Pedestrian bumper laws affecting new car design - your opinion on the matter?

[Spectre]

An inconsequential amount compared to the cost of the vehicle.

I understand what you're AGAINST, Spectre (any sort of safety regulation whatsoever for automobiles), but what are you FOR? Cars that will automatically kill you in any crash (read: ten-year-old Chinese cars), and Darwin's natural selection (with a nasty side of Russian roulette) acted out each and every day on each and every street?

No, I'm against stupid, idiotic and costly mandated equipment regulations. That's why we're still stuck with antiquated garbage like, oh, the platinum-triad catalytic converter and three point seatbelt harnesses. Both of these are mandated by law, both have been surpassed by later developments, and we still can't improve on them in production cars because SOME FRIGGING IDIOTS FORTY YEARS AGO SAID WE HAD TO HAVE THEM!!!!!! I would love to be able to purchase five point belts in a car. Some makers would be happy to put them in. Can't get them in a street car because the law says it's gotta be a three point.

Are you now going to argue that a three point is somehow better? And that even if I can design an engine that burns so clean that the tailpipe emissions are within legal requirements without a cat, I should be forced to have my design lug around 10-20lbs of catalytic converter? Because that's just stupid - and yet it is what the law says. Which is why very little money is ever spent to improve on these items (and others) mandated by the government.

What I'm for is good, common sense and effective safety regulations that provide maximum return for minimum regulation, cost and interference. Laws like this should set performance specs, not equipment mandates. Equipment mandates are stupid.

Clear enough?

 

[2Billion]

If solution A is twice as effective as solution B, what is the most effective solution?

Spoiler

Solution A+B. Smarter people and safer cars. Shit will always happen, no matter how well everyone behaves.

Of course, there is no proof of the efficacy of solution B in real world situations, using things like statistics. That is the point.

Yeah, but... you see...

The last attempt of trying to make humans behave differently by law, was called "real existing communism" and it failed miserably. You can re-design a car but you cannot re-design human behaviour.

Not yet at least.

Stupid is as stupid does. If a moron decides he needn't wait for the green light at the pedestrian crossing but cross the street right in front of you without looking, the only thing between life and death could be the hood of your car.

You have to take human behaviour into the equation, which means: Expect the worst. Or in other words: Shit happens anyway, so at least be prepared.

You didn't read the link. While accidents will still happen, the link had statistics that there was as high as a 30% reduction in traffic fatalities with increased enforcement. People behave more carefully when they think something bad could happen to them - that's why increased safety regulations do not necessarily result in decreased injuries or fatalities. This isn't "real existing communism" or re-designing human behavior. This is using human behavior for your benefit - increased caution if there is a sense of danger leads to more careful behavior. It's really simple and has been proven effective, a whole hell of a lot more effective than regulating the shit out of something - in fact, perception of safety often has the opposite effect, as people behave more dangerously when they think injury is unlikely.

 

[Spectre]

You didn't read the link. While accidents will still happen, the link had statistics that there was as high as a 30% reduction in traffic fatalities with increased enforcement. People behave more carefully when they think something bad could happen to them - that's why increased safety regulations do not necessarily result in decreased injuries or fatalities. This isn't "real existing communism" or re-designing human behavior. This is using human behavior for your benefit - increased caution if there is a sense of danger leads to more careful behavior. It's really simple and has been proven effective, a whole hell of a lot more effective than regulating the shit out of something - in fact, perception of safety often has the opposite effect, as people behave more dangerously when they think injury is unlikely.

This: As proof, note the well known tendency of US Volvo drivers to drive in an unsafe manner, because they think they are invulnerable due to Volvo engineering. This is so well known that motorcyclists here call them ovloVs- because 'ovloV' is the last thing the rider sees in his rear view mirror before the obliviot piloting the thing runs them over.

 

[katwalk]

This: As proof, note the well known tendency of US Volvo drivers to drive in an unsafe manner, because they think they are invulnerable due to Volvo engineering. This is so well known that motorcyclists here call them ovloVs- because 'ovloV' is the last thing the rider sees in his rear view mirror before the obliviot piloting the thing runs them over.

Seriously, I will drive UNDER the speed limit up a street on my block where I know the parents have trained their young children to play in the street because there could be suddenly children in front of my car at any moment.
I also leave 2x the stoping distance for a motorcycle that I would for a car, because if I hit them I will do a hell of a lot more damage and don't want a damn vehicular homicide charge.

 

[Mitlov]

No, I'm against stupid, idiotic and costly mandated equipment regulations.
...
What I'm for is good, common sense and effective safety regulations that provide maximum return for minimum regulation, cost and interference. Laws like this should set performance specs, not equipment mandates. Equipment mandates are stupid.

Clear enough?

No, not clear at all, because pedestrian safety regs are spec-based, and you oppose them. What specs would you require?

Everybody supports common sense rules. But it's a lot harder to actually make those rules.

 

[Spectre]

Not really all that hard, at least not if you're thinking about it when you write the regulations rather than going with "what feeeeeeeeeeeels right."

Let's take another case, headlights. Used to be an equipment standard - and we got stuck with sealed beams for forty years. Brilliant - not. DOT *finally* gave up and made it a performance standard after so many makers started piling on them... in the 90s. Now all you have to do is 1) be weather tight, 2) generate a specific minimum beam pattern, 3) pass some other specifications, and you can make your lighting units out of sapphire lenses in a M?bius strip pattern if the fancy strikes you.

Why not write the specification much like we did the 5mph bumper one? That one was actually well conceived - 'we don't care what you do, your bumpers simply must pass this spec without damage.' That doesn't preclude someone from developing one that can easily exceed that spec; the '5mph' bumpers on my Series III, for example, are a very unusual design of a giant aluminum box girder, covered in rubber, mounted on large hydraulic shock absorbers. 5mph? Hell, it takes 20mph impacts to make the beam even move. You can push garbage dumpsters around with the things and they won't notice. If they'd made it an equipment spec, we'd be stuck with bumpers that were *only* good for 5mph, I guarantee it.

So, how would I write the law? Simple. Specify the type of test dummy, specify the tests to be performed and the minimum allowable performance i.e., injury analogs to the 'pedestrian' dummy. If someone comes up with an airbag system that meets the standard while keeping the hoodline low, great! Someone comes up with a way to use mimetic alloys and electrical charges to make normally 'hard' metal soft, great (and not nearly so far fetched as you might think)! Someone invents a forcefield 30 years from now, great! If it meets the performance standard, what difference does it make how they get there? Not real hard, is it?

Instead we have this stupid "your hoodline must be X, you must have space Y" regulation before us. Stupid, stupid, stupid. That pretty much ends the supermajority of development of something better right there.

 

[katwalk]

I know. Lets do our own tests. It will be fun. We can steal mannequins from stores and put those sensor things they have on mythbusters on them then run them down with out cars!

 

[Mitlov]

So, how would I write the law? Simple. Specify the type of test dummy, specify the tests to be performed and the minimum allowable performance i.e., injury analogs to the 'pedestrian' dummy. If someone comes up with an airbag system that meets the standard while keeping the hoodline low, great! Someone comes up with a way to use mimetic alloys and electrical charges to make normally 'hard' metal soft, great (and not nearly so far fetched as you might think)! Someone invents a forcefield 30 years from now, great! If it meets the performance standard, what difference does it make how they get there? Not real hard, is it?

Instead we have this stupid "your hoodline must be X, you must have space Y" regulation before us. Stupid, stupid, stupid. That pretty much ends the supermajority of development of something better right there.

This is just like the backover accident thread. The actual proposed rule was a performance rule (you must be able to see an object X tall that's Y distance behind your vehicle), but you incorrectly characterized it as an equipment rule (requiring rearview cameras) and then complained about equipment rules.

Likewise, the common-sense rule you propose as an alternative to the European plan is actually at the core of the European rules:

By 2015, the EU demands that automakers? products make collisions survivable when they occur between a pedestrian and a car moving at 40kph (24.9 mph).

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2007/12/the-truth-about-europes-pedestrian-safety-legislation/

And the innovation you claim the alleged equipment-oriented EU plan would crush is actually being fostered by the performance-oriented EU requirements:

European automakers are already taking the next step: hoods with active safety devices that ?pop up? the hood to reduce the severity of an impact with a pedestrian's head. Euro-NCAP crash tests have awarded the new Citroen C6 and Jaguar XK four out of five stars for pedestrian protection. Both models were the first to be equipped with ?active hoods.? Sweden's Autoliv AB is developing hood airbags to make even inherently dangerous SUVs more pedestrian-friendly.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2007/12/the-truth-about-europes-pedestrian-safety-legislation/

The argument that the EU is requiring that hoods be X, with space Y underneath it, simply is not true. It's a straw man. Given the actual nature of the EU plan, do you still oppose it?

 

[Spectre]

This is just like the backover accident thread. The actual proposed rule was a performance rule (you must be able to see an object X tall that's Y distance behind your vehicle), but you incorrectly characterized it as an equipment rule (requiring rearview cameras) and then complained about equipment rules.

Er, no. The LAW directing SecTrans to promulgate a rule was a performance standard. The problem is that the rule proposed by the DOT is an equipment standard (which you conveniently overlooked) requiring cameras as it does not allow for sonar/radar/other sensors. And therefore it needs to go to hell.

Likewise, the common-sense rule you propose as an alternative to the European plan is actually at the core of the European rules:



http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2007/12/the-truth-about-europes-pedestrian-safety-legislation/

And the innovation you claim the alleged equipment-oriented EU plan would crush is actually being fostered by the performance-oriented EU requirements:



http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2007/12/the-truth-about-europes-pedestrian-safety-legislation/

The argument that the EU is requiring that hoods be X, with space Y underneath it, simply is not true. It's a straw man. Given the actual nature of the EU plan, do you still oppose it?

Have you even read the actual regulation? It's pretty funny. They start out with a performance spec, true... and then they 1) make 'deer strainers' legal, and 2) if you choose to make one, mandate the construction used in deer strainers. So much for pedestrian safety. I'm still plowing through it again (it's 2007/46/EC, in part) but I do recall there being an actual equipment mandate in there.

Also, the gyrations they use to try to exempt Ferrari and Lambo, etc., are hilarious. And yes, they are actually mandating brake assist systems, among other things.

In addition, I oppose this on cost and ineffectiveness grounds. It's going to cost millions if not billions, and it's just not going to do much.

Want to save at LEAST as many Germans as get mowed down by cars on the street each year? Ban schnitzel and sausages and other rich foods from Europe. It would be cheaper, faster and more effective.

This is just spending millions on not only compliance with the regulations but staffing a bureaucracy to check on a 'safety feature' that will have little to no effect. Spend the same money on an ad campaign promoting exercise plus ban fatty foods and you will save more Germans than you will with this reg. At least 654 will be saved from deaths due to obesity! Which is more than will be saved with higher hood lines.

Or just completely ban smoking - save 2211 Germans a year! Cost to ban smoking: Zero. Any loss in tax revenue will more than be offset by healthcare savings to the government and others. If you are going to play the "if it only saves one life" game, you have to start where the cost of execution is lowest and benefit is highest.

Pedestrian safety isn't even in the top ten if you're going that way.

 

[katwalk]

are those numbers for the whole country and not like 500,000 instead of 500?

 

[Spectre]

The ones in the chart are per 100,000 population. So, for Germany, in 2004, out of every 100,000 people, 142 men died of coronary heart disease, which is usually caused by eating too much fatty foods, etc., etc. As Germany has a population of 82.5 million, that means that 117,150 German men died of heart disease in 2004. German women did a bit better, perhaps because fewer of them hang out in biergartens to ogle the pretty waitresses whilst consuming sausages; only 37125 German women died of coronary heart disease.

 

[Strelok16]

Hitting a tree with your car is also dangerous. The best way to avoid injury is to avoid hitting the tree. Same reasoning, would you agree to not make cars safer against hitting a tree?

I'd say that it would be much more effective to make drivers less likely to hit trees through whatever training and education that takes. Because no matter how safe cars get, if someone decides to go screaming down a country road doing twice the speed limit and plows into a tree, he's highly likely to be killed or seriously injured whether or not his car has airbags and crush zones. When my Mustang was running, I drove it knowing full well that it didn't have all the safety equipment and features of a modern car, and I survived the experience to go on the internet and do battle over various srs bizness like I am now because I didn't drive stupid, even when I was younger, which is the time everyone says we all drive stupid.

In the end, trying to make cars safer to get hit by is like trying to make dynamite safer to get exploded by. In this situation, I like the Road Runner approach, that is, if you see Wile E. Coyote with a match, get the hell away. Educate pedestrians about safer practises, and get bad drivers off the road and in either driver training or jail. All that is much better than making some small tweaks to car design. leave cars alone, dammit!

Personal responsibility man, it's good for you!

 

[narf]

And got damn luck the trailer wasn't going 1mph faster than it really was. Higher speed in that case could have allowed him more room to operate.

Speeding up would give him less time to swerve. Speeding up would increase the damage done by an eventual collision.

A higher hood requires more materials and therefore is automatically more costly.

Material costs are the smallest portion in overall production costs.

The back of the car plays a major part in that.

In other words, a safer front end does not hurt aerodynamics? Thanks, that is exactly my point.

If you're worried about torso damage shouldn't we all be driving SHORTER cars then? Then you get smacked in the legs and just fall on top.

Free Lambos for everyone! <insert video of Jeremy hopping to avoid an oncoming Lambo here>

No, I'm against stupid, idiotic and costly mandated equipment regulations. That's why we're still stuck with antiquated garbage like, oh, the platinum-triad catalytic converter and three point seatbelt harnesses. Both of these are mandated by law, both have been surpassed by later developments, and we still can't improve on them in production cars because SOME FRIGGING IDIOTS FORTY YEARS AGO SAID WE HAD TO HAVE THEM!!!!!! I would love to be able to purchase five point belts in a car. Some makers would be happy to put them in. Can't get them in a street car because the law says it's gotta be a three point.

This would like a word:

https://pic.armedcats.net/n/na/narf/2010/12/20/imagegallery01540x303_Gallery.jpg

Want to save at LEAST as many Germans as get mowed down by cars on the street each year? Ban schnitzel and sausages and other rich foods from Europe. It would be cheaper, faster and more effective.

I'll gladly say it again for you: Just because Solution A is more effective than Solution B it does not make Solution B obsolete. You can save more lives by banning cars.

I'd say that it would be much more effective to make drivers less likely to hit trees through whatever training and education that takes. Because no matter how safe cars get, if someone decides to go screaming down a country road doing twice the speed limit and plows into a tree, he's highly likely to be killed or seriously injured whether or not his car has airbags and crush zones.

Educate pedestrians about safer practises, and get bad drivers off the road and in either driver training or jail. All that is much better than making some small tweaks to car design. leave cars alone, dammit!

Personal responsibility man, it's good for you!

*sigh* Infinite amounts of personal responsibility can not save you from a drunk driver before he got stuck in jail. Wouldn't you love it if he had a safer bumper when he hit you?
Similarly, infinite amounts of driver training will not make it impossible that someone hits a tree. Human error, black ice, technical faults - whatever. Just because driver training will provide a better result, should be abandon safer cars? No. Do both.

 

[Spectre]

This would like a word:

https://pic.armedcats.net/n/na/narf/2010/12/20/imagegallery01540x303_Gallery.jpg

Not sold in the US. The five point belts are illegal here. You cannot manufacture or import a new car with anything but a three point harness here.

I'll gladly say it again for you: Just because Solution A is more effective than Solution B it does not make Solution B obsolete. You can save more lives by banning cars.

That would actually cost more as you would have to lay on additional transport. And I'll say it for you again - if solution B is several times the cost of solution A, and is barely effective at best while being more likely lost in the statistical noise, why are you spending the money?

 

[narf]

The cost of solution A is our freedom to eat stuff we like, in my opinion a huge cost. You as an American are an odd person to suggest banning certain foods.

 

[Spectre]

I was simply pointing out that in the grand scheme of things, there were much cheaper and more effective ways of saving lives in your own country. Going bonkers like this to save 600-odd people is ridiculous until you've taken other steps first. And yes, my own country has some of that sort of idiocy as well, but rarely does it go this far.

 

[narf]

Going bonkers like this to potentially save 760000-odd people is ridiculous until you've taken other steps first.

FTFY.

By your reasoning, no thief may get punished before all murderers are punished. That simply does not fit into my head.

 

[Spectre]

So, you're saying 760,000 people in Germany get run over by cars every year? Man, you must have some really stupid pedestrians there. :lol:

And no, I'm not saying that - but what this could be compared to is arresting and prosecuting a guy for missing the trashcan with the unwanted lettuce from his sandwich while meanwhile there is someone assaulting someone else right next to the officer writing the first guy a ticket. Most people with any sense would want the police to apprehend the thug, not the litterbug. But then, I suppose in Germany everyone must be ticketed in their proper order, nein?

Want better pedestrian safety? Tell your cops to start writing up people for jaywalking; the idiots will stay out of the street then - it cut way down on the problem in NYC in the 90s.

 

[katwalk]

So, you're saying 760,000 people in Germany get run over by cars every year? Man, you must have some really stupid pedestrians there. :lol:.

Once I saw some dogs wait for a red light, look both ways, and cross at a crosswalk
I was very confused because people at my college like to jump in front of my car without looking.... The average college student is dumber than some random dogs.....

 

[Spectre]

We generally don't have that here. The vast herds of these that were roaming around in the 70s and early 80s took most of the "stupid pedestrian" gene out of the gene pool.