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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43752226
Amazing safety statistic from Volvo, and to me shows what can be done with all this technology as it matures.
I read this earlier, and couldn't help but wonder, how many people have been killed by being run over by these three ton tanks.
Don't get me wrong, it's generally a good think, but it seems people just end up paying less attention to driving.
Also would be interested by the stats but if your not killing the occupants then maybe your safety goes both ways
Correlation does not imply causation.
In this case, the vast majority of XC90's on the road won't be equipped with AEB.
for context based on 2016 4.89 people dies on the UK's roads today
Every little helps
I do find the effective momentum arms race that we seem to be involved in worrying. Bigger, heavier, wider cars making the occupants safer but the pedestrian, cyclist or driver of an 'old fashioned' small light car at best more intimidated and at worst more vunerable.
How many people have been run over by seven ton vans, sixty ton loaded articulated trucks, buses...
I’ve driven quite a few different cars with these sort of driver aids, and I’ve not felt it’s led to any inattention to my driving, however autopilot systems seem to be fraught with those sort of issues, to the extent that a whole shitload of warnings are having to be fitted to alert drivers whose attention drifts off. Tesla in particular have had issues with accidents caused by drivers ignoring all the instructions given to them, turned on autopilot and taken their hands off the wheel and, it seems, their attention off the road. Personally, autopilot systems frighten me, I don’t trust the systems not to fail at the wrong moment, and the human component not to fail at any given moment.
I can't see AEB making drivers less vigilant
I do find the effective momentum arms race that we seem to be involved in worrying. Bigger, heavier, wider cars making the occupants safer but the pedestrian, cyclist or driver of an ‘old fashioned’ small light car at best more intimidated and at worst more vunerable.
More intimidated = more likely to get out of the way.
I expect that a fair amount of work goes into making modern cars as pedestrian-collision-friendly as possible-at-a-reasonable-cost.
Also it's a pretty dodgy statistic.
50,000 xc90s in total sold over 17 years. So if they sold at a relatively even rate over that time and given a few of the older ones won't be on the road any more or got written off you could guestimate that about an average of 20,000 on the road every year. Over that time there have been about an average of 30,000,000 cars on the road in the UK. So xc90s made up about 0.0006% of the cars on the road. Then an average of 2250 deaths on UK roads each year during the time the xc90 has been on sale but only about 40% are people inside a car, so thats about 900 a year.
It's not that statisitcally unlikely that none of those 900 people were in a car that only represents 0.0006% of all cars. Should have been about 8 of the 16000 killed in a car over the last 17 years were in an xc90 if it was perfectly average I reckon so clearly zero is an improvment but given it's a tank it's not a complete shock that it is.
Uber Atonomous Volvo XC90 kills pedestrian.
Bit cheeky jimjam, didn't that car have Volvo's safety systems turned off in favour of Uber's?
<divs> removed manually.
Bigger, heavier, wider cars making the occupants safer but the pedestrian, cyclist or driver of an ‘old fashioned’ small light car at best more intimidated and at worst more vunerable.
It does make a big difference if a lightweight car and a heavy car collide head on - the lighter vehicle will come off much worse, but I don't think it makes any difference to a cyclist whether you get hit by a small car or a big car. The intimidation factor is much more related to driver behavior than the size of the car IME.
How many miles did the Volvos drive?
And in other news, car insurance premiums are lower Safer cars? Better drivers?
Convert, as suggested by timba, you need to do your sums based on deaths per 1,000,000 miles driven.
100% of dead motorcyclists I've seen were under a Volvo.
Convert, as suggested by timba, you need to do your sums based on deaths per 1,000,000 miles driven.
Further than that; to be more accurate I would need to have looked at passenger miles - taking into account the number of people in the car as well as the miles driven. You should also look at the type of miles as they are not as equally dangerous. Regardless, I was mainly looking at the figures and try to put them in context with the huge number of cars on the road and the relatively small number of deaths.
It’s so subjective - if an xc90 got stuck on a level crossing tomorrow killing a full car of people and making it much closer to statistical average would it make all the safety kit in the car any less efective?
The most significant development since the seatbelt
Air bags.
I don’t trust the systems.
I don’t trust humans.
I think the reason its the safest vehicle on these statistics, is due to most of them being in the garage most of the time with faults, mainly the automatic gearboxes which are made of swiss cheese!
The Diesel XC is also so slow that i don't think it can actually move fast enough to hurt anyone! And i suspect the driving demographic is significant too, ie how many people have been killed in say the Volvo V70? Pretty few as well i suspect. I mean when was the last time you said "LOOK!, look at that MANIAC in that Volvo!"...... 😉
Dunno about that maxtorque. Around here xc90's are the school run battle bus of choice, driven by milfs/mamajammas/whateverwerecallingthemthisweek whilst doing their makeup and eating toast queing to drop their kids off on the yellow zig zag parking area outside schools.
Usual rehash of a press release, sort of thing you expect on cycling websites not a publicly funded news provider.
The premise is that the car is safer for occupants not for those on the outside. Drivers with a sense of invulnerability won't drive the same as those who perceive risk
I mean when was the last time you said “LOOK!, look at that MANIAC in that Volvo!”……
I don't know I generally can't hear them over the sound of me being Awesumz... 😂
"However, it's really important that motorists don't become complacent and allow their attention to drift while driving, assuming the tech will just take over if there are any problems."
As if! Humans become complacent? Pfft 😉
IN 1885 Karl Benz constructed the first automobile.
It had three wheels, like an invalid car,
And ran on alcohol, like many drivers.
Since then about seventeen million people have been killed by them
In an undeclared war;
And the whole of the rest of the world is in danger of being run over
Due to squabbles about their oil.
If an alien was to hover a few hundred yards above the planet
It could be forgiven for thinking
That cars were the dominant life-form,
And that human beings were a kind of ambulatory fuel cell:
Injected when the car wished to move off,
And ejected when they were spent.
Heathcote Willams - 'Autogeddon' (1987)
sbob
Uber Atonomous Volvo XC90 kills pedestrian.
Bit cheeky jimjam, didn’t that car have Volvo’s safety systems turned off in favour of Uber’s?
It's as clear as mud what systems were or were not running on that car. Uber don't have their own hardware. It may well have still had Volvo safety systems in place and simply been mapping / data gathering for uber. I haven't read anything conclusive about it - investigations are still on going.
"If an alien was to hover a few hundred yards above the planet
It could be forgiven for thinking
That cars were the dominant life-form,"
....just before they invaded to plunder our planet for its natural resources to power the aliens spacecraft on its inter-galactic travels in search of more natural resources to power their spacecraft......
Road injury deaths is about 10th in the top 10 according to the WHO and almost all of road deaths are occur on the roads of 'poor' and developing nations (the old '3rd world') who are unlikely to be able to afford a fully spec'd up Volvo. So a fully spec'd up Volvo apparently makes the worlds safest roads a tiny little bit more safe. Hardly the most significant developments since the seatbelt.
‘The most significant development since the seatbelt’ might be lower speed limits in urban areas, limit car sizes and physically govern their speeds. And maybe the TE Lawrence recommendation of the large steel red spike on the steering wheel. (Volvo ones to be made of safety steel, of course).
Instead of providing cycling infrastructure, provide special car infrastructure away from the street, ie return the streets to their original purpose - for self propelled humans.
Perhaps dig up the existing roads and put tunnels under them for the cars so they do not appear on our city streets.
It would also have the benefit of providing somewhere for all the urban infrastructure like plumbing, wiring etc, so that would be the last time the street had to be disturbed.
Plus all the pollution produced by the cars could be filtered out through the lungs of the drivers.
This could all be paid for by, wait for it........ a road tax. 🙂
(Is there a smiley for tongue in cheek?)
The intimidation factor is much more related to driver behavior than the size of the car IME.
There is evidence to suggest that size and stature of car influence driver behaviour...
countzero said
I’ve driven quite a few different cars with these sort of driver aids, and I’ve not felt it’s led to any inattention to my driving...
You don't strike me as a fukwad though, and that is the problem with these systems they turn bad drivers into mediocre drivers who pay less attention because ' the car will sort it out' and 'i'm alright so...'
The citizens who think, are sensible and considerate see the driver aids for what they are.
vinnyeh said
I expect that a fair amount of work goes into making modern cars as pedestrian-collision-friendly as possible-at-a-reasonable-cost.
I think the legal responsibility is too protect the occupants, anything else is lip service until there is accountability to properly protect those who get hit by needlessly large vehicles with aggressive front end structures. Fat chance of that with the tories and their ilk in power, their supporters are safe.
>‘The most significant development since the seatbelt’ might be lower speed limits in urban areas,
We have 20mph on all roads except the ring road in Cambridge and 100% of drivers complete ignore it. Absolutely no one sticks to 20mph all the time.
>and physically govern their speeds.
Pretty sure they had this in Sweden at some point. Personally, would love to see it made mandatory for all cars.
I can’t see AEB making drivers less vigilant
This. On my Volvo it cuts in late that you need replacement underwear afterwards. Only seen it activate once, worked exactly as designed (car shunted from behind and my foot slipped off the brake. AEB stopped the car about six inches from the one in front)
like this?
The day I bought mine it cut in as one of the garage employees sprinted across a raining yard from in between cars - the V70 stopped dead from 15mph before I even reacted. Amazing..
100% of dead motorcyclists I’ve seen were under a Volvo.
100% of dead motorcyclists I’ve personally seen were dead after hitting the front of a Metro at 70mph; I can’t point to any other accidents involving motorcycles where there was a known fatality, or that any other vehicles were Volvos.
You don’t strike me as a fukwad though, and that is the problem with these systems they turn bad drivers into mediocre drivers who pay less attention because ‘ the car will sort it out’ and ‘i’m alright so…’
The citizens who think, are sensible and considerate see the driver aids for what they are.
Thank you, I like to think that I’m not either, I enjoy my job, I’ve done at a very rough guess around 70-80,000 miles over the last 20 months, and keeping it means very much not driving like a fukwad! I also agree with what you say about these systems, they do seem to encourage average drivers to absolve themselves of any responsibility to pay attention to what’s going on around them, and that’s what terrifies me!
Its an industry story to flog new tech.
If you really want to improve safety you’ll regulate vehicle size, weight and power.
double post
100% of dead motorcyclists I’ve personally seen were dead after hitting the front of a Metro at 70mph; I can’t point to any other accidents involving motorcycles where there was a known fatality, or that any other vehicles were Volvos.
You reiterate my point; isolated statistics are useless.
[i]bsims wrote:[/i]
like this?
Wow! That looks like something which might have saved 8 lives had it been fitted to the truck involved in a crash which has been in the news recently.
I mean when was the last time you said “LOOK!, look at that MANIAC in that Volvo!”
I mean when was the last time you said “LOOK!, look at that MANIAC in that Volvo!”
I'd say that of all the cars I see every day being driven badly, a large and significant proportion are up to 10 year old Volvos. Along with Seat and BMW Maxis
They're marketed as sporty lifestyle cars and accordingly driven by people who either are distracted because it's filled with spawn, they're on the phone/ Facebook/ Instagram or just don't give a shit about what happens outside the windows unless it directly has specific consequences affecting them.
Most significant development since seatbelt is the airbag. Lots of soft bits on cars now for pedestrians, so most people will survive a 30mph contact with the front end, although landing on the road/tree needs a helmet.
AEB is really clever, but the problem is no super computer and sensors can counter someone running out into fast traffic, so Zero fatalities needs either no people next to cars (Dysotopia) or slower vehicles.
Of course the driver in a Volvo will be safe.
AEB imo is an excellent system with great potential to improve safety but it doesn’t absolve drivers from their responsibilities.
Unfortunately most people would rather have a fancier set of alloys on a new car than spec these systems, I attempted to find a used Vw Up,mii,citigo for my daughter and it seemed that almost no one was prepared to pay£250 when new...
whilst the additional driving aids have great potential to improve safety the weakest link is drivers, it’s time drivers had regular training. Health and safety performance in the workplace has improved with the addition of improved/ safer equipment and processes but progress then tends to plateau further progress only tends to develop with behavioural change.
Maybe part of the stats for the XC90 are due to behavioural traits of the drivers?
[i]craigbroadbent wrote:[/i]
Lots of soft bits on cars now for pedestrians, so most people will survive a 30mph contact with the front end, although landing on the road/tree needs a helmet.
Landing on the road/tree as is inevitable if you get hit at 30mph - and I'm not all that convinced how much a helmet will help. Though I'd like to see the evidence that even the first bit is true.
We have 20mph on all roads except the ring road in Cambridge and 100% of drivers complete ignore it. Absolutely no one sticks to 20mph all the time.
It's been well documented by the Police that 20mph limits are unenforceable unless caught by cameras.
It’s been well documented by the Police that 20mph limits are unenforceable unless caught by cameras.
In my student days I got pulled over by a policeman with a radar gun in a 20 zone in Fife and was punished accordingly. It's definitely enforceable.
In this case, the vast majority of XC90’s on the road won’t be equipped with AEB.
Can't comment on the XC90 as I sold mine ages ago, but all XC60s have AEB as standard, even on the poverty-spec models. I don't believe you can even order one without it. Even the cars without radar cruise control and all of the toys have the little camera behind the mirror. I guess that the XC90 is probably the same.
Great cars, BTW. Bugger to get 4 bikes up onto the roof though. You need a bloody step-ladder!
Most significant development since seatbelt is the airbag
Yes, but what about those people that have heart attacks when the airbag goes off, receive facial injuries, or feel more complacent so they become moving time bombs on the road?
Joking, obviously, but to make a point. Automated driving is going to save a staggering amount of lives and we'll look back in a generation and laugh at how we used to drive our own cars in the way we laugh at how someone had to walk in front of early cars waving a red flag.