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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (24776)	5/31/2009 4:50:30 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Respond to of 36917

The theory that "big cars are safer" is sort of true but is dumb thinking. "The Science" is not so simple as is claimed. Yes, if a Mack truck doing 100 mph crashes head on into me on my motor scooter doing 50 mph the other way, my crash helmet will not provide a lot of protection, even if I'm also wearing sun glasses. The two vehicles and the remains of the drivers would combine into one moving entity and according to the physics of conservation of momentum, would carry on in the direction the truck was going with no need for the truck to accelerate back up to speed because it would have slowed insignificantly. I could increase my safety by driving a motor scooter with greater mass so that the truck was forced into reverse instead of me. Something the size of the Titanic would do the trick. I could also increase my safety by having a 100 metre long crumple zone in the front of my scooter with a good harness to keep me from flying forwards. Then it would just be a change of direction with no damage to my motor scooter of me if it was designed to be enveloped in the crumpled mass. It's the deceleration which kills people in crashes [and impact from hard or sharp objects can do so too]. Reducing the deceleration in crashes is what matters. Two SUVs crashing head first are just as stopped afterwards as two micro cars. What matters is the deceleration time. That's a function of how much distance there is for coming to a stop. A long-nosed car with good energy absorption would be better than a short-nosed rigid one. Most deaths are self-inflicted by hitting bridge abutments, going into the ditch, attacking trees, flying off a corner into a ravine. In those instances, shock absorption cushioning is the key, not size. So it's true that in an arms-race collision contest, the bigger one wins and the small one is dead. But overall, the number of dead people doesn't change, just who turns out to be dead. The question is a matter of costs. Everyone buying SUVs makes travel very expensive compared with everyone buying micro cars. There is no safety gain if everyone is armed with an SUV or Hummer instead of a micro car. But there is a vast cost. Fortunately, the person who chooses to arm themselves with a huge Hummer incurs all of that extra cost. The guy on the motor scooter saves all of the money but incurs the cost of the personal injury when the moron in the Hummer crosses the line and crashes into them. It's a self-balancing problem. Good drivers who don't crash will go with the cheaper little option. Morons who crash will go with the trucks, use up their money and crash into other morons in their trucks, bridge abutments, trees, ditches and ravines, thereby improving the gene pool by removing two at a time. A study of intelligence of drivers would show that death by crash is improving the gene pool. At $4 a gallon, a Hummer guzzling 6 times as much as a micro car is costing the owner a fortune over 50 years of driving. Depreciation and maintenance are huge in Hummers. The probability of dying or being maimed in a crash is low, especially if the driver is intelligent. Parking and driving are easier and cheaper in little cars. At $4 a gallon, a LOT of people decided the extra safety for them was not worth it. They swapped to little cars. People who don't understand physics think they are safer in a big vehicle. But they are as safe if everyone has a little car instead of everyone having a big SUV. AND they save a fortune in cash which they can use to save their lives when they need to buy some medical treatment. It's not a simple matter of physics. But of course that's the line the SUV merchants push. Better still is electronic and photonic computerized traffic management with vehicles self-driving with congestion tolls. High speed, no crash, cheap, no traffic jams. Mqurice