• 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    This example doesn’t make sense. If the vectors intersect at the same time at constant speed, they can’t also intersect at that same point when you slow one of them down (or speed up, for that matter).

    Either the crash happens at a constant speed or one that’s not constant speed, but then braking would get you out of it just as well as accelerating, considering a lot of cars brake a lot better than they accelerate

    • Palacegalleryratio [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Get outa here, don’t talk as if these are infinitesimally small point objects from an idealised maths problem. Cars in the real world have 3 dimensions of space. Surely you can imagine a situation in which if travelling at the speed limit the rear of the car gets hit, and breaking to slow down would just cause the front of the car to be hit instead?

      I’m not saying most evasive manoeuvres require speeding, speed should be the last choice, most problems are solved by slowing, however there are situations where speed is the only choice for avoiding accident.

      • 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Surely you can imagine a situation in which if travelling at the speed limit the rear of the car gets hit, and breaking to slow down would just cause the front of the car to be hit instead?

        Yeah, and it’s not one I’d base any type of legislation on. I mean what if the inverse is true and somebody speeds up instead of braking because they can, and then they get hit? Good argument for limiters, there. Or what if you both accelerate and you now turned this 45mph t-bone into a 55mph t-bone

        I’m not saying most evasive manoeuvres require speeding, speed should be the last choice, most problems are solved by slowing, however there are situations where speed is the only choice for avoiding accident.

        And it absolutely pales in comparison towards how many people you’d save by having hard limiters. At it’s core this is a very car brained argument to make in the sense of that it presupposes some absolute edge case hypothetical scenario as how a single person might be saved by speeding and and completely disregards any other consequences of this choice. Sure, thousands may get injured and die, but it’ll have all been worth it for that one time one guy speeds out of a t-bone successfully.

        • Palacegalleryratio [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Hey, I don’t think we’re going to agree. Maybe I’m too car brained, I used to drive a heck of a lot for work. Maybe the damage is done!

          I stand by my thoughts that I think a soft limit with punitive fines and a mechanical hard limit above the speed limit to allow for safety cases seems like best of both worlds. I think that the safety benefit of slowing down through cars automatically ticketing drivers would be realised pretty quickly as drivers see fines rack up, negating the need for the hard limiter in 99% of cases. But I get your argument that on balance a hard limit may be better overall. I dunno, I don’t think either of us can know which system would prove better without trialing both and some statistical analysis.

      • Dave.@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        Cars can slow down much, much faster than they can speed up. Look at any 0-60 and 60-0 times in car reviews.

        If there is any situation when you can see a potential accident and speeding up “saves you”, then you also have sufficient time to slow down and let the other vehicle pass in front of you.

        If you are that close that rapidly slowing down doesn’t help, your reaction time plus the relatively slow rate of acceleration means that speeding up won’t help either.

        (Disclaimer: this doesn’t work with trains.)

    • Orannis62 [ze/hir]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      This literally happened to me. The car ended up crashing into the passenger door- if I hadn’t sped up, it would have crashed into my door and injured me