🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <35a5ccd5.55385857@news.okc.oklahoma.net>,
   in@the.sig (E. Faubion) wrote:
>Dennis.Jensen@dwt.csiro.au (Dennis Jensen) wrote:
>
>>Earl, I posed another part to that question. What happens to others that are 
>>killed in the crash?
>
>Sorry about that.  I thought you were talking about the person who had
>the medical problem.  If the crash kills someone else then that *is*
>counted as a traffic death. 
>

Okay. So I guess it means that deaths in these cases can be counted as traffic 
deaths or other deaths depending on the involvement or non-involvement of 
other parties. I don't know the best way to resolve this, but to me it tells 
an incomplete story.

>>Earl, a little girl being killed in a car crash is heartrending (I have 2 
>>daughters, one aged 2 and one aged 4), so I understand exactly how that 
would 
>>feel. I also understand how you would feel investigating some of these 
>>crashes, or having to tell someone that their loved ones have died. That 
does 
>>not, however, mean that this should be based on an emotional level.
>
>My only purpose was to show that these numbers are real people.

I am well aware of that.

>Playing the number game is all well and fine but let's not lose sight
>of what this is all about.  Every day in the US we kill about 110
>people in traffic crashes.  That's the equivalent of one airliner
>augering in every day.   We wouldn't accept this kind of loss in
>trains or planes or ships but we, as a society, do* them in an motor
>vehicle.  It just doesn't make sense.
>

True, compared with aviation, the numbers are terrible. However, the correct 
way to tackle the problem is using scientific method and good statistical 
analysis, not gut feel. On a gut feel basis, it is easy to come to the 
conclusion that speed kills, but based on the statistics I have seen that is 
not the case. I am not impossible to convince, but I am afraid that the weight 
of the documentation (statistics, and analysis therof) that I have seen 
indicates that speed limits effectively do nothing. As I have said to you 
previously, I agree with speed kills if you are talking about too fast for 
conditions. I may or may not agree WRT exceeding speed limits, depending on 
whether the speed limit is or is not set WRT prevailing conditions. 
Unfortunately, prevailing conditions means that two people in identical cars 
doing the same stretch of road with the same weather/visibility conditions may 
have two different speeds that constitute too fast for the conditions.


>>Earl, reading is a strong suit, but it simply states clean concrete.
>
>Fair enough.  One will have to assume it was new concrete, the rough
>kind that does offer a high resistance. 

Earl, I don't have the information on this, but I would assume that the 
concrete would be new, but relatively smmoth. Rough concrete would be too 
variable in the results, as there would be fators other than just CoF playing 
a part. Still I can't say for certain, so the point is moot.


> Just a few hours ago I worked
>an auto-ped collision on that type of surface.  No skids though so we
>didn't do any tests on it however I'd guess it would yield a .80 or
>better.
>
>>>Contant velocity?  The issue was deceleration CoF.   Damn!   We're
>>>obviously not talking about the same things here.
>
>>Earl, there is a static CoF and a kinetic CoF-the kinetic relates to 
>>deceleration CoF. I think that you are being deliberately obtuse here.
>
>I think we somehow went in different directions.  The CoF I'm talking
>about (perhaps we should call it an acceleration/deceleration factor)
>has nothing to do with a static or kinetic.  They're different
>animals.   When dealing with accidents we more often deal with data
>that involves the limits of the vehicles involved rather than their
>normal performance.
>

I don't see what you are getting at here, could you please explain more fully.

>>Yep, please email it. The more info I get on the subject, the better.
>
>On it's way.
>

Very interesting. Do you know when the data was obtained, on what type of tyre 
and what type of vehicle. Looking at the format, I would say about 1960's. 
Tyres have come a LOOONNNNGGGGG way since then. But thanks for sending it, it 
is very interesting.

Dennis