eion wrote:Just a note on push-button starts: They're used in many cars not for safety or security reasons (though they do have benefits in those regards) but because they are cheaper...
It may be intended to evoke "race care style" but it's all about saving money.
So another case of "cost-cutting costs lives", as far as I can see.
I really can't see any kind of safety benefit from a keyless start.
If your steering wheel is less bulky, it is safer. If the ignition system is all electronic, you can also start and stop the car remotely quite easily. I didn't mean to suggest there are overriding safety benefits to keyless ignition, but there are a few minor ones.
I still like the feel of steel to steel and a nice steady turn, followed by the rev of an engine.
eion wrote:
If your steering wheel is less bulky, it is safer. If the ignition system is all electronic, you can also start and stop the car remotely quite easily. I didn't mean to suggest there are overriding safety benefits to keyless ignition, but there are a few minor ones.
I still like the feel of steel to steel and a nice steady turn, followed by the rev of an engine.
Couldn't reducing the bulk of the steering wheel be accomplished by relocating the ignition system to the centre console, like in some Saabs? Or would that too many disadvantages?
Aerius wrote:Then you have problem #3, or the proper method of braking a runaway car which few people are going to know about unless they've taken high performance driving courses. The proper method is to slam the brake pedal down as hard as you can and keep it down until the car comes to a complete stop. And you'll need to step on the brake pedal a lot harder than usual since the brake assist comes from engine vacuum, under full throttle there's not much engine vacuum and thus there's less brake assist.
And someone explain to me what that is NOT something discussed in driver's ed? For that matter, why don't we have routine re-testing where a driver would have to demonstrate knowledge of how to handle emergencies?
You said it yourself in another thread: our government has always been more interested in the economic benefits of widespread car ownership than in public safety.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
aerius wrote:We noticed the same thing when we got our new Buick. My wife & I had the keys out in the dealer lot and were looking around for the hidden trunk lock, and it was only after looking over the back end of the car several times that we realized there wasn't one. You can't use the key to open the trunk, it only opens from the remote buttons inside the car and on the key fob. But at least it still has a key lock cylinder on the passenger side door, though only the front doors have them. I don't think I've seen lock cylinders on the rear doors since the 1980's.
My Subaru doesn't even have a keyhole on the passenger's side door. The only keyhole is on the driver's side front door. Otherwise, you're expected to use the remote.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
eion wrote:
If your steering wheel is less bulky, it is safer. If the ignition system is all electronic, you can also start and stop the car remotely quite easily. I didn't mean to suggest there are overriding safety benefits to keyless ignition, but there are a few minor ones.
I still like the feel of steel to steel and a nice steady turn, followed by the rev of an engine.
Couldn't reducing the bulk of the steering wheel be accomplished by relocating the ignition system to the centre console, like in some Saabs? Or would that too many disadvantages?
If you're going to the trouble of relocating the ignition system to the console you may as well go with a keyless push-button system since the same cost benefits apply.
Darth Wong wrote:I don't see why a skinny steering column makes the car safer. Please, elaborate.
One of the dangerous things for the driver in a high speed crash is being impaled or struck against the steering wheel. The less rigid it is the higher the chance of survival.
Less weight equals less force transferable during a crash. In a traditional ignition system, the lock cylinder is also normally a rather sturdy block of metal to withstand repeated operation and discourage tampering. If that broke off it could really hurt someone. However since all cars have collapsible steering columns now these benefits rarely mean much.
Like I said before, those are side benefits. The big one is it's cheaper. In a perfect world spending less money on a sturdy steering column would mean you could spend more money on other safety systems, but of course that rarely happens.
Darth Wong wrote:I don't see why a skinny steering column makes the car safer. Please, elaborate.
One of the dangerous things for the driver in a high speed crash is being impaled or struck against the steering wheel. The less rigid it is the higher the chance of survival.
That has absolutely nothing to do with the presence of an ignition keylock on the side. How does that device increase the structural rigidity of the column? What kind of Mickey Mouse structural engineering concept are we dealing with here?
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
eion wrote:Less weight equals less force transferable during a crash. In a traditional ignition system, the lock cylinder is also normally a rather sturdy block of metal to withstand repeated operation and discourage tampering. If that broke off it could really hurt someone. However since all cars have collapsible steering columns now these benefits rarely mean much.
What are you talking about? If a car is rear-ended violently enough to snap off the ignition keylock from the steering column so that it hurtles backward toward the driver with enough velocity to cause serious injury, he is fucked anyway.
Like I said before, those are side benefits. The big one is it's cheaper. In a perfect world spending less money on a sturdy steering column would mean you could spend more money on other safety systems, but of course that rarely happens.
It seems to be an imaginary benefit, not a "side benefit". You should not say that it makes the car safer unless you have a real justification for this statement.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Darth Wong wrote:I don't see why a skinny steering column makes the car safer. Please, elaborate.
One of the dangerous things for the driver in a high speed crash is being impaled or struck against the steering wheel. The less rigid it is the higher the chance of survival.
That has absolutely nothing to do with the presence of an ignition keylock on the side. How does that device increase the structural rigidity of the column? What kind of Mickey Mouse structural engineering concept are we dealing with here?
Old tech. In modern cars the collapsible universally jointed steering columns and airbags take care of this.
But the problem existed back in the 80's. The thing was that the more interface stuff was added to the wheel the more rigid it was constructed. Not because it had to be so but because that was how it turned out. This was especially true to the ignition to protect the car from theft, which added a lot of rigidity. So then there came a couple of concept cars which removed as much stuff as possible from the wheel and to make it "softer" so that it would reduce the impact from a collision. Some of those concepts made it into ordinary cars, like the saab mentioned above.
So it used to be an actual problem, mostly due to non-safety oriented engineering.
Darth Wong wrote:I don't see why a skinny steering column makes the car safer. Please, elaborate.
I thought steering columns were fatter these days to accommodate airbags - moving the ignition elsewhere won't change that much. And it's safer to have a fat steering column with an airbag than a skinny one without, because you're much more likely to get impaled on the latter.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Darth Wong wrote:I don't see why a skinny steering column makes the car safer. Please, elaborate.
I thought steering columns were fatter these days to accommodate airbags - moving the ignition elsewhere won't change that much. And it's safer to have a fat steering column with an airbag than a skinny one without, because you're much more likely to get impaled on the latter.
Since the airbags just stored in a compartment within the center of the wheel assembly itself, I'm not sure what the size of the steering column matters. My car has an airbag and the steering wheel isn't even that large.
Detroit Free Press wrote:WASHINGTON -- It may sound far-fetched, but federal regulators are studying whether sudden acceleration in Toyotas is linked to cosmic rays.
Radiation from space long has affected airplanes and spacecraft, and is known for triggering errors in computer systems, but has received scant attention in the auto industry.
The questions show how deep regulators and automakers may have to dig to solve the mysteries of sudden acceleration. Toyota says it is fixing mechanical problems -- floor mats and sticky pedals -- that explain sudden acceleration in 13 models and 5.6 million vehicles.
But at least half of more than 1,500 recent complaints to regulators involve other models, raising questions whether Toyota has fixed its problem.
An anonymous tipster whose complaint prompted regulators to look at the issue said the design of Toyota's microprocessors, memory chips and software could make them more vulnerable than those of other automakers.
"I think it could be a real issue with Toyota," Sung Chung, who runs a California testing firm, said.
Toyota, which has led the auto industry in using electronic controls, told the Free Press its engine controls are "robust against this type of interference."
Cosmic rays offered as acceleration cause
Electronics makers have known for decades about "single event upsets," computer errors from radiation created when cosmic rays strike the atmosphere.
With more than 3,000 complaints to U.S. regulators of random sudden acceleration problems in Toyota models, several researchers say single event upsets deserve a close look.
The phenomenon can trigger software crashes that come and go without a trace. Unlike interference from radio waves, there's no way to physically block particles; such errors typically have to be prevented by a combination of software and hardware design.
And an anonymous tipster told NHTSA last month that "the automotive industry has yet to truly anticipate SEUs."
Such radiation "occurs virtually anywhere," said William Price, who spent 20 years at the Jet Propulsion Lab testing for radiation effects on electronics. "It doesn't happen in a certain locale like you would expect in an electromagnetic problem from a radio tower or something else."
I have come to the conclusion that my subjective account of my motivation is largely mythical on almost all occasions. I don't know why I do things.
J.B.S. Haldane
Detroit Free Press wrote:WASHINGTON -- It may sound far-fetched, but federal regulators are studying whether sudden acceleration in Toyotas is linked to cosmic rays.
Radiation from space long has affected airplanes and spacecraft, and is known for triggering errors in computer systems, but has received scant attention in the auto industry.
The questions show how deep regulators and automakers may have to dig to solve the mysteries of sudden acceleration. Toyota says it is fixing mechanical problems -- floor mats and sticky pedals -- that explain sudden acceleration in 13 models and 5.6 million vehicles.
But at least half of more than 1,500 recent complaints to regulators involve other models, raising questions whether Toyota has fixed its problem.
An anonymous tipster whose complaint prompted regulators to look at the issue said the design of Toyota's microprocessors, memory chips and software could make them more vulnerable than those of other automakers.
"I think it could be a real issue with Toyota," Sung Chung, who runs a California testing firm, said.
Toyota, which has led the auto industry in using electronic controls, told the Free Press its engine controls are "robust against this type of interference."
Cosmic rays offered as acceleration cause
Electronics makers have known for decades about "single event upsets," computer errors from radiation created when cosmic rays strike the atmosphere.
With more than 3,000 complaints to U.S. regulators of random sudden acceleration problems in Toyota models, several researchers say single event upsets deserve a close look.
The phenomenon can trigger software crashes that come and go without a trace. Unlike interference from radio waves, there's no way to physically block particles; such errors typically have to be prevented by a combination of software and hardware design.
And an anonymous tipster told NHTSA last month that "the automotive industry has yet to truly anticipate SEUs."
Such radiation "occurs virtually anywhere," said William Price, who spent 20 years at the Jet Propulsion Lab testing for radiation effects on electronics. "It doesn't happen in a certain locale like you would expect in an electromagnetic problem from a radio tower or something else."
Next up from the rumor mill: ALIENS MADE ME CRASH MY CAR!
