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> "Modern cars are absolutely terrible in the UX department, but they are a hell of a lot safer, so there’s that." tangentially, "safety" is highly cargo-culte

> "Modern cars are absolutely terrible in the UX department, but they are a hell of a lot safer, so there’s that." tangentially, "safety" is highly cargo-culted. things that seem so obviously safer are taken without question as better, but in many cases, such features really only provide a false sense of security along with substantive unintended consequences. most safety features in cars (e.g., lane-keeping) allow people to be less skilled and less attentive at driving, rather than lowering crash/injury/death rates. the better solution is to make people better and more attentive at driving through more rigorous training/testing, more thoughtful design, and importantly, culture, rather than just technology for its own sake.

IgorPartola 5y ago
For anyone wondering what progress in terms of safety looks like, give this 77 second video a view: https://youtu.be/xtxd27jlZ_g https://youtu.be/xtxd27jlZ_g
- PhantomGremlin 5y ago
  This is a great video that everyone should watch. But part of the problem with the 50 y/o car may be that the steel has rusted (based on the rust-colored cloud of particles). That may be why the older car just disintegrates. OTOH the weakening of the steel because of rust creates a de-facto "crumple zone"? A minor improvement? :) Older cars were much too rigid and the body didn't absorb much energy. It was all transmitted to the occupants. Also, forgetting about design improvements in safety, I'm not sure I want to "bet my life" on 50 year old brake lines, etc. That sort of stuff just wears out.
  - IgorPartola 5y ago
    The nice thing about those cars is that you can actually replace things like suspension and brake systems with modern equivalents relatively easily. It’s not like swapping in an F-150 brake system into a Corolla. As far as rust, I’m sure you can find some rust free cars in AZ or CA.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  God I hate that video so much. It is right up there with the Top Gear Hilux episode when it comes to entertainment being peddled as scientific experiment by people who find it convenient to the point they are trying to make to do so (not saying you did that, just that tons of people do). It was a promotional video designed to highlight progress. It does that just fine. But every two bit tom dick and harry seems to think it's representative of a crash between any old car and any new car when the vehicle in the video doesn't even have seat-belts (!!!!) which are the single biggest improvement to crash safety/survivability ever. There's a reason nobody is going to do a crash test of a 1980s Ford cop car into a 2010s Ford cop car. It would be a massive nothingburger. Frontal airbags do little for seatbelted passengers at crash test speeds (texting into the back of a semi at 70mph is a different story). In fact in many cases they are worse than no airbag at low/medium speeds because you injure your face hitting airbag or are injured in its deployment in situations where you would have otherwise hit nothing. They are intended as damage control for unbelted passengers (which is where do you think the first S in SRS comes from). Crumple zones are highly overrated. Imagine an old cartoon where someone gets thrown off a building and happens to land on a guy carrying mattresses. That's basically how crumple zones work. Too high of a jump or too soft of a mattress and you blow right through with negligible deceleration. Too hard of a mattress and the mattress decelerates you basically as hard a the sidewalk. Crumple zones provide time for the airbag to deploy, yes but they only really mitigate the forces on the passenger cabin (and its occupants) at a narrow speed range (they shoot for the speed of the relevant crash tests). For people who were doing things right and wearing their seatbelt the safety of crashing a car changed negligibly from the advent of the 3pt belt to the time of the side curtain airbag. (I'm ignoring rollover safety here, that's been a basically linear improvement since the 1960s but it's not technically interesting because it's a simple case of throwing more and more steel at the problem) Side curtain airbags have been a major improvement because there's not much restraint nor space for deceleration in that direction. They do a great job keeping people's heads from hitting stuff. AEB is another good modern one. Knocking 5-20mph off the speed of a collision helps a lot no matter how you cut it. All that said, everyone who worships safety tech uncritically as though they're all big improvements you can stack on top of each other and get the sum of them all needs to take a long walk off a short pier. Professing your love for airbags and crumple zones might get you fake internet points on Reddit or HN but that's just not how it works and those people pollute and/or prevent legitimate discussion.
azornathogron 5y ago
Modern cars have more design features that improve crash survivability (better airbags, better crumple zones, tested with more realistic crash tests, etc). Those seem like a pretty unalloyed improvement to me. I'm not saying you're wrong about the things you mentioned, but cars really have got safer, in important ways.
- clairity 5y ago
  yes, airbags and crumple zones do improve safety, but even those are not without negative consequences, like bigger, heavier vehicles (which is more dangerous to others) and higher sense of psychological safety leading to being less considerate, less attentive, and more reckless. that's not to argue that those tradeoffs aren't net positive, but that they're still tradeoffs to be considered, rather than short-circuiting to "of course it's better!".
  - notJim 5y ago
    Do you have any evidence for these claims? This just feels like luddism to me.
    - pille 5y ago
      The "bigger, heavier" part does indeed seem to be a tradeoff. It's been blamed for a significanted rise in pedestrian fatalities, even as vehicles get safer for the people inside. One source, just after a quick search: https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians20 https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians20
  - dzhiurgis 5y ago
    I'd argue feeling safe when I drive is net positive for actual safety. Stressed drivers going to make way more errors.
    - clairity 5y ago
      if you’re prone to being overwhelmed by stress while driving a machine that can potentially kill you, that’s a sign to get more training, not to mollify oneself with an illusion of safety. ignorance is not bliss in this case.
crooked-v 5y ago
> rather than lowering crash/injury/death rates. Motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 have been on a consistent downward trend since the 70s (1.53 per 100,000 in 2000, 1.11 per 100,000 in 2019), so, no, death rates have in fact been lowered.
- lazide 5y ago
  Those are two different stats - parent was referring to if those features lower death rates. You are looking at total death rates regardless of features. It’s also possible better road maintenance, or airbags, or better crumple zones (but not lane help) are driving it down. It’s possible for lane help to be driving it up, just not as much as say better crumple zones, and it will still be trending down.
- kingsuper20 5y ago
  How much of that is due to faster ambulance/helicopter service, improved emergency room practices?
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Probably a lot less than the generations who grew up when it was acceptable to drive drunk and/or not wear your seatbelt aging out.
notJim 5y ago
> things that seem so obviously safer are taken without question as better, but in many cases, such features really only provide a false sense of security along with substantive unintended consequences This is not true at all. There is definitely testing of cars by groups like the NHTSA and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. For example, they've found crash rates were 14% lower on cars with blind-spot monitoring. Modern cars are far safer than older cars.
betwixthewires 5y ago
Most safety features are nothing like lane assist. Lane assist is not a representative example of what most safety features in a care look like. Most safety features are crumple hoods and pillars, safety glass, airbags and seatbelts. Additionally, you think it is a more feasible solution to change culture than to make the safe operation of a car less reliable on the human element? How exactly do you "make people better and more attentive?" Training? Please elaborate on what that would look like. Cars are designed a lot more thoughtfully than they used to be. An example not related to safety is cupholders. Remember when two flat rings on the dash were considered acceptable for holding a cup? Safety wise I'd say designing contingencies against inattentive drivers is thoughtful design.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
The "spewing BS is order to show the world how much you care about safety" part of the safety cargo cult bothers me a hell of a lot more than safety features enabling less attentive behavior. If I had a nickle for every social media user who's screeching about how airbags are all that's good in the world but who doesn't understand the inherent tradeoffs to a bag of dense air occupying the space in front of the driver or how a crumple zone is basically a single use spring I would use the money to hire people to beat the first group of people over the head with highshcool physics textbooks. I wish we'd regress to '50s attitudes about safety simply so that the people who care about safety no longer have to be held back by the people who crap all over everything by wanting to be seen caring about safety.
- clairity 5y ago
  yes, it's frenzy, a typically pro-social behavior (agreeableness) that's misapplied due to fear and uncertainty, so that we get counterintuitive consequences from overly correlated belief/behavior. it's the same impulse that got us mis-masking and lockdowns, when the real danger was inter-/intra-familial contact (because that contact is prolonged and our guards are down, unlike with "stranger danger"). happens all too often, and it's frustrating to watch otherwise perceptive and reasonable people forsake those facilities for primal herd behavior.

IgorPartola 5y ago

For anyone wondering what progress in terms of safety looks like, give this 77 second video a view: https://youtu.be/xtxd27jlZ_g https://youtu.be/xtxd27jlZ_g

PhantomGremlin 5y ago
This is a great video that everyone should watch. But part of the problem with the 50 y/o car may be that the steel has rusted (based on the rust-colored cloud of particles). That may be why the older car just disintegrates. OTOH the weakening of the steel because of rust creates a de-facto "crumple zone"? A minor improvement? :) Older cars were much too rigid and the body didn't absorb much energy. It was all transmitted to the occupants. Also, forgetting about design improvements in safety, I'm not sure I want to "bet my life" on 50 year old brake lines, etc. That sort of stuff just wears out.
- IgorPartola 5y ago
  The nice thing about those cars is that you can actually replace things like suspension and brake systems with modern equivalents relatively easily. It’s not like swapping in an F-150 brake system into a Corolla. As far as rust, I’m sure you can find some rust free cars in AZ or CA.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
God I hate that video so much. It is right up there with the Top Gear Hilux episode when it comes to entertainment being peddled as scientific experiment by people who find it convenient to the point they are trying to make to do so (not saying you did that, just that tons of people do). It was a promotional video designed to highlight progress. It does that just fine. But every two bit tom dick and harry seems to think it's representative of a crash between any old car and any new car when the vehicle in the video doesn't even have seat-belts (!!!!) which are the single biggest improvement to crash safety/survivability ever. There's a reason nobody is going to do a crash test of a 1980s Ford cop car into a 2010s Ford cop car. It would be a massive nothingburger. Frontal airbags do little for seatbelted passengers at crash test speeds (texting into the back of a semi at 70mph is a different story). In fact in many cases they are worse than no airbag at low/medium speeds because you injure your face hitting airbag or are injured in its deployment in situations where you would have otherwise hit nothing. They are intended as damage control for unbelted passengers (which is where do you think the first S in SRS comes from). Crumple zones are highly overrated. Imagine an old cartoon where someone gets thrown off a building and happens to land on a guy carrying mattresses. That's basically how crumple zones work. Too high of a jump or too soft of a mattress and you blow right through with negligible deceleration. Too hard of a mattress and the mattress decelerates you basically as hard a the sidewalk. Crumple zones provide time for the airbag to deploy, yes but they only really mitigate the forces on the passenger cabin (and its occupants) at a narrow speed range (they shoot for the speed of the relevant crash tests). For people who were doing things right and wearing their seatbelt the safety of crashing a car changed negligibly from the advent of the 3pt belt to the time of the side curtain airbag. (I'm ignoring rollover safety here, that's been a basically linear improvement since the 1960s but it's not technically interesting because it's a simple case of throwing more and more steel at the problem) Side curtain airbags have been a major improvement because there's not much restraint nor space for deceleration in that direction. They do a great job keeping people's heads from hitting stuff. AEB is another good modern one. Knocking 5-20mph off the speed of a collision helps a lot no matter how you cut it. All that said, everyone who worships safety tech uncritically as though they're all big improvements you can stack on top of each other and get the sum of them all needs to take a long walk off a short pier. Professing your love for airbags and crumple zones might get you fake internet points on Reddit or HN but that's just not how it works and those people pollute and/or prevent legitimate discussion.

azornathogron 5y ago

Modern cars have more design features that improve crash survivability (better airbags, better crumple zones, tested with more realistic crash tests, etc). Those seem like a pretty unalloyed improvement to me. I'm not saying you're wrong about the things you mentioned, but cars really have got safer, in important ways.

clairity 5y ago
yes, airbags and crumple zones do improve safety, but even those are not without negative consequences, like bigger, heavier vehicles (which is more dangerous to others) and higher sense of psychological safety leading to being less considerate, less attentive, and more reckless. that's not to argue that those tradeoffs aren't net positive, but that they're still tradeoffs to be considered, rather than short-circuiting to "of course it's better!".
- notJim 5y ago
  Do you have any evidence for these claims? This just feels like luddism to me.
  - pille 5y ago
    The "bigger, heavier" part does indeed seem to be a tradeoff. It's been blamed for a significanted rise in pedestrian fatalities, even as vehicles get safer for the people inside. One source, just after a quick search: https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians20 https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians20
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  I'd argue feeling safe when I drive is net positive for actual safety. Stressed drivers going to make way more errors.
  - clairity 5y ago
    if you’re prone to being overwhelmed by stress while driving a machine that can potentially kill you, that’s a sign to get more training, not to mollify oneself with an illusion of safety. ignorance is not bliss in this case.

crooked-v 5y ago

> rather than lowering crash/injury/death rates. Motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 have been on a consistent downward trend since the 70s (1.53 per 100,000 in 2000, 1.11 per 100,000 in 2019), so, no, death rates have in fact been lowered.

lazide 5y ago
Those are two different stats - parent was referring to if those features lower death rates. You are looking at total death rates regardless of features. It’s also possible better road maintenance, or airbags, or better crumple zones (but not lane help) are driving it down. It’s possible for lane help to be driving it up, just not as much as say better crumple zones, and it will still be trending down.
kingsuper20 5y ago
How much of that is due to faster ambulance/helicopter service, improved emergency room practices?
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Probably a lot less than the generations who grew up when it was acceptable to drive drunk and/or not wear your seatbelt aging out.

notJim 5y ago

> things that seem so obviously safer are taken without question as better, but in many cases, such features really only provide a false sense of security along with substantive unintended consequences This is not true at all. There is definitely testing of cars by groups like the NHTSA and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. For example, they've found crash rates were 14% lower on cars with blind-spot monitoring. Modern cars are far safer than older cars.

betwixthewires 5y ago

Most safety features are nothing like lane assist. Lane assist is not a representative example of what most safety features in a care look like. Most safety features are crumple hoods and pillars, safety glass, airbags and seatbelts. Additionally, you think it is a more feasible solution to change culture than to make the safe operation of a car less reliable on the human element? How exactly do you "make people better and more attentive?" Training? Please elaborate on what that would look like. Cars are designed a lot more thoughtfully than they used to be. An example not related to safety is cupholders. Remember when two flat rings on the dash were considered acceptable for holding a cup? Safety wise I'd say designing contingencies against inattentive drivers is thoughtful design.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

The "spewing BS is order to show the world how much you care about safety" part of the safety cargo cult bothers me a hell of a lot more than safety features enabling less attentive behavior. If I had a nickle for every social media user who's screeching about how airbags are all that's good in the world but who doesn't understand the inherent tradeoffs to a bag of dense air occupying the space in front of the driver or how a crumple zone is basically a single use spring I would use the money to hire people to beat the first group of people over the head with highshcool physics textbooks. I wish we'd regress to '50s attitudes about safety simply so that the people who care about safety no longer have to be held back by the people who crap all over everything by wanting to be seen caring about safety.

clairity 5y ago
yes, it's frenzy, a typically pro-social behavior (agreeableness) that's misapplied due to fear and uncertainty, so that we get counterintuitive consequences from overly correlated belief/behavior. it's the same impulse that got us mis-masking and lockdowns, when the real danger was inter-/intra-familial contact (because that contact is prolonged and our guards are down, unlike with "stranger danger"). happens all too often, and it's frustrating to watch otherwise perceptive and reasonable people forsake those facilities for primal herd behavior.