Tinfoil hat alert: IIHS says that without "Nanny Electronics", we're all gonna die...

alfadriver wrote:

Keith wrote:

alfadriver wrote: How do you correct for death?

I believe you steer into it.

Should I stiffen the front or rear sway bar?

FWD or RWD?

IIHS is the same band of idiots whose lead goober said this gem at a company meeting I was at a year ago: "Additional driver training has no effect on safety." That was the point I tuned him out and started doodling race cars on my napkin.

alfadriver wrote:

nervousdog wrote:

alfadriver wrote: If the number is deaths/1,000,000 registrations, does that mean that during that window of 4 years, that the Miata had 6.1, 8.3, or 10.4 deaths for the 100k???? Wait, how do you have a partial death? That's a yes or no question only. Did 2.1 people die in rollevers? ... I hate to be very cold, but death is rather absolute. So it's hard to factor in partial numbers. And it's hard to figure what makes the range of death rate large or small.

If there are 192,771 Miatas registered and 16 people die that would give you 8.3 deaths per 100,000 registrations. They need to average the number so it can be compared across vehicles with widely varied registration quantities.

Ok, some going through the numbers- I missed some, but the reported number is number of deaths per 1,000,000 registered vehicle years. Miata had 101,962 registrations over 4 years- or 407,848 registraion years. If 33 people died in those 4 years, that would get corrected to 83 per 1M registration years. but that doesn't explain why the range is 61-104, or 24.8-42.4 over the 4 years and 101k samples. So it partially makes sense. But just partially. The Merc E class has a reported number of 0, which would imply that nobody died of the 130,696 cars spread out over 4 years. But how does that result in a spread of 0 to 43. And why does the 4wd car have 0, but the non below it has 12? So 16.3 people died in the normal version, but it's range is a much tighter 7-17? A sample of 16.3 out of 1.2M chances is still pretty slim. How do you correct the data for weather? How do you correct it for the car, or the driver age? I assume they don't include passengers. Or maybe they should... (or even do....) How do you correct for death?

You're right. I made cars 10 times more dangerous by using 100,000 instead of 1,000,000.

I agree the zeros are highly unlikely and the range is useless without some detailed explanation of how they arrived at that conclusion.

hmmm.. according to the article.. the most dangerous car is the 350z.. a car that I believe has all the technogadgets in the world to keep it upright and on the road...

Might it be the loose nut behind the wheel?

If only we didn't have so many states and varying laws concerning drivers/vehicles we could push for a licensing system like Germany.

This reminds me of the tshirt that reads:

"If loud pipes save lives, imagine what learning how to ride that thing would do!"

clutchsmoke wrote: If only we didn't have so many states and varying laws concerning drivers/vehicles we could push for a licensing system like Germany.

Id be all for a national licensing program...except uncle sam could screw up the recipe for ice water. I dont want him goofing up my ability to drive to work.

I'm sure a lot of people will be upset by what I'm about to say next, but here's my theory on reforming certain sections of laws.

Let's say we want to reform the licensing system. Why not look at the countries with the safest drivers and basically carbon copy their system?

Apply this tactic for all systems that require reform.

Oh, and if the better system is outside of our alloted budget, skip down the list until you find one that is.

IIHS pretends that they are making you safer. Their true goal is to make more money.

5 airbags isn't the result of NHTSA requirements, it's the result of IIHS testing, "lower" insurance rates, and constantly lowering casualty rates. They find reasons to charge you more money even though you probably have not used your insurance, ever.

How else can you explain the thought that driver training makes nobody safer?

ddavidv wrote: IIHS is the same band of idiots whose lead goober said this gem at a company meeting I was at a year ago: "Additional driver training has no effect on safety." That was the point I tuned him out and started doodling race cars on my napkin.

Which is exactly the OPPOSITE to what every experiment and data collection of every study has pointed to.

Just a few links for those that want to know the actual data

2007 Road Deaths per 100,000 motor vehicles

Does everyone notice that the countries with the most driver training are at the bottom of this list? Even if you look at miles traveled the lower number countries don't change much.

IRTAD graph's page

IIHS doesnt want better training, or stricter laws. Bad drivers need more insuring. They want to hand out licenses like candy so every turdhole teenage textmachine canbuy their insurance. Its simple economics. More tards = more insurance...they want more tards.

" Figures don't lie." But liars can figure.

How come all of these nanny things don't keep SUV's out of the ditches in the wintertime ?

ddavidv wrote: IIHS is the same band of idiots whose lead goober said this gem at a company meeting I was at a year ago: "Additional driver training has no effect on safety." That was the point I tuned him out and started doodling race cars on my napkin.

This. I don't trust what the idiots at the IIHS say about car safety any more than I trust what an oil company says about alternative energy. berkeley the IIHS.

Twin_Cam wrote: Yea, they're never getting me to buy an SUV. Period.

they have their place; e.g. tow vehicles for track rats

Twin_Cam wrote: Or a crap new car with acronym soup tech gadgets.

I concur with this....increased cost in new cars, benefits that are oversold, impossible/costly to fix.