The Govt makes cars safer to increase the road toll

[Unconnected]

Hello pub,

I theorise that,

The governments of the world, legislate car saftey "improvments"(ie seat belts/airbags/abs) so as to encourage drivers to:

A) trust that their car will protect them in a HIGH SPEED crash
B) care less about driving at a high speed in adverse conditions
[E.G a driver going 110 down the motorway in the wet, due to the protection of ABS]
C) and thus, drive over the speed limit more often, due to being comfortable at high speeds

This means that, Govt's of the world, make cars safer to increase the amount of speeding drivers and thus increase income through speeding fines etc.

If cars had spikes in the middle of the steering wheel and bald tires, no one would drive any more then 20kph, the road toll would drop to near 0, due to everyone being too scared to drive.

the government knows this, but legislates safer cars because it:

A) makes them look like they are saving lives (increase votes)
B) increase income from speeding fines.

Do you agree.

[TVR-190]

i sorta agree with some parts, mainly that the government just likes to appear to be helping, but they dont want people to speed. they want people to be safe, it alwys comes down to choise, some people choose to speed and run the risk. and that will always be the case, also what about drivers of old cars that speed, your suggesting that only people with new cars with good safety speed because they know its safer?

[TrEnNaVY]

no offence mate but in my opinion that is just stupid. most people drive to the conditions, the make cars safer to save lives not give people confidence

[Unconnected]

i feel their plan is more to target new drivers born around 1985>, as none of them are used to cars with no abs or remember times with out seatbelts etc. and are such used to relying on their car for protection.

an old mate of mine made a example of himslef when he drove 120kmh down the wakehust parkway at night, in one of the worst storms i have seen. when i told him to slow the **** down he said

"im driving the safest car in the world (mk5 golf) it has a 5 star euroNCAP and esp, im allowed to drive like this"

its people like this, and their are many these days, who are falling into the governments trap.

[TrEnNaVY]

all that proves is that ur mate is a ********. no matter wot u r in if ur driving 120 in a storm ur looking for death

[commsirac]

All the info is out there on cyber space, apart from your not uncommon perception(amongst those that dont have the ability to drive to the regulations) that governments the world over only have traffic fines to gain revenue

There is some truth in the idea that people drive to a perceived level of safety, which has been offered as one of the reasons as to why there has been not much statistical difference in the accident rate between otherwise identical vehicles fitted with abs and those that dont. There are many factors here, like the attitude of those that insist their vehicle had abs in the 1st place.

However, go back over time and you will find the injury/fatality rate per km driven was much higher than today and that each feature that makes a car safer has helped to improve that rate.

Perhaps the more interesting aspects of this discussion would be whether the features that improve accident survivability(seat belts, air bags, chassis crumple zones etc) have more/less effect than improvements in handling, braking/tyres etc.

[sleek_vp]

i feel their plan is more to target new drivers born around 1985>, as none of them are used to cars with no abs or remember times with out seatbelts etc. and are such used to relying on their car for protection.

an old mate of mine made a example of himslef when he drove 120kmh down the wakehust parkway at night, in one of the worst storms i have seen. when i told him to slow the **** down he said

"im driving the safest car in the world (mk5 golf) it has a 5 star euroNCAP and esp, im allowed to drive like this"

its people like this, and their are many these days, who are falling into the governments trap.

im glad you said 'old mate of yours' coz clearly hes a toss that needs an accident to open his eyes to the world

[Pub247]

i dont agree its not the goverment that invent these safety features they only legeslate after the feature has/had been used and been out for a while.
Example ford invented seatbelts waaay before it ever became law to to wear one.
Car manufacturers invent these things to help sell their vehicles i'm sure safety of occupants and profit is on their minds not whether the goverments tells them to invent these safety features

[Morton]

Do you have ANY idea how dangerous cars were in the USA in the mid 1900s? People were dropping like files on the roads because the cars were death traps. Just because something is dangerous, doesn't mean people will sit back and have a good long look at what they're doing.

[pow3rslave]

i partially agree, they are mostly concerned with the appearance of saving lives or protecting people. that's why things like 40 zones are here to stay and only going to get stricter. 40 zones in school zones, love em or hate em, whatever. but 40 zones permanently in backstreet shopping strips?
they can't get rid of them because it'll be backing down or seen to be being soft on hoons.

thing is, my folks are always telling me when they were young you'd often do ~150 on country roads like going up to donald etc. it wasn't called hooning back then, just how it was done. and that was before abs, traction control, airbags, and with leaf suspension.

[levymetal]

i disagree with you 100%. i've never heard the government say that you can speed because cars are safer in higher speed crashes. i've never heard them say that you can drive faster in worse conditions with a better car. the only thing i've ever heard them say is how new cars are safer in the same conditions as opposed to older cars.

are you suggesting we should be making cars less safer in order to reduce the road toll? seriously...

as far as i know, the rate of death is decreasing. sure some years are worse than the previous, but you have to remember that there are so many more people on the roads as well. instead of looking at the amount of deaths, you should look at the proportion of deaths to the amount of drivers... i'm sure you'll find that's decreasing every year.

[Morton]

thing is, my folks are always telling me when they were young you'd often do ~150 on country roads like going up to donald etc. it wasn't called hooning back then, just how it was done. and that was before abs, traction control, airbags, and with leaf suspension.

It's true, and in my experience there are still many "derestricted zone" signs up around the country (black circle with a slash through it) on rarely-used backroads.

[Unconnected]

im glad you said 'old mate of yours' coz clearly hes a toss that needs an accident to open his eyes to the world

yea he is, some how he hasnt managed to have an accident yet, thankfully the rest of my friends now can drive, and so they normally choose to drive themslefs rather then go with him, so when he does crash, he hopefully wont take 4 people with him.

while i do agree that my theory is not fool proof, i think that the govt does understand this ( my theory) but chooses to ignore it.

[1991_Vn2nV]

This is obviously true.

Thats why so many guys speed and drive like idiots in VL and VN commodores. Because of all their safety features... You know like the airbags and the ABS brakes and the ESP and what not. Oh wait... They don't have any of that.

No wonder everyone speeds in Volvo's instead...Oh no wait they don't do that either.

It must be all the people in brand new Mercs and BMW's with their safety features. No wait, they're not common speeders either.

Oh but if you go to a country where seat belts are not required and many cars are not even fitted with them, they obviously quite safely, like they do in Bali where most people are on scooters or in cars with no seat belts fitted or if they do have them they do not wear them. Oh but they drive like absolute nuts. Hmm...

It just happens to be mostly older spec vehicles that are driven like idiots above the speed limit and these vehicles just happen to have next to no safety features compared to brand new cars available today. But that means nothing.

[Hunter SS]

It's true, and in my experience there are still many "derestricted zone" signs up around the country (black circle with a slash through it) on rarely-used backroads.

these zones have an open speed limit, up to the maximum allowable on any formed road, which is 100kph.

[Calaber]

i feel their plan is more to target new drivers born around 1985>, as none of them are used to cars with no abs or remember times with out seatbelts etc. and are such used to relying on their car for protection.

an old mate of mine made a example of himslef when he drove 120kmh down the wakehust parkway at night, in one of the worst storms i have seen. when i told him to slow the **** down he said

"im driving the safest car in the world (mk5 golf) it has a 5 star euroNCAP and esp, im allowed to drive like this"

its people like this, and their are many these days, who are falling into the governments trap.

Well, I used to own a Mark 5 Golf and drive the Wakehurst Parkway pretty often. It wasn't me and I wouldn't have done it, in the Golf or any other car.

What a tool.

[Calaber]

All the info is out there on cyber space, apart from your not uncommon perception(amongst those that dont have the ability to drive to the regulations) that governments the world over only have traffic fines to gain revenue

There is some truth in the idea that people drive to a perceived level of safety, which has been offered as one of the reasons as to why there has been not much statistical difference in the accident rate between otherwise identical vehicles fitted with abs and those that dont. There are many factors here, like the attitude of those that insist their vehicle had abs in the 1st place.

However, go back over time and you will find the injury/fatality rate per km driven was much higher than today and that each feature that makes a car safer has helped to improve that rate.

Perhaps the more interesting aspects of this discussion would be whether the features that improve accident survivability(seat belts, air bags, chassis crumple zones etc) have more/less effect than improvements in handling, braking/tyres etc.

The road toll in NSW in the year I started driving (1970) was around 1100. There were probably 50% of the cars on the road then that there are now, yet last year's road toll was way below half the 1970 figure.

The roads are better, but not by nearly enough. The drivers are no better and there are probably twice as many of them. So why the huge reduction in deaths? Car design has to be a huge part of that improvement. Improved roads make up some of the difference. Increased policing? Nope, doubt it. Tougher laws and heavier fines....joke, right?

I think that car manufacturers can fairly claim to have done their bit for road safety. Now it's up to the rest of us to do our bit and keep doing it.

[Fekason]

Our technological advances in sfety have tended to make the driver safer first, with passengers getting assistance later on.

I once heard someone summize that if we removed the driver's airbag and replaced it with a sharp 30 cm steel spike pointing at the driver, we would lose less passengers. We might lose a few more drivers, but what would the overall effect on the road toll be?

IMHO, the reasons for the lowering of the road toll over the last forty years has been because of compulsory seat belts, RBT and the continuing improvements in car passive and active safety.

Have a safe day everyone.

[danja]

The road toll in NSW in the year I started driving (1970) was around 1100. There were probably 50% of the cars on the road then that there are now, yet last year's road toll was way below half the 1970 figure.

The roads are better, but not by nearly enough. The drivers are no better and there are probably twice as many of them. So why the huge reduction in deaths? Car design has to be a huge part of that improvement. Improved roads make up some of the difference. Increased policing? Nope, doubt it. Tougher laws and heavier fines....joke, right?

I think that car manufacturers can fairly claim to have done their bit for road safety. Now it's up to the rest of us to do our bit and keep doing it.

100% agree with you.

I found this the other day, quite interesting I thought:
Fatal Road Crash Database

Even in absolute terms the road fatality rate has been on the decline for years, then if you were to correlate that with the number of vehicle registrations (which has been steadily increasing) the trend would become even more pronounced.

There is also news that stability control (ESP) is going to become mandatory by 2011, which makes sense given a lot of experts have been claiming it's the best thing to happen for road safety since seat belts.
Stability control compulsory from 2011 - www.drive.com.au

Admittedly, the largest motivator for car makers to improve safety of their products is that it's a selling point, but none the less they've done a bloody good job IMO, and are continuing to do so. Most new Lexus have a forward mounted radar which scans for impending collisions and pre-tensions seatbelts and primes the brake-assist system, Honda have a forward looking infrared (night vision) camera which can automatically detect pedestrians walking into the path of the car several hundred meters away, and alerts the driver. It's all very clever stuff.

Drivers definitely need to pitch in and do their bit.

[commsirac]

Yes, the accident rate has dropped, but its not all due to improvements in vehicles.
Drink driving laws/detection and speed monitoring/detection have also played a large role here. Dropping the average speed of the suburban mob by just 5km/h(yes you've seen the ad) makes one hell of a difference.

[vlv8vic]

Short answer to OP question - no i don't agree.

[Stressball]

This is all reeking of conspiracy theory nutter-ism to me.

There are two options when it comes to car safety: Improve it and hopefully save lives, or leave as is and let people die in more crashes than might occur if improvements are made.

The problem is, you can't guarantee that either one of these will save lives over the other. The problem is the human brain. Subconsciously, the human brain uses Risk Compensation. Take, for example, two dojos that train children in a form of martial arts, the same martial art at each dojo. Say one of them insists on using padding all over the body, whereas the other is purely hand to hand, no pads. Other variables aside, the injury rates will remain steady with each other, because the brain will take greater risks when it is under the impression more safety is apparent.

When you improve a cars safety by including ABS, people will compensate for that risk, and brake later. When you improve suspension, they will take bumps and corners faster. When you improve tyres, they will drive quicker on loose surfaces, or wet roads. However, if you improve them with something that is not immediately apparent, the safety increases but the compensation does not. This would be the case in situations such as the introduction of safety glass into car windscreens. The safety feature is not accounted for by the brain, because to the driver, nothing has changed.

Governments trying to increase revenue by 'tempting' people into driving beyond their capabilities? Bollocks. It's all a matter of science, not politics.

[Tas_HSV]

Disagree with the whole "safer cars to encourage speeding" theory,illogical and plain stupid.A theory a bit closer to the truth might read "safer cars built to protect car companys from multimillion $$$$ lawsuits"....food for thought.But the whole road safety/speeding debate is also completly illogical.....If the governments were serious about road safety,wouldnt there be government sponsored and funded defensive driving/advanced driver training courses?and courses have to be completed BEFORE you are allowed to drive on a public road.Mandatory retesting every 5 years?Better restrictions on driving under the influence of medication?I regulary see junkies going into the local chemist,getting their methodone fix,and LEGALLY driving away.....same as people on morphine/opiate based painkillers....give me 2 nurofen+ tablets and im a bloody zombie,but legally im allowed to drive.....to be quite honest,im suprised the road toll isnt a lot worse than it is.....but all our governments try to do is take the easy road,use sensationalist media reports to make new laws to attack modifyed car owners with these discriminatory anti hooning laws,to draw attention away from the inadequete driver testing and training/badly maintained road networks and complete and utter failiure of any government to do anything about it......And anyone who thinks speed cameras do anything for the road toll are idiots.

[danja]

Disagree with the whole "safer cars to encourage speeding" theory,illogical and plain stupid.

Try doing 110 on the freeway in a go-kart, then tell me that theory is illogical.

Sorry, I tried to read the rest of what you wrote but gave up.

[Tas_HSV]

Try doing 110 on the freeway in a go-kart, then tell me that theory is illogical.

Sorry, I tried to read the rest of what you wrote but gave up.

To be quite honest,I dont see how doing 110 in a kart is going to prove that if I trade my non airbag VR clubby on a VS clubby with airbags,Im going to automaticly drive faster......