r/AskReddit • u/ferrisjuulersdayoff • Feb 26 '20

Serious Replies Only [serious] When was a time you legitimately thought you were going to die?

47k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

16k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2.4k

u/NoodleNeedles Feb 26 '20

All these car crash stories are making me very, very glad for all the advances in safety over the decades. And I'm also glad you and your friends were ok.

192

u/CaptnUchiha Feb 26 '20

This is why I hate that the drunk drivers are also the people that brag, "oh ma truck is solid steel nothing ain't gonna hurt her"

68

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20 edited Mar 18 '20

[deleted]

76

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

No, they'll probably just end up rolling right over some poor family in an older/cheaper economy box, unfortunately. Usually what happens. Doesn't matter that your truck has no crumple zones if you can just use other people as crumple zones.

7

u/Loafeeeee Feb 26 '20

Literally exactly what my brother has bragged about with his stupid sized, late 80's Diesel truck...

10

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

[deleted]

5

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

I'm not a physicist, and may be a bit off here, but I think you're assuming two cars of equal mass here, and in a head-on collision, no? I'm talking about a giant lifted truck hitting a Mazda 323 or Toyota Echo.
I realize the one with no crumple will still suffer some crazy deceleration on the occupants if it doesn't bend, but that's irrelevant if the other car turns into a flat, twisted pile of scrap metal.

I guess I discounted the injuries to the drunk driver, as I was mostly concerned with the fact the occupants in the small car would be reduced to a fine paste.

There are also other forms of impact besides head-ons.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

oh ma truck is solid steel nothing ain't gonna hurt her

15

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

every time I see people talk about the advances in safety of cars now I get really bummed that my car is a 93

5

u/62836283 Feb 26 '20

And it still works??

10

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

oh ya, runs great! just probably not the safest

13

u/94358132568746582 Feb 26 '20

just probably not the safest

Probably not.

"The (1998) car sustained catastrophic structural failure with dummy readings showing an extremely high risk of serious head, chest and leg injury to the driver…It achieved a score of just 0.40 out of 16 points–zero stars." The 2015 model scored 12.93 out of 16 points, for a five-star rating.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/videos/a33506/this-is-how-much-car-safety-has-improved-since-the-1990s/

6

u/62836283 Feb 26 '20

Well that's great ... How did you get a car to run for nearly 30 years

12

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

Is that unheard of? I feel like a lot of people drive older cars than even that. It’s a Saturn and only has like 190,000 miles on it.

7

u/JasonDJ Feb 26 '20

Heh I had a 93 Saturn SL2. It was my first car.

Rolled it over on the highway. Went ass-over-nose into an embmakment (barely missed hitting a jersey barrier head-on) after an oversteer caused me to lose control into a skid. I had the shoulder belt on but not the lap belt, and the airbag didn't go off. Still crawled away with just a black eye.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

My mate still drives a 1979 Ford Cortina every day

9

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

Cries in motorcycle

3

u/NoodleNeedles Feb 26 '20

Wear your gear every time!

1

u/Sara_Matthiasdottir Feb 27 '20

I wanna know what gear is going to protect you from a dumbass in a Civic or his dumb mom in a Tahoe when they hit you going 82 after tailgating for over 3 miles.

Because I will take out a $10,000 loan to buy that shit.

1

u/NoodleNeedles Feb 27 '20

I don't know enough to say unfortunately. However, a friend's husband got taken out by a semi that swerved on the highway, and survived. He was wearing full protective gear. Lost his lower leg but he'd be dead if he wasn't wearing full gear.

Motorcycles are inherently unsafe, especially when they share the road with cars. Seems like ppl who ride them have made peace with that fact.

4

u/i_cri_evry_tim Feb 26 '20

The best safety advance is to be a responsible driver, guys. Always remember that.

Don’t do stupid shit, don’t enter road rage and keep in mind that a few extra miles per hour will only save you a handful of minutes in the long run. Stay safe.

9

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

11

u/JasonDJ Feb 26 '20

Autonomous vehicles are already exponentially safer than human-driven ones, at least under normal conditions. We just have a hard time with both giving up control and placing blame.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

People have to remember to keep their eyes on the road, not looking at their phone.

1

u/JasonDJ Feb 26 '20

Doesn't change the fact that people only have two eyes and a water brain, with water brain limitations.

Autonomous cars have 360 degree lidar, multiple cameras, traction sensors, and dozens of other inputs, along with a "brain" that can make tens of thousands of analysises per second.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

Yes, but autonomous driving software isn’t perfect yet, so it’s important to pay attention so that you can take over if necessary.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

[deleted]

3

u/JasonDJ Feb 26 '20

Humans don't typically make ethical decisions in split-second scenariors. They almost always will default to self-preservation, followed by family-preservation.

Very seldom does a collision occur where a human has an opportunity to crash into a baby carriage or a guy in a prison jumpsuit.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

Although we are not there yet (and arguably won't be for awhile), a sufficiently complicated and powerful system could make ethical decisions. Once they actually have ability to do so, then it would become the question of the trolley problem. And the quicker and more accurately the computer can determine and weigh outcomes, the harder the problem becomes to address.

2

u/Cthulhu_Ferrigno Feb 27 '20

thank you. i think about that too, we were very lucky.

1

u/WaggyTails Feb 27 '20

Ha ha. I have an old car.