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*In the USA
The 1958 Edsel is the reigning champ in Cuba.
dang, just checked for my country (data from 2019), look out for those priuses! I guess the handling the GTA 4 analog had was pretty accurate, it’s like a brick on the road ^^
I have a hard time seeing why the average person should have a zero to 60 in the sub 6 second range. People fucking suck at driving.
A coworker of mine was recently bragging about their new electric mustang and its zero to sixty time. “Have you ever gone zero to sixty?” was my only response. Of all the facts and figures, 0-60 has you to be one of the least important when buying a car.
“Have you ever gone zero to sixty?” was my only response. Of all the facts and figures, 0-60 has you to be one of the least important when buying a car
It is a relative performance indicator that is easy to measure and verify.
Of course you rarely ever actually do 0-60, but it gives you an idea of how well the car accelerates relative to other cars. So in a way 0-60 is like a cinebench score for cars.
Only up to a certain point. My Kia Rio has a 0-60 of like 16 seconds… overtaking even on a clear road sucks.
The car is perfect otherwise, but I’d definitely want much better acceleration in the future.
My last car was like that and then every time I borrowed my dad’s mercedes I’d constantly do stupid unecessary overtakes just because I could. It’s a moral hazard - I don’t think a faster accelerating car is safer because people drive those differently.
Of course you have to hold yourself back, but where I live there’s plenty of really nice stretches of road where you can overtake. But with my car while I’m accelerating some guy in an Audi or a BMW already decides to overtake from the back… overtaking with a better car feels much less stressful and safer.
Let me guess, automatic transmission? I have a manual Rio and I can push it in half the time in third gear. Not redlining anything, just less conservative shifting.
Nope, manual, I’m in Europe. But 75 PS Diesel with 6 gears. Redlining doesn’t help much when it comes to accelerating.
Especially diesel engines.
Rolling to 75 is more relevant in MA where onramps to highways are 50 feet long, but 0 to 60 is correlated.
Being able to accelerate to highway speeds quickly is useful when merge lanes are short. We have a car that kind of struggles with that, and it’s pretty scary sometimes merging into 70 mph traffic. Normally it’s not a major issue, but one ramp we sometimes use is designed poorly - it’s curvy, so you can’t accelerate to highway speed until after the final curve, then it’s up a hill, and of course there’s a short merge area into traffic that’s usually doing about 70 mph. So, there, I REALLY miss the power our previous car had. It’s a frustrating experience.
When I got my license back in the early 2000s I got taught very economical driving, generally choosing gears to keep rpm low, use the motor brake to decelerate before traffic lights, such stuff. Then it was time to get on the Autobahn, and the instructor just said “Forget everything I taught you, now it’s safety first: Floor it in 3rd gear, merge in third gear, once you’ve found your position switch directly to 5th you’ll be fast enough.”
If I’m not mistaken that was an Audi A4 TDI so… 15 seconds 0 to 100? Maybe about 10, don’t remember the displacement. Of course, merging is more like 30 to 120, directly onto the second lane. With a Punto you’re kinda lucky if you get to 80 by the time the on-ramp ends and barely get into the right-most lane (where you’re probably staying).
While I love to jump on the anti-Elon bus, I have to query: the highest accident rates, or highest accident rates as a percentage of vehicles on the road? If you have 10 Tesla cars on the road, and there are 2 MGs on the road, and 2 Telsas and one MG crashes, then what? 20% of Tesla vs. 50% of MG, but also that could be framed as ‘double the number of Teslas crash compared to MGs’ or ‘Tesla has the highest accident rate of any auto brand’.
Because a bunch of idiots take their hands off their steering wheel and think Elmo’s car is 100% safe.
They’ve been convince of it by that very man.
That’s probably because Elon’s literally been trying to sell their autopilot as fully autonomous for at least 7 years now.
History of their self-driving claims
May 2016 someone dies using autopilot
November 2016 Tesla publishes video of self-driving with no hands on wheel
Class action lawsuit
More people die
Is it possible that there’s a large overlap between idiots who are bad at driving and the type of people who buy Teslas?
I can’t fathom any other reality.
Yep, and the fact that a ton of people who get these cars legit think they will drive themselves…
Its like how red cars get more speeding tickets.
That venn diagram looks like the mid point of an eclipse
Crapy article. They miss used there own source.
I’m not looking forward to the day a tesla cyber truck hits someone. That’s gonna be a grisly scene in the right conditions.
I wonder if it’ll pass safety regs outside of the US
AFAIK they won’t even try to homologate it.
It will most certainly pass driver safety regs but absolutely not pedestrian safety. I’m sure they knew that when they designed it.
yeah pedestrian safety is what I meant, thanks
No.
NPC drivers. In the 90s it was Toyotas, then entry level Nissans took over in the mid 2000s … And now we got Tesla
I blame the touchscreen first ideology. Give em some physical buttons that you can feel without taking your eyes off the road.
That and the sheer power can make accidents happen faster than you can react.
Those cars with only touchscreen terrify me. I don’t even dare to turn down the AC in the EV car I drove last month when I feel a little cold because it would took THREE precision taps (small UI buttons) at DIFFERENT locations on the screen just to open the Climate Control screen. I have to pull over just to adjust the fan speed, smh.
The dashboard is also a fucking screen with multiple tabs that I have to “scroll” through with a knob on the wheel.
I hate the fucking thing the entire time I’m driving it.
This is a very good point. The more a person is forced to take their eyes off the road, the less safe they become as a driver.
I hear VW is putting buttons back in.
Holy F… this image is from an accident couple of years ago near Baarn, The Netherlands. My brother in law was present at the scene as a fireman. Took them several hours to put out the battery fire. First time an accident ruptured the batteries and no one knew how to handle this type of fires yet.
Oh this is hilarious. First, I own a Mercury and a Ram, so I’m apparently the best and the worst at having accidents, DUIs, and tickets.
But I think there’s an inherent terrible bias in the data: “Our latest analysis uses QuoteWizard by LendingTree insurance quote data…” In other words, people who are regularly shopping for insurance. Probably because they have high rates, so therefore they are looking for better rates. Why do they have high rates? Probably because they have more crashes, DUIs, and other tickets than the average drivers.
I doubt that most people with normal rates go changing insurance companies regularly.
Does this argument only apply to Tesla drivers?
Because the other cars were taken and compared from the same data source.
Our latest analysis uses QuoteWizard by LendingTree insurance quote data…
I have no idea why you think that would only apply to Teslas.
Because your whole argument is seemingly based on that assumption.
You say it’s no wonder that Tesla is last when they used that data.
As far as I can see they don’t mention Tesla at all.
I think you have my comment confused with another one, I didn’t mention Tesla at all.
No, definitely not.
Can you tell me what your argument was then?
Seems like a lot of hot air with zero sense if you now claim you didn’t mean tesla. I mean even if you meant tesla, as I already reasoned above.
In both cases your comment only makes sense as a misdirection or an honest mistake. But you’re definitely not acknowledging it, so I would lean to the former.
I have no idea where you’re getting Tesla from.
My comment was that there is likely bias in the data because it’s people applying to one of those sites that compare insurance costs. I think it’s likely most people who are doing that regularly are people in high risk groups - their insurance rates are high, so they’re looking for some other company. Their insurance rates are high because they are risky drivers.
The data are not based on crash statistics, which would be the most reliable indicator, or tickets issued, or any other similar results. The people using this tool are not randomly selected, either.
In other words, it’s anecdotal data at best, and possibly biased toward people with high premiums because of issues in their driving record.
Again, the conclusion still makes sense if you only use this data set.
Tesla drivers are the worst offenders compared to the worst offenders.
your logic to jump to their defence doesn’t apply here.
You should always rate shop on a regular basis. There is no such thing as loyalty to an insurance company. I cannot think of any corporate entity with less loyal than an insurance company.
Yes, there are a million things I should be doing, if you watch the financial advice. But no one really has the time to do all of those things. And you have to watch that you’re getting an actual quote from the company, not just a pre-quote that can be revised later. It’s a lot of time and work.
Also, with the horror stories I hear about other companies, I’m inclined to stick with mine even if they are a bit more. When our car was totaled a few years ago, they offered exactly what similar condition cars of the same make and model were selling for in our area, plus tax and fees, minus our deductible. We had done the research, and I was bracing for a fight, so I was stunned when they opened with that amount, then added the taxes and fees. We literally could have taken the check we received, plus our deductible, and replaced the car with one in similar condition and mileage (I wish we had, because I really dislike the car we bought instead). I see the horror stories people post about other companies, and I’m always thinking, “yeah, that wasn’t my experience.”
Here’s where the loyalty part comes into play: if the insurance company doesn’t like something, they can and will drop you or refuse to renew your policy depending on relevant laws. They might have decent service and pay claims without much of a fight, and those are incredibly valuable service qualities. So you’re making the right decision for yourself if that’s what’s important to you and that’s the experience you’ve had.
But if all things are equal, there’s no good reason to pay a higher premium for the same service. You better believe that insurance company will drop you in a heartbeat if their analysis indicates that they won’t have the level of profit from you that they want. As a for-profit business, that’s their perogative just as much as it’s yours if you want to switch.
I tend to agree with you by the way. Loyalty comes in many forms. I might not be loyal to a company per se. If they’ve consistently provided me with a level of service that I’m satisfied with at a price that I feel is appropriate for the value, then I’m not going to go through the trouble of checking prices and switching carriers every year just to save a few bucks. And there’s the hassle of being hounded by a half dozen companies that now have your contact info after you requested quotes. That’s all a big no thanks from me.
It’s not really loyalty, per se…it’s that they seem to be offering a reasonable price and good service, so I don’t see a reason to change. If some other company offered much better rates for the same coverage and service level, I’d switch. But I’m not spending hours and hours each year to find I might save $50/year either; that’s a waste of my time.
Look Ma, no hands!
This is purely my anecdotal experience, but Tesla drivers appear to be some of the worst drivers on the road. There are stereotypes of drivers. BMW’s never signal their turns, Jeeps think they can drive basically however they want including on shoulders, and Tesla drivers are oblivious to any kind of spatial understanding of the road around them.
Yeah all the priest drivers switched to tesla’s, I’ve seen them so many times getting in the highway going to slow and merging across all lanes just to cause traffic
It’s reflective of their larger view/“understanding” (or lack of understanding) of the world/how it all works.
The number of times I shout “your car is supposed to be smarter than that!” As a Tesla does something like, without signaling, whips around me and into oncoming traffic to pass a stopped city bus is staggering.
Fun fact, the Lending Tree analysis listed in the article showed that Ram drivers have the “highest incident rate,” which looks at accidents, DUIs, speeding, and other traffic citations. This makes them the statistically worst drivers. BMWs have honorable mention as the having the highest DUI rate.
and Tesla drivers are oblivious to any kind of reality
Fixed based on experience. I really do feel like these are scarlet letters to being thundering assholes, and they communicate with their king like wifi routers.
Tesla drivers are oblivious to any kind of spatial understanding of the road around them
I blame the design that forces you to keep your eyes off the road. Making a left turn? Don’t look left, take your eyes off the road and look down at the screen on your right to see the left lane warning. Wipers need adjustment? Take your eyes off the road and look at the touch screen because there are no buttons.
Now that there is data, maybe the highway administration can force Tesla to put driver safety ahead of esthetics.
The wiper thing used to be an issue for sure, thankfully now you can use the wheel buttons to do it. Also for turning you really don’t need to look at anything. I’m not saying people don’t but you don’t need to. There are still a few things that are somewhat annoying mainly the defrost/defog but I feel like I look the same amount as I did in my other car to push those buttons as well
The voice commands work as well as anything. It’s much easier to push the roller button on the steering wheel and say “turn on defroster” than to manipulate controls (either on a touch screen or non-touch screen interface)
Voice controls are great, unless you have a strong accent it doesn’t understand, a speech impediment, or mute. Which are all things that normally wouldn’t disqualify you from driving a car. Which I feel like should disqualify them from the discussion of physical vs tablets myself.
Fair enough, mate.
I’m sure that’s one contributing factor, but I’d bet that the biggest issue is that the car is made to go fast. People who drive faster end up in more accidents. Hence why Audi / BMW drivers are also stereotypically bad drivers - they are both brands with a high-acceleration profile.
That’s the reason why my friend wants to get one even though he dislikes Elon. One of the faster ev cars out there.
The “faster=more accidents” thing is actually kind of up in the air. Like with many things, it’s a bell curve, but driving a few MPH over the limit appears to be safest. Supposedly because people who drive a little bit faster tend to pay more attention. Sure, there are the outliers like the people who weave through traffic at 100MPH, but only a few over the limit appears safest.
Some of the highest accident rates actually come from people who regularly go under the limit. Because those are the people who are geriatric, distracted, texting, drunk, high, etc. and are going slower because they want the extra stopping distance or don’t want to be pulled over for speeding. Plus there’s all the hazards associated with going slow on the highway, when you’re only doing 45 MPH and traffic is flying past you in the next lane at 75. At that point, you’re practically a moving road hazard.
I posit that the amount of potential acceleration may be more correlated than the raw speed. Accelerating quickly makes you less predictable to the drivers around you and reduces the control you have over your own car.
As far as I can tell that’s not at all the case in Sweden where I live, in fact geriatric or slow drivers are very rarely involved in accidents. Intoxicated drivers are extremely rare compared to most other countries. See e.g. https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/sweden-road-safety.pdf which says “Inappropriate speed is one of the leading causes of road crashes”. You can find more research saying similar things on Google, e.g. that for every 10 km/h increase, the risk of an accident increases by 33 percent.
But it’s not just a matter of having a high overall speed. It’s also how quickly you accelerate / break. BMW/Audio/Tesla drivers have a high capacity for acceleration and they use it e.g. to overtake in situations when others wouldn’t. I suspect the cause/effect is the other way around though: if you’re a reckless driver who doesn’t care about safety, you’re more likely to choose a car that has a lot of power.
Could it be the that nervous and less confident drivers are the ones that drive at or slightly below the speed limit?
Maybe it’s not that driving faster is safer but worse drivers drive slower to attempt to compensate.
I came here to say exactly that. You can blame Musk for many things, but the cars are only as good as their drivers, and they are some of the worst I’ve seen indeed.
the cars are only as good as their drivers,
The design of the car isn’t that great. No physical buttons so you have to constantly look away from the road to interact with any car feature. Wipers, mirrors, climate control, music, etc… the blind spot and side views are on the display. Need to merge left but have to look right to see if it’s clear.
They do have mirrors, you know… The lack of physical buttons isn’t that bad either. You shouldn’t be fucking with things while driving whether there are buttons or not.
Your can see the blind spot in the physical mirrors?
Properly positioned mirrors don’t have blind spots.
Edit: Any modern vehicle with functioning mirrors should not have blind spots: https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~gdguo/driving/BlindSpot.htm
And yet pretty much every car has a blind spot detector of some sort. Pretty weird for something that’s never needed.
People don’t set up their mirrors properly. If you’re turning your head to make a lane change, you’re doing it wrong. Also, the visibility in a Tesla is much, much better than it is in most cars. Not having an engine in the front of the car allows for more angle in the pillars that would normally cause blind spots.
You pull over to adjust the AC?
I don’t adjust anything unless I’m stopped. Red light, stop sign, etc. Also, at this point, I can reference all that stuff without looking at the screen so, even if I needed to, I don’t have to take my eyes off the road.
It’s nonsense that Tesla drivers are somehow less safe because of the screens considering every other driver is staring at their phones.
considering every other driver is staring at their phones.
Oh yeah, and this definitely doesn’t cause problems. There’s not a single law that forbids this. And yet, looking and messing with a larger version is supposed to be ok? I am not talking out of my ass. I have driven Teslas and it is distracting whether you agree or not. It was the first reason i decided i wouldn’t buy one unless there were buttons. In fact, some people are starting to mod them to put physical buttons back in.
I never said it doesn’t cause problems. The issue is the inattention whatever the device.
And I own one and it’s not distracting if you don’t let it distract you. You are talking out of your ass.
You might be able to adjust things without taking your eyes off the road fairly safely if you had some sort of tactile feedback. Like a knob to adjust the volume of the radio or another knob or lever to adjust the heat/AC. I doubt you could do so just as reliably and without accidentally hitting a different button with a touch screen without looking at all, but even if you can, most drivers couldn’t.
There’s also a learning curve to contend with. Put me in a car with a standard stereo that has a volume knob, and I’ll be able to use it without looking pretty quickly and without error. Put me in a car that has only a touch screen with a UI that is different from every other manufacturer’s UI, now I have to memorize where buttons are. And until I have it memorized, I have to look.
It isn’t at all reasonable or feasible to suggest you shouldn’t adjust any control unless you’re stopped. That completely ignores the fact that the US is comprised of many highways and interstates that won’t have any stops for hours under the right conditions. You’re telling me that you exit the freeway just to adjust the AC? That’s a lie and you know it. And again, even if that’s the case for you, it isn’t the case for most drivers.
Cars marketed to the masses should be designed for use by the masses and should be designed with safety in mind. These are 80 mph tin cans that can do a ton of damage and need to be treated as such. Especially modern EVs with batteries that burn with the light and temperature of 1000 suns when damaged.
Also “every other driver is staring at their phone” sounds like a disingenuous way to suggest that taking your eyes off the road is okay because everyone else does it too. Yes, lots of people do, but lots of people do not, and just because some do, that doesn’t mean we should design our cars in a way that requires the same level of inattention.
If you’re driving, you shouldn’t be doing anything that distracts you from driving. Period.
Using the touch screen as a pain, for sure. However, nearly all commands on the touch screen can be accessed via voice commands from a button on the steering wheel. In practice, the need to use the touch screen while driving (other than to monitor your speed and cruise control settings) is practically zero.
People are allowed cars they don’t have skills to use.
Shouldn’t Teslas be easier to use with all that automation? If not, what’s the point of automation?
OTOH, I’m all for raising the requirements for getting issued a driving licence, it’s just then we have to make a way for people to make do without driving.
No it makes it harder. I know that sounds crazy but it’s very true. Basically humans are very bad at paying attention to boring things. The automation gives the feeling that the computer has it and the human is not ready and aware when the computer doesn’t have it. Leading to lots of easily avoidable accidents.
There has been some really good reporting on this over the last year or so. If you want to learn more.
This is something Japanese train companies figured out awhile ago for train engineers. Because driving locomotives can be really repetitive, they train engineers to do hand signals and call out actions out loud even when they’re alone in the car in order to help keep the brain active and focused.
To add another factor:
People buy muscle cars and over accelerate because they can’t handle the power of those cars
EVs accelerate much quicker than normal cars, Tesla’s more than normal EVs
So if someone isn’t using the automation they’re still susceptible to the classic “overshot into or over something” situation
They also think because the car accelerates quickly it will also stop as quickly. Same as idiots that drive too fast in the snow.
Tesla’s self-driving and safety systems are clearly half baked compared to competitor and other vendors.
Quite frankly, driving skills standards in the entire American continent are a joke to begin with. I’ve seen current requirements in Canada (“Wut?” bad), united states (teehehehehe bad) and Mexico (the aristocrats joke bad) and I know going south it only gets worse.
I got my driver’s license 25 years ago in the Netherlands and had to take classes for a number of months, learn an entire book of rules, had a one bour theory exam where typically only 60-70% would pass at the first try, then I had to take 30 hours of practical lessons with an instructor in a special car, and take a practical exam with an examiner where the rulr is pretty much “one mistake and you’re out”. I learned how to drive in rain, what to look out for, hoe to drive in show, how to manage losing control of your car, etc etc etc… I was instilled with andeaddaly respect for what s car is and what it can do in seconds to ruin lives for good.
Comparing that ti anything they teach today in the Americas, it’s just a sad joke.
That doesn’t sound all that different from where I learned in Maryland. You had to go to a class for a few months that had both theoretical and practical portions. You had to do 40 hours of supervised driving outside of class with an adult. The 40 hours covered a range of situations. Then there was a driving test. Which I passed fine for the car but failed for a motorcycle because I started about a foot back from the stop sign on the course so I didn’t pull up and stop at it. Doh.
Adult being a friend or family member? I’ve heard about that, and it always struck me as strange, as people aren’t driving instructors, driving instructors are driving instructors.
In California, the first 20hr or so, it had to be a licensed instructor if you were under 18. An adult would just need to register for a learner’s permit and just need any licensed driver in the front passenger seat
I think it was somewhere around 6 to 10 hours with a certified instructor. The 40 with an adult was yeah a family member or friend. The quality definitely depended on the adult. My parents took it seriously and made sure we completed the lessons, but I had friends whose parents just signed the form without providing the additional instruction. It was 20 years ago so details are fuzzy.
In Canada we still have to pass a practical test that covers that stuff with pretty strict requirements for passing. Just how you gain the knowledge and ability to pass that test is up to you. It’s pretty normal to take a driver’s Ed class if your friends or family don’t have time to trach you themselves. And the drivers Ed class is what you described as what is mandatory in the Netherlands. We just don’t put people through it automatically if they have already learned all that somewhere else.
Having said that, there are some small towns that are known as places to go if you want an easier driving test, as they just don’t have enough things around to properly represent everything you should know while driving. But if it turns out you do actually suck at driving, you’ll lose your tiny amount of demerits on your beginners license pretty fast and then you are legally required to pass a driver’s Ed and defensive driving class before being able to reclaim your license. It’s not perfect, and I do think the one major thing we are missing is periodic re-testing. In Canada people are a little less resistant to “greater good” social policies, but there is still resistance. It’s tough to pass stuff that lowers or is perceived to lower freedoms, but they do still occasionally pass.
And as I’m sure is the problem everywhere, people want all kinds of services, they just don’t want the government to have the money to pay for those services. And also they only want the services they personally currently benefit from, everything else can be cut until they personally need it, then it was a tragedy that no one stood up for it.
My drivers ed class in new england pretty much focused only on educating teenagers about how brutally dangerous drunk driving is. It was frustrating at the time because I felt like I didn’t even learn how to drive but given how where I grew up as a teenager you had to go drink in sketch places which usually involved driving (what a dumb way to structure society ughh) because of the car hellscape I grew up in…. I honestly think those drivers ed teachers spent their time well.
Driving a car isn’t so hard so long as you take the perspective that you have one rule, don’t hit other people and always remind yourself that you can’t assume other drivers will do anything they should on the road. Drunk driving was VERY hard not to do as a bored teenager trying to hang out with other bored teenagers. I could have died, my friends could have died. Idk, so I can’t be too upset at my drivers ed class in retrospect.
Unpopular opinion: all “fun” cars should be banned from public roads. You think driving is “fun”? Go to a racing track and have fun there. When I’m commuting I want to get to work safely, that’s my only objective. I don’t want to share the road with an idiot who thinks he’s the next Schumacher and can drive safely at 150km/h. All cars should have speed limiters installed. Why can they drive faster then the national speed limit at all? It makes no sense. You want to race? Put your racing car on a flat bet and carry it to the racetrack, I don’t care. The idea that driving is “fun” is cancer that killed more people than… well, real cancer. Shows like Top Gear that promote this idea are responsible for more deaths than Nazis.
Edit: Ok, I was wrong, cancer kills more people. Bad example. 1.3M people die in car accidents every year. Speeding is the second most common cause. Just think about another example like guns or something.
Driving can be “fun” in any car though. You don’t need a sports car to enjoy driving, for some driving is just a fun activity that can still be done safely and within the regulations of the road.
The idea that driving is “fun” is cancer that killed more people than… well, real cancer.
You’ve literally just made this up.
Yeah, I did. I though more people die in car accidents but I’ve checked the number and no.
Also, If you enjoy driving below the speed limit and without any sudden manoeuvres then I have no issue with you enjoying your ride. I think it’s obvious that’s not what I have issue with.
And what is a “fun” car? How do we determine that? Get a government tester to drive the car for an hour and if he looks miserable getting out then the car is good to go?
Many cars that people call fun are normal hatchbacks. Nobody calls SUVs or pickups fun, and yet they’re far more dangerous. Should people drive more of those? Because that’s what we’d get.
And comparing Top Gear and its production crew to literal Nazis is insane. Get some perspective.
A “fun” car is car that encourages dangerous driving by pretending to be a “sports” or “competitive” car or simply pretending it’s for “precision” driving or “racing”. Tuned cards, high horsepower cars, supercars. Do you understand it now? Cards should encourage safe, responsible driving. Yes, distracted driving kills the most people by speeding is close second and there’s entire industry of automotive press and TV shows that encourage it by promoting the idea that driving fast is fun. They kill thousands of people every year.
But that’s not exclusively what people call a fun car, people call all kinds of cars fun.
The current generation Civic was praised for its handling, suspension, and being quite fun to drive - do you think it’s so unsafe it should be outlawed, but a Hummer shouldn’t be?
Pretty much the only cars that are basically never called fun are SUVs and pickups - the cars that are most dangerous!
I don’t believe that you’ll find any proof that, say, an MX-5/Miata is more dangerous or causes more deaths than a Ford F250. And yet you say the issue is with fun cars and sports cars.
Cars being enjoyable isn’t the issue. And the people behind car TV shows aren’t fucking synonymous with Nazis. What an awful take.
The Nazis wanted to exterminate races and cultures they found to be inferior. The top gear crew have a different hobby to you, one that inherently carries a small amount of risk. That’s not the same.
one that inherently carries a small amount of risk
To other people. I’m fine with them driving on a racetrack. I’m not fine with them promoting sports cars on public roads. I know they never say “speeding on public roads is fun” but the entire car culture they promote comes down to reckless driving really. And your hobby should never put other people in danger. Any other hobby that would sometimes kill bystanders would be banned. Also, millions of people die in car accidents, big chunk of them because speeding. The risk is not small.
As to what “fun” car is I’m not going to get into definitions here, I’m not writing a law. I think it’s clear what I mean. Most people drive under the speed limit, don’t accelerate or break suddenly, don’t take turns at high speeds. Driving for them is a normal activity. Other people do all those reckless things because they think it’s “fun”. Yes, you can drive recklessly in any car but some cars specifically promote it. I’m not talking about specific models, more about the idiotic car culture in general.
I want to see your data that sports cars or “fun” cars are the driving force of accidents.
Until we’ve established that, all of what you’re saying is completely baseless.
From what I can see looking at data in the UK, the Toyota Prius is the most crashed car, with 1,207 crashes per 100,000 on the road. You have to go all the way down to 11th to find a sporty car - the Audi RS3.
I’m not surprised, after all, we all know the Prius is the most savagely quick and sporty car known to man. Bugatti and Koenigsegg have yet to match it!
E: funny enough, the least crashed cars contains the likes of the Jaguar XK, Porsche 911, Audi TT, John Cooper Works Mini, Porsche 718, Porsche Boxster, and BMW Z4. Funny that. Maybe the people who enjoy driving the most and cherish their car the most are the people who are most attentive to the whole driving process.
I’m not saying they kill the most people. Distracted drivers kill more people but you don’t have TV shows that claiming that texting while driving is fun. Speeding is the second most common cause of accidents and it’s absolutely is related to the entire “car culture” promoting fast driving and sports cars.
I’ve literally just given you data disproving the myth you’ve pedaled. Look at my comment again. See the edit.
People need to stop driving their Toyota Prius and Honda Insight and get something safer, like a Porsche. 😉
E: and I’ve looked up your speeding claim as well. At least in the UK, driving above the speed limit is a factor in 7.4% of crashes, making it the 7th most common reason to be in a crash, behind the likes of not checking mirrors, carelessness, loss of control due to slippery conditions, etc.
Maybe it’s different where you are, but I’m getting a clear picture here: the relatively small amount of “fun” cars on the road are not the driving force of accidents, no matter how much you baselessly say they are.
The idea that driving is “fun” is cancer that killed more people than… well, real cancer. Shows like Top Gear that promote this idea are responsible for more deaths than Nazis.
I was with you right up until here. There’s no way to upvote and downvote different parts of a comment, is there?
Ok, I was wrong, cancer kills more people than speeding. But 1.3 million die every year in traffic accidents and the second most common cause of accidents is speeding. Or do you think that shows like Top Gear and magazines promoting the idea that “fast cars are awesome” do not promote speeding?
So, here’s the thing…
Speeding is definitely the culprit. But accidents due to speeding have been an issue long before shows like Top Gear ever happened.
The issue is terrible drivers. Fast cars or Horse Carriages, doesn’t matter.
I agree with your remark about keeping cars that can do more than the speed limit off the public roads, but sadly that won’t solve accidents due to speeding. Because that’s just one of the reasons.
Top Gear is just an example. Everyone loves them but I think shows like this, and they specifically, cause of a lot of harm to many people.
I understand what you mean, but that’s not really true.
This is the Television equivalent of “Video Games cause kids to be violent”. If the kid was mentally unstable and needed help without the game, the game is the least of the parents’ worries.
Same here. If the person was incapable of following rules and abiding by basic decency standards, then they will be reckless with or without such shows. Classic example: lots of small city residents of India have never seen Top Gear or any such show. Yet the quality of driving is terrible. I say this as a native resident of India.
Reason: driving tests are not enforced well enough.
Reckless driving is not the same as bad quality driving. For example I knew a guy once who said that he never knew who has to yield at a intersection so would always stop and let the other guy go. Was he a good driver? No. Was his behavior going to kill someone? Also no. A driver that knows he has the right of way and drives through a roundabout at 100km/h maybe a better driver but has higher chance of killing someone.
As to TV shows and automotive press I think they invested or at least are actively promoting the idea that driving fast is ‘sexy’. It’s really hard to watch Top Gear and not to get the idea that what they are selling is the idea that driving a Ferrari at 200km/h is exciting. It would one thing it they showed it strictly in the context of a racetrack and professional competition but they are constantly mixing it with every day driving. The are saying that all driving can be exiting. Why we don’t do this with other sports? Downhill cycling is existing but you don’t see a lot of people jumping down the stairs on their way to work. Why with other sports we clearly separate the sport activity and everyday version of it but with driving the idea is that public roads are extensions of race tracks and a good driver can have fun on both? I blame the shows romanticizing fast cars as something desirable by everyone and driving as a skill every real man should master. The effects we see on the roads every day.
Fair enough.
I love driving my 34 year old car. It only goes 140km/h max and that is fine for it. I consider it a fun car as well even though it has the reputation of being a shopping trolley for old people. I can’t see where you would would draw the line of fun car and what that would do for road safety. Most crashes tend to happen at intersections because of inattentive drivers or confusing situations. This behavior is promoted by a sense of perceived safety which people get from a “self driving” car. If I could snap my fingers and apply a ban on a car type it would be suv’s without a doubt. Big cars in general also give that sense of safety which is somewhat true for the people in it but they kill more people involved in crashes with them. Now for your last point about Top Gear. Quite a strong opinion which I do not agree with. They tend to close roads to do their scenes. If you ever go to one of those beautiful roads you will find out that they are very popular and the speed limit cannot even be met. In conclusion, make cars small again.
I know people in the US get their license in a few days. But in europe people take a proper course over a few weeks and drive dafely and routinely at speeds up to 200 km/h. Not that I disagree with the fun part.
Yeah, I’m sure they can drive safely at 200km/h at a race track. There’s no way to drive safely above the speed limit on a public road.
There are a lot of streets without a speed limit in europe. People are told to drive around at least 130 to not hinder traffic. Most people go about 140 or 150 if the roads are free. Speed lane is usually about 160
No, not a lot, only highways in Germany AFAIK. Where I live the limit is 120 so 150 is always over the limit. Road fatalities in Germany are the same as in my country because in Germany you also have idiots driving 200km/h. What you have to do is adjust your speed to the conditions. Depending on how the roads are build the limit will be different but if you’re driving 50km/h faster than everyone else you’re creating dangerous situation. Same if you’re driving too slow obviously.
There’s also the Isle of Man, but it’s an unusual case in its own right
There’s no way to drive safely above the speed limit on a public road.
If you’re driving a well maintained regular car in good conditions you absolutely can drive safely above many speed limits. If the speed limit was set at the true limit of safety nothing but the best handling vehicles in the best of conditions could drive at said limit safely, and this is clearly not the case for the vast majority of speed limits. Instead most traffic can travel safely at the set speed limit in less than ideal vehicles and in less than ideal conditions, so logically there are going to be situations where it would be safe to drive above said limit.
Consider too speed limit changes. In my area there have been a few roads recently which have been lowered from 100km/h limits to 80km/h. Nothing changed about these roads except the speed limit signs. Why was it possible to drive safely at the 100km/h limit one day but not possible to drive safely at the same speed on the next day? Another road several years back had its speed limit changed from 80km/h to 90km/h. Again only the signs changed, so why would it be unsafe to drive 90km/h there one day when that would be the speed limit the following day?
As with everything we do, there is a subjective element to setting limits, but it’s definitely not as arbitrary as you are suggesting. Maybe they reduced one limit because there were too many accidents, and maybe they increased the other because they finally got the signal pattern working as intended.
Risk assessment is incredibly complex. It might be perfectly reasonable to drive 110km/h on a given road most of the time, but frequent use by large farm equipment could necessitate a lower speed. Or, maybe adjusting traffic on road x decreases accidents on road y.
We are still learning how to produce vehicles that reliably compensate for variables like friction, or human reaction time. The implications of even these two simple things seem to be completely lost on most drivers: with a tiny bit of rubber touching the asphalt, we happily drive around in inconceivably heavy vehicles at rates where it’s very easy for an event to begin and end before we even suspect something is imminent.
While I’m here: turn your lights on when you start your car, turn into your own fucking lane, always move over if someone is behind you in the fast lane even if you think you’re going “fast enough” (someone could be bleeding out, seriously), don’t pass people on the wrong side, and finally: stop trusting the meat in your head so much, our brains fuck up all the time, so in addition to driving defensively wrt external factors, consider how you can set yourself up to succeed if something unexpected happens internally.
I hate people like you on the roads. You’re not the one who decides what’s the safe maximum speed on the road is. If you think you can arbitrary decide that some speed limit is too low and you can drive faster you’re wrong and shouldn’t be on the road at all. If we had less people like you on the roads everyone would be safer.
If speed limits are indeed set at the true safe maximum for all vehicles and all conditions then how can you travel safely at said speed limits in your car, which I would wager cannot corner as well or stop as quickly as a top end sports car?
If it’s a maximum limit to what’s safe, you can say anything at or below it is safe. They don’t set the maximum at a value that is unsafe for some vehicles.
Indeed, at least for most modern speed limits. That was intended as more of a rhetorical question to lead the person I was replying to towards noticing speed limits are typically set with a wide safety margin, and not actually at the limit of what can be safe in good conditions.
I’m not saying all speed limits are set perfectly. I’m saying it’s not up to you to decide which ones are ‘safe’ to break. The driver that think they know better than everyone else are the most dangerous ones. Even if you think the limit is set tol low just follow it, ok? Is it so hard?
Say that to start off with then rather than “there’s no way to drive safely above the speed limit on a public road”, because there clearly are roads where it can be safe to drive above the speed limit.
It takes months and months in the UK. The tests are pretty strict.
200kmh is never really safe, I hope that everyone driving at that speed realize it, of course we feel safe in those new cars, it’s like nothing, but a flat tire or something else and it’s done for you
And I don’t think every country in Europe have proper training, in France people are not that disciplined as in other part of Europe
If you’re uncomfortable driving, get yourself a bus pass. Problem solved.
A hit dog will holler…
Anyone here actually watched the “Top Gear”? After real Top Gear was cancelled, it was unwatchable. The Grand Tour was good, but the first series was quite stupid. Speeeeeeeed!
I don’t know why you’re getting down voted. Post-Clarkson Top Gear is horrendous. The Grand Tour has its own issues but also some very fun moments.
I’m guessing at least a few are for getting so far off topic.
The latest trio were pretty decent, probably the best since the Clarkson, Hammond & May era.
Ok.I saw some bits with that redhead weirdo and LeBlanc and it was cringe AF.
Yeah Chris Evans was the worst. LeBlanc was ok but I didn’t get the hype that he had by others.
You do you, but please do it in the right lane
Ok, and when I have to take over someone please drive 1m behind me and flash your lights at me. It the least you can do.
