5 ms·

Robert Wright: Toyotas Are Safe (Enough)

22 points by MikeCapone 17y ago

weaksauce 17y ago
I love that the software (which may or may not be the cause this though I am leaning towards not.) is being crucified for something that could have happened in older cars with direct throttle body response. My friend got the throttle cable stuck on a dirt bike that he was using and it was going full tilt until he was able to return the throttle to it's default state. I would imagine that an improperly maintained older car would have the same capability for sticking.
- sliverstorm 17y ago
  People just leap to blame the software. It's dark and mysterious and people imagine that it is taking control away from them.
  - MikeCapone 17y ago
    Exactly. What should matter is "are our cars getting safer or more dangerous?" If that's the question, then I think it's safe to say that they are getting safer. But if you're just looking for something to blame, it's a lot easier to blame something you don't understand.
- InclinedPlane 17y ago
  It's classic fear of the unknown and of the novel and unusual. For example, people love to talk about the horrors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as though somehow that 0.3% or so of the deaths that occurred in WWII were especially worse than all the others. As though being spitted on a bayonet, blasted into pieces, shot with bullets, starved to death, or burned alive were such loftier ways to die. The difference is that a nuclear detonation is even now an unfamiliar thing, so we imbue it with an exceptionality it does not deserve. However, none of the other tens of millions of military and civilian persons who lost their lives in that war are any better off for the mundanity of the circumstances of their death. Indeed, many millions of those deaths were far more horrific and far more tragic than the casualties of nuclear warfare. I suppose this sort of thing can be chalked up to a peculiarity of how the human mind works. A relevant example would be the widespread fear of credit card theft in the early days of e-commerce, despite the fact that most people were comfortable giving their cards to low-wage restaurant staff, store clerks, and mail-order companies. This is why you need to be very careful when evaluating risk, because our instincts have not yet evolved much beyond what they were at the start of the Holocene epoch 12k years ago, and the instinctual fear responses we still have are often no longer applicable in the modern era.
Osiris 17y ago
What I don't understand, is why aren't drivers smart enough to just shift into Neutral and turn off the engine? I mean, it's not rocket science. I've had my throttle stick on my floor mat in my 2002 Passat quite frequently and I've never freaked out about it or even had a problem regaining control. The real thing to do here is to make sure the drivers in the U.S. know how to properly operate a motor vehicle.
- albertcardona 17y ago
  I recall a sentence (cruelly) stating (paraphrasing): "The problem with country X is stupidity. Let's remove all safety labels from everything and let the problem get solved by itself." Well-prepared individuals who can stay cool in tense situations will always have an advantage.
- Herring 17y ago
  Well then they wouldn't get into an accident & you wouldn't hear about them. Look, things are different in the aggregate. You only hear about special results, so it doesn't make sense to wonder why they're special.
- InclinedPlane 17y ago
  A lot of the drivers affected appear to be older drivers. It's possible that more savvy drivers do just shift into neutral and just "handle it", and just chalk it up to a random occurrence rather than a life-threatening major defect. However, one thing that i don't think many people appreciate is that in some of these scenarios if the driver begins braking normally (i.e. to slow their speed rather than a full-on emergency stop) and they continue to do so for a little while they will very rapidly burn up their brake pads, and then they won't have the ability to use the brakes. This scenario may be frightening enough to induce panic, even though throwing it into neutral (or even, say, low) and applying the emergency brake would quickly resolve the situation. Note also that for these keyless vehicles turning off the engine is not as intuitive (or even possible) as it would be for a keyed ignition. I agree that the problem is not just a hardware issue, it's also the result of driver error, but even so you want to stack the deck in favor of safety and make sure that you avoid these sorts of failures that will be more likely to result in driving mishaps, even if theoretically drivers should be able to recover from the situation if they keep presence of mind and know what they're doing.

22 points by MikeCapone 17y ago

I love that the software (which may or may not be the cause this though I am leaning towards not.) is being crucified for something that could have happened in older cars with direct throttle body response. My friend got the throttle cable stuck on a dirt bike that he was using and it was going full tilt until he was able to return the throttle to it's default state. I would imagine that an improperly maintained older car would have the same capability for sticking.

sliverstorm 17y ago
People just leap to blame the software. It's dark and mysterious and people imagine that it is taking control away from them.
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  Exactly. What should matter is "are our cars getting safer or more dangerous?" If that's the question, then I think it's safe to say that they are getting safer. But if you're just looking for something to blame, it's a lot easier to blame something you don't understand.
InclinedPlane 17y ago
It's classic fear of the unknown and of the novel and unusual. For example, people love to talk about the horrors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as though somehow that 0.3% or so of the deaths that occurred in WWII were especially worse than all the others. As though being spitted on a bayonet, blasted into pieces, shot with bullets, starved to death, or burned alive were such loftier ways to die. The difference is that a nuclear detonation is even now an unfamiliar thing, so we imbue it with an exceptionality it does not deserve. However, none of the other tens of millions of military and civilian persons who lost their lives in that war are any better off for the mundanity of the circumstances of their death. Indeed, many millions of those deaths were far more horrific and far more tragic than the casualties of nuclear warfare. I suppose this sort of thing can be chalked up to a peculiarity of how the human mind works. A relevant example would be the widespread fear of credit card theft in the early days of e-commerce, despite the fact that most people were comfortable giving their cards to low-wage restaurant staff, store clerks, and mail-order companies. This is why you need to be very careful when evaluating risk, because our instincts have not yet evolved much beyond what they were at the start of the Holocene epoch 12k years ago, and the instinctual fear responses we still have are often no longer applicable in the modern era.

Osiris 17y ago

What I don't understand, is why aren't drivers smart enough to just shift into Neutral and turn off the engine? I mean, it's not rocket science. I've had my throttle stick on my floor mat in my 2002 Passat quite frequently and I've never freaked out about it or even had a problem regaining control. The real thing to do here is to make sure the drivers in the U.S. know how to properly operate a motor vehicle.

albertcardona 17y ago
I recall a sentence (cruelly) stating (paraphrasing): "The problem with country X is stupidity. Let's remove all safety labels from everything and let the problem get solved by itself." Well-prepared individuals who can stay cool in tense situations will always have an advantage.
Herring 17y ago
Well then they wouldn't get into an accident & you wouldn't hear about them. Look, things are different in the aggregate. You only hear about special results, so it doesn't make sense to wonder why they're special.
InclinedPlane 17y ago
A lot of the drivers affected appear to be older drivers. It's possible that more savvy drivers do just shift into neutral and just "handle it", and just chalk it up to a random occurrence rather than a life-threatening major defect. However, one thing that i don't think many people appreciate is that in some of these scenarios if the driver begins braking normally (i.e. to slow their speed rather than a full-on emergency stop) and they continue to do so for a little while they will very rapidly burn up their brake pads, and then they won't have the ability to use the brakes. This scenario may be frightening enough to induce panic, even though throwing it into neutral (or even, say, low) and applying the emergency brake would quickly resolve the situation. Note also that for these keyless vehicles turning off the engine is not as intuitive (or even possible) as it would be for a keyed ignition. I agree that the problem is not just a hardware issue, it's also the result of driver error, but even so you want to stack the deck in favor of safety and make sure that you avoid these sorts of failures that will be more likely to result in driving mishaps, even if theoretically drivers should be able to recover from the situation if they keep presence of mind and know what they're doing.