Speeding

[Shapley]

Most of the accidents around here lately have been deer related. I see maimed or dead deer nearly every day. Near as I can tell, the deer were traveling well below the speed limit.

[BigJon]

Oh, dear. to BigJane, plus the painkiller of her choice. Plus a long hot bath.

Tramadol is a wonder drug.

[Serenity]

Why are vehicles engineered to go way over the speed limit? Maybe all cars sold should not be able to go past the max speed limit; our commute to work would feel like the bumper cars at amusement parks

[analog]

My poor wife crashed our new car this morning on her maiden voyage. She was well below the posted speed limit, but a combination of the rain-slicked roads, curves and an unfamiliar car caused her to spin into the ditch.

Glad she wasn't injured, BJ. I hope the insurance co is fair with you.

Front wheel drive, rain slick pavement, decelerating into a turn = a setup fpr spin.

Ex Post Facto edit: Dumb assumption on my part - you drive a RWD Volvo!! I laud your choice.

[piqaboo]

Condolences and sympathy to BigJane and you.

[BigJon]

Glad she wasn't injured, BJ. I hope the insurance co is fair with you.

Thanks, she's really stiff today, but seems to be otherwise OK.

Front wheel drive, rain slick pavement, decelerating into a turn = a setup for spin.

Front Wheel Drive! Perish the thought. This was a rear-wheel-drive Volvo station wagon. She fishtailed accelerating away from the corner because she was used to the excellent rain tires I normally put on all our cars. This car came with Michelin tires that absolutely suck in the rain.

[analog]

Front wheel drive, rain slick pavement, decelerating into a turn = a setup for spin.

Front Wheel Drive! Perish the thought. This was a rear-wheel-drive Volvo station wagon. .......

Sorry - My Dumbkoffen!!! That's a pretty doggone stable automobile!

But I'm glad there's another fan of RWD out there. I keep an Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser stationwagon for that reason. We call it our Senior Citizen's SUV.

a.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

I've always been very happy with FWD sedans - good traction and they always performed well in such weather as SoCal gets. Though I will admit that they eat front tires rather quickly. But I'm delighted with Igor's AWD setup - it's computerized to feed power to whichever wheels have traction. I've never had anything that felt so stable in heavy rain. And my sister speaks very well of Stumpy's "Intelligent 4WD" setup. He's performed well through a couple of years of Denver weather with no trouble at all.

Only car I ever put in a ditch was a RWD Oldsmobile, though, so I may be biased.

[analog]

Why are vehicles engineered to go way over the speed limit? Maybe all cars sold should not be able to go past the max speed limit; our commute to work would feel like the bumper cars at amusement parks

Shhhhhhhhhhh - they'll wire the compter up to control that too!

[analog]

I've always been very happy with FWD sedans - good traction and they always performed well in such weather as SoCal gets..........
Only car I ever put in a ditch was a RWD Oldsmobile, though, so I may be biased.

I admit I'm biased too. More from banging my knuckles trying to work in FWD engine compartments. But I do love FWD's traction in the snow.


a.

[BigJon]

Why are vehicles engineered to go way over the speed limit?

Track days!

[GreatCarouser]

Glad the family is ok, *igJon. When I was trucking across country we'd often be passed on snowy, icy roads by 4WD vehicles and all too often find them in the ditch down the road. As for rain, I'm amazed folks who 'know' battleships can float don't have more respect for the wet weather. ABS, 4WD etc seem to give a false sense of security that leads to panic once you start to hydroplane, you brake (rather than just removing your foot from the gas pedal and attempting to keep the nose headed down the road), and the %$#^ thing does what it (physics) wants to instead of what you are telling it to do. That floating effect also causes deaths down here whenever we get hard rains and someone tries to cross a flooded road with a car and gets swept away.

[analog]

We'll soon have "drive by wire" and black boxes.

Electronic Stability Control will take over the brakes if it doesn't like your driving, probably in all cars by 2011.

http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr061306.html

"The findings indicate that ESC should be standard on all vehicles," says Susan Ferguson, Institute senior vice president for research. "Very few safety technologies show this kind of large effect in reducing crash deaths."

............How ESC works: Antilock brakes have speed sensors and independent braking capability. ESC adds sensors that continuously monitor how well a vehicle is responding to a driver's steering wheel input. These sensors can detect when a driver is about to lose control because the vehicle is straying from the intended line of travel — a problem that usually occurs in high-speed maneuvers or on slippery roads. In these circumstances, ESC brakes individual wheels automatically to keep the vehicle under control.

Event Data Recorders (EDR's) will record your driving shortly before a crash.

http://www.crash-data-retrieval-system. ... 00305.html

Black box' information driving convictions
Oct 3, 2005
By: Tim Sramcik
Automotive Body Repair News

In what is becoming a familiar scene in courtrooms nationwide, information collected from a car’s “black box” was used to convict a motorist of criminal charges.

On June 30, a Peabody, Mass., District Court jury found Michelle Zimmerman guilty of misdemeanor motor vehicle homicide in the death of her front seat passenger, Kenneth Carlson. The jury concluded Zimmerman was driving negligently when she skidded out of control and struck a tree on Jan. 4, 2003. Information collected from the event data recorder (EDR), or black box, in her GMC Yukon reported that Zimmerman was driving 58 mph in a 40 mph zone—on an icy road, according to Essex Assistant District Attorney William J. Melkonian. EDR data also showed that Zimmerman never applied the brakes.

Apparently a lot of new cars have these things now.
http://www.crash-data-retrieval-system. ... 82306.html

In 2005, it was estimated that about 64 percent of passenger cars on the market came equipped from the factory with "Event Data Recorders" that kept a computer record of various things a driver was doing in the moments just before and after a serious impact. The number today is certainly much higher and the devices are becoming more advanced.

A recent rule passed by NHTSA requires manufacturers to tell people, in the owners manual, if their car has one of these data-recording devices. As it turns out, that formation has been in most owners' manuals for years. It's just that few people read their owners manuals.

The EDRs don't record voices and they only record a few seconds of data about what the car was doing right before and after the crash. Proponents point to the life-saving potential of that data which can be used to assess the performance of a car's safety systems and even to research unusual crash scenarios.

Despite the positive potential, many people still have concerns about their privacy. After all, the car they drive every day could turn snitch.

My reaction to Black Box is mixed. I recoil from the "Big Brother"-ism of the concept. But it might quell some of the craziness on the road today.

But to the subject of the thread, the Chief will soon have hard data...

[BigJon]

Don't forget electric brakes!
Techy stuff here.

These will be very cool for racing!

[analog]

Don't forget electric brakes!
Techy stuff here.

These will be very cool for racing!

Thanks BigJ** - I enjoyed the link.

With electric brakes we'll have to keep the battery terminals clean and use armored wires to them - around here the chipmunks love to nibble car wiring at night.

Guess I'm getting old & out of touch. I must admit, what's amazing is not that they are doing these things but that they thought of them!
It's exciting to see the automobile electronics revolution move beyond the engine compartment. Remember that country tune "Old Hippie - he don't know what to do. Should he hang on to the old or grab on to the new?

You can find intersting nostalgia links here........
http://www.reds-headers.com/default.htm

[BigJon]

While I love the way a Flathead looks in a hot-rod, I could never bring myself to build one, because it would be like operating with one arm cut off. There are just too many limiting compromises in that engine.

[Giant Communist Robot]

Some recent results of the police campaign to cut down on deaths due to accidents caused by speeding show a number of tickets issued for going 31 mph in a 30 mph zone. All those people who scoffed that this was merely an attempt to divert public outcry from an attempt to raise revenue need to think about how many lives were saved by those 1 mph over the limit citations.

[piqaboo]

Wow, I;d be at the local AAA gettign my speedo calibrated and checked. That sounds like a lot of expensive court days for the cops.
Do people just pay on a ticket like that?

[Giant Communist Robot]

Do people just pay on a ticket like that?

If I get one, I'll let you know....

[Giant Communist Robot]

So far, pedestrians are being killed at nearly three times last year's rate, and vehicular fatalities are up, too. My casual guess for the cause would be:

cell phones

alcohol

drugs

nothing new here. Ticketing big numbers of speeders hasn't done much.