Building the Zero-Fatality Car 509
CWmike writes "In the future, new cars might include an appealing sticker: 'This car is rated for zero fatalities.' John Brandon reports that Volvo, for instance, has launched a program called Vision 2020, which states, 'By 2020, nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo.' It includes not just new protective measures in the car, but technology for communicating dangers to and from the car. Other car companies have similar, less formalized programs. As ambitious as it seems, Ed Kim, an analyst at automotive research firm AutoPacific, says the zero-fatality goal is achievable. In the next 10 years, there will be a confluence of safety technologies — such as road-sign recognition, pedestrian detection and autonomous car controls — that lead to safer cars, says Kim. Will your next car look something like this?"
Re:In a Volvo? (Score:5, Informative)
"The goal is unique in that Volvo Cars has designated a year and is showing a social responsibility that also extends to people in other vehicles and pedestrians," says Anders Eugensson, safety expert at Volvo Cars. "We are very clear about the fact that our cars should not negatively affect other people at the moment of an accident. In addition, no unprotected roadusers should be seriously injured or killed."
The six-million-dollar car (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that safety costs money. There's the materials involved, which aren't cheap. There's the engineering, which isn't (or shouldn't be) cheap. There's the electronics, which are getting cheaper. There's the redundancy, which isn't cheap. People don't like saving their own lives when it costs money or time to do so.
That said, I sincerely hope this takes off, and that by some miracle of economics it's affordable. We have the technology...
Re:Building the Zero-Fatality Car (Score:3, Informative)
. Please heed this advise kids before its to late, and you make an ass of your self.
Re:Auto-car. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm no mathematician, but I suspect your personal anecdotal experiences may not be conclusive of the overall accident and fatality rate of the rest of the nation (or world).
Drivers with the greatest fatality rates are people under twenty-four years of age (especially under nineteen) and older drivers (over fifty or sixty - I forget which).
Stories of old people accidentally stepping on the gas instead of the break are pretty common and young people are just careless, inexperienced, irresponsible, and stupid. But of course, you can't dare take driving away from them, because getting behind the wheel of a 75mph 3,000lb chunk of steel before you can even be trusted to smoke, vote, hold a full time job, or live on your own is considered about as "unamerican" as you can get.
Re:Auto-car. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Auto-car. (Score:3, Informative)
A police officer gave us the national statistics back when I took drivers ed. The elderly cause the most accidents. Women are more likely to be in accidents than men. However, males under 25 are much more likely to be in accidents resulting in serious damage, injury or fatality.
Another consideration: if you have been in enough accidents to group the co-responsible under the category "all the people," maybe it's not the "young" who are the problem in your case.
Re:Auto-car. (Score:2, Informative)
You think thats bad, in ireland in 1979 there were so many drivers on provisional learners licences that the government decided to give an amnesty for everyone on their second permit.
So right now of our 50+ aged population theres a signifigant percentage of them driving who have never passed a test.
Not only are they getting old, but they are also incompetent
Re:There is no zero (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In a Volvo? (Score:3, Informative)
For an extreme example see Formular 1 cars, those drive at extremely high speed and crash frequently into walls or other cars, yet they managed to have zero-fatalities for the last 15 years and most of the time the driver can just walk away from a crash. Now you can't directly apply all of those technologies to normal everyday cars, but given that normal cars don't need to drive at high speed under race conditions it shows that a near zero-fatality car is possible.
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
Uh...relatively low speed impacts can be fatal. Especially when smacked into an "immovable" object. Remember, it's 1/2*m*v^2 —small changes to v make big changes to your face.