RE: Death in the USA
Thursday 24th April 2003
Death in the USA
Road deaths are on the increase
Discussion
The Americans' obssession with SUVs is killing them, their atmosphere, their oil reserves and the arguments of petrolheads the world over. If they could just learn that a 10-ton, 10-seater truck is wholly unneccessary and will not protect you from the latest wave of media-driven paranoia about safety from everything, then they would cut the number of deaths. Anyone read 'Stupid White Men' by Michael Moore or seen his film 'Bowling for Columbine'? - It's the same safety paranoia in their news media that makes everyone want a gun.
From my experience as a yoof who spent a fair bit of time in the States, the problems stem from attitudes to booze and showing off.
I doubt that SUV drivers think its safe to drink and drive coz they are in an SUV. Much more likely to me is that they own SUVs or trucks because they are fashionable. It is also "fashionable", for want of a better word, to get pissed. Add in a bit of macho bullshit along the lines of "I'm a free man, who are you to tell me to wear a seatbelt or stay sober?", et voila.
Drive at 16, drink at 21 ... not a clever recipe. By setting the drinking age so high, you make it seem illicit and adult. Furthermore, if a 16 year old suceeds in buying booze, they can claim they've shown that they can pass for a 21 year old. (Back on planet earth many shops will flog booze and fags to anyone with cash.)
If you are sufficiently childish into your adulthood, you never unlearn the lessons learnt as an american teenager.
I doubt that SUV drivers think its safe to drink and drive coz they are in an SUV. Much more likely to me is that they own SUVs or trucks because they are fashionable. It is also "fashionable", for want of a better word, to get pissed. Add in a bit of macho bullshit along the lines of "I'm a free man, who are you to tell me to wear a seatbelt or stay sober?", et voila.
Drive at 16, drink at 21 ... not a clever recipe. By setting the drinking age so high, you make it seem illicit and adult. Furthermore, if a 16 year old suceeds in buying booze, they can claim they've shown that they can pass for a 21 year old. (Back on planet earth many shops will flog booze and fags to anyone with cash.)
If you are sufficiently childish into your adulthood, you never unlearn the lessons learnt as an american teenager.
And the speed limits are lower ... Speed Kills ... kiss my arse.
US road surfaces are worse, the junction layout is more haphazard and road signs are used less effectively. Many of the cars on the road would get nowhere near passing the UK's MOT test. I find you have to drive much more defensively in the states.
The state of the roads is understandable to a degree simply because there is so much road surface in the US to maintain per capita. The rest, again, comes down to attitude to personal freedom versus social responsibility and state planning and spending.
US road surfaces are worse, the junction layout is more haphazard and road signs are used less effectively. Many of the cars on the road would get nowhere near passing the UK's MOT test. I find you have to drive much more defensively in the states.
The state of the roads is understandable to a degree simply because there is so much road surface in the US to maintain per capita. The rest, again, comes down to attitude to personal freedom versus social responsibility and state planning and spending.
Only in america have I heard the phrase (twice now) "I'm actually a good drunk driver" or similar.
How ever much you complain about plod in the UK they are 10 years ahead of the US police on their anti drink drive strategy. Sure this lot set up road blocks, but you can see them a mile off and go a different route. When they do a roadside test, more often than not they'll ask you to do a "sobriety test", nothing more - ie walk in a straight line. You have to be seriously pissed to start staggering when you have a copper watching you.
I dont buy some of the anti SUV claptrap this site offers. Driving SUVs is about destroying the planet, not other road users - so that doesnt explain the road deaths. Although it might help to explain why the planet is f*@ked in 100 years time.
How ever much you complain about plod in the UK they are 10 years ahead of the US police on their anti drink drive strategy. Sure this lot set up road blocks, but you can see them a mile off and go a different route. When they do a roadside test, more often than not they'll ask you to do a "sobriety test", nothing more - ie walk in a straight line. You have to be seriously pissed to start staggering when you have a copper watching you.
I dont buy some of the anti SUV claptrap this site offers. Driving SUVs is about destroying the planet, not other road users - so that doesnt explain the road deaths. Although it might help to explain why the planet is f*@ked in 100 years time.
i think a large part of it is the wide disparity between heights and weights of vehicles in the US.
two of the most common cars are the Ford F150/250 pickup and the honda civic, for example.
A large proportion of crashes are involving cars like these, and it doesn't have to be a high closing speed for the Ford to end up in the lap of the civic driver. small crash leads to large consequence. in the UK there are fewer crashes invovling such disparate sizes of vehicle, because our cars are of more similar sizes, as a general rule.
two of the most common cars are the Ford F150/250 pickup and the honda civic, for example.
A large proportion of crashes are involving cars like these, and it doesn't have to be a high closing speed for the Ford to end up in the lap of the civic driver. small crash leads to large consequence. in the UK there are fewer crashes invovling such disparate sizes of vehicle, because our cars are of more similar sizes, as a general rule.
All hail the new king of sanctimony...
RichardR said: How stupid do you have to be to not wear a seatbelt?Durrr!
Why is a worldview or concept that you don't personally understand or agree with necessarily stupid?
Ther's evidence to suggest that introduction of seat-belts (and airbags) in this country has saved and cost lives in pretty much equal numbers.
Recognition at last!
CarZee said:All hail the new king of sanctimony...
RichardR said: How stupid do you have to be to not wear a seatbelt?
Because I'm not talking about bullfighting or female circumcision here, but a basic safety related issue.
CarZee said: Why is a worldview or concept that you don't personally understand or agree with necessarily stupid?
I'm sure if you look in the right place or ask the right person you could probably find evidence that wearing seatbelts makes you impotent or bald or sanctimonious. If safety restraints have such a patchy record, why do all mainstream forms of motorsport insist on drivers wearing them?
CarZee said: Ther's evidence to suggest that introduction of seat-belts (and airbags) in this country has saved and cost lives in pretty much equal numbers.
P.S. Agree with you about airbags.
Edited for typo.
>> Edited by RichardR on Thursday 24th April 16:36
CarZee:
Any statement to the effect that seatbelts have cost lives in automobiles is pure horse ordure. There are two major benefits to wearing your harness:
1. You stay in one place under hard braking and cornering. This allows for far better car control. For proof positive, look no farther than the "Race of the Worlds" in 1955 at Monza. Rodger Ward was a minor star in the United States then, but he cleaned the clocks of both Fangio and Moss when he installed a harness in a borrowed car. When Fangio showed up to the next F1 race, he found that he was three whole seconds faster with the belts.
2. They hold you in the car should you wreck. This allows you to decelerate at a controlled rate and prevents you from striking the road.
Therefore, seatbelts allow you to control your car better, preventing accidents, and when you do wreck, you're more likely to walk away. What don't you understand here?
Any statement to the effect that seatbelts have cost lives in automobiles is pure horse ordure. There are two major benefits to wearing your harness:
1. You stay in one place under hard braking and cornering. This allows for far better car control. For proof positive, look no farther than the "Race of the Worlds" in 1955 at Monza. Rodger Ward was a minor star in the United States then, but he cleaned the clocks of both Fangio and Moss when he installed a harness in a borrowed car. When Fangio showed up to the next F1 race, he found that he was three whole seconds faster with the belts.
2. They hold you in the car should you wreck. This allows you to decelerate at a controlled rate and prevents you from striking the road.
Therefore, seatbelts allow you to control your car better, preventing accidents, and when you do wreck, you're more likely to walk away. What don't you understand here?
We've been down the airbag argument route before:
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?p=2&f=23&t=33737&h=0&hw=airbags+mrsd
(wierd url because I had to search, hope it works)
It's reasonable to assume that there have been accidents where had seatbelts not been worn/airbags not fired injuries and fatalities would not have occured. However, the injury profile of the average male in the average car in a 35mph offset frontal impact into a deformable barrier (and that's the only kind of accident there's 100% reliable data for) is vastly improved by the wearing of a seatbelt and the survival ratio is improved somewhat by the fitting of an airbag.
What evidence there is as regards real world accidents suggests that the use of seatbelts is positive in the majority of accident scenarios and that, in the UK, the introduction of mandatory seatbelts has saved 7,400 lives and avoided 140,000 (not a typo) injuries requiring hospital treatment.
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?p=2&f=23&t=33737&h=0&hw=airbags+mrsd
(wierd url because I had to search, hope it works)
It's reasonable to assume that there have been accidents where had seatbelts not been worn/airbags not fired injuries and fatalities would not have occured. However, the injury profile of the average male in the average car in a 35mph offset frontal impact into a deformable barrier (and that's the only kind of accident there's 100% reliable data for) is vastly improved by the wearing of a seatbelt and the survival ratio is improved somewhat by the fitting of an airbag.
What evidence there is as regards real world accidents suggests that the use of seatbelts is positive in the majority of accident scenarios and that, in the UK, the introduction of mandatory seatbelts has saved 7,400 lives and avoided 140,000 (not a typo) injuries requiring hospital treatment.
chaparral said: What don't you understand here?
Perhaps I should have been more explicit. Obviously, seatbelts protect vehicle occupants and have saved lives of drivers and passengers involved in a collision.
It has been posited that while introduction of seat-belts (and airbags - same difference) have indeed saved lives of accident victims inside vehicles, the effect of feeling safer within the vehicle leads one to drive with less regard for what is outside the vehicle as by putting on a seatbelt (and opting for airbags), you've reduced the likelyhood that you'll be seriously injured in a crash.
Where the increasing KSIs come is in collisions involving pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
It's all about personal risk. The Risk-Homeostasis theory goes that we all have a 'risk thermostat' - a degree of exposure to danger with which we are personally comfortable. If one's exposure to danger (risk) is decreased by wearing a seatbelt, it is natural to compensate by driving faster, or paying less attention. There are lots of books dealing with this (Risk, Adams, J.) and there's a guy on here who's knows more than a little about this area (Psychobert).
So, you lower your risk level/exposure to danger by wearing a belt, you drive less carefully. You are no more likely to be injured in a collision, but aforementioned vulnerable road users are at increased risk from your (involuntary/subonscious) actions.
Ideal solution for seatbelts IMO is for all passengers to wear one and no drivers to wear one.
Now, tell me which bit I don't seem to understand?
>> Edited by CarZee (moderator) on Friday 25th April 11:09
CarZee said:
chaparral said: What don't you understand here?
Perhaps I should have been more explicit. Obviously, seatbelts protect vehicle occupants and have saved lives of drivers and passengers involved in a collision.
It has been posited that while introduction of seat-belts (and airbags - same difference) have indeed saved lives of accident victims inside vehicles, the effect of feeling safer within the vehicle leads one to drive with less regard for what is outside the vehicle as by putting on a seatbelt (and opting for airbags), you've reduced the likelyhood that you'll be seriously injured in a crash.
Where the increasing KSIs come is in collisions involving pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
It's all about personal risk. The theory goes that we all have a 'risk thermostat' - a degree of exposure to danger with which we are personally comfortable. If one's exposure to danger (risk) is decreased by wearing a seatbelt, it is natural to compensate by driving faster, or paying less attention. There are lots of books dealing with this (Risk, Adams, J.) and there's a guy on here who's knows more than a little about this area (Psychobert).
So, you lower your risk level/exposure to danger by wearing a belt, you drive less carefully. You are no more likely to be injured in a collision, but aforementioned vulnerable road users are at increased risk from your (involuntary/subonscious) actions.
Ideal solution for seatbelts IMO is for all passengers to wear one and no drivers to wear one.
Now, tell me which bit I don't seem to understand?
Is this part of the theory that goes on to say instead of an airbag we should all have a big spike in the centre of our steering wheels to keep us alert?
the truth never did fit those criteria and that's why marketers and politicians are all professional liars and charlatans to a man. It can only add weight to the theory.
AlexH said: Interesting from an theoretical point of view but can't exactly see it being a vote winner or successful marketing strategy.
>> Edited by CarZee (moderator) on Friday 25th April 11:37
CarZee said:the very same.
AlexH said: Is this part of the theory that goes on to say instead of an airbag we should all have a big spike in the centre of our steering wheels to keep us alert?
CarZee, too right. Most drivers drive like nobs because they feel "safe". Even bikers suffer from false confidence -- witness me in full leathers being a total tit. Then see me in "casuals" riding like the Police were following me.
Safety Gear or Dangerous Go Faster aid????
C
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