Hi, I know this convo has been mulled over many times but I can't find it in the forum search. I need to know what the main cause of car deaths are for some homework. Can someone help me please. This isn't cheating is it?
Thanks
School Boy
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Rust?
:-)
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I don't think it's rust these days, most cars scrapped look decent, probably expensive drivetrain problems, making labour and hassle not worth replacing engines and transmission, as some require such a lot of labour.
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I get the impression school boy is referring to human type deaths in accidents rather than the demise of the metal.
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Robin Reliant, formerly known as Tom Shaw
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Erm. You talking what causes accidents, or the injuries. ?
Cause usually excessive speed for conditions or driver error.
Injuries, - varies massively ?
Someone will be along shortlyto give some ideas, but I do hope it doesn't have to be in tomorrow (homework that is) !
Try looking at the NCAP web site !
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Yeah it does, ha, I meant the main cause of deaths in cars i.e fatal crash, the teacher wasn't very specific. Ill just put the usual stuff, no seatbelts or speed or tyre pressures. They also want five points that have made cars safer, which is quite easy.
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Some US stuff that might give you something to work on.
snipurl.com/wddj
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Oh and don't forget speed that kills ya. (joke)
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drink or drugs play a large part....... and not necessarily just the driver/passenger, because pedestrians are often hit when drunk or similar.
speed plays its part when it is too fast for the circumstances......... and drink/drug drivers that speed are obviously suspects for this because they have a false sense of well being...
(it would be interesting to get a decent figure of the speed related deaths that a direct cause was drink/drugs)
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Simple answer is 'inattention' . A recent study showed that 80% of drivers causing an accident had a short spell of inattention just before the accident.
Speeding is a factor in 20% of fatal accidents but it is usually combined with drink, drugs, young inexperienced drivers or criminal behaviour. Normal ordinary drivers speeding don't tend to cause accidents this way. There are big arguments on here about inappropriate speed (excess for the conditions) and just speed over the speed limit. The former is nearly always dangerous, the latter usually isn't unless it is also an inappropriate speed. The government seem to want to mingle the two in an attempt to justify their speed kills simplistic nonsense claiming school children don't mind being run over at 29mph but at 31mph they'd be really upset!
Tiredness and fatigue are also big factors in motorway accidents.
It isn't cheating if you make sure you put in where you found the information!
If you want to find out more about accident causation then have a look around on the Department For Transport's website. There are a lot of reports on there showing a precise breakdown of how accidents are caused. I don't have a link to hand but a google on 'DFT accident causation' or something would probably find something useful. The Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) have done quite a few things about the subject too.
teabelly
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Have a look at www.ntsb.gov/; all their reports are freely available, and contain a useful summary that will save you quite an amount of reading.
If you identify a particular issue you need facts and figures on (I spotted fatigue and alcohol on a quick browse of their reports list), there will most likely be a report on it.
Also try the road safety section of the FIA website, www.fia.com, but you'll have to dig about more to get hard facts.
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Hopefully the home work has been handed in by now...
Fatigue must count for a large number of deaths, it should be a legal requirement to take a break after a certain number of hours, just like HGV drivers.
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The government seem to want to mingle the two in an attempt to justify their speed kills simplistic nonsense claiming school children don't mind being run over at 29mph but at 31mph they'd be really upset!
Nonsense, Teabelly. Everything I have seen stresses the differences in kill rates between impacts at 20, 30, 35 and 40mph. Can you provide a source for your claim, or do you simply disagree that a higher speed impact causes greater injury?
With any limit is that there is always a point at which the speed is legal, but 1mph is illegal ... and that will be the case whether we have fixed limits or variable ones, or a more subjective "appropriate for conditions" type of rule.
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With any limit is that there is always a point at which the speed is legal, but 1mph is illegal
drat, I meant to type but 1mph more is illegal"
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Point is the difference between damage at 29mph and 31mph impact is negligable. I think on the whole kids would prefer not to be run over at all but that idiotic think advert infers said child does not mind being hit at 30 mph. The fatalitiy and injury rates you mention were from work done by Ashton & Mackay in the 60s so the injury rates with modern cars will be different due to their different design. You should also bear in mind the difference to injury between being bounced off the front of a car and being hit more slowly and being run over by the wheels. The latter is actually worse so being hit more slowly isn't automatically safer. Someone was killed recently by being hit by a bus at 15mph. They went under the bus. Had the bus hit them more quickly they would have probably been bounced clear and may have survived.
In an experiment done by fifth gear they also showed a pedestrian was better off being hit by a range rover than an old rover 214. The latter they banged their head on the vehicle and there injuries were more serious than at the same speed with the range rover which they bounced off and away from. It isn't as straight forward as you'd like to claim and sometimes being hit at a higher speed leads to fewer injuries due to vehicle design and how you hit the pedestrian. On the whole I think it is better to stop people being hit at all and have drivers pay more attention to what is going on around them. Pedestrians also need to take responsibility and make sure they cross the road safely. Not nearly as many pedestrians are hit by cars mounting the pavement so it suggests a joint solution would be the most effective.
teabelly
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Point is the difference between damage at 29mph and 31mph impact is negligable. I think on the whole kids would prefer not to be run over at all but that idiotic think advert infers said child does not mind being hit at 30 mph.
I think that's an inference drawn by a perverse viewer :)
I have always understood that advert to mean "you may be unlucky enough or stoopid enoughto hit a child, in which case it's mucho better to hit them at 30 rather than 35 -- that small speed difference makes a big difference to the child"
You should also bear in mind the difference to injury between being bounced off the front of a car and being hit more slowly and being run over by the wheels.
That's largely a matter of vehicle design, rather than speed, hence the attention being (belatedly) given to the issue by NCAP.
They went under the bus. Had the bus hit them more quickly they would have probably been bounced clear and may have survived.
Having seen a few such impacts, I doubt it. The bluff front of a bus tends to splat people by design, and you'd have to do a lot of speed to bounce off meaningfully, by which time you'd be mangled anyway by the impact.
On the whole I think it is better to stop people being hit at all and have drivers pay more attention to what is going on around them.
I don't think anyone would argue against the idea that it's better not to be hit at all, but that need not be an either/or alternative to moderating speeds so as to reduce the severity of impacts that do occur.
Pedestrians also need to take responsibility and make sure they cross the road safely.
Hmm. True up to a point, but drivers also need to take responsibility by recognising that on many steeets there are no "safe" crossing points, and to recognise that many roads are in shared-use
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