETY.
Until actions like that are addressed, the 40K deaths per year and numerous other accidents and maimings won’t change much. But hell – by 2015 NHSTA Gods with ensure that my new Subaru WRX will have seats with ‘pakage protector’ airbags (to inflate between your legs).
-M in Buffalo
Masarati warning stickers peel off easily and don’t leave a mark. Kind of like they were designed to be removed ASAP.
That’s the right approach – include the stickers, but make it easy to get rid of them.
The fact that SUV operator took the dry pavement offramp at twice the recommended speed with underinflated tires while talking on a cell phone and yelling at the kids is currently NEVER MENTIONED IN OUR SOCIETY.
I see underinflated tires every day; and not just a few, but probably on a least 25-30 percent of the vehicles I see. You have several problems caused by low tire pressure. I know the current emphasis is the effect on fuel mileage. However, I think the public would be well-served by emphasizing the safety aspect of low tire pressure. In college, one of my mechanical engineering classes was “Design of Experiments”. For our major experiment, we decided to look at the effect of tire pressure on stopping distance. We used my 2001 325i and tested with three different drivers at 30, 50, and 70 mph with the tires at the recommended pressure and 10 psi above and below.
Basically, the effect was small at 30 and 50 mph, but at 70 mph, the stopping distance INCREASED by 13 feet at 10 psi BELOW recommended pressure. The distance decreased by about 5 feet at 10 psi above recommended pressure.
Bottom line, low pressure increases stopping distance. I would like to see someone do a more exhaustive test that we were able to do and publish those results to the general public.
Of course, stopping distance isn’t the only thing that lower tire pressure can alter, but it is an important factor.
**** What Holzman said — everytime I see a NASCAR accident at 180mph and the guy walks away… I get angry.
They live because shear has been prevented.
Passenger cars could do the same. ****
Do you think that maybe something about costs, restraints, and helmets have something to do with that Jonny? When your very driving earns millions of dollars, that gives you some latitude with the old cost-benefit analysis.
Should we we be forced to buy million-dollar kevlar cars? Should we have to wear racing helmets? If it was affordable then why does not a single car-maker on the face of the earth mkae your shear-proof vehicles?
If it’s affordable why don’t you write an article.
The stickers and all bells and whistles should be the same as in the afrorementioned Maserati: removable, switchable. Automakers should be FORCED to make a panel very similar to the fuse panel with switches where one can switch on and off every annoying thing that they put in the car. With a HUGE non-removable warning stiker (yeah it’s getting sick) on the INSIDE of the panel door that if the basic settings are tampered with, the owner loses ALL rights to sue the manufacturer for the things that would have been preventabel by the bells and whistles. So everybody would be happy. (elegant way to electrician’s tape) Cost ? Couple hudred dollars max. Are we ready to start annoying manufacturers to start actually DOING that ???? If everybody who reads this writes to the manufacturers a letter to do that maybe things will change !!!
You have to ask yourself what prompted many of these ‘warning’ devices to be installed in modern vehicles. Case in point: The door chime that sounds if your key is in the ignition in the accessory position and your door is open. The engine is not running for crying out loud! What could you possibly do to yourself or those around you?!
Is it to remind you to take your key out of the ignition when getting out of the car? I think you’ll remember about the key when you try to lock your car with the key FOB or try to insert the key in the door.
Audi has the perfect solution to this problem: allow the radio to turn on without a key in the ignition and have it automatically shut-off after 20 minutes.
Still, of all of the warning annoyances, this one takes the cake.
Some of you need to go read up on FMVSS then you would understand its your federal government not the Manufacturers creating your peeve for their afternoon brunch delight.
You get the Federal GVT to pass a law protecting the auto manufacturers and they would jump on it like a squirrel in a peanut factory. All of your complaints are FMVSS mandates by your federal government. The average car is 1000 pounds heavier, 1500 to 3000 dollars more expensive, and 20% less fuel effecient as a direct result of FMVSS requirements (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) along with Mandated Emission requirements.
I call it the protecting the idiots book or if you like interdiction of the natural selection process.
You could just know that objects in the side mirror aren’t as close as they appear.
Don’t the side mirrors actually say “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear”?
Or is this a joke that I’m not getting?
What annoys me about new vehicles is that some of them beep incessantly if the driver doesn’t buckle his or her seatbelt. Maybe they’re afraid of being sued, like that one time a lady thought that “firewall” meant that the sheet of metal protected the rest of the car from an engine fire. Now it’s called bulkhead.
Jonny Lieberman:
September 6th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
People must be able to sue for damages — it is the basis of a lawful society.
Torts are what took us from “an eye for an eye†mentality to “you took an eye, now you are obligated to replace that eye.â€
Automakers are (and definately have been) notoroious for not caring about our welfare at all. Again, all they need do is prevent shear in accidents (deceleration is inevitable) and highway fatalities drop to basically zero (freak accidnets excepted). As it stands now, over 40,000 Americans die a year in cars.
I still have a copy of Lido’s auto-biography where he goes on and on about personally lobbying Nixon with hank Ford II to prevent airbag laws and how it was a vicotry for consumers.
Those paragraphs were expunged in previous editions. And you’ll remember him on TV bragging about Chryslers are the first line of cars and trucks to offer airbags circa 1997.
However, commom sense must play into it. Stickers on visors are just ugly bandaids that make no one happy. Even the lawyers who think that nonsense up.
This comment makes the editorial even worse. I thought of TTAC as a place for reasonable editorials!?
Automakers make cars for making profit – as everyone of us is doing his job for. An automobile is by itself a dangerous thing – being able to hurt other people, or to hurt yourself by e.g. not wearing a belt. So what? A society must decide for itself what kind of protection it wants for its people. Belts must be prescribed, as well as other safety features.
And now come the people. Using their cars still in a completely nonsense way, they try to get money from the so bad manufacturers. Who is in the end paying the bill? Everybody of us, through higher car prices.
I am a lawyer, and had to consider whether products could be sold in the US. You know what? You come up with a big warning for anything which might be used by a complete fool, because the people here just think its big business which is so bad for them. So how do you wonder that you have to cope with warnings which spell STUPIDITY on their face?
Post script: I just got my wife a Mercedes CLK 350. I was able to remove the stickers from all but one visor, so I followed the advice given to use goof off on the remaining recalcitrant offender. I was successful in removing the black dye from the visor, but the glue stubbornly remained. My solution was to install my own sticker over the discoloration which celebrated my independence.
What’s the deal with Solnews.com?
Are they just stealing Jay’s writing, or do they have a deal with TTAC to use its content?
http://car.solnew.com/2006/09/06/jay-shoemaker%E2%80%99s-pet-peeve-revealed/
Boy Jay, you sure hit a nerve.
It is probably because deep down your article highlights in its pathethic glory the fundemental paradox of American Life: On one hand the desire to eliminate risk and be protected from every ill, on the other the desire for personal freedom, both meeting a very sick judicial framework, all that in direct contradiction with traditional american values of individual responsability and self-reliance.
Unfortunately the judicial system and courts have decided to coddle the masses: “Us Downtrodden”; by giving everyone a shot at the judicial lottery – disguised as an Operetta where the protaganists: insurance companies and attorneys, quickly become the “heroes”, and true beneficiaries, to the detriment of said downtrodden.
When something goes wrong it is seen by the downtrodden as an opportunity to get rich; much surer than any Powerball. Nothing short of a cultural revolution which ends up in the supreme court and which pulls things back towards a more “individual responsabilty” direction will remove our stickers.
Stickers, and more seditiously, the “dangerous instrumentality law” are a case in point. As an owner of a vehicle you are the one at fault, versus the user of said vehicle. Elsewhere in the world the user of something is resposnable for knowing how to use it, and if he blows it, he pays directly, and not in money, by the sanctions of society, usually jail if the misdeed is big enough. That is where the proverbial buck stops in every respect: a) no money exchanges hands b) the one who did the deed pays the bill with his life freedom. Because when all is said and done, what he has removed from others is their life freedom. We have traded an eye for an eye for an eye for a buck. I guess everything is for sale.
Taken to it’s logical conclusion of passing the buck, the dangerous instrumentality law should mean in theory that you can sue the mine and miner who mined the ore to make the metal which did not protect you, and travel back in history to seizing the assets of the guy and his heirs who invented the wheel. If we cannot reform the system, then when in Rome… I think a good use of our efforts might be to sue the sticker manufacturers for distraction. Very Monk, but it will probably stick. Surely a class action lawsuit as ridiculous as that could make it to the supreme court because it sure does bring front and center a cultural paradox worthy of our attention. A bit risky though because instead of getting it, it could lead to the courts removing stickers but hard wiring rev limitors in our brains.
Elsewhere in the world, surprisingly enough, you are individually responsable for your failures, and are fined and/or go to jail for a very long time, versus becoming a cash cow. Then the society attends to the best of its abilities to other non-essential items like universal education and universal healthcare.
Unfortunately if stickers exist we need only look at ourselves in the rear-view mirror to see why, we put them there. If we want them out we can only cover them with our own stickers, personal rebellion at its finest, or create a tidal wave back towards self-reliance and individual responsability. Careful though because the way things stand today, if you covered your stickers, and someone uses your car, you have undertaken on your measly shoulders the liability they so eloquently symbolize. Yep, it’s pretty sick, the question is what can be done to make it better.
Those small things like the stickers are nothing less that the tip of a very big iceberg. It seems if all the car folks and attorneys of like mind got together and found the right class action suit by whose very nature those small things are properly challenged it could be fun. Until then, Woe is us downtrodden.