5 ms·

This is certainly dramatic, but it is important to realize that the majority of automobile safety improvements came before 1960: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

• jff 11y ago
  Visibility has really taken a nosedive. Over the last few years I've daily driven a 1962 Studebaker and a 1986 Ford Crown Victoria and both of them had incredible visibility compared to almost any car on the road today. Parallel parking was incredibly easy in the Studebaker especially, because you could actually see the back end of the car out the (massive) rear window.
  • Aloha 11y ago
    Window size has been noticeably reduced because of rollover safety requirements, and better aerodynamics. I have a 2011 Crown Victoria - which compared to a 2011 Charger is night and day difference.
    • madengr 11y ago
      I assume that's why, at 6'5", I can't see out the damn windshield anymore. I'm looking straight into the visor,and rear view mirrors keep getting lower. It's all really frustrating.
      • bkjelden 11y ago
        Another issue is that sweeping, curvy rooflines are in style right now. I'm 6'2" and I find that in a lot of newer cars I can barely fit in the drivers seat. If you're looking at midsize sedans, FWIW, I found the Honda Accord and the Subaru Legacy to have the best headroom.
        • Someone1234 11y ago
          Agreed on the Legacy and Accord. It should be noted however that there are two kinds of tall people: Those who are tall in the torso and those who are tall in the legs (and both). People should figure out which one they are when looking at vehicles. A vehicle with a lot of headroom won't do you any good if it is all in your legs. As a resource for finding a vehicle which fits you... Go to edmunds.com (or Google site:edmunds.com [vehicle] [year]), find the vehicle you're interested in, click "Features & Specs" then scroll down to "Interior Measurements." Of particular interest are "FRONT HEAD ROOM" and "FRONT LEG ROOM." I recommend edmunds simply because they list these in one consistent easy to find format. A lot of vehicle manufacturers don't list these metrics at all on the specs page, you have to dive in a brochure to find it.
      • roflchoppa 11y ago
        You gotta lay back super far, that's my secret. I was driving a e30 m3 the other day and was amazed on how much view the driver gets, it's like being in a fish bowl.
        • madengr 11y ago
          Yes, lay back. When I rent at the airport, I always try to get a VW Bug as they have decent visibility. VW has seats that adjust pretty low, then push it all the way back, and I'm good. That's fine if it were just me, but my kids could never fit behind me. Used to have a VW Corrado when I was young and single, and that was a good car for tall people, as long as you didn't need the back seat. Next vehicle will be either a Tesla Model 3 (assuming they well be roomier with lack of engine) or a Mercedes Sprinter van. The later has good visibility and I can sit straight, which is good as my back is giving me trouble; I hate stooping to wiggle into cars.
          • blakeyrat 11y ago
            Out of curiosity, did you ever try a PT Cruiser? Of course now that they're out of production, it's kind of moot, but I've heard a lot of good things about the way their seating is designed by my 6'3"+ tall friends.
          • roflchoppa 11y ago
            I'm constantly looking for a clean Corrado, really want a v6 model. That and more 204z's. Yeah One day I put 2x2 together and realized German cars tend to have good head space, although if I flipped my buddies Miata over I'd loose all my hair....
            • madengr 11y ago
              I had a '94 (last year in the US). Had it up to 130 MPH with 4 people in it and the sunroof open, and it was silent. Man I loved that car. Now I'm married with 2 kids and drive a minivan. At least I sold it to another enthusiast.
      • Sanddancer 11y ago
        Try a Kia Soul. My housemate's 6'6", and they got a Soul because it was one of the few cars that they can actually see out of.
    • mturmon 11y ago
      Quite true. Also, crammed into those A, B, and C pillars, and the trims above them, can be air bags. This also increases the cross section.
  • jweir 11y ago
    This has also increased pedestrian accidents. With the increased width of the frame pedestrians are obscured when making left hand turns. 'Why Left Turns Are So Deadly' http://www.wnyc.org/story/left-turns/ http://www.wnyc.org/story/left-turns/ > "When we compare the data, we find that drivers could see more outside their vehicles in the 1980s than they can now," Dr. Matthew Reed, a research professor with the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute, said.
• bryanlarsen 11y ago
  The improvements look pretty constant to me, an improvement of 20% per decade or so. A log scale would be more appropriate here.
• digitalneal 11y ago
  Customers gotta be alive to buy again. Its just good for business.
• TillE 11y ago
  According to that graph, fatalities per mile were halved from 1970 to 2000. That's not a small thing!
  • rdl 11y ago
    Way better medical care has to be part of that, too. Same with gunshot wounds -- in a lot of places, something which was 90% very negative patient outcome 30 years ago is 50+% survivable now, due to faster EMS, understanding of golden hour, and great trauma intervention.
  • nucleardog 11y ago
    Just being nitpicky, but halved from what to what? If we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on more air bags and other crash engineering but only halved the number deaths from 50 to 25, it's probably not worth it...
    • mikeash 11y ago
      Deaths per year in the US went from 53,000 in 1970 to 42,000 in 2000 despite a big increase in population and an even bigger increase in driving rates. The current number is about 33,000/year, which makes it still one of the top killers of young people.
    • vkou 11y ago
      If "Only" saving 25,000 people a year is not enough to get you excited, I have to ask if there is any human endeavor that you would consider to be worthwhile.
• Amorymeltzer 11y ago
  I won't disagree with your final sentence, but >increasingly safety obsessed and jammed more and more expensive and heavy safety technology Is not a bad thing. Deaths from driving are bad and we should try and reduce them, whether via legal, social, or engineering means. To say the returns are diminishing says more about how little people drove in the past and how horrifically dangerous driving was.
• mikeash 11y ago
  A linear scale for a graph like that is terribly misleading. The graph looks almost flat lately, but that's just because it's relatively near zero. Blow that section up to give it some vertical room and it will tell a different story. Edit: just to put some actual numbers on this, Wikipedia says that deaths per 100 million vehicle miles in the US was 1.07 in 2014, and 1.44 in 2004. That's an improvement of 25% in just the past ten years. You only have to go back 25 years to reach a fatality rate double that of 2014.
  • carsongross 11y ago
    Yes, I acknowledge that, but it's important to bear in mind that costs for improvements are typically linear (or super-linear) so the cost/benefit of more safety has increased markedly. I didn't expect my comment to provoke such a tremendous backlash.
    • mikeash 11y ago
      Sure, all the low-hanging fruit is gone. It's a lot easier and cheaper to cut fatalities by X% by installing three-point seat belts in every car than it is to do it by building advanced stability control systems. But still, the returns are still significant and the dangers are still huge. I'd guess that your tremendous backlash comes from using a deeply misleading graph as the foundation of your comment and from the strong implication that additional safety improvements are no longer worthwhile.
      • carsongross 11y ago
        And that's where I would disagree with what is obviously an overwhelming majority: I don't think the returns, compared to costs, are significant and I don't think that the dangers are still huge. Modern cars are very, very safe and have been for years, and I think the industry should begin to prioritize other things (costs, simplicity, aesthetics, etc.) in some cases. I would be less obstinate if much of the safety equipment was optional, rather than required by law. OTOH, given the absolute blow out that this comment took, I can see that mine is not a popular position. And I would be lying if I didn't admit that a lot of my animus comes from the fact that the vehicles I prefer (the 70-series landcruiser, the Defender 90) are not available in the U.S. due to safety restrictions.
• codingdave 11y ago
  > as the returns have diminished dramatically. I think every person who lives because of those diminishing returns is grateful for any progress made.
  • bdamm 11y ago
    At the very least it's given American cars a chance at being family cars. For a while it really looked like Volvo was set to dominate that market.
• Someone1234 11y ago
  > This is certainly dramatic, but it is important to realize that the majority of automobile safety improvements came before 1960 Uhh what? Incorrect. In 1960, 20.147 per 100K population died, in 2013 10.345 per 100k population died. Approximately a 50% decline (9.802 actual) between the two periods. In 1937, 29.357 per 100K population died, in 1960 20.147 per 100K population died. Approximately a 32% decline (9.21 actual) between the two periods. So both as a % and in literal terms the delta between 1960 and today is greater than the difference between the worst year (1937) and 1960. > We've become increasingly safety obsessed and jammed more and more expensive and heavy safety technology into vehicles as the returns have diminished dramatically. But yet vehicles are lighter and cheaper today than they were in 1960 (adjusting for inflation). So even if this safety technology is increasing both price and weight (and I agree that it does), we're still in a very good place. While reduction in deaths has slowed in the last ten years, we're just on the brink of moving into automated safety systems (e.g. auto-breaking) that will likely move things forward yet again.
  • mikeash 11y ago
    Measuring automobile deaths per population is highly uninformative, because of the massive difference in exposure over time. People were driving way more in 1960 than 1937. If safety were constant, you'd expect the fatalities per population to also go way up. Fatalities per vehicle mile or passenger mile, while still not telling the whole story, is a much better measure.
    • Someone1234 11y ago
      > Fatalities per vehicle mile or passenger mile, while still not telling the whole story, is a much better measure. And says the same thing, that safety has continued to improve dramatically since 1960. But fundamentally if population bound statistics are unfair in one direction, miles driven statistics are unfair in the opposite. I picked the statistic which actually makes it hardest to prove my point, and still proved my point. If I used miles driven I'd prove my point even harder.
      • 11y ago
• mywittyname 11y ago
  > important to realize that the majority of automobile safety improvements came before 1960: This is an absurdly false claim. Cars in the 60s had bias ply tires (which blew out frequently and had no traction), drum brakes (awful), single circuit brake systems that would fail if there was a leak, solid rear axles (tail happy), lap belts (if anything). Old cars were several orders of magnitude more difficult and dangerous to drive. Airbags, ABS, crumple zones, traction/stability control, and radial tires have all massively improved the safety of driving. Car safety has improved so much in the past 10 years that the NHSTA and IIHS have needed to make their tests more stringent because so many cars were getting perfect scores. A ten year old Camry would have a perfect score in 2006, but would likely fail a 2016 crash test.
  • ars 11y ago
    > drum brakes (awful) What's so bad about drum brakes? I know they are more involved to work on, and have more parts. But as far as safety, aren't they easier to activate, which is important if you don't have power assist brakes? (Say engine dies, so just didn't come with power brakes.)
    • mikeash 11y ago
      Worse cooling and worse behavior when hot mean that it's much easier to overheat them and experience brake fade compared to disc brakes.
    • mywittyname 11y ago
      You are correct, that's why they were originally used, but that's the only advantage they have over discs. Drums don't stop very well. There isn't much surface area for friction and they suffer from brake fade (overheating causing a reduction in braking capability).
      • carsongross 11y ago
        I dunno, man. My 4000 pound '85 land cruiser stops fine with the drums. And Toyota still runs drums on the rear of Tacomas. Discs are probably better, but I don't think the safety gains for them are that significant.