14 ms·

Tesla has the highest fatal accident rate of all auto brands, study finds

308 points by MBCook 2y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago
> So, why are Teslas — and many other ostensibly safe cars on the list — involved in so many fatal crashes? “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities,” iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer said in the report.
legitster 2y ago
In a big picture, this makes sense. You can load the cars with safety features, but it doesn't change the fact that these cars are very heavy, very fast, and loaded with features that reward distracted driving. In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  In a bigger picture, cars are a bad solution to the problem of transportation at scale, and really always have been. As safety features go up, complacency goes up, and to be blunt that's combining with the fact that drivers are getting consistently worse overall at the skill anyway. Between EV's that are much, much heavier than ICE cars and SUVs/Trucks that are much larger than they need to be, vehicles themselves, despite having more safety features than ever, are also better at killing that they've been at a long time too. We really need to get serious about improving our transportation infrastructure.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    > We really need to get serious about improving our transportation infrastructure. Better yet, we really need to consider urbanization. That way everything you need is right there by your own two feet. No need for any extra special transportation at all. It seems people have a burning desire to live the rural lifestyle, though, even in so-called cities. I'm not sure we can actually overcome that pressure.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Many of us simply don't want to live in expensive urbanized environments (especially in more desirable ones)--at least at many points in our lives, so yeah no.
      - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        I mean the problem isn't those who don't want to live in cities nor is it those who want to live in cities: the problem is the suburbs, which is where those two meet. People who aren't in and do not desire an actual rural lifestyle where one has a standalone home on a large plot of land in the middle of nowhere, but also don't want a condo. They want their own little plot of land, with a small yard, and a standalone home. And like, same. That's also me. But the problem is the actual costs of that style of home are incredibly, heavily subsidized by the cities they surround and indeed even the rural areas they border, because suburbs are just... a bad goddamn way to house people. They're incredibly inefficient, basically require your own personal car, require the most infrastructure build-out for the smallest population, require the largest footprint of services over the largest area to serve the smallest number of people, etc. etc. And like, I don't think it's unreasonable to say if you want to live this way, that's fine, but then you need to actually pay for it. Your property taxes need to reflect how much it actually costs to serve your property, to build the huge number of roads needed to access it, to maintain those roads, to maintain the electrical grids, to maintain the water and sewage services, to bus kids to schools, etc. etc. etc. And yeah that's going to make suburbs WAY less appealing because they're going to be fucking expensive but like, the alternative is, again, everyone wanting that, and not paying for it. The dense urban centers they surround absolutely hemorrhage money supporting the suburbs around them.
        ghaff 2y ago
        Around where I live (greater Boston metro) most of the tech jobs are actually out in the suburbs/exurbubs. There were basically no tech jobs in the city ~20 years ago any longer. (It's mostly only changed with the establishment of of satellite offices of some west coast companies.)
  - heywire 2y ago
    I would wager that most people don’t want to use public transit regularly. I know I certainly don’t.
    - gorbachev 2y ago
      That's because most Americans haven't seen a public transport service that works well. Visit or live in a major European city for a while and you are likely change your tune.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      Your desire to not be inconvenienced is not as important as the lives of other people who are being killed unnecessarily for it. That being said, to be clear, I don't think we need to make driving illegal or whatever. I think a TON of people would happily not be saddled with the expense of owning a car or the task of driving if there were reasonable alternatives on offer, which in the few pockets of the US that actually have decent mass transit, is broadly the case.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        That said, I drove into a nearby city after dark which is increasingly early last night. There are no reasonable alternatives--I will for a 9-5 event but just doesn't work for the evening. There's a decent mass transit system including commuter rail but it it's just not organized around coming in at 5pm. It's chaos with cars/cycles/escooters/pedestrians often randomly crossing streets, poor visibility, etc. I mostly just don't go in any longer.
    - afavour 2y ago
      I think a lot of people would be happy to use it if it was convenient and reliable. I live in NYC and haven’t had to drive to/from work in over a decade. I consider the subway ride a vast, vast improvement over driving… but only when the subway works right.
      - nomel 2y ago
        The vast majority of people I talk to, including myself, don't use public transportation for: 1. Time. For example, my commute is 25 minutes, but 2 hours ride and three mile walk by public transport. 2. Safety, intimately tied to the homeless problem. 3. Cleanliness. In my experience, related to #2, and the fact that government institutions are incapable of caring about user experience, because they get funding regardless. Matted, stained fabric seat cushions, and dried whatever caked on the floor. There's nothing better or remotely alluring about public transportation for the vast majority of people (as shown by gridlock traffic).
  - toast0 2y ago
    > In a bigger picture, cars are a bad solution to the problem of transportation at scale They're not a great solution to transportation at scale, but they're pretty good at small volume point to point traffic. There's not enough people going my way on most of my trips to make transportation at scale worthwhile. Ferries work well for part of many of my trips, but I can take a car on the ferry to deal with the lack of scale on either side. I could sometimes take a bus to the ferry, walk to light rail and take light rail to the airport. But the bus only runs during commute times, so that impacts viable flight times, and the walk to the light rail got pretty sketchy in the past several years and light rail itself can be sketchy too. Most of my cars run fine any time of day, although peak traffic is annoying, and I'm dealing with lighting issues on one so I can't take it out unless I know I'll be home before dusk.
  - thebruce87m 2y ago
    > much, much heavier https://thedriven.io/2024/05/03/are-evs-really-much-heavier-than-their-ice-equivalents/amp/ https://thedriven.io/2024/05/03/are-evs-really-much-heavier-... > full electric versions are only around 10% to 15% heavier than their direct ICE equivalent I don’t think “much, much” should be used when we are talking 10-15%. This will mislead people. There are outliers of course.
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  > You can load the cars with safety features, but it doesn't change the fact that these cars are very heavy Being heavy is actually a safety feature of sort (but just for the people inside the car, it increases overall fatality).
  - Gigachad 2y ago
    Trees are anchored to the ground. Being heavier just reduces your ability to stop.
    - rich_sasha 2y ago
      Maybe that's good when hitting a tree? Slower deceleration, less force.
      - jkaptur 2y ago
        I think they meant that it's more difficult to stop before beginning to impact the tree.
        rich_sasha 2y ago
        Still. If I'm going to hit a tree, I'd rather drive a tank than a motorbike.
        JasonSage 2y ago
        Cars have crumple zones which a motorbike does not. A lighter car requires less work from the crumple zone to decelerate the car into non-fatal territory than a heavy car.
    - bastloing 2y ago
      Decreases your tendency to flip over. I'm astonished by all the dashcam videos out there showing collisions, usually the first thing an ice car does is flip over. Not EVs though.
- dpats 2y ago
  > In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. Do you have a source on that?
  - legitster 2y ago
    > From 2016 to 2018 an average of 19,158 fatalities resulted from roadway departures, which is 51 percent of all traffic fatalities in the United States. https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD
    - gamblor956 2y ago
      FTL: "FHWA defines a roadway departure (RwD) crash as a crash which occurs after a vehicle crosses an edge line or a center line, or otherwise leaves the traveled way. Another term our partners often use is lane departure, which is synonymous with RwD, since both include head-on collisions when a vehicle enters an opposing lane of traffic." Road departure fatalities are high because of head-on collisions, not because there is an epidemic of people crashing into trees along the side of the road. If you follow the links on the cited page, they clearly show that head-on crashes result in more fatalities than tree+utility pole crashes.
- kevinqi 2y ago
  Aside from the distracted driving part, which is real, there are two physical aspects of the model 3 that I find to be safety issues as well-- the two front windshield beams are thick and add a sort of blind spot, and the side mirrors don't give you great field of view.
  - nomel 2y ago
    Same with my older Toyota. They stuffed airbags in them, which is nice, but I've had several times where an adult on a bike is completely obscured, with my passenger having to scream "stop!". After the second time, I now bob my head like a maniac to look around them. Can't wait for displays on pillars, to make them appear transparent.
    - tzs 2y ago
      The pillars on my 2006 CR-V haven't been a problem. Did pillars get bigger on newer cars, or did Honda use smaller pillars, or what? They are wide enough that their horizontal angular width could be larger than the horizontal angular width of a pedestrian more than a couple or so meters away but due to their angle there is plenty of the pedestrian still visible. I spent a while just sitting in a busy parking lot watching people go by and seeing how their visibility changed and I couldn't find any situation where I'd have trouble seeing a pedestrian unless they were far enough away that there was no chance I'd hit them even if I never saw them.
    - kevinqi 2y ago
      yeah I've had a similar experience with a bike and do the head bob thing now too. glad to know it's not just me
  - GuB-42 2y ago
    It is a problem with most modern cars, and it is actually for safety reasons. These beams have to support the entire weight of the car in case it flips over in order to protect the occupants.
    - MBCook 2y ago
- akira2501 2y ago
  > and loaded with features "Ludicrous mode." > the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. It's actually alcohol and drugs. Which is the reason those drivers find themselves in the trees.
  - doctorpangloss 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - mcculley 2y ago
      How is California special in that regard? Many states lack the infrastructure or density to allow for proper enjoyment of alcohol.
      - connicpu 2y ago
        Unless you're wealthy enough to live in the core of a major metropolitan area, it's all of the states.
      - aziaziazi 2y ago
        There also clear lack of alcohol enjoyment education. Gather at friends place and stay overnight, carpools and draw a sober Sam, don’t get overdrunk and drink water for the last 90 min of the party, etc… I do agree infras and density is a better option. But lack of infra doesn’t justify to drive drunk.
        mcculley 2y ago
        I’m not justifying drunk driving. I asked how California is different from other states in this regard.
    - mandymoorefan 2y ago
      North Carolina next question.
    - rich_sasha 2y ago
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  What makes sense to me is the top 3 cars: Tesla - autopilot that really isn't, gets fooled in many situations, driver lulled into not paying attention, can't react quickly enough when the computer bails, and ends up driving into a bridge abutment at 75mph. Kia - cheap cars built to minimum safety standards driven by young people who aren't very experienced drivers. Buick - cars driven by geriatrics whose declines in vision and reaction speed probably should have resulted in their licenses being revoked five years ago but who still insist on driving themselves.
  - vikingerik 2y ago
    I'd also venture that the profile of Tesla drivers is also a factor along with those other two brands. I'd be pretty sure that Tesla owners collectively drive more aggressively than the average car on the road. Teslas aren't being driven by soccer moms and careful grandmas.
    - aziaziazi 2y ago
      Does the insurance cost vary between two cars almost identical in every relevant points but the brand? Not a rhetorical question.
    - duderific 2y ago
      Lots of soccer moms driving Teslas in the Bay Area. Know several myself.
    - buffington 2y ago
      Where I live, I'd estimate that a third of the passenger cars are Teslas. No data to back that up, but that's what I tend to see day to day. The diversity of drivers is significant enough to suggest that "all kinds of people" drive Teslas.
      - SoftTalker 2y ago
        A third? Wow. Where I am they are not exactly rare but uncommon enough that I still notice them when I see them. I see a few a week I'd guess. Pre-pandemic I knew one person who owned a Tesla. And now... I know two people who own a Tesla, but one of them lives in another country.
- jvandonsel 2y ago
  Simple solution. Cut down all the trees on the side of the road. You’re welcome.
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago
  >In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. A decade or so ago the Georgia Department of Transportation tried to do away with the trees between streets and sidewalks because of so many fatalities coming from collisions with trees. Clearing out an "automative recovery zone" as they called it likely would have saved lives of some people in vehicles but of course it would increase the danger to pedestrians, who might or might not be present at that moment. Lots of trade offs in these types of analysis and not all of them are always immediately obvious.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. This is false. Your cited link (https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD) clearly demonstrates that head-on collisions cause more fatalities than tree+utility pole collisions combined.
grecy 2y ago
How can any reasonable person know if any story about Tesla (good or bad) is actually factual and useful, or is just a story told from a particular angle to manipulate the stock price for gain? While many says it's the ultimate meme stock, I also can't help thinking it's the ultimate manipulation stock - it seems some people desperately want it to go down while others desperately want it to go up.
- robterrell 2y ago
  > analyzed data from the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) Maybe not for the "reasonable person" but government data is available and if you are here you likely know some statistics, so go nuts: https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx and https://www.nhtsa.gov/research-data/fatality-analysis-reporting-system-fars https://www.nhtsa.gov/research-data/fatality-analysis-report...
  - Lendal 2y ago
    Now Elon will possibly in charge of making that government database disappear.
    - ridgeguy 2y ago
      Rapidly growing new file category on Pirate Bay?
    - willsoon 2y ago
      Consider, my friends, this elegant plot twist. Musk is a secret blue agent infiltrated to make that government database disappear.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- thejazzman 2y ago
  I've had one since 2015 and so many issues. When I share them on Reddit I'm downvoted into oblivion for going against the cult It's gotten better in the last few years, now that millions of people share the issues, it's harder to drown them out Doesn't seem to matter whatsoever for their stock, so that doesn't seems to be too relevant
mattlondon 2y ago
> Karl Brauer said in the report. “A focused, alert driver, traveling at a legal or prudent speed, without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, is the most likely to arrive safely regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.” ... implication being that Tesla drivers are more likely to be driving like pricks and/or under the influence? I wonder what the rates are like for specific models from other brands that are associated with morons. G-wagons, M3s etc etc
- lawn 2y ago
  Or that its very difficult to be alert when using Teslas FSD?
- tifik 2y ago
  Or it's the drivers are not "focused, alert", because of the auto-pilot.
- MBCook 2y ago
  > ... implication being that Tesla drivers are more likely to be driving like pricks and/or under the influence? Or perhaps the large amount of power available instantly makes it easier to get into dangerous situations than an equivalent to combustion engine car. And as the largest EV brand with the most data available… they really stand out.
  - chaffeurmode 2y ago
    [dead]
Lendal 2y ago
I paid $10K for FSD when I was drinking the Kool Aid but haven't used it in over a year due to it being a steaming pile of garbage. But hey, it's a great party gag and the stock price is still soaring so keep the pedal to the metal and take us all to RICH town Elon! What could possibly go wron...
cringelibs 2y ago
[dead]
stoplight 2y ago
I wonder how much of this is because (IME anyway) Tesla drivers are not very good. With all that tech it's easy to get distracted (there's literally a giant tablet looking thing for a console). It's also easy to think all the bells and whistles will do things for you so drivers are paying less attention because the car will beep and holler at them if things are going awry (except by that point it's too late).
- geysersam 2y ago
  Tesla drivers are young men with big wallets, stereotypically. That demographic is not known for their carefulness in traffic, or in any other matter. I'm sure that simple confounding factor is enough to explain the excessive fatality rate of Tesla cars.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    Tesla drivers demographic was that maybe in 2015. Today, it's the California camry.
    - Tempest1981 2y ago
      And the same boring colors, year after year
- jiveturkey 2y ago
  There's a saying: BMWs are for folks that like to drive, Teslas are for folks that hate to drive. My own add-on is: Toyotas are for folks that have to drive.
- almatabata 2y ago
  You can add more parameters. Whats the temperament of the driver. Certain brands attract hot heads who will drive recklessly. I was kind of expecting more sports cars in the top 5. 2/5 is still a good score. Given the amount of SUVs as well, no matter how safe you make a small car, if an SUV rams you, it is just not going to end well for the smaller.
Koala_ice 2y ago
I thoroughyl expect the Deparment of Government Efficiency to recommend U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) be shut down to save previous taxpayer dollars.
- TrainedMonkey 2y ago
  And all USG vehicles to be replaced with Teslas to save money on gas /s
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- ryandvm 2y ago
  Not even remotely farce. I hope the rest of the world is taking notes...
  - oblio 2y ago
    Doesn't each major government do independent safety testing/has independent safety requirements, anyway?
    - dylan604 2y ago
      VW diesel-gate How many of the independents caught that?
      - nickff 2y ago
        Interestingly, it was a study commissioned by a non-profit, and performed by a university: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
        dylan604 2y ago
        oh, great, so none.
peppertree 2y ago
I suspect the biggest factor is speed. After getting used to EV for over a year, every ICE vehicle feels painfully sluggish and slow. If that's the case I'm curious to see how the numbers compare to other EVs.
- nytesky 2y ago
  Torque and touchscreens.
  - LUmBULtERA 2y ago
    I find the touchscreen actually less distracting and easier to use than the cell phone I had to use in a Honda civic. Also no critical functions need to be done on the touchscreen, they can all be done via physical buttons on the wheel or stocks.
- akira2501 2y ago
  > every ICE vehicle feels painfully sluggish and slow. You don't do much towing, do you?
  - Kiro 2y ago
    99.9% of drivers will never tow anything in their life.
    - akira2501 2y ago
      > 99.9% of drivers I think you've just made that up; however, I am willing to stipulate that 99.9% of Hacker News posters will never tow anything. I always forget how out of touch the audience here is.
    - connicpu 2y ago
      That might be a little high given how many small boats exist in this country, but definitely agree the vast majority will never tow.
    - 2y ago
shadowtree 2y ago
[flagged]
- cruffle_duffle 2y ago
  Yes but there was a “student driver” sticker on the back so it’s all good. Jokes aside it would be interesting to filter by demographic too.
- tqi 2y ago
  "fact"
  - shadowtree 2y ago
    if you bet on an Indian behind the wheel of Tesla you win most. Inverse bet with Jeeps. Sorry that clear observations violate decorum.
    - tqi 2y ago
      "most"
      - shadowtree 2y ago
        "retard"
        tqi 2y ago
        "cLeVeR"
- Hexcles 2y ago
  Which part of this is a fact? That there are many Asians in California? And that they make up a disproportionately big part of Tesla drivers?
tim333 2y ago
I wonder what percentage are autopilot driving into things?
- janalsncm 2y ago
  I would also like to know this. How many fatal crashes happened where autopilot was engaged in the 30 seconds prior to a fatal accident? By definition, if the autopilot has disengaged it’s a more dangerous situation, so it is fair to place the blame on it. A relief pitcher doesn’t get charged with earned runs he inherits.
- avidiax 2y ago
  Very low. Technically the driver drove into those things, since autopilot disengaged .4 seconds before impact. Autopilot was just there to ensure the trip to that last .4 seconds wasn't too draining.
nytesky 2y ago
Have the demographics of typical Tesla driver changed in last 5-10 years? I think it was at first wealthy environmentalists, but it shifted to be a new Yuppie mobile, and most recently probably skews to a young male crowd?
TrainedMonkey 2y ago
> The study was conducted on model year 2018–2022 vehicles, and focused on crashes between 2017 and 2022 that resulted in occupant fatalities. Teslas can go fast real fast, so naively this is the result I would expect given how they have filtered the data. In other words, unless they controlled for this, this would be biased by natural selection playing out. Having said that, as someone who had a couple of close calls with the autopilot. I would love to know what percent of those crashes was with autopilot enabled.
- phony-account 2y ago
  > Teslas can go fast real fast, so naively this is the result I would expect given how they have filtered the data. In other words, unless they controlled for this… Explain to me why you would want to filter out fatalities caused by going “real fast”?
  - Petersipoi 2y ago
    Because comparing the fatality rate of a Corolla going 50mph and a Tesla going 90mph is useless to a person who wants a car that is safe when driven responsibly.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - janalsncm 2y ago
      Unless the Tesla induces unsafe behavior, of course. Does the car make it easier to break the speed limit, drive distracted, or drive under the influence? I don’t know.
      - bravetraveler 2y ago
        Quite literally selling points
    - skybrian 2y ago
danslacker 2y ago
[flagged]
- geysersam 2y ago
  They bought a president. That's not nothing.
  - willsoon 2y ago
    Perhaps Musk needs to come to terms with the fact that the Teslas are not so safe. Maybe he needs to come to terms with the fact that his successful business model does not include customer satisfaction at all. Elon, just cope.
    - bastloing 2y ago
      I wonder how crash safety ratings compare with a Tesla and a Kia, for example.
bunderbunder 2y ago
I'd love to see some sort of multiple regression or ANOVA on this, instead of singling out a single variable. Is car brand really the best independent predictor? Or is it specific design decisions you tend to see in certain brands? (Like, say, maximizing driver distraction by consolidating a bunch of essential controls and information displays into a touchscreen display that's really difficult to operate when it's sunny outside. Just to pick something at random, of course.) Somewhat related, I was recently shopping for refrigerators, and fell down a data rabbit hole. If you just look at the overall style of fridge, French doors look like a terrible option from a reliability perspective. But then, digging in a bit more, it turns out that's kind of a spurious correlation. Actually it's the presence of bells and whistles like through-door ice dispensers that kill a refrigerator's reliability. And then perhaps on top of that the amount of extra Rube Goldberg machine you need to make a chest height ice dispenser work in a bottom-freezer French door refrigerator creates even more moving parts to break. But a those problems don't apply to a model that doesn't have that feature.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  It's an interesting perspective. I was recently shopping for shoes, and a fully closed shoe had more places where it could break compared to my flip flops. That's why whenever you are doing a dangerous activity, flip flops are recommended.
  - bunderbunder 2y ago
    I'm not entirely sure an anecdote about the dangers of singling out just one variable is a great counterpoint to a criticism of the practice of singling out just one variable.
  - TheGamerUncle 2y ago
    Nick Mullen may disagree
- stego-tech 2y ago
  I mean, even lacking proper scientific data, ask yourself how often your brain “autocompletes” someone based on a brand or object? There’s a reason advertisers spend so much money and effort cultivating a very specific customer image: it works. In the case of Tesla - and I cannot overstress enough how much lf this is purely subjective conjecture on my part and not a statement of fact - the image cultivated by the company and its Chief Executive is very much one of rejecting norms and expectations, fierce independence, and a hostility towards others (mostly from the Cybertruck unveiling onward). The people who relate to that brand would, I would think, be more likely to flout laws like speed limits, failing to use indicators for turns or merges, and drive more aggressively than a brand that emphasizes safety or enjoyment of experience (like Hondas and Toyotas). My purely subjective experiences bear this out, and I’m consistently rewarded giving Teslas a wider berth on the roads. So as far as branding as an indicator of outcome, yeah, I can totally see that being a reliable indicator. I’d still be darn curious to see more research about it, though.
altairprime 2y ago
The linked study is better: https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024 https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024
- samatman 2y ago
  > “Most of these vehicles received excellent safety ratings, performing well in crash tests at the IIHS and NHTSA, so it’s not a vehicle design issue,” said Brauer. “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities.” Quoting what's easily the most important passage in that study. The two Teslas on the list are the Model Y, right beneath the Porsche 911, and the Model S, right beneath the... Toyota Prius. So yeah. No surprises here. It's a study where the lesson should be "a car is as dangerous as its driver" and everyone is going to read it as "Teslas are deathtraps". What else is new.
  - _dark_matter_ 2y ago
    That just assumes that the crash tests are good indicators of actual safety. My understanding is that car manufacturers could go much further in the name of safety, but do just enough to scrape by on those crash tests. So there could definitely be differentials in terms of safety even among cars that have perfect safety measures from IIHS/NHTSA.
  - ccorcos 2y ago
    It’s hard to to be cynical about the intentions of the authors of the original article after seeing this…
- floxy 2y ago
  It is better. But in the year 2024, why should I believe the data from a random source, with unknown data analysis? When will they be releasing their data package for independent analysis? Why isn't this the expected norm? And how can we make it so?
  - 2y ago
Animats 2y ago
How much data does Tesla have on the details of crashes? Probably depends on whether enough electronics survived to phone home. It's possible to dig the airbag controller out of the wreckage and read out the last 30 seconds or so. Airbag controllers have a short but nonvolatile memory and usually survive crashes. That gets you speed, acceleration in several axes, plus steering, brake, and power inputs, and detailed info about what the airbag system did.[1] Those were originally created to tune the airbag algorithm, and, over the years, false airbag deployments have dropped almost to zero. That's the basic info needed to analyze fatal crashes. Speed at collision? Speed 10 secs before collision? Accelerator and brake inputs? Maneuvering (side accel) before crash? That, plus the crash scene, tells most of what you need to know. Law enforcement will sometimes read out those units, when it's not clear what happened. It's not done routinely. [1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/fmvss/EDR_QAs_11Aug2006.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/fmvss/EDR_QAs_11...
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  "Fun" fact... Tesla doesn't count fatalities in their accident stats! Nor does it count accidents where there was no airbag deployment because as you point out, modern airbag systems use a wide variety of parameters, not just "if speed > x and collision = true; deploy". So you can hit someone obliquely at 30mph, and due to factors, airbags don't deploy, and Tesla says "great, not an accident". Or you can be in such a serious collision or similar where the airbags CAN'T deploy, and Tesla? "Not an accident".
fakedang 2y ago
Something something Lex Fridman something.
jiveturkey 2y ago
Seems flawed. Tesla Model Y was the best selling model worldwide for 2023. (I think #3 if limited to US.) The study only covers 2017-2022, but we can infer that for the entire Brand, Teslas sold quite well over at least that latter part of that period. Now if there are more Teslas on the road vs other vehicles (note they excluded car model years earlier than 2017, another fatal (heh) flaw in the study), it makes sense they would have more fatalities. So this should be normalized "per capita" to vehicle counts if we want to extract any brand-related causality, in the same way as the data is already normalized to miles driven. I enjoy hating on Tesla as much as the next person, but come on.
- cachecrab 2y ago
  It’s on a “per billion miles driven” basis so it is normalized.
- FactKnower69 2y ago
  If you had clicked through to the article before writing your comment, you would know that the stat being compared is "fatal crash rate per billion miles driven", and that the fatal crash rate for Teslas is 2.0x the national average
  - jiveturkey 2y ago
    If you had read my comment before replying, you would know that I recognized and even stipulated that the report was already normalized to miles driven. I am suggesting that per mile driven and per vehicle brand on the road are not the same thing. Now that I think about it, miles driven per brand would be an interesting data point. Just as an example of why per-brand might be useful, let's imagine that teslas are driven half the miles of the average for all other brands. so if that were the case and if the number of fatalities were equal, then that would result in tesla having 2x the fatality rate per mile. but at the same time, this doesn't let us appreciate the amount of time tesla spends on the road vs other brands. so miles might be half but time spent might be closer to 1 (equal time). and maybe that is because teslas are concentrated in urban-suburban interface environments in high congestion areas, whereas other brands are spread out across the country where for the same amount of time spent, twice as many miles are covered and congestion is less. Data like that is needed to properly evaluate this result. And while I asked for per-vehicle-on-the-road, and my example didn't match that, you can still see how the simple per-mile-driven is insufficient. They also could have noted the demographics of the drivers -- male/female and years of driving experience, things like that. So again, I find the implications of this article to be very unfair.
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
Projectiboga 2y ago
What is the Horsepower equivalent of the Tesla power trains? Is this just because they are the new luxury sportscar and many of these drivers haven't been trough major car repairs, ever? The zero to sixty of even a basic Tesla is very quick and even with strong breaking other physical limits with turning and maneuvering can arise if some one is zooming around weaving in traffic. These stats need to be studied by age and other demographics like age, income and alcohol consumption.
- MBCook 2y ago
  It’s not just the horsepower, a big thing is the torque. There is so much and it’s available basically from zero. So even if you can compare it to a combustion engine with the same amount of horsepower it may take off the line a lot faster.
bastloing 2y ago
If you read the article it implies driver fault not car fault. Tesla receiving the highest ever crash safety ratings echos that.
- MBCook 2y ago
  The huge difference between their cars seems to indicate that too. The Y is way above their brand average, for example.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
I remember some car collision data that showed that men were more likely to get into any collision and women were more likely to get into a fatal collision. A comment I read about the study suggested the conclusion that men take more risks while women take bigger risks. It's interesting to think in that context about this. Could Tesla drivers be taking bigger risks because they think the car's software will save them from the negative consequences of their risky decisions? (As an extreme example, one such driver opted to drive in the back seat instead of the driver's seat. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-highway-patrol-searching-man-seen-riding-back-seat-tesla-n1266944 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-highway-patr...)
- sombrero_john 2y ago
  > A comment I read about the study suggested the conclusion that men take more risks while women take bigger risks. Or women's weaker musculoskeletal systems provide less protection against blunt force trauma?
  - roughly 2y ago
    Or, like medicine and a whole variety of other fields, “male” is assumed default and anyone who isn’t the default has worse outcomes. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/business/car-safety-women.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/business/car-safety-women...
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    If you look into car safety testing and design, they haven't used "Woman sized" crash test dummies until very very recently. Cars were less safe for women because they were not designed to be safe for women.
  - Andrew6rant 2y ago
    Guess what year the NHTSA started using female crash dummies? 2003, thirty years after they started using male crash dummies. And the NHTSA's female dummies were essentially male dummies shrunk to 4'11" and lightened to 97/108lbs. What year do you think they mandated a crash dummy that was actually based on the female body? Just guess. I think you might be surprised that they haven't done this yet. It's in the works (see THOR-5F), but it's crazy it's taken so long. Now guess when they first put the 2003 female crash dummy in the drivers seat for the frontal collision crash test. They still haven't!
yumraj 2y ago
> “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities,” I’m assuming the driver behavior also includes relying on the half baked auto pilot/FSD features.
fallingfrog 2y ago
I wonder how this breaks down by region. I imagine a heavy car is probably bad in the snow.
- piva00 2y ago
  Teslas sell quite well in Norway and are driven in the snow while Norway has one of the safest traffic in Western societies.
bilsbie 2y ago
I’m really confused. A major reason I bought one was because I heard they were so safe.
- MBCook 2y ago
  If you read the end of the article they basically say that Teslas are safe. It really appears to be an issue of average Tesla driver behavior compared to overall average driver behavior.
- vegadw 2y ago
  I think they probably are when not using "autopilot" as others are commenting, this isn't cause. It's likely that the brand attracts a kind of driver that likes to speed or that wants to over rely on assisted driving tech that isn't there yet. That said, I suspect they're regressing, like how they removed ultrasonic sensors which are a dime a dozen to only rely on computer vision. That's just plain stupid, IMHO. For the money, I think you can do much better than a Tesla in many regards, but I'm not about to shame you for reading marketing and believing it either, especially if it was pre the current Musk hell and the general knowledge that he's essentially a fraudster given the perpetual 1 year away for autopilot and what not.
itake 2y ago
I wish this would break down driver and passenger deaths in the tesla vs outside the tesla. if other people are more likely to hit a tesla or are tesla drivers usually at fault?
rahimnathwani 2y ago
How does iSeeCars (who did the study) know how many miles were driven by each brand's cars? It says they have a database of cars, but do we know whether it's an unbiased sample?
- postmeta 2y ago
  exactly, we should ask Karl Brauer to cite his sources and explain his methodology
pluc 2y ago
Let's put that guy in charge of government efficiency, what's the worst that could happen
whitej125 2y ago
> Tesla vehicles have a fatal crash rate of 5.6 per billion miles driven, according to the study; > So, why are Teslas — and many other ostensibly safe cars on the list — involved in so many fatal crashes? “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities,” What is the nature of those miles driven by each brand? I've got to imagine that pure-EV companies like Tesla are predominantly driven in urban/city driving (shorter daily distances, more traffic, etc). In contrast to ICE cars which can rack up lots of miles on long trips. 1 billion Tesla miles I suspect looks different than 1 billion Ford miles.
- breckenedge 2y ago
  > In 2022, the rate of crash deaths per 100 million miles traveled was much higher in rural areas than in urban areas (1.68 in rural areas compared with 1.15 in urban areas). From 1977 to 2022, the rates decreased by 61% in rural areas (from 4.35 to 1.68) and 51% in urban areas (from 2.35 to 1.15). https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/urban-rural-comparison https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/urban...
- why_at 2y ago
  The ranking is still strange to me though. The model S is lower than the model Y even though it is smaller and faster, both of which should make it less safe, and the model 3 didn't even make the list.
stbullard 2y ago
Misleading/clickbait “journalism”: * The FARS data is “normalized” by unpublished internal iSeeCars estimates of miles driven; the underlying “study” is a marketing blog post for their company. * FARS data distinguishes between driver and occupant fatalities - the “study” looks only at occupant fatalities, which is not what most people would reasonably expect given the headline. * One might reasonably suspect Tesla’s long history of touting 5-star safety ratings and advanced safety tech could lead to passengers being lulled into a false sense of security, and being less likely to use seatbelts. Driver fatalities and seatbelt use are right there in the FARS data - one wonders why these weren’t considered and incorporated in the “study”. Anyhow, a note to the HN user: don’t upvote FUD-sowing headlines based on blog posts about unscientific “studies” that are really just submarine PR; they carry none of the credibility of the underlying studies, and are a disservice to the scientists and public servants who rigorously and faithfully collect and analyze this data. HN used to be better than this…
- drcode 2y ago
  Per page 234 of FARS, drivers are classified as occupants https://www.ire.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/USERGUIDE-2014-1.pdf https://www.ire.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/USERGUIDE-201...
_wire_ 2y ago
In any lineup by height someone is tallest and someone is shortest, so what's significant about Tesla in this spread? If not them then another. A significant aspect is that Telsa, as a harbinger of "progress", by this measure is making cars less safe. That's a surprising development as it's contrary to the promises and prognostications for the devices. It's expected that the distribution of harm from cars would change with increasing automation, but the promise of the automation is to make the devices safer overall. So is this a key metric by which we find that the progress is actually a hazard, or is the changing distribution part of an overall trend of improvement with some hazardous edge cases? All we have with this article is yet another headline with no useful information. > “A focused, alert driver, traveling at a legal or prudent speed, without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, is the most likely to arrive safely regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.” What does "focused and alert" mean for a robot? Does arriving safely allow a wake of carnage? The Trump administration figures as a harbinger for such questions in that he is a well-known champion of disinformation in favor of his self interest, as are all of his cabinet picks and advisors. But this is in keeping with the modern history of the GOP.
Alupis 2y ago
> The study's authors make clear that the results do not indicate Tesla vehicles are inherently unsafe or have design flaws. In fact, Tesla vehicles are loaded with safety technology; the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) named the 2024 Model Y as a Top Safety Pick+ award winner, for example. Many of the other cars that ranked highly on the list have also been given high ratings for safety by the likes of IIHS and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, as well. > So, why are Teslas — and many other ostensibly safe cars on the list — involved in so many fatal crashes? “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities,” iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer said in the report. “A focused, alert driver, traveling at a legal or prudent speed, without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, is the most likely to arrive safely regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.” Ok so Tesla's aren't less safe than any other vehicle in this lineup. It's just that Tesla drivers are more likely to be careless.
- Nasrudith 2y ago
  My first thought was if mass got factored into it, but it looks like mass has already crept up pretty high for other cars. A Toyota Prius is about 3200 lbs and a Model 3 is about 4000 lbs or 3800 lbs for their lightest variant. My mental models were outdated and still imagined sedans as about one ton and change. While bigger not as significant a factor as I initially thought.
  - oblio 2y ago
    EVs are really heavy. The average VW Golf weighs about 1.3 tons while the average VW ID.3 weighs about 1.8 tons. That's 40% heavier.
  - Melatonic 2y ago
    From my experience the model 3 also drove very different than other Teslas (in a good way). It was by far my favorite even being the cheapest.
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  > So, why are Teslas — and many other ostensibly safe cars on the list Interesting, my initial mental concern was: "So, why IIHS ranked cars highly involved in crash with Top Safety+?" Didn’t they though using statistics could help prevent accidents in praxi?
scruple 2y ago
I spend a lot of time driving around Irvine, CA and it feels like the Tesla (especially Model Y) capital of the world. And I am not at all surprised to see these sorts of fatality statistics about these vehicles because their drivers are, far and away, the most distracted and oblivious drivers I have ever encountered on the road in 28 years of driving.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  On my monthly drive to the office this week I passed 7 accidents on the morning commute to Irvine. Every single accident involved a Tesla. One of the accidents even involved two Teslas: one crashed into the other, and based on what one of the drivers was yelling into his phone as I slowly inched passed them, both Teslas were using FSD. On a more somber note, in one of the accidents an AP/FSD-driven Tesla crashed into a motorcyclist. The motorcyclist survived (or at least, the news did not report a fatality on the 405 that day), but there was a lot of blood on the road and the Tesla that crashed into him.
jccc 2y ago
Buried at the very end of the article: > The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities,” iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer said in the report. > “A focused, alert driver, traveling at a legal or prudent speed, without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, is the most likely to arrive safely regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.
jaco6 2y ago
The list of deadliest cars is a mixture of compact cars and sports cars. Compact cars are less safe because they get obliterated in collisions with bigger vehicles. Sports cars are unsafe because drivers tend to drive them at high speeds and attempt dangerous cornering maneuvers, eg driving the Pacific Coastal Highway at high speeds. Teslas are faster than many sports cars, but in the case of the Model Y and Model X lack the preferred low profile of a true sports car. In the case of the Model S, the acceleration is so great that it is frankly surprising it doesn’t rank higher. I wonder how many new Model S owners have gotten themselves killed within a few days of owning the car? I myself purchased a Model 3 last year and drove it quite foolishly for the first few months I had it. The acceleration was so amazing to me coming from a Honda Accord that it was hard to resist the temptation to weave and corner like a mad man. Model S would have been even worse. The Model S also has a long body like a full size sedan, not ideal for sports performance either, compared to the Model 3’s short length, more comparable to a Corrola or Toyota BRZ. So I suspect that speculations about “Tesla drivers being morons” and “distracted by the screen” (almost all new cars have shiny screens!) are nonsense. Another frequent remark is that Teslas’ high weight is a disadvantage. This is not as straightforward as they assume, because weight actually has benefits for traction. Light cars are much more likely to lose grip and slide around. On the other hand, a heavy car with worn out tires or brakes is much more difficult to stop than a light car with worn out tires or brakes. So weight is probably a wash. But I do agree with some commenters that the autonomous features, and particular misuse of those features, are probably a contributor to these statistics as well. If you’re new to them you assume they are safer than they really are. With more experience you realize you still need to be watching the road the whole time.
- Melatonic 2y ago
  Not true at all - cars with more weight theoretically have a little more traction but also way more momentum. Also your model 3 is much more comparable in weight to a normal car so it handles of course much better
phtrivier 2y ago
I would be interested in: * having the ratio of fatalities organised by sized and power of cars. My understanding is that Teslas have a bit more horsepower than other cars, so maybe an apple-to-apple comparison needs to compare them to a slighly smaller share of the overal pool * having the ratio of fatalities involving the so called "autopilot" feature. I'm not necessarily going to blame Tesla for making fast cars that reckless people use to get into accidents when running too fast. However, if it's your average joe getting an accident because of a software glitch in the driving assistance system, because they assumed something called "autopilot" was able, to, you know, pilot on its own...
aucisson_masque 2y ago
> So, why are Teslas — and many other ostensibly safe cars on the list — involved in so many fatal crashes? “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior So people who drive Tesla are arse, got it.
Bombthecat 2y ago
Many people underestimate how fast an e car can accelerate... Would like to know how many accelerated to their death, cause it's their first e car...
Sverigevader 2y ago
I'd like to add my perspective here. I drove 50 miles to and from work every day for 5 years, around Stockholm, Sweden. 80 % highway traffic. The only driving aid I use (rely on) on is ACC (Automatic Cruise Control), to keep my speed and distance (maximum) to the car in front of me. I almost always stay in the rightmost lane doing the speed limit. Without a doubt Tesla drivers consistently stood out as the most "strange". Drivers of all brands can be stressed and drive too fast, but Tesla drivers were janky, couldn't stay in their lanes, and very often didn't keep a safe distance to the car in front of them. Worst part, they didn't seem aware of their surroundings. They would merge in the most insane situations/positions or dangerously try to pass other drivers. I don't know if they relied on their hardware to guide them, this autopilot thing, or whatever else they have, but it puckered me up good.
mppm 2y ago
Most commenters here focus on how fast and heavy Teslas are, while for me the overwhelmingly most likely explanation is Tesla's long-promised and still half-baked autopilot - either by directly getting drivers into sticky situations or just training them not to pay due attention to the road. Except for this one factor, Teslas ought to be better than average due to premium segment, modern construction techniques and a full array of active safety gear.
enslavedrobot 2y ago
From the website:"the number of cars involved in a fatal crash were normalized by the total number of vehicle miles driven" They assume every car drives the average number of miles. Of course a CR-V is going to score high, since they likely drive more than an average number of miles. A 911 on the other hand probably drives a small fraction of the average. This study is fairly low quality. The IHHS list 13.3 fatalities per billion miles as the actual number.
- daghamm 2y ago
  Isn't that the other way around? This is fatalities per 10**X miles.
daghamm 2y ago
How common are the vehicles on the top of the list? I assume there are not too many Porsche 911 on the roads, so a couple of bad drivers could make an impact on this score
jiriro 2y ago
As expected – It’s not a vehicle design issue. It’s the driver behaviour and driving conditions. ––– “Most of these vehicles received excellent safety ratings, performing well in crash tests at the IIHS and NHTSA, so it’s not a vehicle design issue” [1] “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities.” [1] - Karl Brauer, iSeeCars Executive Analyst [1] The 23 Most Dangerous Cars On The Road https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024 https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024

308 points by MBCook 2y ago

> So, why are Teslas — and many other ostensibly safe cars on the list — involved in so many fatal crashes? “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities,” iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer said in the report.

legitster 2y ago

In a big picture, this makes sense. You can load the cars with safety features, but it doesn't change the fact that these cars are very heavy, very fast, and loaded with features that reward distracted driving. In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
In a bigger picture, cars are a bad solution to the problem of transportation at scale, and really always have been. As safety features go up, complacency goes up, and to be blunt that's combining with the fact that drivers are getting consistently worse overall at the skill anyway. Between EV's that are much, much heavier than ICE cars and SUVs/Trucks that are much larger than they need to be, vehicles themselves, despite having more safety features than ever, are also better at killing that they've been at a long time too. We really need to get serious about improving our transportation infrastructure.
- randomdata 2y ago
  > We really need to get serious about improving our transportation infrastructure. Better yet, we really need to consider urbanization. That way everything you need is right there by your own two feet. No need for any extra special transportation at all. It seems people have a burning desire to live the rural lifestyle, though, even in so-called cities. I'm not sure we can actually overcome that pressure.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Many of us simply don't want to live in expensive urbanized environments (especially in more desirable ones)--at least at many points in our lives, so yeah no.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      I mean the problem isn't those who don't want to live in cities nor is it those who want to live in cities: the problem is the suburbs, which is where those two meet. People who aren't in and do not desire an actual rural lifestyle where one has a standalone home on a large plot of land in the middle of nowhere, but also don't want a condo. They want their own little plot of land, with a small yard, and a standalone home. And like, same. That's also me. But the problem is the actual costs of that style of home are incredibly, heavily subsidized by the cities they surround and indeed even the rural areas they border, because suburbs are just... a bad goddamn way to house people. They're incredibly inefficient, basically require your own personal car, require the most infrastructure build-out for the smallest population, require the largest footprint of services over the largest area to serve the smallest number of people, etc. etc. And like, I don't think it's unreasonable to say if you want to live this way, that's fine, but then you need to actually pay for it. Your property taxes need to reflect how much it actually costs to serve your property, to build the huge number of roads needed to access it, to maintain those roads, to maintain the electrical grids, to maintain the water and sewage services, to bus kids to schools, etc. etc. etc. And yeah that's going to make suburbs WAY less appealing because they're going to be fucking expensive but like, the alternative is, again, everyone wanting that, and not paying for it. The dense urban centers they surround absolutely hemorrhage money supporting the suburbs around them.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        Around where I live (greater Boston metro) most of the tech jobs are actually out in the suburbs/exurbubs. There were basically no tech jobs in the city ~20 years ago any longer. (It's mostly only changed with the establishment of of satellite offices of some west coast companies.)
- heywire 2y ago
  I would wager that most people don’t want to use public transit regularly. I know I certainly don’t.
  - gorbachev 2y ago
    That's because most Americans haven't seen a public transport service that works well. Visit or live in a major European city for a while and you are likely change your tune.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    Your desire to not be inconvenienced is not as important as the lives of other people who are being killed unnecessarily for it. That being said, to be clear, I don't think we need to make driving illegal or whatever. I think a TON of people would happily not be saddled with the expense of owning a car or the task of driving if there were reasonable alternatives on offer, which in the few pockets of the US that actually have decent mass transit, is broadly the case.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      That said, I drove into a nearby city after dark which is increasingly early last night. There are no reasonable alternatives--I will for a 9-5 event but just doesn't work for the evening. There's a decent mass transit system including commuter rail but it it's just not organized around coming in at 5pm. It's chaos with cars/cycles/escooters/pedestrians often randomly crossing streets, poor visibility, etc. I mostly just don't go in any longer.
  - afavour 2y ago
    I think a lot of people would be happy to use it if it was convenient and reliable. I live in NYC and haven’t had to drive to/from work in over a decade. I consider the subway ride a vast, vast improvement over driving… but only when the subway works right.
    - nomel 2y ago
      The vast majority of people I talk to, including myself, don't use public transportation for: 1. Time. For example, my commute is 25 minutes, but 2 hours ride and three mile walk by public transport. 2. Safety, intimately tied to the homeless problem. 3. Cleanliness. In my experience, related to #2, and the fact that government institutions are incapable of caring about user experience, because they get funding regardless. Matted, stained fabric seat cushions, and dried whatever caked on the floor. There's nothing better or remotely alluring about public transportation for the vast majority of people (as shown by gridlock traffic).
- toast0 2y ago
  > In a bigger picture, cars are a bad solution to the problem of transportation at scale They're not a great solution to transportation at scale, but they're pretty good at small volume point to point traffic. There's not enough people going my way on most of my trips to make transportation at scale worthwhile. Ferries work well for part of many of my trips, but I can take a car on the ferry to deal with the lack of scale on either side. I could sometimes take a bus to the ferry, walk to light rail and take light rail to the airport. But the bus only runs during commute times, so that impacts viable flight times, and the walk to the light rail got pretty sketchy in the past several years and light rail itself can be sketchy too. Most of my cars run fine any time of day, although peak traffic is annoying, and I'm dealing with lighting issues on one so I can't take it out unless I know I'll be home before dusk.
- thebruce87m 2y ago
  > much, much heavier https://thedriven.io/2024/05/03/are-evs-really-much-heavier-than-their-ice-equivalents/amp/ https://thedriven.io/2024/05/03/are-evs-really-much-heavier-... > full electric versions are only around 10% to 15% heavier than their direct ICE equivalent I don’t think “much, much” should be used when we are talking 10-15%. This will mislead people. There are outliers of course.
littlestymaar 2y ago
> You can load the cars with safety features, but it doesn't change the fact that these cars are very heavy Being heavy is actually a safety feature of sort (but just for the people inside the car, it increases overall fatality).
- Gigachad 2y ago
  Trees are anchored to the ground. Being heavier just reduces your ability to stop.
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
    Maybe that's good when hitting a tree? Slower deceleration, less force.
    - jkaptur 2y ago
      I think they meant that it's more difficult to stop before beginning to impact the tree.
      - rich_sasha 2y ago
        Still. If I'm going to hit a tree, I'd rather drive a tank than a motorbike.
        JasonSage 2y ago
        Cars have crumple zones which a motorbike does not. A lighter car requires less work from the crumple zone to decelerate the car into non-fatal territory than a heavy car.
  - bastloing 2y ago
    Decreases your tendency to flip over. I'm astonished by all the dashcam videos out there showing collisions, usually the first thing an ice car does is flip over. Not EVs though.
dpats 2y ago
> In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. Do you have a source on that?
- legitster 2y ago
  > From 2016 to 2018 an average of 19,158 fatalities resulted from roadway departures, which is 51 percent of all traffic fatalities in the United States. https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD
  - gamblor956 2y ago
    FTL: "FHWA defines a roadway departure (RwD) crash as a crash which occurs after a vehicle crosses an edge line or a center line, or otherwise leaves the traveled way. Another term our partners often use is lane departure, which is synonymous with RwD, since both include head-on collisions when a vehicle enters an opposing lane of traffic." Road departure fatalities are high because of head-on collisions, not because there is an epidemic of people crashing into trees along the side of the road. If you follow the links on the cited page, they clearly show that head-on crashes result in more fatalities than tree+utility pole crashes.
kevinqi 2y ago
Aside from the distracted driving part, which is real, there are two physical aspects of the model 3 that I find to be safety issues as well-- the two front windshield beams are thick and add a sort of blind spot, and the side mirrors don't give you great field of view.
- nomel 2y ago
  Same with my older Toyota. They stuffed airbags in them, which is nice, but I've had several times where an adult on a bike is completely obscured, with my passenger having to scream "stop!". After the second time, I now bob my head like a maniac to look around them. Can't wait for displays on pillars, to make them appear transparent.
  - tzs 2y ago
    The pillars on my 2006 CR-V haven't been a problem. Did pillars get bigger on newer cars, or did Honda use smaller pillars, or what? They are wide enough that their horizontal angular width could be larger than the horizontal angular width of a pedestrian more than a couple or so meters away but due to their angle there is plenty of the pedestrian still visible. I spent a while just sitting in a busy parking lot watching people go by and seeing how their visibility changed and I couldn't find any situation where I'd have trouble seeing a pedestrian unless they were far enough away that there was no chance I'd hit them even if I never saw them.
  - kevinqi 2y ago
    yeah I've had a similar experience with a bike and do the head bob thing now too. glad to know it's not just me
- GuB-42 2y ago
  It is a problem with most modern cars, and it is actually for safety reasons. These beams have to support the entire weight of the car in case it flips over in order to protect the occupants.
  - MBCook 2y ago
akira2501 2y ago
> and loaded with features "Ludicrous mode." > the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. It's actually alcohol and drugs. Which is the reason those drivers find themselves in the trees.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mcculley 2y ago
    How is California special in that regard? Many states lack the infrastructure or density to allow for proper enjoyment of alcohol.
    - connicpu 2y ago
      Unless you're wealthy enough to live in the core of a major metropolitan area, it's all of the states.
    - aziaziazi 2y ago
      There also clear lack of alcohol enjoyment education. Gather at friends place and stay overnight, carpools and draw a sober Sam, don’t get overdrunk and drink water for the last 90 min of the party, etc… I do agree infras and density is a better option. But lack of infra doesn’t justify to drive drunk.
      - mcculley 2y ago
        I’m not justifying drunk driving. I asked how California is different from other states in this regard.
  - mandymoorefan 2y ago
    North Carolina next question.
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
SoftTalker 2y ago
What makes sense to me is the top 3 cars: Tesla - autopilot that really isn't, gets fooled in many situations, driver lulled into not paying attention, can't react quickly enough when the computer bails, and ends up driving into a bridge abutment at 75mph. Kia - cheap cars built to minimum safety standards driven by young people who aren't very experienced drivers. Buick - cars driven by geriatrics whose declines in vision and reaction speed probably should have resulted in their licenses being revoked five years ago but who still insist on driving themselves.
- vikingerik 2y ago
  I'd also venture that the profile of Tesla drivers is also a factor along with those other two brands. I'd be pretty sure that Tesla owners collectively drive more aggressively than the average car on the road. Teslas aren't being driven by soccer moms and careful grandmas.
  - aziaziazi 2y ago
    Does the insurance cost vary between two cars almost identical in every relevant points but the brand? Not a rhetorical question.
  - duderific 2y ago
    Lots of soccer moms driving Teslas in the Bay Area. Know several myself.
  - buffington 2y ago
    Where I live, I'd estimate that a third of the passenger cars are Teslas. No data to back that up, but that's what I tend to see day to day. The diversity of drivers is significant enough to suggest that "all kinds of people" drive Teslas.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      A third? Wow. Where I am they are not exactly rare but uncommon enough that I still notice them when I see them. I see a few a week I'd guess. Pre-pandemic I knew one person who owned a Tesla. And now... I know two people who own a Tesla, but one of them lives in another country.
jvandonsel 2y ago
Simple solution. Cut down all the trees on the side of the road. You’re welcome.
Mountain_Skies 2y ago
>In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. A decade or so ago the Georgia Department of Transportation tried to do away with the trees between streets and sidewalks because of so many fatalities coming from collisions with trees. Clearing out an "automative recovery zone" as they called it likely would have saved lives of some people in vehicles but of course it would increase the danger to pedestrians, who might or might not be present at that moment. Lots of trade offs in these types of analysis and not all of them are always immediately obvious.
gamblor956 2y ago
In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. This is false. Your cited link (https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD) clearly demonstrates that head-on collisions cause more fatalities than tree+utility pole collisions combined.

grecy 2y ago

How can any reasonable person know if any story about Tesla (good or bad) is actually factual and useful, or is just a story told from a particular angle to manipulate the stock price for gain? While many says it's the ultimate meme stock, I also can't help thinking it's the ultimate manipulation stock - it seems some people desperately want it to go down while others desperately want it to go up.

robterrell 2y ago
> analyzed data from the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) Maybe not for the "reasonable person" but government data is available and if you are here you likely know some statistics, so go nuts: https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx and https://www.nhtsa.gov/research-data/fatality-analysis-reporting-system-fars https://www.nhtsa.gov/research-data/fatality-analysis-report...
- Lendal 2y ago
  Now Elon will possibly in charge of making that government database disappear.
  - ridgeguy 2y ago
    Rapidly growing new file category on Pirate Bay?
  - willsoon 2y ago
    Consider, my friends, this elegant plot twist. Musk is a secret blue agent infiltrated to make that government database disappear.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
thejazzman 2y ago
I've had one since 2015 and so many issues. When I share them on Reddit I'm downvoted into oblivion for going against the cult It's gotten better in the last few years, now that millions of people share the issues, it's harder to drown them out Doesn't seem to matter whatsoever for their stock, so that doesn't seems to be too relevant

mattlondon 2y ago

> Karl Brauer said in the report. “A focused, alert driver, traveling at a legal or prudent speed, without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, is the most likely to arrive safely regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.” ... implication being that Tesla drivers are more likely to be driving like pricks and/or under the influence? I wonder what the rates are like for specific models from other brands that are associated with morons. G-wagons, M3s etc etc

lawn 2y ago
Or that its very difficult to be alert when using Teslas FSD?
tifik 2y ago
Or it's the drivers are not "focused, alert", because of the auto-pilot.
MBCook 2y ago
> ... implication being that Tesla drivers are more likely to be driving like pricks and/or under the influence? Or perhaps the large amount of power available instantly makes it easier to get into dangerous situations than an equivalent to combustion engine car. And as the largest EV brand with the most data available… they really stand out.
- chaffeurmode 2y ago
  [dead]

Lendal 2y ago

I paid $10K for FSD when I was drinking the Kool Aid but haven't used it in over a year due to it being a steaming pile of garbage. But hey, it's a great party gag and the stock price is still soaring so keep the pedal to the metal and take us all to RICH town Elon! What could possibly go wron...

cringelibs 2y ago

[dead]

stoplight 2y ago

I wonder how much of this is because (IME anyway) Tesla drivers are not very good. With all that tech it's easy to get distracted (there's literally a giant tablet looking thing for a console). It's also easy to think all the bells and whistles will do things for you so drivers are paying less attention because the car will beep and holler at them if things are going awry (except by that point it's too late).

geysersam 2y ago
Tesla drivers are young men with big wallets, stereotypically. That demographic is not known for their carefulness in traffic, or in any other matter. I'm sure that simple confounding factor is enough to explain the excessive fatality rate of Tesla cars.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  Tesla drivers demographic was that maybe in 2015. Today, it's the California camry.
  - Tempest1981 2y ago
    And the same boring colors, year after year
jiveturkey 2y ago
There's a saying: BMWs are for folks that like to drive, Teslas are for folks that hate to drive. My own add-on is: Toyotas are for folks that have to drive.
almatabata 2y ago
You can add more parameters. Whats the temperament of the driver. Certain brands attract hot heads who will drive recklessly. I was kind of expecting more sports cars in the top 5. 2/5 is still a good score. Given the amount of SUVs as well, no matter how safe you make a small car, if an SUV rams you, it is just not going to end well for the smaller.

Koala_ice 2y ago

I thoroughyl expect the Deparment of Government Efficiency to recommend U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) be shut down to save previous taxpayer dollars.

TrainedMonkey 2y ago
And all USG vehicles to be replaced with Teslas to save money on gas /s
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
ryandvm 2y ago
Not even remotely farce. I hope the rest of the world is taking notes...
- oblio 2y ago
  Doesn't each major government do independent safety testing/has independent safety requirements, anyway?
  - dylan604 2y ago
    VW diesel-gate How many of the independents caught that?
    - nickff 2y ago
      Interestingly, it was a study commissioned by a non-profit, and performed by a university: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
      - dylan604 2y ago
        oh, great, so none.

peppertree 2y ago

I suspect the biggest factor is speed. After getting used to EV for over a year, every ICE vehicle feels painfully sluggish and slow. If that's the case I'm curious to see how the numbers compare to other EVs.

nytesky 2y ago
Torque and touchscreens.
- LUmBULtERA 2y ago
  I find the touchscreen actually less distracting and easier to use than the cell phone I had to use in a Honda civic. Also no critical functions need to be done on the touchscreen, they can all be done via physical buttons on the wheel or stocks.
akira2501 2y ago
> every ICE vehicle feels painfully sluggish and slow. You don't do much towing, do you?
- Kiro 2y ago
  99.9% of drivers will never tow anything in their life.
  - akira2501 2y ago
    > 99.9% of drivers I think you've just made that up; however, I am willing to stipulate that 99.9% of Hacker News posters will never tow anything. I always forget how out of touch the audience here is.
  - connicpu 2y ago
    That might be a little high given how many small boats exist in this country, but definitely agree the vast majority will never tow.
  - 2y ago

shadowtree 2y ago

[flagged]

cruffle_duffle 2y ago
Yes but there was a “student driver” sticker on the back so it’s all good. Jokes aside it would be interesting to filter by demographic too.
tqi 2y ago
"fact"
- shadowtree 2y ago
  if you bet on an Indian behind the wheel of Tesla you win most. Inverse bet with Jeeps. Sorry that clear observations violate decorum.
  - tqi 2y ago
    "most"
    - shadowtree 2y ago
      "retard"
      - tqi 2y ago
        "cLeVeR"
Hexcles 2y ago
Which part of this is a fact? That there are many Asians in California? And that they make up a disproportionately big part of Tesla drivers?

tim333 2y ago

I wonder what percentage are autopilot driving into things?

janalsncm 2y ago
I would also like to know this. How many fatal crashes happened where autopilot was engaged in the 30 seconds prior to a fatal accident? By definition, if the autopilot has disengaged it’s a more dangerous situation, so it is fair to place the blame on it. A relief pitcher doesn’t get charged with earned runs he inherits.
avidiax 2y ago
Very low. Technically the driver drove into those things, since autopilot disengaged .4 seconds before impact. Autopilot was just there to ensure the trip to that last .4 seconds wasn't too draining.

nytesky 2y ago

Have the demographics of typical Tesla driver changed in last 5-10 years? I think it was at first wealthy environmentalists, but it shifted to be a new Yuppie mobile, and most recently probably skews to a young male crowd?

TrainedMonkey 2y ago

> The study was conducted on model year 2018–2022 vehicles, and focused on crashes between 2017 and 2022 that resulted in occupant fatalities. Teslas can go fast real fast, so naively this is the result I would expect given how they have filtered the data. In other words, unless they controlled for this, this would be biased by natural selection playing out. Having said that, as someone who had a couple of close calls with the autopilot. I would love to know what percent of those crashes was with autopilot enabled.

phony-account 2y ago
> Teslas can go fast real fast, so naively this is the result I would expect given how they have filtered the data. In other words, unless they controlled for this… Explain to me why you would want to filter out fatalities caused by going “real fast”?
- Petersipoi 2y ago
  Because comparing the fatality rate of a Corolla going 50mph and a Tesla going 90mph is useless to a person who wants a car that is safe when driven responsibly.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - janalsncm 2y ago
    Unless the Tesla induces unsafe behavior, of course. Does the car make it easier to break the speed limit, drive distracted, or drive under the influence? I don’t know.
    - bravetraveler 2y ago
      Quite literally selling points
  - skybrian 2y ago

danslacker 2y ago

[flagged]

geysersam 2y ago
They bought a president. That's not nothing.
- willsoon 2y ago
  Perhaps Musk needs to come to terms with the fact that the Teslas are not so safe. Maybe he needs to come to terms with the fact that his successful business model does not include customer satisfaction at all. Elon, just cope.
  - bastloing 2y ago
    I wonder how crash safety ratings compare with a Tesla and a Kia, for example.

bunderbunder 2y ago

I'd love to see some sort of multiple regression or ANOVA on this, instead of singling out a single variable. Is car brand really the best independent predictor? Or is it specific design decisions you tend to see in certain brands? (Like, say, maximizing driver distraction by consolidating a bunch of essential controls and information displays into a touchscreen display that's really difficult to operate when it's sunny outside. Just to pick something at random, of course.) Somewhat related, I was recently shopping for refrigerators, and fell down a data rabbit hole. If you just look at the overall style of fridge, French doors look like a terrible option from a reliability perspective. But then, digging in a bit more, it turns out that's kind of a spurious correlation. Actually it's the presence of bells and whistles like through-door ice dispensers that kill a refrigerator's reliability. And then perhaps on top of that the amount of extra Rube Goldberg machine you need to make a chest height ice dispenser work in a bottom-freezer French door refrigerator creates even more moving parts to break. But a those problems don't apply to a model that doesn't have that feature.

doctorpangloss 2y ago
It's an interesting perspective. I was recently shopping for shoes, and a fully closed shoe had more places where it could break compared to my flip flops. That's why whenever you are doing a dangerous activity, flip flops are recommended.
- bunderbunder 2y ago
  I'm not entirely sure an anecdote about the dangers of singling out just one variable is a great counterpoint to a criticism of the practice of singling out just one variable.
- TheGamerUncle 2y ago
  Nick Mullen may disagree
stego-tech 2y ago
I mean, even lacking proper scientific data, ask yourself how often your brain “autocompletes” someone based on a brand or object? There’s a reason advertisers spend so much money and effort cultivating a very specific customer image: it works. In the case of Tesla - and I cannot overstress enough how much lf this is purely subjective conjecture on my part and not a statement of fact - the image cultivated by the company and its Chief Executive is very much one of rejecting norms and expectations, fierce independence, and a hostility towards others (mostly from the Cybertruck unveiling onward). The people who relate to that brand would, I would think, be more likely to flout laws like speed limits, failing to use indicators for turns or merges, and drive more aggressively than a brand that emphasizes safety or enjoyment of experience (like Hondas and Toyotas). My purely subjective experiences bear this out, and I’m consistently rewarded giving Teslas a wider berth on the roads. So as far as branding as an indicator of outcome, yeah, I can totally see that being a reliable indicator. I’d still be darn curious to see more research about it, though.

altairprime 2y ago

The linked study is better: https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024 https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024

samatman 2y ago
> “Most of these vehicles received excellent safety ratings, performing well in crash tests at the IIHS and NHTSA, so it’s not a vehicle design issue,” said Brauer. “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities.” Quoting what's easily the most important passage in that study. The two Teslas on the list are the Model Y, right beneath the Porsche 911, and the Model S, right beneath the... Toyota Prius. So yeah. No surprises here. It's a study where the lesson should be "a car is as dangerous as its driver" and everyone is going to read it as "Teslas are deathtraps". What else is new.
- _dark_matter_ 2y ago
  That just assumes that the crash tests are good indicators of actual safety. My understanding is that car manufacturers could go much further in the name of safety, but do just enough to scrape by on those crash tests. So there could definitely be differentials in terms of safety even among cars that have perfect safety measures from IIHS/NHTSA.
- ccorcos 2y ago
  It’s hard to to be cynical about the intentions of the authors of the original article after seeing this…
floxy 2y ago
It is better. But in the year 2024, why should I believe the data from a random source, with unknown data analysis? When will they be releasing their data package for independent analysis? Why isn't this the expected norm? And how can we make it so?
- 2y ago

Animats 2y ago

How much data does Tesla have on the details of crashes? Probably depends on whether enough electronics survived to phone home. It's possible to dig the airbag controller out of the wreckage and read out the last 30 seconds or so. Airbag controllers have a short but nonvolatile memory and usually survive crashes. That gets you speed, acceleration in several axes, plus steering, brake, and power inputs, and detailed info about what the airbag system did.[1] Those were originally created to tune the airbag algorithm, and, over the years, false airbag deployments have dropped almost to zero. That's the basic info needed to analyze fatal crashes. Speed at collision? Speed 10 secs before collision? Accelerator and brake inputs? Maneuvering (side accel) before crash? That, plus the crash scene, tells most of what you need to know. Law enforcement will sometimes read out those units, when it's not clear what happened. It's not done routinely. [1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/fmvss/EDR_QAs_11Aug2006.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/fmvss/EDR_QAs_11...

FireBeyond 2y ago
"Fun" fact... Tesla doesn't count fatalities in their accident stats! Nor does it count accidents where there was no airbag deployment because as you point out, modern airbag systems use a wide variety of parameters, not just "if speed > x and collision = true; deploy". So you can hit someone obliquely at 30mph, and due to factors, airbags don't deploy, and Tesla says "great, not an accident". Or you can be in such a serious collision or similar where the airbags CAN'T deploy, and Tesla? "Not an accident".

fakedang 2y ago

Something something Lex Fridman something.

jiveturkey 2y ago

Seems flawed. Tesla Model Y was the best selling model worldwide for 2023. (I think #3 if limited to US.) The study only covers 2017-2022, but we can infer that for the entire Brand, Teslas sold quite well over at least that latter part of that period. Now if there are more Teslas on the road vs other vehicles (note they excluded car model years earlier than 2017, another fatal (heh) flaw in the study), it makes sense they would have more fatalities. So this should be normalized "per capita" to vehicle counts if we want to extract any brand-related causality, in the same way as the data is already normalized to miles driven. I enjoy hating on Tesla as much as the next person, but come on.

cachecrab 2y ago
It’s on a “per billion miles driven” basis so it is normalized.
FactKnower69 2y ago
If you had clicked through to the article before writing your comment, you would know that the stat being compared is "fatal crash rate per billion miles driven", and that the fatal crash rate for Teslas is 2.0x the national average
- jiveturkey 2y ago
  If you had read my comment before replying, you would know that I recognized and even stipulated that the report was already normalized to miles driven. I am suggesting that per mile driven and per vehicle brand on the road are not the same thing. Now that I think about it, miles driven per brand would be an interesting data point. Just as an example of why per-brand might be useful, let's imagine that teslas are driven half the miles of the average for all other brands. so if that were the case and if the number of fatalities were equal, then that would result in tesla having 2x the fatality rate per mile. but at the same time, this doesn't let us appreciate the amount of time tesla spends on the road vs other brands. so miles might be half but time spent might be closer to 1 (equal time). and maybe that is because teslas are concentrated in urban-suburban interface environments in high congestion areas, whereas other brands are spread out across the country where for the same amount of time spent, twice as many miles are covered and congestion is less. Data like that is needed to properly evaluate this result. And while I asked for per-vehicle-on-the-road, and my example didn't match that, you can still see how the simple per-mile-driven is insufficient. They also could have noted the demographics of the drivers -- male/female and years of driving experience, things like that. So again, I find the implications of this article to be very unfair.

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

Projectiboga 2y ago

What is the Horsepower equivalent of the Tesla power trains? Is this just because they are the new luxury sportscar and many of these drivers haven't been trough major car repairs, ever? The zero to sixty of even a basic Tesla is very quick and even with strong breaking other physical limits with turning and maneuvering can arise if some one is zooming around weaving in traffic. These stats need to be studied by age and other demographics like age, income and alcohol consumption.

MBCook 2y ago
It’s not just the horsepower, a big thing is the torque. There is so much and it’s available basically from zero. So even if you can compare it to a combustion engine with the same amount of horsepower it may take off the line a lot faster.

bastloing 2y ago

If you read the article it implies driver fault not car fault. Tesla receiving the highest ever crash safety ratings echos that.

MBCook 2y ago
The huge difference between their cars seems to indicate that too. The Y is way above their brand average, for example.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago

I remember some car collision data that showed that men were more likely to get into any collision and women were more likely to get into a fatal collision. A comment I read about the study suggested the conclusion that men take more risks while women take bigger risks. It's interesting to think in that context about this. Could Tesla drivers be taking bigger risks because they think the car's software will save them from the negative consequences of their risky decisions? (As an extreme example, one such driver opted to drive in the back seat instead of the driver's seat. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-highway-patrol-searching-man-seen-riding-back-seat-tesla-n1266944 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-highway-patr...)

sombrero_john 2y ago
> A comment I read about the study suggested the conclusion that men take more risks while women take bigger risks. Or women's weaker musculoskeletal systems provide less protection against blunt force trauma?
- roughly 2y ago
  Or, like medicine and a whole variety of other fields, “male” is assumed default and anyone who isn’t the default has worse outcomes. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/business/car-safety-women.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/business/car-safety-women...
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  If you look into car safety testing and design, they haven't used "Woman sized" crash test dummies until very very recently. Cars were less safe for women because they were not designed to be safe for women.
- Andrew6rant 2y ago
  Guess what year the NHTSA started using female crash dummies? 2003, thirty years after they started using male crash dummies. And the NHTSA's female dummies were essentially male dummies shrunk to 4'11" and lightened to 97/108lbs. What year do you think they mandated a crash dummy that was actually based on the female body? Just guess. I think you might be surprised that they haven't done this yet. It's in the works (see THOR-5F), but it's crazy it's taken so long. Now guess when they first put the 2003 female crash dummy in the drivers seat for the frontal collision crash test. They still haven't!

yumraj 2y ago

> “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities,” I’m assuming the driver behavior also includes relying on the half baked auto pilot/FSD features.

fallingfrog 2y ago

I wonder how this breaks down by region. I imagine a heavy car is probably bad in the snow.

piva00 2y ago
Teslas sell quite well in Norway and are driven in the snow while Norway has one of the safest traffic in Western societies.

bilsbie 2y ago

I’m really confused. A major reason I bought one was because I heard they were so safe.

MBCook 2y ago
If you read the end of the article they basically say that Teslas are safe. It really appears to be an issue of average Tesla driver behavior compared to overall average driver behavior.
vegadw 2y ago
I think they probably are when not using "autopilot" as others are commenting, this isn't cause. It's likely that the brand attracts a kind of driver that likes to speed or that wants to over rely on assisted driving tech that isn't there yet. That said, I suspect they're regressing, like how they removed ultrasonic sensors which are a dime a dozen to only rely on computer vision. That's just plain stupid, IMHO. For the money, I think you can do much better than a Tesla in many regards, but I'm not about to shame you for reading marketing and believing it either, especially if it was pre the current Musk hell and the general knowledge that he's essentially a fraudster given the perpetual 1 year away for autopilot and what not.

itake 2y ago

I wish this would break down driver and passenger deaths in the tesla vs outside the tesla. if other people are more likely to hit a tesla or are tesla drivers usually at fault?

rahimnathwani 2y ago

How does iSeeCars (who did the study) know how many miles were driven by each brand's cars? It says they have a database of cars, but do we know whether it's an unbiased sample?

postmeta 2y ago
exactly, we should ask Karl Brauer to cite his sources and explain his methodology

pluc 2y ago

Let's put that guy in charge of government efficiency, what's the worst that could happen

whitej125 2y ago

> Tesla vehicles have a fatal crash rate of 5.6 per billion miles driven, according to the study; > So, why are Teslas — and many other ostensibly safe cars on the list — involved in so many fatal crashes? “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities,” What is the nature of those miles driven by each brand? I've got to imagine that pure-EV companies like Tesla are predominantly driven in urban/city driving (shorter daily distances, more traffic, etc). In contrast to ICE cars which can rack up lots of miles on long trips. 1 billion Tesla miles I suspect looks different than 1 billion Ford miles.

breckenedge 2y ago
> In 2022, the rate of crash deaths per 100 million miles traveled was much higher in rural areas than in urban areas (1.68 in rural areas compared with 1.15 in urban areas). From 1977 to 2022, the rates decreased by 61% in rural areas (from 4.35 to 1.68) and 51% in urban areas (from 2.35 to 1.15). https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/urban-rural-comparison https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/urban...
why_at 2y ago
The ranking is still strange to me though. The model S is lower than the model Y even though it is smaller and faster, both of which should make it less safe, and the model 3 didn't even make the list.

stbullard 2y ago

Misleading/clickbait “journalism”: * The FARS data is “normalized” by unpublished internal iSeeCars estimates of miles driven; the underlying “study” is a marketing blog post for their company. * FARS data distinguishes between driver and occupant fatalities - the “study” looks only at occupant fatalities, which is not what most people would reasonably expect given the headline. * One might reasonably suspect Tesla’s long history of touting 5-star safety ratings and advanced safety tech could lead to passengers being lulled into a false sense of security, and being less likely to use seatbelts. Driver fatalities and seatbelt use are right there in the FARS data - one wonders why these weren’t considered and incorporated in the “study”. Anyhow, a note to the HN user: don’t upvote FUD-sowing headlines based on blog posts about unscientific “studies” that are really just submarine PR; they carry none of the credibility of the underlying studies, and are a disservice to the scientists and public servants who rigorously and faithfully collect and analyze this data. HN used to be better than this…

drcode 2y ago
Per page 234 of FARS, drivers are classified as occupants https://www.ire.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/USERGUIDE-2014-1.pdf https://www.ire.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/USERGUIDE-201...

_wire_ 2y ago

In any lineup by height someone is tallest and someone is shortest, so what's significant about Tesla in this spread? If not them then another. A significant aspect is that Telsa, as a harbinger of "progress", by this measure is making cars less safe. That's a surprising development as it's contrary to the promises and prognostications for the devices. It's expected that the distribution of harm from cars would change with increasing automation, but the promise of the automation is to make the devices safer overall. So is this a key metric by which we find that the progress is actually a hazard, or is the changing distribution part of an overall trend of improvement with some hazardous edge cases? All we have with this article is yet another headline with no useful information. > “A focused, alert driver, traveling at a legal or prudent speed, without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, is the most likely to arrive safely regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.” What does "focused and alert" mean for a robot? Does arriving safely allow a wake of carnage? The Trump administration figures as a harbinger for such questions in that he is a well-known champion of disinformation in favor of his self interest, as are all of his cabinet picks and advisors. But this is in keeping with the modern history of the GOP.

Alupis 2y ago

> The study's authors make clear that the results do not indicate Tesla vehicles are inherently unsafe or have design flaws. In fact, Tesla vehicles are loaded with safety technology; the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) named the 2024 Model Y as a Top Safety Pick+ award winner, for example. Many of the other cars that ranked highly on the list have also been given high ratings for safety by the likes of IIHS and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, as well. > So, why are Teslas — and many other ostensibly safe cars on the list — involved in so many fatal crashes? “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities,” iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer said in the report. “A focused, alert driver, traveling at a legal or prudent speed, without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, is the most likely to arrive safely regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.” Ok so Tesla's aren't less safe than any other vehicle in this lineup. It's just that Tesla drivers are more likely to be careless.

Nasrudith 2y ago
My first thought was if mass got factored into it, but it looks like mass has already crept up pretty high for other cars. A Toyota Prius is about 3200 lbs and a Model 3 is about 4000 lbs or 3800 lbs for their lightest variant. My mental models were outdated and still imagined sedans as about one ton and change. While bigger not as significant a factor as I initially thought.
- oblio 2y ago
  EVs are really heavy. The average VW Golf weighs about 1.3 tons while the average VW ID.3 weighs about 1.8 tons. That's 40% heavier.
- Melatonic 2y ago
  From my experience the model 3 also drove very different than other Teslas (in a good way). It was by far my favorite even being the cheapest.
aziaziazi 2y ago
> So, why are Teslas — and many other ostensibly safe cars on the list Interesting, my initial mental concern was: "So, why IIHS ranked cars highly involved in crash with Top Safety+?" Didn’t they though using statistics could help prevent accidents in praxi?

scruple 2y ago

I spend a lot of time driving around Irvine, CA and it feels like the Tesla (especially Model Y) capital of the world. And I am not at all surprised to see these sorts of fatality statistics about these vehicles because their drivers are, far and away, the most distracted and oblivious drivers I have ever encountered on the road in 28 years of driving.

gamblor956 2y ago
On my monthly drive to the office this week I passed 7 accidents on the morning commute to Irvine. Every single accident involved a Tesla. One of the accidents even involved two Teslas: one crashed into the other, and based on what one of the drivers was yelling into his phone as I slowly inched passed them, both Teslas were using FSD. On a more somber note, in one of the accidents an AP/FSD-driven Tesla crashed into a motorcyclist. The motorcyclist survived (or at least, the news did not report a fatality on the 405 that day), but there was a lot of blood on the road and the Tesla that crashed into him.

jccc 2y ago

Buried at the very end of the article: > The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities,” iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer said in the report. > “A focused, alert driver, traveling at a legal or prudent speed, without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, is the most likely to arrive safely regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.

jaco6 2y ago

The list of deadliest cars is a mixture of compact cars and sports cars. Compact cars are less safe because they get obliterated in collisions with bigger vehicles. Sports cars are unsafe because drivers tend to drive them at high speeds and attempt dangerous cornering maneuvers, eg driving the Pacific Coastal Highway at high speeds. Teslas are faster than many sports cars, but in the case of the Model Y and Model X lack the preferred low profile of a true sports car. In the case of the Model S, the acceleration is so great that it is frankly surprising it doesn’t rank higher. I wonder how many new Model S owners have gotten themselves killed within a few days of owning the car? I myself purchased a Model 3 last year and drove it quite foolishly for the first few months I had it. The acceleration was so amazing to me coming from a Honda Accord that it was hard to resist the temptation to weave and corner like a mad man. Model S would have been even worse. The Model S also has a long body like a full size sedan, not ideal for sports performance either, compared to the Model 3’s short length, more comparable to a Corrola or Toyota BRZ. So I suspect that speculations about “Tesla drivers being morons” and “distracted by the screen” (almost all new cars have shiny screens!) are nonsense. Another frequent remark is that Teslas’ high weight is a disadvantage. This is not as straightforward as they assume, because weight actually has benefits for traction. Light cars are much more likely to lose grip and slide around. On the other hand, a heavy car with worn out tires or brakes is much more difficult to stop than a light car with worn out tires or brakes. So weight is probably a wash. But I do agree with some commenters that the autonomous features, and particular misuse of those features, are probably a contributor to these statistics as well. If you’re new to them you assume they are safer than they really are. With more experience you realize you still need to be watching the road the whole time.

Melatonic 2y ago
Not true at all - cars with more weight theoretically have a little more traction but also way more momentum. Also your model 3 is much more comparable in weight to a normal car so it handles of course much better

phtrivier 2y ago

I would be interested in: * having the ratio of fatalities organised by sized and power of cars. My understanding is that Teslas have a bit more horsepower than other cars, so maybe an apple-to-apple comparison needs to compare them to a slighly smaller share of the overal pool * having the ratio of fatalities involving the so called "autopilot" feature. I'm not necessarily going to blame Tesla for making fast cars that reckless people use to get into accidents when running too fast. However, if it's your average joe getting an accident because of a software glitch in the driving assistance system, because they assumed something called "autopilot" was able, to, you know, pilot on its own...

aucisson_masque 2y ago

> So, why are Teslas — and many other ostensibly safe cars on the list — involved in so many fatal crashes? “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior So people who drive Tesla are arse, got it.

Bombthecat 2y ago

Many people underestimate how fast an e car can accelerate... Would like to know how many accelerated to their death, cause it's their first e car...

Sverigevader 2y ago

I'd like to add my perspective here. I drove 50 miles to and from work every day for 5 years, around Stockholm, Sweden. 80 % highway traffic. The only driving aid I use (rely on) on is ACC (Automatic Cruise Control), to keep my speed and distance (maximum) to the car in front of me. I almost always stay in the rightmost lane doing the speed limit. Without a doubt Tesla drivers consistently stood out as the most "strange". Drivers of all brands can be stressed and drive too fast, but Tesla drivers were janky, couldn't stay in their lanes, and very often didn't keep a safe distance to the car in front of them. Worst part, they didn't seem aware of their surroundings. They would merge in the most insane situations/positions or dangerously try to pass other drivers. I don't know if they relied on their hardware to guide them, this autopilot thing, or whatever else they have, but it puckered me up good.

mppm 2y ago

Most commenters here focus on how fast and heavy Teslas are, while for me the overwhelmingly most likely explanation is Tesla's long-promised and still half-baked autopilot - either by directly getting drivers into sticky situations or just training them not to pay due attention to the road. Except for this one factor, Teslas ought to be better than average due to premium segment, modern construction techniques and a full array of active safety gear.

enslavedrobot 2y ago

From the website:"the number of cars involved in a fatal crash were normalized by the total number of vehicle miles driven" They assume every car drives the average number of miles. Of course a CR-V is going to score high, since they likely drive more than an average number of miles. A 911 on the other hand probably drives a small fraction of the average. This study is fairly low quality. The IHHS list 13.3 fatalities per billion miles as the actual number.

daghamm 2y ago
Isn't that the other way around? This is fatalities per 10**X miles.

daghamm 2y ago

How common are the vehicles on the top of the list? I assume there are not too many Porsche 911 on the roads, so a couple of bad drivers could make an impact on this score

jiriro 2y ago

As expected – It’s not a vehicle design issue. It’s the driver behaviour and driving conditions. ––– “Most of these vehicles received excellent safety ratings, performing well in crash tests at the IIHS and NHTSA, so it’s not a vehicle design issue” [1] “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities.” [1] - Karl Brauer, iSeeCars Executive Analyst [1] The 23 Most Dangerous Cars On The Road https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024 https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024