Road safety

[Martin Y]

It's 2021 mate. We don't need bobbies on the beat checking windscreens for expired tax discs. Technology solves all this.

to me, a large part of the problem isn't weight, momentum, dick-heads - it's the vanishingly small chance that dickheadery will ever be caught and punished.

A handy juxtaposition. Technology like ANPR means that someone should have pretty good stats on how many untaxed and uninsured cars are on the road. The insurers reckon there are about a million. Doing something about it seems to be the hard part. Until the autonomous missile drone executioner fleet is up to full strength this remains a problem.

[plodder]

meh, the technology already exists to disable a non-legal car, it's just not fitted as standard.

The problem is this disproportionately impacts poorer people.

[Martin Y]

meh, the technology already exists to disable a non-legal car, it's just not fitted as standard.

The problem is this disproportionately impacts poorer people.

So we should offer subsidies to make it free for poorer uninsured drivers to come and get disabling tech fitted to their untaxed and uninsured cars. Seems simple enough.

[KAJ]

Yes. The Dominic Cummings approach to rules. The roads are packed with people who think they are the best judge of safety rules and can pick & choose which ones to obey.

The current world is one where every idiot believes they are an expert and actual experts can f.ck off. It manifests itself as Brexit and lockdown breeches and tailgating.

Are they something like chastity belts?

(I'll get my coat.)

[monkey]

I don't like the idea of limiting speed based on momentum/kinetic energy because I spend quite a lot of time on buses already and I don't want to spend more time on buses.

[dyqik]

I don't like the idea of limiting speed based on momentum/kinetic energy because I spend quite a lot of time on buses already and I don't want to spend more time on buses.

K.E. per user could work.

[monkey]

I don't like the idea of limiting speed based on momentum/kinetic energy because I spend quite a lot of time on buses already and I don't want to spend more time on buses.

K.E. per user could work.

Buses aren't always full. How is it supposed to keep to a timetable if it doesn't know how fast it can go?

[dyqik]

I don't like the idea of limiting speed based on momentum/kinetic energy because I spend quite a lot of time on buses already and I don't want to spend more time on buses.

K.E. per user could work.

Buses aren't always full. How is it supposed to keep to a timetable if it doesn't know how fast it can go?

I missed out the words "in interesting ways".

[shpalman]

So that's a positive incentive for carpooling.

[dyqik]

So that's a positive incentive for carpooling.

We already have HOV lanes here that encourage carpooling with a special lane that usually moves faster than the single occupancy car traffic.

Going 41% faster (or a little less if we're working on gross vehicle mass) for two people in a car, and double for four sounds like the right kind of return.

Buses etc. could use averaged occupancy so they can have timetables.

[shpalman]

Holiday coaches would probably all crash though.

So not much change there.

[plodder]

So that's a positive incentive for carpooling.

We already have HOV lanes here that encourage carpooling with a special lane that usually moves faster than the single occupancy car traffic.

Going 41% faster (or a little less if we're working on gross vehicle mass) for two people in a car, and double for four sounds like the right kind of return.

Buses etc. could use averaged occupancy so they can have timetables.

Or, if passengers were properly incentivised, the safest means of travel (ie the fastest when passenger numbers are factored in) would also be the most crowded.

By a happy coincidence this is also the most cost effective and environmentally friendly approach.

So what is needed is a rejigging of capitalism to reflect these real world physical realities.

[lpm]

Or people should stop rushing from A to B and from B to A, and just once and for all work out where they want to be.

[Martin_B]

Or people should stop rushing from A to B and from B to A, and just once and for all work out where they want to be.

Especially if you live at point C, being a point directly in between point A and point B, and are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there, and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there.

[Boustrophedon]

To a certain extent I blame Volvo and Beeching. Beeching for taking goods transport off the railway and thus leading to more HGVs on the road. And Volvo for convincing everyone that passive safety was the best sort of safety, leading to a tank like mentality in car design.

André-Gustave Citroën delighted instead in super light agile cars, cars that could avoid accidents.

The result is that we endured a "safety arms race" where cars became heavier and heavier and so the thing they were designed to resist hitting became heavier and so on. Cars are, size for size, heavier than they were in the 70s.

Incidentally I don't get the BS about momentum, it's energy that bends metal, energy that smashes your skull against the steering wheel.

We should all be running around in (slower) light agile cars without HGVs to be frightened of and getting in our way.

[shpalman]

If you hit something unmovable in your car, like a wall or a tree, then the car stops but the whole point is that you have to stop too.

Cars have crumple zones, airbags, and pre-tensioning seatbelts (whose mountings are designed to peel away from the bit of the car they're attached to) in order to make this deceleration controlled and survivable. It's your mass which is the issue, not the mass of the car.

Otherwise what other kind of accident are you talking about. Please provide stats to show which kinds of RTA lead to significant numbers of injuries and deaths.

[monkey]

If you hit something unmovable in your car, like a wall or a tree, then the car stops but the whole point is that you have to stop too.

Cars have crumple zones, airbags, and pre-tensioning seatbelts (whose mountings are designed to peel away from the bit of the car they're attached to) in order to make this deceleration controlled and survivable. It's your mass which is the issue, not the mass of the car.

Otherwise what other kind of accident are you talking about. Please provide stats to show which kinds of RTA lead to significant numbers of injuries and deaths.

So the speed limit should be set by your body weight?

[shpalman]

Yes, children should be allowed to drive faster.

[dyqik]

Yes, children should be allowed to drive faster.

They have faster reactions, better eyesight, are more resilient to injuries, and have more life to look forward to.

So that seems legit.

[shpalman]

You'll notice that F1 drivers are all quite small. This is why.

[lpm]

You're saying small men compensate with fast cars?

[shpalman]

Well, the really tiny ones ride motorbikes.

[Martin Y]

Well, the really tiny ones ride motorbikes.

An ex boss of mine had a specially sculpted saddle (i.e. pared down to almost nothing in the middle) so he could ride his beloved Moto Guzzi without dropping it every time he had to stop.

[plodder]

bet it made his pee pee feel funny too

[Martin Y]

bet it made his pee pee feel funny too

I didn't notice.