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It's not like Europeans haven't also been speeding like crazy. I think one factor is that in Europe cars are generally equipped with brakes, tires and suspensi
by Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
It's not like Europeans haven't also been speeding like crazy.
I think one factor is that in Europe cars are generally equipped with brakes, tires and suspension with a much bigger margin of safety for high speed operation. One of the biggest car markets in Europe is the one with a lot of unrestricted Autobahn. And worse yet, many US states don't even have regular technical inspections, so you get away with more deferred maintenance. When you're stuck in 55 mph land, a car can get pretty dilapidated and still mostly hold together, but once you subject it to high speeds and high braking and cornering loads the risk of catastrophic failure skyrockets.
- giantg2 5y ago"And worse yet, many US states don't even have regular technical inspections, so you get away with more deferred maintenance." US inspections are generally a joke (compared to Europe). There's not even a statistically significant difference in accidents caused by mechanical issues between states with inspections and those without. The vast majority of accidents are driver error.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoAll inspections are a joke. It's a fundamentally poor use of resources. The overwhelming majority of accidents are caused by things people knew were dumb and did anyway. Shaking down everyone with a 10yo+ car to the tune of one random suspension/steering part a year won't change that. Chasing the long tail of equipment failure will do nothing to address the judgement related accidents so even if you magically solved 100% of equipment accidents you've still only affected a tiny fraction of all accidents.