Re: Lack of ESC Awarness Kills People

>It must be hard on you to see us safety nuts succeeding the way we >are:

It is, I see a lot of craziness. People who work so hard to eliminate risks that they inadvertently wind up making themselves hazardous.

The world is just a dangerous place, and you can't be completely safe all the time. Americans need to get realistic about it.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey
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You guys spout the same drivel no matter what is happening around you. That is true insanity. Open your eyes and respond to what is actually happening now.

Do you understand ESC? It's kind of a special case. I eliminates 1/3 of fatalaties according to the field data.

Interestingly, ABS never panned out in the field data, it may have not saved a single life and it may have increased fatalities in some types of vehicles. But ESC is built on top of ABS is working great.

Reply to
Tom Adams

You guys spout the same drivel no matter what is happening around you. That is true insanity. Open your eyes and respond to what is actually happening now.

Do you understand ESC? It's kind of a special case. I eliminates 1/3 of fatalaties according to the field data.

Interestingly, ABS never panned out in the field data, it may have not saved a single life and it may have increased fatalities in some types of vehicles. But ESC is built on top of ABS is working great.

*********

I hope so. I have it, but have never noticed its influence. Maybe that is the way it is supposed to be.

Reply to
hls

On the Ford a slipping car icon lights up when ESC cuts in, but I don't know if there is a indicator like that on all cars.

If you don't have to drive on ice, your ESC might never cut in. It might activate only once for a second or two and save your life. If you are a safe driver that might only happen when you have to do an avoidance maneuver.

Reply to
Tom Adams

On the Ford a slipping car icon lights up when ESC cuts in, but I don't know if there is a indicator like that on all cars.

If you don't have to drive on ice, your ESC might never cut in. It might activate only once for a second or two and save your life. If you are a safe driver that might only happen when you have to do an avoidance maneuver.

******** We seldom drive on ice. More often we drive on very wet pavement. I suspect that I drive much more conservatively now than when I was young, and may never see the indicator light come on.
Reply to
hls

Tom Adams wrote in news:d0fa3ecb-b3d3-4d75-8ec6- snipped-for-privacy@p3g2000pra.googlegroups.com:

What ESC specifically is, is not the issue. The issue is the matter of who's life we're discussing.

Maybe so, but do you know who's life your trying to save? MINE. I don't want to be "saved", especially not by the likes of you. Leave me alone. Let me assume the level of risk I wish to assume. Or not. It's my life, not yours.

Did you know that if you confine everybody to their homes 100% of the time, you will reduce traffic fatalities to zero? Let's start with you.

Reply to
Tegger

"hls" wrote in news:eZmdnbtjRtB68AfWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

The fools have not changed. What HAS changed is who is made to be responsible for the fools. And that change was effected by Congresses and signed into law by presidents.

In years past, when the fool was responsible for his own foolishness, those that provided the fool with paraphernalia of any kind could rest assured that one fool out of thousands of users could not damage the provider of that paraphernalia.

But, for about the last two-and-a-half decades, the fool has been no longer responsible for himself; the provider is now responsible for him. The providers (staffed by the fools themselves) must now take extraordinary measures to protect themselves from those fools who use state power to attack them.

Thus a coffee cup that comes with the moronic warning, "Caution! May be hot!"; thus a toy-broom sticker that says, "does not actually fly"; thus a commercial showing a motionless car parked in a fast-food parking lot, with the occupants wearing their seat belts; thus an alcolic beverage container which warns that the substance within can cause the consumer to get drunk; thus a car commercial showing a car traveling at 20mph, and the warning, "Professional driver, do not attempt"; thus the disappearance of diving boards from swimming pools. And so it goes...

Reply to
Tegger

anews.com:

BTW, ESC allows a typcial driver to execute an avoidance manuever about on par with a professional race car driver.

No amount of driving skill allow a driver to differentially brake individual tires. That requires a skill that you Tegger obviously lack, the skill to pick the right features on the car you drive.

Reply to
Tom Adams

Tom Adams wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@a16g2000pre.googlegroups.com:

I don't doubt that one bit.

Hey, you want the latest gadget-du-jour on your car? Go ahead. You have my assurance that I will not interfere with your desire to equip your car the way you see fit.

I just hope you're willing to treat me likewise.

Reply to
Tegger

Nah yo are the one being foolish. The things you think exist to protect fools are really designed to protect businesses from fools. Workman's compensation is not designed to protect workmen. it is designed to protect employers who hire workmen from liability. And the same is true of everything else you are whining about.

Which protects the seller from lawsuits.

Well there are toys that are self-propelled and actually do fly.

And that means what to you?

You haven't named one thing yet that is designed to protect foolish people from doing foolish things. Do you think that foolish people read the stuff on their beverage container while they are getting drunk and spilling stuff all over themselves?

-jim

Reply to
jim

Tegger, you are not the only one who is reading this.

I don't bother to try to influence individuals like you.

I know a person somewhat like you. The person told me yesterday that they were planning to buy a car, and I did not bother to mention ESC. I am pretty sure they are unaware of ESC and they are pretty likely to end up without it, but I don't want to put up with their crap. They would spew a slightly different pile of crap, but I don't want to hear it.

Reply to
Tom Adams

jim wrote in news:MbqdnaHlMb4vEgfWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@bright.net:

You don't understand /any/ of what I wrote, do you?

Reply to
Tegger

BTW, if that person buys a new car without ESC and never trades it, they take about a month off their life expectancy on average. So be it.

Reply to
Tom Adams

Tom Adams wrote in news:6dbba574-aa02-447f-9e5f- snipped-for-privacy@l12g2000prg.googlegroups.com:

Then go ahead and buy a car with ESC. Myself, I'll trust to simply being careful, which has worked just fine for 30 years.

I suspect you'll see a moral-hazard attached to ESC: People will tend to drive faster, or less carefully, or in weather they otherwise wouldn't drive in, because they feel "safer" with the new toy.

Seat belts, SRS, and ABS have a substantial moral-hazard factor, which is why their supposed benefits have been a bit difficult to quantify.

There's no substitute for being prudent and careful. If in doubt, go slower.

Reply to
Tegger

You mean you expect someone else to understand your delusional view of the world? Congress and Presidents didn't tell McDonald's to put a temperature warning on a cup of coffee. They did that all on their own. And they didn't do it to protect fools from hot coffee.

It wasn't congress and the president that moved McDonald's to take that action. It was 12 ordinary people who motivated McDonald's to do that. And believe me, Congress and the presidents would love to take that power away from ordinary people. And someday they may succeed in curtailing that power of ordinary people if they ever get enough support of fools like you.

-jim

Reply to
jim

Being careful does help.

But some idiot may run out in front of you and you will need to execute an avoidance manuever. Even a safe driver in that situation will need a car that can pass the moose test.

You are right about all that. Could be the fatality reductions provided by ESC in earlier field data will be mitigated by the moral-hazard issue. That is documented for ABS (see the wikipedia on ABS).

That could be why NHTSA does not have an ESC awareness campaign like they have in the EU. They might want to just quietly get it on all cars, the fewer people who know what they have the better.

Also ESC will keep thousands of the worst drivers on the road instead of in the grave every year, the speed demon types. There is a guy down the hall from me who's life was probably saved by ESC and he is a hazard on the road, drives too fast for conditions.

Hopefully it will just save a bunch of kids that will learn better.

Reply to
Tom Adams

jim wrote in news:Ot6dnZdpuP39AQfWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@bright.net:

No, McDonald's put the warning there to help prevent the fools from being able to sue McDonald's if they burnt themselves on the hot coffee.

Fools have always existed and always will exist. In a civilized world, fools pay for their foolishness on their own. But Congress in the early-'80s enabled the fools to get paid out of somebody else's deep-pockets for their foolishness. It was called "tort reform". The idea was to make suing easier, and /boy/ did it work.

You should read "Liability: the Legal Revolution and its Consequences", by Peter W. Huber, Basic Books, 1988. Might open your eyes. Expansion of tort was a noble idea, but one that has proven enormously toxic all around. Except to the tort bar, which has used that expansion to enrich itself obscenely.

Yes it was. McDonald's had to protect themselves somehow from liability run wild.

Using the power of the state. Absent that state power, those "12 ordinary people" had not one leg to stand on.

Do you truly believe that? Congress is made up of many lawyers, as is the executive branch. They absolutely LOVE loose and promiscuous tort! That's how they make their money.

Reply to
Tegger

Your information is completely bogus. Ronald RayGun's tort reform was designed to limit damages that juries are allowed to award. That is in part why judges can overrule juries and reduce the amount that is actually paid to a small fraction of what the jury awarded. Of course that part of the process all happens after the sensational headlines that get you in a lather go away.

Maybe you should read the constitution. Might open your eyes.

Oh posh. Mcdonald's sells enough coffee every hour to cover any liability damages that have ever had to pay for a hot cup of coffee.

What the heck does that mean? Do you want to abolish due process? Or do you want to abolish the whole constitution? Would you prefer the state to just step aside altogether. Then the citizenry could tar and feather and run the culprits out of town on a rail whenever they feel and injury has occurred. Is that how they do it in a a civilized world?

So you don't like the system the founding father's created. Too bad. Fortunately they made it pretty solid and not very easy to change.

Reply to
jim

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