5 ms·

I agree in general but I think "A car traveling 30 mph is absolutely as lethal as a car traveling 10 mph faster than that." is a bit weak. The speed of cars ma

I agree in general but I think "A car traveling 30 mph is absolutely as lethal as a car traveling 10 mph faster than that." is a bit weak. The speed of cars matter, obviously. If you are hit by a car driving 50km/h you will die 8 out of 10 times. If the car is only driving in 30 km/h you will only die 1 out of the 10 times. In other words, it's not a linear scale and the idea that you can drive a bit faster without making yourself substantially more dangerous is incorrect.

deleted 8y ago
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poulsbohemian 8y ago
You might be factually correct, but you are misunderstanding the point of the parent poster. What makewavesnotwar is saying is simply that making exaggerated arguments for this technology in the name of making us safer is not a sufficient reason to introduce the technology. Perhaps if they had used larger numbers like 50 MPH relative to 60MPH that point would have been made clearer.
- Strongerpass 8y ago
  I understood the point well and I agreed with the poster. But in my view, if you are going to argue that we don't need more automated monitoring in traffic then claiming that speed has little impact on fatalities seems quite weird.
- compcoffee 8y ago
  >Perhaps if they had used larger numbers like 50 MPH relative to 60MPH that point would have been made clearer. If there's no difference between 30 and 40, 40 and 50, 50 and 60...then I suppose there's no difference between 30 and 60?
karakot 8y ago
if you're on a highway, then a car driving 30mph is much more dangerous than one which is 10mph over speed limit.
- Strongerpass 8y ago
  That's kind of moot, at least where I live. Less than 3% of deaths were caused by this so its not really significant. Pedestrians killed were many times higher for example.
  - karakot 8y ago
    It really depends. In the US pedestrians account ~10% of total number of traffic related deaths.
- monort 8y ago
  Do you have a statistic confirming that? Most highway deaths are due to speed, not due to driving slow. Driving slow can provoke people behind to do dangerous things, but it's on them, not on a slow driver.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Maybe most accidents are due to speed because a lot fewer people drive too slowly.
  - tertius 8y ago
    Actually the real problem is differential in speed. So a car going 80 in a 60 hitting a car going 30 in a 60 is worse than a car going 80 in a 60 hitting a car going 60. Now I'd rather everyone stay within a narrow limit and not go over the 'limit'. Differential kills.
    - zuminator 8y ago
      Do you have any support for this argument at all? It seems to overlook the reality of the situation. When one car is in a collision with another, regardless of their relative velocities, when they collide, in a serious accident they will both rapidly decelerate to a speed of zero. That's what the danger is. Their absolute speed has dangers above and beyond their relative velocities -- less control of the vehicle and greater kinetic energy wrt the environment.So, a car traveling at 25 hitting a car moving at 5 may have a 20 kph/mph differential, but the danger is minimal compared to a car traveling at 95 hitting a car at 85, where both vehicles quickly go down to zero, rolling and smashing into barriers and other vehicles along the way.
noobermin 8y ago
As a pedestrian and cycling advocate, more regulation of cars seems like a good idea for me. That said, the analogy is just that, an analogy so I don't think it's fair to nitpick it.
- Strongerpass 8y ago
  > A car traveling 30 mph is absolutely as lethal as a car traveling 10 mph faster than that. What was this an analogy for? I missed it.
  - noobermin 8y ago
    As in makewavesnotwar point about surveillance of the general population and not just immigrants.
rwoodley 8y ago
Of course on a web-site for nerds, commentaters are going to focus on an irrelevant technical detail and miss the larger point.
- MarkMc 8y ago
  I don't see how it's an irrelevant detail. If enforcing the speed limit does indeed save lives then I'm more inclined to accept some loss of privacy.
- Strongerpass 8y ago
  Of course on a web site for nerds, commentators are going to claim that a massive loss of life due to what they consider to be some irrelevant factor is just a technical detail which can be ignored.
MarkMc 8y ago
Plus your chance of being hit at all is much lower at 30km/h because the driver has more time to react.

deleted 8y ago

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poulsbohemian 8y ago

You might be factually correct, but you are misunderstanding the point of the parent poster. What makewavesnotwar is saying is simply that making exaggerated arguments for this technology in the name of making us safer is not a sufficient reason to introduce the technology. Perhaps if they had used larger numbers like 50 MPH relative to 60MPH that point would have been made clearer.

Strongerpass 8y ago
I understood the point well and I agreed with the poster. But in my view, if you are going to argue that we don't need more automated monitoring in traffic then claiming that speed has little impact on fatalities seems quite weird.
compcoffee 8y ago
>Perhaps if they had used larger numbers like 50 MPH relative to 60MPH that point would have been made clearer. If there's no difference between 30 and 40, 40 and 50, 50 and 60...then I suppose there's no difference between 30 and 60?

karakot 8y ago

if you're on a highway, then a car driving 30mph is much more dangerous than one which is 10mph over speed limit.

Strongerpass 8y ago
That's kind of moot, at least where I live. Less than 3% of deaths were caused by this so its not really significant. Pedestrians killed were many times higher for example.
- karakot 8y ago
  It really depends. In the US pedestrians account ~10% of total number of traffic related deaths.
monort 8y ago
Do you have a statistic confirming that? Most highway deaths are due to speed, not due to driving slow. Driving slow can provoke people behind to do dangerous things, but it's on them, not on a slow driver.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Maybe most accidents are due to speed because a lot fewer people drive too slowly.
- tertius 8y ago
  Actually the real problem is differential in speed. So a car going 80 in a 60 hitting a car going 30 in a 60 is worse than a car going 80 in a 60 hitting a car going 60. Now I'd rather everyone stay within a narrow limit and not go over the 'limit'. Differential kills.
  - zuminator 8y ago
    Do you have any support for this argument at all? It seems to overlook the reality of the situation. When one car is in a collision with another, regardless of their relative velocities, when they collide, in a serious accident they will both rapidly decelerate to a speed of zero. That's what the danger is. Their absolute speed has dangers above and beyond their relative velocities -- less control of the vehicle and greater kinetic energy wrt the environment.So, a car traveling at 25 hitting a car moving at 5 may have a 20 kph/mph differential, but the danger is minimal compared to a car traveling at 95 hitting a car at 85, where both vehicles quickly go down to zero, rolling and smashing into barriers and other vehicles along the way.

noobermin 8y ago

As a pedestrian and cycling advocate, more regulation of cars seems like a good idea for me. That said, the analogy is just that, an analogy so I don't think it's fair to nitpick it.

Strongerpass 8y ago
> A car traveling 30 mph is absolutely as lethal as a car traveling 10 mph faster than that. What was this an analogy for? I missed it.
- noobermin 8y ago
  As in makewavesnotwar point about surveillance of the general population and not just immigrants.

rwoodley 8y ago

Of course on a web-site for nerds, commentaters are going to focus on an irrelevant technical detail and miss the larger point.

MarkMc 8y ago
I don't see how it's an irrelevant detail. If enforcing the speed limit does indeed save lives then I'm more inclined to accept some loss of privacy.
Strongerpass 8y ago
Of course on a web site for nerds, commentators are going to claim that a massive loss of life due to what they consider to be some irrelevant factor is just a technical detail which can be ignored.

MarkMc 8y ago

Plus your chance of being hit at all is much lower at 30km/h because the driver has more time to react.