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.
The Tesla Model Y is a two ton SUV with the performance of a Porsche 911. The base RWD model is fast and the Performance model is stupidly fast. I don't think anyone would be particularly surprised to learn that Porsche drivers get into a lot of fatal accidents.
The top most model of the Model Y is as fast in a straight line as the lowest base model 911, and the handling isn't even close to the same. Saying the Model Y has the performance of the 911 is not really an accurate statement.
Don't the aerodynamics severely limit the cornering performance of the Model Y? How can it have the same performance? Or is there only one metric of performance that is being measured?
My fridge has been repaired twice, the first time within its first year. Both times, each repair guy said the same thing: Avoid LG and Samsung. Avoid counter depth. I have no idea if that's accurate, so I'm curious if your data dive backs up either of those notes?
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.
This was my thought as well from looking at the actual list. Of the top 5 models with the worst fatal accident rate, 2 are luxury cars that seem like they'd attract drivers with reckless personalities (the Chevrolet Corvette and the Porsche 911). I don't think the average mile driven in a Corvette is really equivalent to the average mile driven in a Honda Civic.
This data is interesting, but not really useful for decisionmaking if we can't isolate the extent to which the disparities are caused by features of the actual vehicle, as opposed to driver selection factors.
Is anyone making an argument that the Model Y has an actual safety problem in its design? I'd like to hear about which physical aspect of the car people think is making it 4x less safe than the average car? I don't see anything obvious. Its crash test performance is fine. I'd hesitate to blame autopilot, since we know that they crash less often with autopilot enabled than without (even if due to selection factors).
> 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
While I think that a single variable isn't always very useful, when something is an outlier and people are moving from other luxury brands with much lower rates to a new brand and experiencing high rates, there is definitely something wrong.
I'm guessing that while the total accident rate declines with automation, that the serious accident rate is increasing, because a human driver drives in a risk adjusted way and takes less care to avoid minor accidents and more care to avoid serious accidents, but when a robot find itself unable to drive the errors are more evenly distributed or even more likely to result in a serious accident, because its doing things idiotically with no sense of self preservation.
Rent a Tesla and try to adjust the mirrors while driving I dare you.
Less difficult but much more common:
Change the radio station / music.
Change the climate control.
Both of those require taking your eyes off the road and navigating through multiple touch screen-only modal windows. I have owned one for years and it is a distraction factory.
Gear selection is done via the screen on a Model 3 [1]. Technically, there is a touchscreen button on the rearview mirror unit, but I doubt anybody actually uses that.
Alternatively, you can use the AI gear selector from park which guesses what direction you want to go.
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.
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.
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.
Am I the only one that is not excited about the next four years being constant banter of this nature? I loathe it. Nothing personal against your comment but the new administration hasn't even gone into office and I cannot get away from this.
You are not alone in this sentiment. It is beyond the pale that the denizens of a 'hacker forum' are often so narrow-minded when it comes to engaging those who think outside of the personal zone of ideological preference. The same people who have been yammering about the importance of 'diversity' are dead set against diversity of opinion. Grow up, folks, get outside your comfort zone and engage some of those deplorables, irredeemables, garbage, rednecks, hillbillies and bible thumpers instead of howling along with the masses. Go ahead and try, you may find they are more like you than you've been told by the chattering classes. Sure you'll have disagreements over certain things but that does not make them the evil monsters your moral mentors have been claiming they are. Just... grow up.
A certain faction always think the rule on keeping politics out of forums doesn't apply to them, because their politics are too correct and important. I experience this problem in groupchats where the very people who furiously demanded people not bring politics into the group and to make the group politics-free routinely push their own politics. They say their politics are too important to not bring up.
These same people LEFT other groups dedicated to politics so presumably if others respond in kind by discussing their own politics, they will leave the last groupchats too. This is why a certain faction is such an echo chamber. Incidentally, I was just banned from r/Archaeology for arguing that a post arguing that archeologists should prepare to fight the fascist takeover was too political.
They are planning to appoint a nutjob who has publicly that he admitted cutting off the heads of whale carcasses with a chainsaw and dumping dead bears in the Central Park for "fun". Presumably he is also consuming those rotting animals carcasses that he keeps finding somehow (how else do you get brain worms?) to be the new US health secretary.
These people have been inundated with the drivel of a billion dollar propaganda machine run by the most expensive campaign in history.
It's gonna take a while before they're back to normal again. I've heard so many "office of government efficiency" jokes in the last week I am tired of it too. But, in their defense if all you hear is how this administration is going to be the fourth reich (lol), destroy the country (lol), introduce fascism (lol), kill people (lol), etc you're going to react in a sarcastic way to anything you can grasp onto.
Though tbf, again, "office of government efficiency" seems like an oxymoron.
They have already announced what they are going to do, with the pro-Trump side saying he's not serious or will mellow out the plan before he takes office, and the anti-Trump side saying he will do exactly what he says he's going to do.
They are like this literally any time a Republican is in the White House. They were like this when Dubya was President too, even though today they act like he's some sort of elder statesman just because he hates Trump.
As a non-american watching the election, this was one of the reasons I didn't want the result to be the way it went. Just for having to hear about it constantly from everywhere.
This is why we need the Department of Department of Government Efficiency Efficiency so we can ensure the governmental efficiency of the Department of Government Efficiency.
Nobody needs to take notes, we’ve known what this is for a hundred years. We spent most of the last century trying to get rid of autocracy in various places, there’s entire libraries worth of books detailing this playbook at this point.
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.
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.
> 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.
It takes until 85+ years old to match the accident frequency of the 16-25 years old cohort. Should we ban young adults from driving?
The reality is that the drivers tests should be MUCH more stringent for all cohorts. The reality is also that not having a car in the US is a horrible handicap.
So, we are stuck in a very suboptimal spot until self-driving cars come online.
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.
If you have driven around rural roads in the US, you realize it does not take alcohol to leave the road. A moment of distraction is all it takes to get into a ditch.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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) clearly demonstrates that head-on collisions cause more fatalities than tree+utility pole collisions combined.
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.
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.
I've never been in a Tesla so don't know if this would work, but you might try getting a small convex mirror (often called a "blind spot mirror") like these [1] at Amazon. I linked Amazon for convenience. They should also be easy to find locally at anyplace that has an auto section like Walmart, or auto parts stores like NAPA, O'Reilly, and AutoZone.
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.
Same with both of my Mitsubishis. There's a roundabout near where I live that, when approaching it from one angle, the "beam" on the right hand side of the windshield totally obscures the whole road leading to the roundabout from another angle.
I have to shift in my seat to crane around to see if there is oncoming traffic I have to give way to.
Also, the instrument cluster is located in the center, outside of the driver's direct view. And most of the important controls for the driver do not have tactile buttons.
> 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.
>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.
In insurance they call it the "law of lugnuts" - bigger cars have better survivability in direct collisions.
However, most traffic fatalities do not come from direct collisions. They come from driver hitting immobile objects.
Smaller, lighter cars take less kinetic energy with them around corners, are easier to steer and avoid obstacles, and are more likely to stay upright when leaving the road.
> 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.
> 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?
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.
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?
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-patr...)
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!
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.
I'm not sure which of them are evs, but you could work it out fairly easily. Even if many of them are, it still looks to me like tesla is doing poorly by this metric.
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.
EVs have full torque at 0 RPM so they are capable of accelerating much faster than an average ICE.
The manufacturer can alter based on software, how much current the electrical system is capable of supplying, how powerful the motors are, etc.
But even “normal non-performance” EVs that aren’t designed for performance like a Chevy Bolt come off the line way quicker than an equivalent normal car, even if they’re full 0 to 60 time isn’t that much faster.
People love to say that EVs are very heavy, or are much, much heavier, massively heavier and so on. This paints the wrong picture in people’s heads. The same people will use the Hummer EV as an example, but most people aren’t driving that.
> full electric versions are only around 10% to 15% heavier than their direct ICE equivalent
To put it into perspective, from the table, you could load an ICE with passengers and some luggage and it would weigh the same as the EV equivalent with just the driver.
> “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.
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.
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?
Did you email them to ask for it? What sort of meta-analysis do you intend to do with their data? Have you released other interesting work in this field that would benefit the post? Why weren’t your intentions for their model published in your comment? What can we do to denormalize rhetoric in forum discussions?
Readit News
(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.
From the actual study:
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.
This data is interesting, but not really useful for decisionmaking if we can't isolate the extent to which the disparities are caused by features of the actual vehicle, as opposed to driver selection factors.
Is anyone making an argument that the Model Y has an actual safety problem in its design? I'd like to hear about which physical aspect of the car people think is making it 4x less safe than the average car? I don't see anything obvious. Its crash test performance is fine. I'd hesitate to blame autopilot, since we know that they crash less often with autopilot enabled than without (even if due to selection factors).
This is plausible on its face, and yet the Honda CR-V Hybrid ended up higher on the list than the Model Y. No idea how to explain that...
And BMW owners like German shepherds?
I'm guessing that while the total accident rate declines with automation, that the serious accident rate is increasing, because a human driver drives in a risk adjusted way and takes less care to avoid minor accidents and more care to avoid serious accidents, but when a robot find itself unable to drive the errors are more evenly distributed or even more likely to result in a serious accident, because its doing things idiotically with no sense of self preservation.
https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024
Since that’s the thing that always breaks on the fridges. And it adds like $500 to the price.
Can’t you drive a Tesla without it? I expect the screen was for radio, gps, AC…
I agree those are distracting through.
Less difficult but much more common:
Change the radio station / music.
Change the climate control.
Both of those require taking your eyes off the road and navigating through multiple touch screen-only modal windows. I have owned one for years and it is a distraction factory.
Alternatively, you can use the AI gear selector from park which guesses what direction you want to go.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_eu/GUID-E9B387D...
It’s not exactly baseless speculation. People have things to base their guesses on.
Well, it cuts both ways. New administration should not be talking till they are in office.
These same people LEFT other groups dedicated to politics so presumably if others respond in kind by discussing their own politics, they will leave the last groupchats too. This is why a certain faction is such an echo chamber. Incidentally, I was just banned from r/Archaeology for arguing that a post arguing that archeologists should prepare to fight the fascist takeover was too political.
Who knows ? Maybe it won't even be possible for the whole four years ?
They are planning to appoint a nutjob who has publicly that he admitted cutting off the heads of whale carcasses with a chainsaw and dumping dead bears in the Central Park for "fun". Presumably he is also consuming those rotting animals carcasses that he keeps finding somehow (how else do you get brain worms?) to be the new US health secretary.
Seriously... what else do you need to know?
Deleted Comment
It's gonna take a while before they're back to normal again. I've heard so many "office of government efficiency" jokes in the last week I am tired of it too. But, in their defense if all you hear is how this administration is going to be the fourth reich (lol), destroy the country (lol), introduce fascism (lol), kill people (lol), etc you're going to react in a sarcastic way to anything you can grasp onto.
Though tbf, again, "office of government efficiency" seems like an oxymoron.
Deleted Comment
Basically a repeat of 2016.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
Expect to see more of it.
Aside from that misuse and intentional misunderstanding of the FARS statistics is readily used by Tesla as a justification for their FSD system.
So let's see if a Trump with total immunity will really leave gracefully this time.
Deleted Comment
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.
It takes until 85+ years old to match the accident frequency of the 16-25 years old cohort. Should we ban young adults from driving?
The reality is that the drivers tests should be MUCH more stringent for all cohorts. The reality is also that not having a car in the US is a horrible handicap.
So, we are stuck in a very suboptimal spot until self-driving cars come online.
"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.
https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD
Dead Comment
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is false. Your cited link (https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD) clearly demonstrates that head-on collisions cause more fatalities than tree+utility pole collisions combined.
Can't wait for displays on pillars, to make them appear transparent.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=blind+spot+mirror
I have to shift in my seat to crane around to see if there is oncoming traffic I have to give way to.
They're both 10+ year old cars.
Do you have a source on that?
https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD
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.
Being heavy is actually a safety feature of sort (but just for the people inside the car, it increases overall fatality).
However, most traffic fatalities do not come from direct collisions. They come from driver hitting immobile objects.
Smaller, lighter cars take less kinetic energy with them around corners, are easier to steer and avoid obstacles, and are more likely to stay upright when leaving the road.
You’re welcome.
> 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.
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?
The average VW Golf weighs about 1.3 tons while the average VW ID.3 weighs about 1.8 tons. That's 40% heavier.
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-patr...)
Or women's weaker musculoskeletal systems provide less protection against blunt force trauma?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/business/car-safety-women...
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!
Cars were less safe for women because they were not designed to be safe for women.
Deleted Comment
I'm not sure which of them are evs, but you could work it out fairly easily. Even if many of them are, it still looks to me like tesla is doing poorly by this metric.
The manufacturer can alter based on software, how much current the electrical system is capable of supplying, how powerful the motors are, etc.
But even “normal non-performance” EVs that aren’t designed for performance like a Chevy Bolt come off the line way quicker than an equivalent normal car, even if they’re full 0 to 60 time isn’t that much faster.
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
To put it into perspective, from the table, you could load an ICE with passengers and some luggage and it would weigh the same as the EV equivalent with just the driver.
You don't do much towing, do you?
We had to stop talking to them about the possibility of buying an EV because they kept bringing up irrational arguments like this one.
No matter how many times we reminded them that, in the two-plus decades we've been driving, we may have towed something maybe twice. Maybe.
One of our existing cars doesn't even have a towbar. The horror!
The irrational hatred / fear is real.
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.