What is Digg?Sponsored by Activision
Band Hero view!
guitarhero.com - The biggest event music event of the year is now in your living room.
36 Comments
- Harabeck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+69Wait, so the point I get out of this argument is: wear your seatbelt but don't drive recklessly.
Thank you so much for that driver's ed review. - RichPowers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+33Pretty much. The article contradicts the headline: seat belts aren't dangerous - people using them as an excuse to drive recklessly are dangerous.
So there is no "hidden danger." People are just being idiots. Instead of taking personal responsibility, we blame an inanimate object? ***** worthless media trying to scare us into reading their half-baked articles.
@Azur: I read that German roads are built with turns even though the turns aren't needed. It forces people to pay attention to the road instead of getting tunnel vision from driving on a straight road for hours... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12This is actually the new "paradigm" in traffic planning: making things difficult and dangerous in order to force people to slow down.
Not kidding.
The idea is that roads are made safe, then people drive recklessly, and get themselves killed. If roads are really stinking obnoxious, people drive slow and careful, and get in fender benders.
Typical symptoms that your traffic planners have bought this fad is that traffic lights are replaced with with stop signs from all directions, and bushes and other obstacles planted to obstruct view in crossings. Also roads are made more narrow.
Again, I'm not kidding. - dgh1973, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@jeffiek
Statistics can show you anything you want them to. There are statistics out there that directly contradict one another on various topics.
Anyone who derives reality from statistics needs to share the dope they are smoking with me. The only thing they tell you is what the people that pay for them want you to know.
There can be no doubting the fact that seatbelts save lives but there are many other variables to consider, this article is just one (slightly skewed IMHO) way of looking at the results. - cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Reminds me of the argument after the speed limit was raised from 55. The data shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that after the speed limits was relaxed from 55 in the US that traffic deaths increased. Meh... They like to ignore the fact that after the limit was relaxed traffic deaths *per miles driven* in the USA continued to decline. The statistical lie is generated by ignoring the fact that there were more deaths because there were more people, and people were driving more miles per year on average.
Give me a statistic, and I'll show you a pile of *****. - TheGilmanator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6But I think, I think the seatbelt helps. You can't really kill somebody by walking up behind them and yelling "click!" You'd have to be pretty dodgy on the old heart.
- xXShadowstormXx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Seat belts don't kill people. People kill people.
- benitojuarez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6in other news sunlight causes accidents. make sure to protect your eyes with sunglasses whenever you drive.
- burgerboy06, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5just because i put on a bulletproof vest does not mean i am going to run in the line of fire...or go hunting with Cheney.
- dgh1973, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This idea was discussed somewhere else recently (covered here I believe).
The idea that if you remove traffic lights, stop signs and stuff like that you can actually make things safer by keeping drivers alert and on their toes. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There are more variables that go into that...perhaps that now there are more cars on the road, and therefore, more of a chance or reckless drivers.
- andrebsd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You can say that any safety technology makes people more reckless, just like you can say that if you put a spike on the steering wheel instead of an airbag that people would drive more careful. Though technically reckless can save a life too, most the time it doesnt, but he could have avoided an accident by being 10 seconds earlyer to that intersection.
- M0b1u5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This guy is a prime example of Confirmation Bias, and on top of that he is full of *****.
Let me tell you, starting when I was 9 and finishing when I was 15 (Got my car licence 3 days after my 15th birthday) my father used to take me to car crashes when he was called, as part of the "Flying Doctor" program. Duty doctors were called at the same time as the ambulance.
I can sum up what happens to people who wear seat belts: They Live. They Walk Away.
Those that do NOT wear seatbelts are doomed to the following: Death. Mutilation by the steering wheel and windscreen, having your face removed by glass. Having your knees become part of the dashboard and instrument binnacle. Having your chest crushed and your lungs punctured by the steering wheel. Leaving the car through the windscreen, suffering at least two dislocated hips and two broken femurs on the way way out. Being thrown completely from the car and being run over by another vehicle, or your own vehicle if it is rolling.
That's as simple as it gets. Weart a seatbelt and live. Don't put one on and you die - or worse.
My father did his Ph.D. in accident injuries and prevention, and his statistical anlysis of over 100,000 road crashes shows that for each 20,000 lives saved by a seatbelt, one person is injured or killed by a belt.
So, the situation is clear: if you don;t wear a seatbelt you are a ***** moron, and you deserve to be dead. In fact, you're already dead, you just haven't arrived in the coffin yet. If princess Diana hadn't beena ***** stupid bitch, she'd be alive today, and there are millions of people today who owe their lives to seatbelts.
The authors assertion that seatbelts encourage risk taking is aload of ***** too.
I can't believe anyone would believe this crap. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This is ***** stupid. Cell phones, cigarettes, music, passengers, drunkeness, road rage all contribute to reckless driving. How the hell is this become popular?
- shadowsword232, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3And I have a friend who was flung from the far into a patch of barbed wire because he was not wearing his seat belt.
There are specific examples where they can help or hurt, but over all they do help increase your chances of surviving an accident. - grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The logic seems a bit flawed to me. At any speed, a well fitted seat belt will reduce the severity of injuries suffered in a crash compared to the injuries that would be sustained by someone without a seatbelt.
Seat belts are an important part of a modern car safety system, with pre-tensioners fired by the onboard computer in conjunction with the air bag to make sure that you are in the best possible position to survive an accident. Load limiters (actually quite a low tech invention) allow the seat belt to release slightly if the g-forces are too much.
In low speed accidents which are too minor to trigger the air bags, a seat belt can leave you with minor brusing rather than serious head injury.
Please do not talk about the net deaths per year as the figure that determines the effectiveness of the seat belt. There are a lot more things at play here. 20 years ago, you did not have people sending each other an SMS while driving. The average family car today (where I live) has 180KW. 20 years ago, the same car had 120KW. You need to consider congestion (where I live, the average commute time per day has probably doubled in that time), driving habits.
Although I agree that you are more likely to take a risk knowing you have a given safety feature like seat belts, I the amount of additional risk a normal person would take is lower than the benefits to safety. Or in English, things would be a lot worse if seat belts were not used because of other factors (more powerful cars, more congested roads, longer commutes). - egrumling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Same thing for bicycle helmets. After mandatory helmet laws, head injuries went way down, but other injuries went way up. Rec.bicycles.misc has the ongoing debate.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3they have something on this in freakonomics. It basically says whatever safety improvement we have, we will subconsciously try to equal it out by driving faster, more recklessly, etc.
For example, when new york taxi cab drivers had their brakes replaced with new ones, they would afterwards allow less space to brake, canceling out the added benefits of new brakes. - Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3There is also a great article about this on damninteresting.com:
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=494
They call it "risk compensation": increased safety measures result in riskier behavior because people think they can afford it, and are comfortable with a certain level of risk, which they will try to arrive at with or without safety measures. For example, knowing that ABS brakes were on taxis made taxi drivers drive more aggressively. Tae Kwon Do dojos that don't use padding don't have higher rates of injury than those that do because the ones that do usually have students who hit and kick harder and more aggressively because they think they can afford to, etc. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is actually very old. It's called the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltzman_Effect
I hate articles that recycle material and don't cite the original source. - J3Holaday, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think the arguement he's trying to make is that it's like birth control in that it ends up encouraging non-monogamous sex, but it's more like a bullet proof vest. I'm going to take on a firing squad just because I have a bullet proof vest.
Analagies aside, lame title if you ask me. - martalli, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Its not a very new idea. As another poster has stated, this has been done in Europe since at least the 70's. Twisty roads are also used in neighborhoods to essentially force people to drive at neighborhood speeds.
The assertion the poster is making is a junk editorial. This is the sort of BS that might convince someone to drive without a seatbelt, slide on the ice, hit a tree and get killed. I work in emergency rooms and the difference between an unrestrained driver and a restrained driver is often obvious without even asking. The absolute first poster displays the obvious common sense: wear your seatbelt and drive safely. - towca, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is another prime example of how ***** the Time has gotten as of late. I remember reading the Time five or six years ago and thinking, this isn't bad. But now. When did this happen? After they "partnered" up with amazingly "reputable" CNN? who knows? (I am reading the Economist now... much better in terms of news I'd say)
And as for this article, well, it's about as good as going out in the street and yelling "fruit juice gives you cancer!!". you can pull some numbers and show it, but no one will take you seriously and laugh at you when you turn around. - MusicalGenius, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I went to Europe a couple years ago and learned one very important thing. Americans just can't drive. There are things about their system which are better, but our people are really the downfall. (referring to your Germany comment.)
Statistics show that more people live with seat belts being worn. This is unscientific and stupid. Seat belts have problems and could be improved, but you are safer with one. - Nistavar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3My grandparents have friend who survived because she wasn't wearing a seatbelt when a semi crashed into her car... If she had not flung to the other side of the car she would of been crushed, to a very extreme extent I might add.
- comedianX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Damn you Ralph Nader!
- neebick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Trust me my father is a doctor and does rounds at our local hospital's ER while my mother works as a x-ray technologist at the same hospital, they have seen hundreds of car crashes but have never seen one that turned out better without a seat belt.
Your example is an exception not the rule. - jeffiek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@dgh1973
"Statistics can show you anything you want them to."
Try telling me something I don't know.
I wrote:
"I say "may" because statistics do not prove causation, but they can be compelling. Especially when coupled with a logical explanation."
Now just exactly how else are you going to examine the results of the actions of a large number of people? Even the benefit of seat belt use is statistical ( there are types of accidents where seat belts cause injury ), but it is backed up by measurement. You can't measure peoples attitudes directly.
Limiting your point of view to the mechanics of seat belts is narrow minded. Taking the entire picture into view is not new either. truegodofwar provided this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltzman_Effect
which contains - "Sam Peltzman is one of the few economists, and probably the only regulatory economist, to have an effect named after him— the “Peltzman effect." - ksponge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The logic behind this argument is um... not logical? Thanks for playing.
- secmil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was in a car accident last night, I walked away with a dislocated shoulder.
The driver was thrown from the car and was declared dead on the scene.
I was wearing a seat belt, he wasn't.
Just wear a ***** seat belt... - bigred, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3But what you fail to realize is that if the semi had hit her head on, she would have been dead without the seat belt, and... well... probably still dead if she had worn it, but her chances of surviving a head on collision would have been a lot better. You can't always predict where someone will hit your car, so you might as well wear your seat belt. A normal passenger car or minivan crashing into the side of your car will not crush you, and not wearing your seat belt will not help.
- ToasTeh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Lol - Loads of studies have been done on the fact that the safer we feel the harder we push , its a well known fact brought up by this poster of new research. Hence all the injurys in american football - people will always be more reckless if you convince them thier safe; its all about your confortable level of risk.
- thefreshbeats, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3"In fact, according to one researcher, seat belts may actually cause people to drive more recklessly"
And according to every other researcher, that guy is an idiot. People might drive slower, but even at the speed limit, you will most likely die in a crash without a seatbelt. So, let's all go out and buy Hummers and never wear seatbelts again! - minusonebit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Nothing new about this information. The folks over at sitciot.com have known all of this for a very long time.
- jeffiek, on 10/12/2007, -8/+7@martalli
"I work in emergency rooms"
Do you ever take the time to think about *why* the accident happened in the first place?
John Adams did. You may not agree with his conclusions, but they are far from junk. Do you understand the article? I think not:
"This is the sort of BS that might convince someone to drive without a seatbelt,"
From the article:
"The point, stresses Adams, is that drivers who feel safe may actually increase the risk that they pose to other drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians and their own passengers"
The article isn't about the danger a driver presents to himself, it's about the danger he presents to *others*.
Or do you like bicyclists and pedestrians getting hit? You are aware that there are no seat belts for them, aren't you? - jeffiek, on 10/12/2007, -17/+4@Harabeck
The point is far deeper than that. He's trying to illuminate the fact that people are complex, far more complex than a simple "if A, then B" analysis can handle.
Yes, you wear a seat belt, hit a wall, don't hit the steering wheel and don't get hurt. Duh. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. But you can't stop there. What *else* happens? Here's one possibility:
"What he found was that contrary to conventional wisdom, mandating the use of seat belts in 18 countries resulted in either no change or actually a net increase in road accident deaths."
The *average* effect of mandated seat belt use may either do nothing or make matters worse! I say "may" because statistics do not prove causation, but they can be compelling. Especially when coupled with a logical explanation.
Buckle up and drive safely is good advice. It's also narrow minded.
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is