7 ms·

This article is intentionally written to sidestep the victim driver's own responsibility. It's hard to underride into a truck if you're driving attentively. Th

This article is intentionally written to sidestep the victim driver's own responsibility. It's hard to underride into a truck if you're driving attentively. That's not to say they are wrong, if the fix is as simple and as cheap as described. I do value the expose of the politics around the non-action, even if TFA has other faults. Mandatory AEB (automatic emergency braking) systems should address it to some degree, albeit only in new cars. There's no reason we shouldn't do both.

dghlsakjg 3y ago
Did you read the whole article? There’s a second accident cited where the truck changed lanes suddenly and trapped the car next to them under the trailer and dragged it for quite distance. Then the car caught fire and the driver was burned to death. Sounds like it’s pretty easy to underride if the truck changes lanes or swerved into you. Not a victim that I would blame. What about the accident where the truck blew through a stop sign at 40mph and the victim was wedged underneath the trailer. I wouldn’t blame that victim either for not avoiding a truck moving at speed outside their line of sight. What about the person who was rear-ended and propelled under the truck in front of them. Should that victim be blamed for their lack of attentiveness? Yeah, people can be better drivers, but we also shouldn’t allow known hazards on the road. Even if it costs equipment manufacturers several hundred more dollars
- jiveturkey 3y ago
  > Did you read the whole article? I did. You are cherry picking the accidents where it's quite clear the victim did nothing wrong. There are other accidents described where I find it hard to draw that conclusion. There are only about 4-5 accidents described out of about 400 in 2021 (an undercount per the article). Have you been on the road? It's very dangerous due to most drivers around you being absolutely awful and inattentive. At least in the USA which is the concern in this article. I swear, not a day goes by where someone either in front or behind me pulls off onto the shoulder to do a heavy braking, surprised that traffic in front is slowing. Whereas truck drivers IME tend to be the most attentive and good drivers. (Of course there are exceptions and the trucks are massive so they have an outsized result.) At least in california. So I'm hard pressed to believe that most of those 400+ annual accidents are the fault of the truck driver. > we also shouldn’t allow known hazards on the road. Agreed, and I said as much. Why the NHTSA is not acting on this is beyond my understanding. As well, I noted that I endorse AEB, even though it's a negative for me personally due to 100% false positive events in my own usage. AEB will fix far more hazards than trailer underride guards. Again, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do both. This is why non-level crossings, armcos, botts dots, LED traffic signals, and so on are all great things. Sure an excellent, courteous and attentive driver doesn't need any of those. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have them, and I said as much re underride guards. I think you are misreading my comment as victim blaming and reacting to that. That's not what I said.
  - dghlsakjg 3y ago
    I'm not cherry picking accidents. I literally highlighted every single one of the contemporary accidents mentioned in the article except the one accident from the lead paragraph that you seemed to be talking about. Mandatory AEB on cars only addresses one possible mechanism of underride, and not even the ones listed in the article. I also recall one of the first Tesla Autopilot fatalities being underride that wasn't detected by the AEB. Adding passive safety like guards simply eliminates the possibility of underride, at much lower cost. > I think you are misreading my comment as victim blaming and reacting to that. That's not what I said. Here's what you said: "This article is intentionally written to sidestep the victim driver's own responsibility. It's hard to underride into a truck if you're driving attentively." You are directly placing responsibility on the victim for the circumstances that led them to be a victim. The examples given show that the victim driver either had right of way or no control of the circumstances. I don't see how that could possibly NOT be victim blaming.
kelnos 3y ago
The victim driver's responsibility is irrelevant. We know that, regardless of education or licensing requirements, people will screw up sometimes when they drive. We can either just throw up our hands and accept the already-ridiculously-high death toll, or we can require that our vehicles are safer and do more to protect people. Personally I'm in favor of the latter, and don't particularly care who is at fault in these kinds of crashes. (And in this case we don't have enough information to know if the driver could have reasonably avoided the crash, anyway.)

dghlsakjg 3y ago

Did you read the whole article? There’s a second accident cited where the truck changed lanes suddenly and trapped the car next to them under the trailer and dragged it for quite distance. Then the car caught fire and the driver was burned to death. Sounds like it’s pretty easy to underride if the truck changes lanes or swerved into you. Not a victim that I would blame. What about the accident where the truck blew through a stop sign at 40mph and the victim was wedged underneath the trailer. I wouldn’t blame that victim either for not avoiding a truck moving at speed outside their line of sight. What about the person who was rear-ended and propelled under the truck in front of them. Should that victim be blamed for their lack of attentiveness? Yeah, people can be better drivers, but we also shouldn’t allow known hazards on the road. Even if it costs equipment manufacturers several hundred more dollars

jiveturkey 3y ago
> Did you read the whole article? I did. You are cherry picking the accidents where it's quite clear the victim did nothing wrong. There are other accidents described where I find it hard to draw that conclusion. There are only about 4-5 accidents described out of about 400 in 2021 (an undercount per the article). Have you been on the road? It's very dangerous due to most drivers around you being absolutely awful and inattentive. At least in the USA which is the concern in this article. I swear, not a day goes by where someone either in front or behind me pulls off onto the shoulder to do a heavy braking, surprised that traffic in front is slowing. Whereas truck drivers IME tend to be the most attentive and good drivers. (Of course there are exceptions and the trucks are massive so they have an outsized result.) At least in california. So I'm hard pressed to believe that most of those 400+ annual accidents are the fault of the truck driver. > we also shouldn’t allow known hazards on the road. Agreed, and I said as much. Why the NHTSA is not acting on this is beyond my understanding. As well, I noted that I endorse AEB, even though it's a negative for me personally due to 100% false positive events in my own usage. AEB will fix far more hazards than trailer underride guards. Again, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do both. This is why non-level crossings, armcos, botts dots, LED traffic signals, and so on are all great things. Sure an excellent, courteous and attentive driver doesn't need any of those. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have them, and I said as much re underride guards. I think you are misreading my comment as victim blaming and reacting to that. That's not what I said.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  I'm not cherry picking accidents. I literally highlighted every single one of the contemporary accidents mentioned in the article except the one accident from the lead paragraph that you seemed to be talking about. Mandatory AEB on cars only addresses one possible mechanism of underride, and not even the ones listed in the article. I also recall one of the first Tesla Autopilot fatalities being underride that wasn't detected by the AEB. Adding passive safety like guards simply eliminates the possibility of underride, at much lower cost. > I think you are misreading my comment as victim blaming and reacting to that. That's not what I said. Here's what you said: "This article is intentionally written to sidestep the victim driver's own responsibility. It's hard to underride into a truck if you're driving attentively." You are directly placing responsibility on the victim for the circumstances that led them to be a victim. The examples given show that the victim driver either had right of way or no control of the circumstances. I don't see how that could possibly NOT be victim blaming.

kelnos 3y ago

The victim driver's responsibility is irrelevant. We know that, regardless of education or licensing requirements, people will screw up sometimes when they drive. We can either just throw up our hands and accept the already-ridiculously-high death toll, or we can require that our vehicles are safer and do more to protect people. Personally I'm in favor of the latter, and don't particularly care who is at fault in these kinds of crashes. (And in this case we don't have enough information to know if the driver could have reasonably avoided the crash, anyway.)