Interesting movie

You have to believe that you can steer while breaking hard.

(snip)

Well, you box in the discussion by defining the accident as non-fatal. You seem to be claiming that single-vehicle accidents never kill people. Surely you don't believe that.

-- Michael

(snip)

Oh jeez ... Bite your tongue, Jim. It's bad enough that Windoze lives in 'puters and handhelds. I don't own a Windoze box; I wouldn't knowingly ride in a Windows Inside vehicle, much less pay good money for one. You can bet your boots that Wild Bill would bundle tons of silly entertainment code with the e.g. anti-lock brakes.

You obviously totally lack an intimate understanding of the tragedy forced on the families of those that die or are mamed. If you are lucky, it will not be you that slides off the road killing your family, and finding your self without a leg and an arm, and actually able to understand the tragedy that goes with these statistics.

the stability of larger vehicles is all about dynamics. low COG is all well and good at low speeds, but at high speeds its exactly wrong.

note that a significant number of US servicemen are dying in Iraq cos their humvees roll over. When they add armour, the vehicles roll over even easier (at speed).

the converse is a motorcycle, which exhibits excellent dynamic stability, but is statically unstable.

bring back the gyrocar.

Cheers Terry

for self-inflicted stupidity, who cares? not me. I do care about inflicting said stupidity on others. As for the families of those who stupidly kill themselves - bummer. Still, up goes the national average IQ.

here in NZ the government is pushing to get the road toll down to 300 per annum. in 1960 we had 2,000,000 people, (about 500,000 cars) and 400 deaths per annum. in 2005 it was 4,000,000 people, (about 2,000,000 cars) and 400 deaths per annum. the road toll peaked in the early 80s at about 800pa. a large education campaign against drink driving (along with random breath testing), pretty much nobbled that.

nowadays no one single factor contributes to more than about 30% of crashes - speed, alcohol etc. Its basically at the point now where stupidity is the single biggest threat. The only solutions here are:

- idiot-proof the roads

- dont let people drive

- put up with it.

Cheers Terry

When I was in Boston, circa 1998, there was a roll-over one summer afternoon (I-95?) in which 3 teenagers died. excellent visibility, but the twat driving veered across 3 lanes so sharply that the vehicle overturned. All bar one were not wearing seatbelts, were flung out of the vehicle and perished. The guy wearing a seatbelt survived. Yes, rough on their families, even more so because:

a) the driver was driving like a bloody lunatic, for no reason (apart from teenagers being 10' tall and bulletproof. Sadly not impact proof)

b) all the dead were too stupid to put their seatbelts on.

that would make it all the more difficult for the families.

Cheers Terry

why not? if parents really cared, surely they would ensure the kids went to a decent driving school, did a defensive driving course etc. Besides, dont you have compulsory driver ed in the US?

hear hear.

Hopefully genetic engineering will allow us to weed out all the s***ty DNA modern medicine has left our gene pool with....unless the jesus freaks prevent it.

Cheers Terry

I'm designing a 200KVA inverter for an HEV at the moment. I expect to build the whole bloody thing for US$5k, in 10-off quantities.

Cheers Terry

I'm tempted to just let you wind yourself up a litle tighter, but I will clue you in instead. I was referring to JT's statement of afew days ago:

"Then I ran over a piece of tread, from a truck tire, at 100MPH, just east of Gila Bend on I8."

You're welcome.

bogosity meter alert!

Without damage to the car ;-)

And I didn't try to swerve or something equally stupid... I just rode it out.

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

Deaths on US highways seem to stay right at about 40,000 per annum, in spite of the population increases over the years.

Better designed cars? Better educated drivers? Or maybe the number of drunks is a constant ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

Agreed! Terry, where did you come up with that?

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

There's been some discussion here in AZ that drivers licenses for teens will be restricted... daytime or to work and back only, and no passengers that aren't family members.

(Teenagers tend to get into pack mentality easily.)

...Jim Thompson

Californis has similar restrictins now. AIUI, you can take friends to school and the like if you have written permission from the parents. A young acquaintance was driving a group home from soccer practice a couple of weeks ago, was stopped by the local Sheriff's Deputy and had to call his passengers' parents to come pick up their kids.

I was wondering why the deaths decrease the most prior to the 70's, and the 55 MPH speed limit seemed to have little effect, allthough there seemed to be an increase during that speed limit period, and still decreased after the elimination of it. I think anti drinking has lowered it more in the last 15 years, but the trend has been an overall decline of deaths, which is a good thing. Of course, I think these news reports are partly lies. I found descrepencies between articles. There is a graph here.....................

greg

Well, if you're not driving 100MPH, and you bother to maintain control of the vehicle and not drive it off the road from inattention or other negligence, then you should be fine - millions of people do it every day.

Good Luck! Rich

He ought to at least tell it to the Indy car designers. ;-)

Cheers! Rich