Inspired by the thread about smarter cars. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=794414
Advertising these features is basically encouraging reckless driving. It has been proven, many times, that people will take more risks when driving a car they think is safer. Adding safety features and not telling anyone could be the only way for them to actually save lives. One of my best friends is a mechanical engineer, and he agrees with me on this.
You’re referring to risk homeostasis and it’s hardly proven. There is some evidence for it, but fairly weak, and in particular does not support a claim of constant risk behavior.
Road fatalities have gone down with the introduction of safety features; perhaps not to the level they would have had people not known about the features, but reduced nevertheless. And anyway, how are you supposed to keep this stuff secret? People will know the first time the feature is used.
Without advertising the features, automakers would gain much less utility from competing on them, and would just offer the bare minimum mandated by the government. So you end up with the worst of all worlds; people behaving the same as they would otherwise, but with only the minimum level of actual safety equipment.
What they said. Besides, having a mechanical engineer agree with this is irrelevant, as it’s not a mechanical engineering issue.
“Allowed”? By the government? In what way wouldn’t that constitute censorship? And besides, supposing a driver doesn’t know about these safety features, then one day one of them unexpectedly kicks in. That, in itself, could create a dangerous situation.
The greatest danger on our roads are those who believe that they are indestructible and that accidents only happen to other people it does not matter if they are driving a high powered car or a push bike their attitude is the same. My own no fault accident was caused by driver going through a red light and it was the side impact bars that saved me from serious injury and my seat belt kept me in my seat, because of these safety features I remained in control of my car and contained the accident to just the two cars. I want to know about all the safety features available and crash test reports not so that I can drive like an idiot but to preserve the life of my passengers. Yes safety features should be advertised, the idiots are in a very small minority.
Car manufacturers are in the business of selling cars. If safety features won’t help them make sales, they won’t install them.
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Why would manufacturers include them if they couldn’t advertise them?
“So why does this model cost $1000 more?”
“I’m not allowed to say.”
“Well I guess I’ll have the cheaper one then.”
And the idea, for which you’ll have to provide citations if you want to claim it’s been “proven, many times”, is that people unconsciously take more risks in cars they feel are safer. This isn’t about a conscious choice, so advertising would likely play a small role compared to the experience of driving the car and noticing the safety features doing their job.
Your friend may be a mechanical engineer, but he’s evidently missed quite a few obvious problems with this idea.
Additionally. If safety features are so useless due to increased reckless driving, how come traffic deaths are down in every western country?
It most absolutely is 100% a mechanical engineering issue. The opinion of the friend is misplaced though.
What is? The psychology of the existence (nor not) of risk homeostasis? The public policy implications of how safety features are advertised? The medical issues caused by safety equipment that the user doesn’t know about? The constitutionality of disallowing some kinds of speech? The market forces that drive consumer adoption of features beyond the minimum mandated level? Which of these things have anything to do with mechanical engineering?
The engineering behind the safety features is really the least important thing here, and as such the input of a mechanical engineer on these questions is of almost no use.
I’d be curious to know what your mechanical engineer friend thinks is causing the drop in fatalities if not the implementation of safety features (see chart here).
I guess the best thing to do would be encourage everyone to drive bugatti veyrons without wearing their seatbelt. Everyone will drive safely of course, because of the risks.
For the few who cannot afford such a car, maybe, I dunno, a motorized penny-farthing?
Is this thread serious? Of course carmakers should be permitted to advertise safety features. As for the notion that it will make people drive more recklessly, it ignores the fact that plenty of people in car crashes are the victims of someone else who drove recklessly - meaning, even if you don’t drive recklessly, you still need the safety features to defend against other people.
From a practical standpoint, it doesn’t matter how “bad” you are at driving, if fewer people end up in accidents (or fewer people are injured in accidents, or whatever metric(s) you want to use).
If a car causes people to drive more recklessly, they can’t legitimately say it is safer, can they? On the other hand, I think these modern cars really are safer, and your premise is false.
Mechanical engineers are not experts on human psychology or behavior.
OP, what do you think about a 12 inch spike mounted on the steering column of all cars? Don’t you think that would cause people to drive a lot more carefully? Is this something you would advocate?
I think simply attaching a six inch spike to the front of the steering wheel would suffice. People would probably be amazingly cautious in their driving.
Well, I was going by what the OP is: the addition of safety features to cars is a mechanical engineering exercise.
But now that you mention all that other stuff, with the exception of the constitutionality issue, they would also be part of the upfront systems development cycle.