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A minor correction. Much of the design of cars is about projecting the concept of safety - people buy escalades and other big cars because they feel safer in th

A minor correction. Much of the design of cars is about projecting the concept of safety - people buy escalades and other big cars because they feel safer in them - that fear is driven by the 30k deaths per year and many more serious injuries. I believe that safer designed roads and slower speeds would lead to very different vehicles. Personally I think a 30-40kph speed cap within the city would save thousands of lives, make cars cheaper and smaller, make everyone less stressed out, allow more people to be comfortable using alternate modes of transportation (bikes, scooters, etc) and would probably add well under 5min to most journeys (traffic being the limiting factor 90% of the time)

usrusr 5y ago
That fear is driven by an arms race in projecting the concept of safety through intimidation. Speed has very little to do with it, unfortunately.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Well, we do this with passenger trains as well. American trains share track with with heavy freight trains (and might collide with), and so are built to much different standards than European passenger trains that have dedicated tracks (or new exclusive use while they are running).
  - usrusr 5y ago
    The German rail system is also built with the assumption of tracks being shared by passenger and freight trains, with very few exceptions. Trains are generally not really designed to collide with anything at all (except maybe the occasional suicidal deer or human, but I doubt that this requires any particular design considerations), certainly not "train A is only designed to deal with stray passenger cars whereas train B should be able to deal with heavy freight". What might be a design issue, more for the network and operation procedures than for the rolling stock is confidence about not meeting anything like a stray car. Different approaches exist, including train-side boxes on the last car or axle counters in the network.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      > Trains are generally not really designed to collide with anything at all American trains seem to suffer this more than others. Given that freight trains have priority on most of America's rail lines (which the freight companies own), that might have something to do with it.

usrusr 5y ago

That fear is driven by an arms race in projecting the concept of safety through intimidation. Speed has very little to do with it, unfortunately.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Well, we do this with passenger trains as well. American trains share track with with heavy freight trains (and might collide with), and so are built to much different standards than European passenger trains that have dedicated tracks (or new exclusive use while they are running).
- usrusr 5y ago
  The German rail system is also built with the assumption of tracks being shared by passenger and freight trains, with very few exceptions. Trains are generally not really designed to collide with anything at all (except maybe the occasional suicidal deer or human, but I doubt that this requires any particular design considerations), certainly not "train A is only designed to deal with stray passenger cars whereas train B should be able to deal with heavy freight". What might be a design issue, more for the network and operation procedures than for the rolling stock is confidence about not meeting anything like a stray car. Different approaches exist, including train-side boxes on the last car or axle counters in the network.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    > Trains are generally not really designed to collide with anything at all American trains seem to suffer this more than others. Given that freight trains have priority on most of America's rail lines (which the freight companies own), that might have something to do with it.