In today's DT Motoring section, there is an article about a new Collision Avoidance system developed by Volvo. I am in favour of any active or passive device that enhances my chance of remaining uninjured but I am little worried about the applicability of their research.
They monitored the driving behaviour of 241 drivers in Virginia, who covered a total of 2 million miles in 1 year.
Despite knowing that their driving was under scrutiny, they had a total of 82 crashes and 761 near misses!
I have checked the DFT website and found that the official accident rates on Britains roads is 44 per 100 million kilometres = 0.6 per million miles. By these figures, you would have expected 1.3 crashes.
Now, I appreciate that Stateside drivers, road and cars are somewhat different to ours:
"In November 2000, Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32 foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having joined the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the Winnie left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the handbook that he could not actually do this. He was awarded $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago"
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YOu have to worry about the driving standards of a country where their best racing drivers can only go fast in a circle....
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Grazinski case: not possible. If it really happened, the judge ought to be shot. The halfwit should have been jailed for dangerous driving.
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Grazinski case: not possible. If it really happened, the judge ought to be shot. The halfwit should have been jailed for dangerous driving.
The story is an urban myth, for more details and a few more examples see here.
www.stellaawards.com/bogus.html
MTC
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Of course, that motor home thing is false.
See:
www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp
and
www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp
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I know it's an urban myth: it just seems a good illustration of a mentality that says I have a long distance to cover so I will set everything to auto including my brain for the next few hours until I get there.
Does anyone have an explanation for why their crash figures are so high?
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Does anyone have an explanation for why their crash figures are so high?
Frankly I think that there is an error in the statistics quoted in the DT.
There have been plenty of articles comparing the accident rate in the USA to Europe. Whilst there is no doubt it is higher by any manipulation of the statistics - accidents per million car miles is the best measure - IIRC it is approx 20% higher than UK which has one of best records.
Explanations?
Tailgating is endemic, leave a 1 second gap and you will be undertaken.
Freeways in the main do not have guard rails, a wheel on the grass central strip can cause it to dig in and the car roll.
Nearly all youngsters drive a lot - say no more.
Drinking and driving, although much reduced, is still far higher than UK.
Driving using a mobile phone is widespread - and not illegal in most States.
Ethnic considerations! Too many Eskimos I think - or something like that.
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I think the stats (or the definition of crash) are at fault here. Just thinking about my own acquaintances suggests that average drivers crash (as in bend some metal) more than once every 1.5 million miles.
The Virginians 1 crash per 25,00 miles still sounds excessive though!
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I have used the official government statistics but I think these only refer to crashes where there has been a degree of injury, no matter how minor: the figures for
I was going to track down the figures for insurance claims but then read that only the major companies contribute their figures to the ABI and Lloyd's type companies do not.
Given that most of us have a £250 excess on our insurance these days, a minor collision with a brick wall or even a low speed bumper to bumper may well be settled in cash rather than reported but would obviously be picked up by the in-car monitors.
What proportion of crashes result in an injury that would be reportable to the police with even the slightest scratch or fear of subsequent whiplash? Who knows but given the massive amount of energy displaced in crashes, one would expect a fair number of result in injury. From the US department of transport, "In 1996, 41,907 people were killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes, 3,511,000 people were injured, and 4,548,000 crashes involved property"
Looking back as the UK statistics:
Injuries to car drivers and passengers:
absolute numbers
Fatal 1671
Fatal and serious 16,144
All severities 183,858
This is set against a total distance travelled by all cars of 398.1 billion km (247.4 billion miles).
So, the official statistics are that 1 car driver/passenger is killed every 148 million miles and injured every 1.3 million miles.
Small in terms of risk per mile but large in terms of NHS workload. As a junior anaesthetist in the 90s, I used to encounter vehicle and pedestrian victims of RTA on a daily basis.
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"Small in terms of risk per mile but large in terms of NHS workload."
Miniscule
TENS OF THOUSANDS of people die of cancer every year in the UK.
It makes road deaths look like a pin prick.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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As a consultant anaesthetist, the majority of my work involves treating patients with cancer, so I agree that it is definitely the biggest problem for the NHS.
However, according to
www.fentons.co.uk/page_road_traffic_accident_claim...p
Road Traffic accidents account for three million NHS bed days each year.
By the sound of things, they also keep a lot of Personal Injury solicitors in expensive cars, thus providing much needed support for companies such as BMW, Mercedes and Jaguar.
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The Gov does not like RTAs because they are expensive. Take a typical RTA that I have first hand knowledge on.
Attendance on scene. Two fire engines, Two ambulances, Air Ambulance. Three police cars. Three people dispatched to A&E in ambulances - released after 4 hours. Average of 6 GP visits afterwards (combined total for injured parties). Add to that all the papeerwork for all parties, for the police to prepare a report and bring to court.
£20k minimum all round I reckon.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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People of Virginia they drive very crazy and a lot of them are not following the rules if you get injured contact us we will provide you best claims services
Visit Here: link deleted.
Edited by Avant on 22/10/2020 at 00:24
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People of Virginia they drive very crazy and a lot of them are not following the rules if you get injured contact us we will provide you best claims services
Visit Here
Good thing we are not in Virginia then EH
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Great ... you find a discussion thread from 2006, bring it back to life and advertise a firm of solicitors who specialise in legal claims .... but you even get that wrong as the thread is on a foreign (UK) forum, and at a time when no-one is travelling due to a global pandemic
Edited by Smileyman on 21/10/2020 at 13:50
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Higher accident rates in the USA are commonly attributed to vast, wide open spaces, freeways meandering on for miles and people driving humungous distances, leading to loss of concentration and falling asleep at the wheel. A situation exacerbated - I would guess - by the use of cruise control, especially the older type which didn't include automatic distancing and braking. Australia and New Zealand are close behind in one report I read. (www.budgetdirect.com.au/car-insurance/research/car...l)
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Higher accident rates in the USA are commonly attributed to vast, wide open spaces, freeways meandering on for miles and people driving humungous distances, leading to loss of concentration and falling asleep at the wheel.
At least freeways meander a bit. Perhaps a worse threat is the dead straight interstate roads, which do go literally for miles, especially in the western flatter states. Just look at a map.
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