4 ms·

Interesting; I've always wondered about how different road surfaces affect grip, and how that affects accidents. It'd be interesting to see a study on traffic

Interesting; I've always wondered about how different road surfaces affect grip, and how that affects accidents. It'd be interesting to see a study on traffic accidents on similarly-trafficked roads with similar speed limits where the surface is different. It's also interesting but sad that many people don't even care enough to learn + practice super basic car maintenance as it pertains to safety equipment. I wonder how many accidents would prevented if everyone fixed their tyre inflation (there is a label on the driver's-side door frame, usually by where your butt or foot passes when stepping into the vehicle) and ensured they had well-performing brakes (a small mirror usually lets you see how much brake pad you have left, assuming you have 4-wheel disc, though the fronts are more important anyway). Smog-testing is a thing, maybe we should have brake distance testing as well?

ptaipale 12y ago
With "we" you presumably mean the U.S. Don't you have a roadworthiness test, something like the MOT test of UK? Without digging up statistics, I'd say technical failures of vehicles are not a very common primary reason for fatal accidents in West Europe. Bad tyres surely are sometimes a contributing factor.
- akgerber 12y ago
  A few states have a roadworthiness test. Most states don't. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_Unite... It's partially a social justice issue, as we've managed to build up much of our country in such a way that walking and public transport are geometrically impractical, so poor people would be trapped at home if we banned them from driving the ill-maintained car they're barely able to afford to own and unable to afford to maintain.
  - afarrell 12y ago
    This is one of the reasons I'm excited about self-driving public transit vans. Of course, we'll have to figure out ways to keep women from being assaulted in them if they serve routes where 0-2 occupants is a common load.
    - ptaipale 12y ago
      Wouldn't those self-driving public transport vans be rather exposed to vandalism in deprived areas? And it's not just women who need protection from assault. I expect that in most countries, a majority of victims of violence are men.
- justin66 12y ago
  We have emissions testing only in the state of Ohio, and I don't think that's unusual. That ends up being a bit of a general maintenance test as well, as a car cannot pass if it has any current OBD-II errors at all. It's only done every two years, however.
  - ptaipale 12y ago
    That helps, although an OBD-II readout does not see some essential risks, like bad tyres, or even some critical break failures. It is interesting, though, that road safety and risks to other people in traffic are not a big enough thing to trump the social justice angle (right of poor people to drive), but the environment card (emissions) is.
    - justin66 12y ago
      I've never heard it discussed by anyone that a badly maintained car is a danger to anyone other than its occupants. I only very infrequently hear the "social justice angle" being discussed. If people gave a damn about that we'd have better public transportation. There is a weird logic to all this. Air quality makes a noticeable improvement in everyone's lives and, paradoxically, driving is so phenomenally dangerous and so unavoidable that people don't worry about the very minor factors like the one in twenty who isn't paying attention to their brake pads when assessing that risk. It might be that the high-pitched squeal built into brake pads to notify people of impending doom is actually doing its job, though.
      - ptaipale 12y ago
        > I've never heard it discussed by anyone that a badly maintained car is a danger to anyone other than its occupants. That is surprising, because it should be fairly obvious that if a car has brake failure, it could be lethal to anyone who happens to be in its path. Same goes with catastrophic failures of the steering system, although those are perhaps even more rare.

ptaipale 12y ago

With "we" you presumably mean the U.S. Don't you have a roadworthiness test, something like the MOT test of UK? Without digging up statistics, I'd say technical failures of vehicles are not a very common primary reason for fatal accidents in West Europe. Bad tyres surely are sometimes a contributing factor.

akgerber 12y ago
A few states have a roadworthiness test. Most states don't. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_Unite... It's partially a social justice issue, as we've managed to build up much of our country in such a way that walking and public transport are geometrically impractical, so poor people would be trapped at home if we banned them from driving the ill-maintained car they're barely able to afford to own and unable to afford to maintain.
- afarrell 12y ago
  This is one of the reasons I'm excited about self-driving public transit vans. Of course, we'll have to figure out ways to keep women from being assaulted in them if they serve routes where 0-2 occupants is a common load.
  - ptaipale 12y ago
    Wouldn't those self-driving public transport vans be rather exposed to vandalism in deprived areas? And it's not just women who need protection from assault. I expect that in most countries, a majority of victims of violence are men.
justin66 12y ago
We have emissions testing only in the state of Ohio, and I don't think that's unusual. That ends up being a bit of a general maintenance test as well, as a car cannot pass if it has any current OBD-II errors at all. It's only done every two years, however.
- ptaipale 12y ago
  That helps, although an OBD-II readout does not see some essential risks, like bad tyres, or even some critical break failures. It is interesting, though, that road safety and risks to other people in traffic are not a big enough thing to trump the social justice angle (right of poor people to drive), but the environment card (emissions) is.
  - justin66 12y ago
    I've never heard it discussed by anyone that a badly maintained car is a danger to anyone other than its occupants. I only very infrequently hear the "social justice angle" being discussed. If people gave a damn about that we'd have better public transportation. There is a weird logic to all this. Air quality makes a noticeable improvement in everyone's lives and, paradoxically, driving is so phenomenally dangerous and so unavoidable that people don't worry about the very minor factors like the one in twenty who isn't paying attention to their brake pads when assessing that risk. It might be that the high-pitched squeal built into brake pads to notify people of impending doom is actually doing its job, though.
    - ptaipale 12y ago
      > I've never heard it discussed by anyone that a badly maintained car is a danger to anyone other than its occupants. That is surprising, because it should be fairly obvious that if a car has brake failure, it could be lethal to anyone who happens to be in its path. Same goes with catastrophic failures of the steering system, although those are perhaps even more rare.