Safe Speed Forums

This in the Daily Telegraph.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

If only we could (also) put the same amount of effort and ingenuity into avoiding crashes in the first place. Presently UK drivers are getting worse at about the same rate that technology is getting better. What a tragic waste.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I can imagine it now. Car decides to avoid pedestrian and steers into crowded bus shelter or goes the other way and steers into oncoming bus.

Quite. That bit is positively scary.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Hmmm - then senses pedestrians in bus shelter and goes beserk trying to dissapear up own exhaust pipe.
All this technology in car - reminds me of garage that used to do my work - owner told tale of upmarket cars with all manner of electronics parked under power line pylon - got towed back to garage to have chips changed ( if owner lucky)

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

It's all very well & good having a plethora of electronics to look after everything, but what happens when the electronics do decide that they can make a better job of a given maneuver and somebody ends up in hospital (or worse still, dead) because the elctronics got it wrong?

What I mean is, you can hardly charge the driver with anything as he (or she) wasn't actually in control of the car at the time.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

on the face of it a reasonable article about pedestrian safety legislation & the new passive safety features that go with it.

shame they felt the need to throw in the usual self driving car tit-bit. that kind of active safety is possible and may arrive but not for some time due to legal & liability for one... and cost (sensors for similar prototype systems i've seen cost a bomb). it is not legislated for so is unlikely to get levered onto new cars in a hurry, any talk of legislation for active safety systems would probably go the way of ABS.

(of course now i think of it the new merc has soem for mof brake based collision mitigation, and famous televised press c*ck up demonstration)

unfortunately i suspect the pedestrian legislation will have the same effect as the NCAP crash worthiness ratings in limiting the designers & stylists options... resulting in mroe cars that look the same .. aaaargh

The malleable bumpers and 'pop-up' bonnets are already on some new cars being released.
I think that the bonnets are due to a regulation that says that there should be 10cm/4" between the bonnet and the top of the engine - 3 possible basic solutions (before mixing and matching):
1) make the bonnet higher. works, but then everything behind has to be higher to maintain visibility.
2) make the engine lower. again, works, to the benefit of handling etc but is harder and more expensive to engineer.
3) make as before, but with pop-up bonnet to create the gap on sensing a bump.

My thoughts exactly. I think that airliner safety is a good comparison. They could have reduced the chance of being killed in a plane crash by fitting ejector seats and parachutes. Thankfully they chose to try and prevent planes from dropping out of the sky.

4) Make a conventional engine shorter - bigger pistons, shorter stroke perhaps? Sidevalves anyone? [ ]

5) Please the greens by fitting a smaller engine - and please everyone else by fitting a blower.

6) Cant a conventional engine over. Vauxhall used to do this in Victors and Vivas in the 70s. Tilting the cylinder head rearward in a typical FWD (spit) transverse design might be helpful.

7) Choose a different engine plan. Horizontally opposed would be an obvious choice. Hello Subaru.

8) Stick the engine at the back, Porsche style.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

9) Stick the engine at the back, Ferrari / Noble style.

Keep the pedestrian off the street- treat them as drivers are now treated - subject them to fines for stupid pedestrianing or similar (like on the continent) ---bring back road safety education - green cross code , coppers on patrol - lets get to the other side of the equation - dangerous/stupid walking.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Botach: "Keep the pedestrian off the street- treat them as drivers are now treated - subject them to fines for stupid pedestrianing or similar (like on the continent) ---bring back road safety education - green cross code , coppers on patrol - lets get to the other side of the equation - dangerous/stupid walking."

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Hardly helps in the case of reversing accidents.

Anyway, mine's in the front.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

then it's not a *real* porsche

It'll wipe the floor with a Carrera.

I don't know why Porsche affies are so anal about their flattened Beetles.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

I went to a crash safety talk once and the bloke giving it said that most pedestrian head injuries in crashes were sustained when the pedestrian's head hits the road after the impact!

So where does that leave us? Oh hell, who cares, let's just make everyone think it's the big, bad car manufacturer's fault and give them some more hoops to jump through then the public will say what a nice bunch of Eurocrats we are and keep voting for us!

i've heard that too....

and dare i mention 4x4s tend to push the pedestrian forward whilst saloons toss them into the air

Interesting concept this. I don't think the car steering itself would work. It would have no idea what it was steering itself into. A crowded pavement? A canal? Even controlling the brakes could be a nightmare - imagine the liability disputes that would arise from rear-end collisions.

Still, making a car electronically aware of what's going on around it is a good idea. Forget radar/laser - this is hopelessly inadequate. But say you were able to tag all vehicles and pedestrians with a GPS-aware transponder that communicated its position and heading to all other transponders around it, via wireless networking technology. The range would not have to be huge. Your car could then be aware of a pedestrian that is about to run across the road between two parked cars, or someone walking on an unlit road at night in black clothing, a pedestrian crossing the road just around the next bend or an overtaking vehicle hidden by the crest of a hill. The list is endless

Even if applying the brakes is too harsh an action, it could sound a warning or, better still, display the hazard as a red blip (with an arrow indicating direction) on a heads-up display.

As long as the Government kept their nasty, meddling hands out of it (I don't want my transponder reporting my movements to "Nanny", thankyou) I think something like this could work.

Yes, I know what you're all going to say... but I don't think electronic in-car awareness would de-skill drivers any more than the introduction of desktop computing in business has de-skilled our workforce.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

More brainstorming -this next bit.

- the pedestrian bit is interesting -say some method of enhancing awareness of being on road /proximity to road - or vehicle approaching --to approach the problem from both sides rather than from one direction.=double chance of removing problem

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on