Front Brake Lights Could Drastically Diminish Road Accident Rates
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When am I ever looking at the side and needing to see the other side's turn signal? The best I can think of is (using right side driving) a car turning right into my lane of travel as I'm going straight, but I'll be a bit offset to the left and should be able to see the right headlight. If I can't, that means the car is angled to the right, making it obvious that they're turning.
Because this is what the discussion is about?
Personally I just want front turn signals to be visible from the opposite side again.
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Liknks or didn't happen
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You all talk a big game, but I’ve been to about 20 countries so far in my life. Distributed all over the world. They ALL have traffic led by cars. I guess I haven’t been to Mumbai..
Your assumptions are wrong, and you live in fantasy. Get over it.
I’m not sure what your point is? I never said cars weren’t leading traffic. I think we’ve both kind of lost the plot here but my point was that cars aren’t a requirement to live. If they are in your city or area (outside of rural), then you should advocate for better transit and urban design.
Also note that I never said cars should be outright banned or anything of that sort
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The combined indicator/brake light thing you guys do is fucking stupid, so there's a precedent.
I've always hated that. I feel like I'm seeing it less and less on newer vehicles, though, so maybe manufacturers are also realizing that it's stupid as hell.
Or maybe it's just not worth the cost to have two different but mostly identical versions of a very expensive and highly integrated modern taillight housing for different markets.
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Accidents aren't isolated though, they will sort themselves out by hitting good drivers and people.
Well, around here "good drivers" can "read" the bad drivers' intent, and in a setting like a four way stop they can usually avoid getting hit by yielding, regardless of right of way circumstances.
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Id love then to know when someone is slowing down to turn when I'm trying to pull out. So few use turn signals, and even those I don't really trust until the car is noticably getting slower.
That's actually another good use, a kind of passive turn signal - though if they're really turning you should be able to notice their reduced speed without a light - and drivers who start depending on the front brake light to read intent to turn might actually have more accidents instead of less.
Just yesterday I watched a car pull out into an intersection less than one car-length in front of a car driving straight through the intersection, slowly. I can't know what they were thinking, but I would guess they assumed that the slow car going straight was about to turn, then they quit paying attention and pulled out just in time for the collision to be un-avoidable.
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That doesn't answer the question. The question is how you would design it so you can look at the left side of a car, know that it's turning right and isn't prone to misunderstandings.
Up and down arrows? Up is away from you and down is towards you.
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Because it wasn't blindingly obvious? I don't know how tall the truck in front of me is, and since I don't drive tall vehicles I know even less about the heights of bridges. Usually commercial drivers are the better ones.
Well the thing that made it blindingly obvious was that it was a 30 second video of a tall truck driving full tilt toward a low bridge, so obviously something was about to happen!
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Or on your motorcycle in 15.
Everyone with the usual compliment of legs should be forced to start on a motorcycle or moped. After 2 years of that we let you graduate to being in a box. Riding a motorcycle will force you to learn how to remain attentive and focused 100% on operating your machine, and when you're finally afforded the luxury of a roof and heat, not having to get rained and snowed on half the year, you'll really appreciate what you've got instead of treating it like the world owes you a car.
Lifetime care for the additional seriously injured will be very expensive...
I live in a retirement center, here it is very obvious that driving licenses should be revoked when vision, reflexes and other driving skills reach the level of the average 75 year old. But, since the majority of voters here are retirees- instead they keep making it easier for the extremely elderly to keep driving themselves - because, of course the world can't take their freedom of movement away from them.
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Maybe redo the driving test like... At least every 20 years? There are people on the roads who got their licenses when their town didn't even had traffic lights. People who never saw a roundabout in their first 20 years of driving.
Its nice that we restrict young people by making them take more and more driving lessons and paying more for tiered licences, like we do in Europe for motorcycles and trucks.
But maybe also take a look at the 70+ year old grandpa who had two strokes and one heart attack, has two pairs of of glasses but his license says that he's perfectly fit.
IMO, the big problem is just a matter of standards and practicality. The bar for a DL is "can operate a vehicle" and not "can safely drive a vehicle in public for extended periods of time." I agree with periodic re-licensing though; everything else called a "license" seems to need that for a host of reasons.
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Id love then to know when someone is slowing down to turn when I'm trying to pull out. So few use turn signals, and even those I don't really trust until the car is noticably getting slower.
You're right about turn signals.
A lot of people have "target fixation" and telegraph their moves somewhat. I look at where the car is tracking in the lane and what their head is doing (if I can see it). Most people drift left or right on the highway before they change lanes, exit, or turn. It's no excuse for bad manners, but it helps.
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You're right about turn signals.
A lot of people have "target fixation" and telegraph their moves somewhat. I look at where the car is tracking in the lane and what their head is doing (if I can see it). Most people drift left or right on the highway before they change lanes, exit, or turn. It's no excuse for bad manners, but it helps.
Oh yea. I'll watch the wheels, their head, and if I can see them reposition their hands, I'll look for that.
I don't trust anyone when I'm on the road.
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That is a weird question.
How do you calculate odds of dying by suicide anyway, wouldn't they be personal?
The U.S. death rate is about 750 / 100,000 overall, with about 14.1 of those 750 declared suicide (you can never really know, but the suspected actual suicide rate is a bit higher, to preserve insurance benefits...)
The current US death rate by automobile accident is around 13.4 per 100,000 - so, by those statistics, people are already slightly more likely to take their own lives by choice than they are to die in an auto accident.
Of course if you choose to walk, you're not entirely safe, the US pedestrian death rate is around 2 per 100,000, and that's with most people driving everywhere most of the time.
Another fun way to look at the end is lifetime odds:
Death by suicide: 1/87
Death by automobile accident: 1/93 (which seems to indicate in itself that deaths by auto accident are expected to decline, or perhaps have recently increased slightly?)
Death by firearm (US): 1/91
Suicide by firearm (US): 1/156Next time you're driving on a 2 lane highway at speed, oncoming cars approaching at a relative velocity of 100mph and more (50 in your direction 50 in theirs...) count oncoming cars. When you get to 87, odds are that one of those drivers will ultimately die by suicide... there's a little solace in the fact that most of them won't be doing it by swerving into oncoming traffic, and the bigger relief is that most of those that do, won't be doing it at that particular moment just before you pass.
As for guns - that's a whole different mess, but interesting that the numbers are so close.
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Oh yea. I'll watch the wheels, their head, and if I can see them reposition their hands, I'll look for that.
I don't trust anyone when I'm on the road.
I don’t trust anyone when I’m on the road.
And you shouldn't. Everyone is equipped with a lethal weapon masquerading as personal transportation, where safety is predicated on mutually-assured-destruction and the presumption that everyone is a sane actor. Keep your head on a swivel and stay safe out there!
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Because this is what the discussion is about?
Personally I just want front turn signals to be visible from the opposite side again.
And I'm saying I can see them most of the time, and when I can't, I don't need to because their intention is obvious.
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Sometimes you see those videos from a dash cam of a truck that hits a bridge, obviously the truck driver was been being inattentive but often so was the recording cars driver. All I can ever think is, "why were you so close behind, it was blindingly obvious that was about to happen", yet to them apparently it wasn't, and now they've got bits of truck roof in their windscreen.
There was an astounding number of people who really cannot drive, and yet they think they're driving safely. They just haven't gotten a crash yet.
If we limited drivers permits to the 8% or so of drivers who are actually competent we'd solve a lot of problems in several domains.
I self-selected as ineligible to drive years ago, and I've never regretted it. Of course I had to move away from my home country and learn a new language, but those are the shakes.
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I don’t trust anyone when I’m on the road.
And you shouldn't. Everyone is equipped with a lethal weapon masquerading as personal transportation, where safety is predicated on mutually-assured-destruction and the presumption that everyone is a sane actor. Keep your head on a swivel and stay safe out there!
Some people don't care about their cars at all. They will damage their own just to spite another driver.
I've driven big 30ft box trucks that are governed at 60mph and daily a 2 seater sports car. There is nothing worth fucking up my day just to win an argument on who gets to go first.
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Define safe? If everyone drives safely enough that you are more likely to die of suicide than an automobile accident, is that safe enough?
Fatal motor vehicle accidents are just over 865000 times more common than commercial air travel accidents, but until dash cams we never got to see them, so people think it can't happen to them, when it's slightly worse than even odds.
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Passing a test is very different from internalizing the lessons tested.
No test prepared me for black ice. Sure they tell you to be careful when temps drop but how much slower should you go? I guessed wrong and crashed. There are too many conditions that you just never get to experience where one misjudgement has dire consequences.
What fucks me up is hearing about experienced drivers crashing in similar ways, so you're never really going to figure out everything, especially during snowy seasons, you just have to hope that whatever you do is correct and risk your life.
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Motorcycle rider here. Yes, families with children will rent a truck anytime they want to purchase groceries, and when it’s raining. It’s not practical.
This is a stupid thread.
Yeah no shit for families but for people that have the choice. Fuckin dumbass