Do we really need all that safety stuff?

[euromodder]

BTW, overall size and creature comforts are adding far more weight than the safety features.

Weight isn't necessarily bad though.
It's good when you have it on your side, so you can crush the other road user to death ...

Check out Gasstingy's horror story above.
A frontal collision at 45 mph with a pole or tree is very much survivable with a seatbelt.
It's more or less how I wrecked my first new car back in '93 ...

[RedDevil]

My parents first car was a DAF.
It was very small and cheap, yet one of the first cars to have a strengthened cabin so it would not collapse on a rollover.
It was therefore relatively heavy, what made the tiny air cooled 2 cylinder boxer engine struggle for ages to get it up to highway speed.
Also my parents retrofitted that new fad of the time - seat belts.

The car got swiped off the road at high speed with my parents, grandparents and me (then aged 3) inside.
It bounced and rolled over at least 5 times, according to witnesses.
At the first rollover both doors broke loose and were flung away.
My mothers arms and legs were swinging in the air through the void where the door had been, only her seat belt kept her in place.

We all survived and recovered to good health.
My mother had dislocated spinal discs, my father had a severe head wound, all had serious cuts and bruises and I was the only one conscious and able to walk right after the incident.

If the car had no roll rigidity it is likely that we all would have been killed.
Without the seat belts both my parents would have been thrown out of the car - at high speed, and maybe crushed by it.
We were saved by those, then cutting edge, safety innovations.

I knew people who have died in traffic accidents - of the kind that you'd expect to escape alive, if not unharmed, in a modern car.

I have owned and did ride a collection of motorbikes - but I had to leave the road to avoid smashing into a police car (!) coming from the opposite direction which swerved to my half of the road for no reason whatsoever at one of my first rides, and a moron on a roundabout who seemed to aim to hit me on one of my last rides. I no longer ride bikes.

I have endangered myself a few times over the decades, but have been put into a dangerous situation by other road users many more times.
I have been passed by a speeding car at insane speed, to see him crash into the car ahead of me.
I have seen (and made an emergency stop for, just avoiding) a farm vehicle crossing a busy 50 mph road without any consideration for traffic.
I've seen a semi flip over sideways at the highway.
I've seen cars crash and then dart uncontrollably through lanes of traffic.
I nearly got hit by a big tree branch breaking off in the storm just seconds before I passed it last December.

I can easily extend thist list of personal experiences further, but the gist is clear.

You can choose how much protection you have in case of an accident.
But you can't choose to drive and never have an accident, as long as there are other drivers / animals / trees / children / rocks / nails / you name it, in or around the road.
Leaving out safety gear that you can easily have does not make sense to me.

[paulgato]

If speed limits were lower - like 50mph - then all that safety equipment does become less useful. Lowering speed limits, and thus lowering the design speed of vehicles, would massively reduce their weight and could reduce overall fuel consumption by half.

A vehicle designed to cruise comfortably and safely at 110+mph on the German Autobahn - and that's almost all cars these days - needs a big heavy engine, crumple zones, airbags, sound deadening, etc. etc. Every single component from nose to tail needs to be bigger, heavier and stronger.

A standard 110mph car will use a lot less fuel driven at 50mph rather than 70mph, but a 60mph car driven at 50mph will use half that again.

If we had a culture of slower driving - and legislation to reduce speed limits would be an important step in achieving that culture - then not only would petrol-driven vehicles use far less fuel, but it would make cheap electric vehicles more viable, if they no longer have to keep up with massive, powerful petrol cars. It would also encourage cycling if traffic was calmer.

[ksa8907]

Originally Posted by paulgato

If speed limits were lower - like 50mph - then all that safety equipment does become less useful. Lowering speed limits, and thus lowering the design speed of vehicles, would massively reduce their weight and could reduce overall fuel consumption by half.

A vehicle designed to cruise comfortably and safely at 110+mph on the German Autobahn - and that's almost all cars these days - needs a big heavy engine, crumple zones, airbags, sound deadening, etc. etc. Every single component from nose to tail needs to be bigger, heavier and stronger.

A standard 110mph car will use a lot less fuel driven at 50mph rather than 70mph, but a 60mph car driven at 50mph will use half that again.

If we had a culture of slower driving - and legislation to reduce speed limits would be an important step in achieving that culture - then not only would petrol-driven vehicles use far less fuel, but it would make cheap electric vehicles more viable, if they no longer have to keep up with massive, powerful petrol cars. It would also encourage cycling if traffic was calmer.

How to you propose driving 500 miles in a day to go on vacation? 10 hours non-stop at 50mph or 6hrs 40min at 75mph. I will gladly pay $20 or however much it is to non be stuck in a car for an additional 3.3 hours.
Trust me, when the kids are screaming you just want to power that sucker up to 85 and set the cruise control.

As for how much fuel you will save by "designing for a lower speed"... give some numbers, preferably with factual data. Otherwise its just meaningless words.


In no way do I want to be offensive, but perhaps in Europe where the countries and cities are much closer this is practical. I have to drive 120 miles one way each time my employer wants me to come to the HQ.

[mazdamx640]

All you need is a soft dash
Head on collision with a drunk driver no wearing a seatbelt and airbags disabled I didn't even go to the hospital

[figit090]

Originally Posted by euromodder

If you still have to be convinced about the virtues of having and using seat belts, you simply haven't got the slightest clue about road or car safety.

You might just as well try to convince me the Earth is flat.

Well said. I truly cannot believe some of the notions that safety equipment is not worth the weight and price, and the miniscule fuel costs to carry said devices. If you value saving a few dollars per year in gas more than your own life, I think you should see a counselor, take some classes on auto safety design, and make sure to check the donor box on your drivers license. Don't have kids either, they'll just die if you get involved on an accident.

Then go on a diet, and drive naked, I'm willing to bet at least a few people worried about vehicle weight are their own worst enemy.

Cars are a factor of our modern culture, perhaps farming and sticking to a horse and buggy, or a bicycle, would suit you better. At the very least don't spread the idea that not wearing your seatbelt is worth it. Some impressionable teen might find this thread.

By the way, a 20 year old drunk kid crashed into a tree near my town this week. He survived because he had his seat belt on. Two of his three young passengers died. Those girls flew from the car.
You do the math.

Gasstingy I'm so sorry for your loss.

[PaulB2]

Gee, 16 pages.

Safety's fine, government mandated safety sucks, but only because it's mandated. Some safety mandates are counterproductive, where safety is concerned, but they continue on because when the rulers command, the peons obey. My ***** (besides lawyer-proofing the cars with asinine warnings like the ones on my visor) is head restraints. I wonder how many accidents were caused because of poor visibility, which was not a problem at all in the '60's. I'm not saying head restraints are worthless, but I wonder what the tradeoff is and wish it was regulated by market pressures.

Oh, one other thing, the cost of all these mandates put automotive travel out of the reach of at least some people who otherwise would be able to do it. Air bags don't come cheap.

[Frank Lee]

So the nanny crap is wanted, not needed. Make it optional. You are free to wear a helmet and put racing harness and cage in as desired.

[niky]

I personally feel less than safe without a five-point belt and a cage. But maybe that's just because of the way I drive when I'm using them.

[paulgato]

Originally Posted by ksa8907

How to you propose driving 500 miles in a day to go on vacation? 10 hours non-stop at 50mph or 6hrs 40min at 75mph. I will gladly pay $20 or however much it is to non be stuck in a car for an additional 3.3 hours.
Trust me, when the kids are screaming you just want to power that sucker up to 85 and set the cruise control.

Well, each to their own, but I decided long ago to start my holidays (vacations) the moment I set off from home, so although it may take me a bit longer to get to my 'destination', I don't lose out. I drive at a relaxed speed, usually avoiding motorways (freeways?) so I can enjoy the scenery. Avoiding motorways means we can stop and take a break at any time. Everyone is more relaxed, including kids, in my experience.

Yes, it can take longer, but not as much as you'd think. Often traffic congestion has a greater impact on the length of a journey than the maximum speed you decide to drive at. As I understand it (and I was told this by a guy who worked in traffic management in the Birmingham (UK) area) the optimum speed for maximum traffic throughput in a road IS about 50mph, as cars can safely drive much closer together than they can at higher speeds.

As for how much fuel you will save by "designing for a lower speed"... give some numbers, preferably with factual data. Otherwise its just meaningless words.

I apologise (not really) for not including footnotes or links to my sources. I think you only have to look at the prototypes of cars designed specifically for super-high fuel economy to realise they are all very low weight vehicles with super-small engines

As speed increases, the impact of air resistance becomes dominant, but at lower speed, weight is the overiding factor. Not sure of the physics, but I know for bicycles on a flat road, each doubling of speed increases the required power by a factor of about eight, and virtual all of that is down to wind resistance.

This from Wikipedia on air restance...

"Note that the power needed to push an object through a fluid increases as the cube of the velocity. A car cruising on a highway at 50 mph (80 km/h) may require only 10 horsepower (7.5 kW) to overcome air drag, but that same car at 100 mph (160 km/h) requires 80 hp (60 kW). With a doubling of speed the drag (force) quadruples per the formula. Exerting four times the force over a fixed distance produces four times as much work. At twice the speed the work (resulting in displacement over a fixed distance) is done twice as fast. Since power is the rate of doing work, four times the work done in half the time requires eight times the power."

Internal combustion engines are most efficient at close to maximum power output, and least efficient at lowest power output, so an engine capable of overcoming wind resistance to push a car along at 120mph will have roughly eight times the power of an engine which only has to push the same car along at 60mph. At 50mph it will be running at roughly 10% load, whereas the smaller engine will be running at about 70% load. And that's for the same car, same weight, everything, including some ballast. to make up for the lighter engine.

And then at lower speed you can get away with far less weight in virtually every area of the car (chassis, drive train, suspension, brakes, body panels, everything) and since at lower speed weight is the dominant factor in fuel efficiency, you save fuel pretty much proportional to the weight you can save. (Half the weight, half the fuel consumption.) The drivetrain for example, from engine to tyres, only has to handle one-eighth the power if the design speed is halved, so all that stuff under the bonnet (hood) can in theory be one-eighth the weight.

Being forced to design for a 'normal' road speed of up to 100mph is a major constraint to designers wanting to maximise fuel economy. My grandmother's Morris Minor with 1000cc engine and little flp-out indicators with flashing orange lights on stalks like an insect was an aerodynamic disaster, had zero safety features, zero sound deadening (I still remember the whine of the gearbox) but it would get 50mpg easily, and that was in the 60's. Didn't go fast, but that didn't matter as there was much less traffic around and most cars were slow.

In no way do I want to be offensive, but perhaps in Europe where the countries and cities are much closer this is practical. I have to drive 120 miles one way each time my employer wants me to come to the HQ.

No offense taken. It's true, distances in Europe are often shorter, and fuel is also much more expensive - at least double usually.

...in the context of this discussion about safety, then I'm saying that if speed limits were lower, then no, we wouldn't need half that safety gear and we'd all still be a lot safer.