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[King Zultan]

Seems like the modern car is an overly complicated hunk of crap, filled with loads of small bits and bobs that can break and fuck the whole thing up.

[McTraveller]

Just wait till you learn that cars are specifically engineered to get totaled in a collision!
    /fake outrage


Of course, that is intentional "sacrifice the vehicle to protect the occupants" design, but I'm sure that many people think it's just a money grab, because repair/replacement costs are indeed high.

I don't mind some of the tech, because it is objectively better.  What I mind is tech that is mandated that costs all of society a significant amount to address very rare events. TPMS and backup cameras are two of these (backup cameras have a societal cost of something like $25M per fatal incident saved.  TPMS is about half that.  By societal cost I mean the cost of materials and engineering to put those devices in every new vehicle sold.)

Automatic Emergency Braking is mandatory starting in a couple years too (I can't be bothered to look up the date) but that one likely has a much lower cost per event, despite its complexity, because collisions that AEB can avoid are very frequent.

[Great Order]

You see plenty of people lamenting that cars nowadays crumple when old cars didn't. I suspect a lot of them are just unaware as to why, but they're still there.

[pisskop]

Ill be honest when I was younger I wanted a heavy metal cube to drive around in.  Study.  It just 'feels' right to think about

[Eric Blank]

I'm imagining a solid steel block with a little seat carved into the top and cartoonist wheels screwed into the corners

[Lord Shonus]

TPMS and backup cameras are two of these (backup cameras have a societal cost of something like $25M per fatal incident saved.  TPMS is about half that.  By societal cost I mean the cost of materials and engineering to put those devices in every new vehicle sold.)

You're making two major mistakes here. First, you're focusing only on fatal accidents, whereas both of these systems also prevent costly but nonfatal incidents. If my backup camera prevents me from backing into the car behind me in the parking lot*, that's not an incident where anybody would die. It would, however, cost a few hundred bucks in damages. That adds up.

The second problem with this discussion is that you can never prove that an incident would or would not have happened. If my TPMS goes off and I air up the tires, it doesn't mean that I would have lost control next time I took it on the highway. It also doesn't mean I wouldn't have.


*This is a real problem for me because I currently drive a Chevy Bolt, which doesn't have much of a nose because it has neither engine nor frunk. I'm used to having a lot more car in front of me than I currently do, so I'm constantly backing up way too far unless I use the backup camera as a guide. Or, perhaps more relevantly, leaving the tail-end of my car hanging way out of the parking spot if I pull in and don't use the camera to check.

[McTraveller]

The calculus isn't that much different if you include non-fatal incidents. There are roughly 200 times more non-fatal accidents than fatal in the US.  So this would put the societal spend at at say $67000-$125000 per incident prevented, if the ratios hold equal for all types of incidents.  This is still a pretty significant cost, but I suppose it's closer to break even.

The quick search I did says that the "average" car accident has a cost of $10k, and "severe" ones can be more than $100k.  Surprisingly (or not) it's hard to find new data; I found links for a 2014 NHTSA study that says $840B total economic cost (direct plus indirect) for that year's accidents, while the National Safety Council says $440B but I couldn't find the paper to get a year or total number of incidents.

I did find a direct NHTSA paper from 2010, that says the "total economic cost" of what looks like 13.6 million total incidents at $242B, or about $18k per incident, or a cost "including quality of life" at $836B, which would be $62k/incident.  Interestingly critically injured survivors cost society almost as much as fatalities ($1.0M vs $1.4M)

The values I was using for the cost of TPMS and backup cameras were from around 2010 because that's when they first became really mainstream, so society still seems to be overpaying by a bit, although not as much as I had initially thought.

Personally I think it would be better to have better training than using engineering and manufacturing resources for these technologies as they are mostly only indirectly related to efficient travel.  Society doesn't have infinite resources, after all...

[None]

Society will always engineer a bigger idiot (one of them demands the cybertruck exists, after all), though, and it's amazing how many resources society has when it pays up equitably. We'd have shot Ford dead and built trains instead of roads if we were actually interested in efficient travel.

I'm sure it's not in mine or anyone's best interests, but I want my car to be dumb. Gimme stick shift and buttons; keep your screens and your cameras and your autobrakes. ABS can stay though, you're cool.

[nenjin]

Dude, cameras should stay too. They're game changers.

[Frumple]

The less I have to drive, the better, really. Automate everything in those damn deathbricks that can safely be automated; we're all shit drivers and shouldn't be trusted at the wheel anyway, less that's a problem the better, ha. Stick shift is the devil, may it rot in hell where it belongs

===

... any case, in a library cataloging wtf, had someone donate something more fancy than a book today. Along with the various appropriate accessories, they also included about a dozen (unused, thank all the nonexistent gods) sanitary napkins.

It's not something I normally have to deal with when dealing with public library donations :V

[Egan_BW]

Automate everything in those damn deathbricks that can safely be automated

maybe we could put them on some kind of guide rails so that they don't run into anything

[King Zultan]

I'm sure it's not in mine or anyone's best interests, but I want my car to be dumb. Gimme stick shift and buttons; keep your screens and your cameras and your autobrakes. ABS can stay though, you're cool.

I to prefer the dumb cars without all the tech shit, except maybe the stick shift I'm not that good with them and I don't want to have to figure out how to replace a clutch.

[ChairmanPoo]

Automate everything in those damn deathbricks that can safely be automated

maybe we could put them on some kind of guide rails so that they don't run into anything

Thats crazy talk. What are you going to suggest next, to tie several cars together to save costs?

[EuchreJack]

The biggest problem with back up cameras is that they record you backing over people...

[femmelf]

So cameras are a double edge sword. I've been told the police can just gey ring camera stuff.... So we're all just on tape 24/7. Come one come all into 1984. Plus stuff online lives forever so God help you if you mess up a bit somewhere when the facial recognition crap finds you making a simple harmless mistake. You become a damn meme and good luck getting hired. Yeah sometimes cameras can help but ... everywhere?

Sidenote:
It is high 90s F (30s C for those on metric) and feels like 100 F. Next week it will be 100s and above in much of the U.S.

Older relative demands kids should "just go play outside," like before.... This is willful blindness to real world situations to a staggering degree. You can literally feel it but the denial just persists.

Let the nieces and nephews do what they and thier parents want inside. No dog in this fight/not her kids.... Heatstroke is a thing. Water and AC are necessities. It is not the 1980s or 1970s,or the 1990s or 2000s.

They're not all clueless but a lot are. Come on, heatwave =water, AC, Shade/inside. This is not somehow theory and even if nobody dies (sadly some will) there's no reason to subject people to that.