Most people can say it's more dangerous to shoot a gun than not shoot a gun, drive than not drive, etc., but fail utterly at actually assigning probabilities to any particular threat. Predictions are based entirely on which made-for-television specials they watched as children, whether they watch nightly news, their particular prejudices and phobias, etc.
My team would frequently find ourselves waiting around for a few days at a time in Kandahar in between operations. A common practice by the enemy at the time was to hire two local nationals to set up a mortar on a fuse. (Literally a fuse. Of course, the "mortar" was just a metal tube propped up with rocks.) They'd point it in the vague direction of the base, light the fuse, and be back in the village spending their money on porn when the thing actually went off.
It would land somewhere in the dozen square miles of empty space on Kandahar Air Base in the middle of the night. (I never once was close enough to impact to actually hear the round.) The sirens would go off. All allied personnel would get up, scamper off to the shelters, and take accountability of all of their people while waiting for a follow up attack that never happened. An hour later, they might go back to bed. To my knowledge, no one had ever actually been killed by one of these.
Since we were a transient team not really accountable to anyone, we just put a pillow over our heads and went back to sleep (or went back to the book or whatever). Mortars are dangerous. These particular mortars were not dangerous, just irritating. In the modern, insanely risk averse military, however, every threat no matter how trivial has to be treated with the utmost seriousness. The intent was not to damage, but to harass; it worked.
well, you also see which sort of car to drive is more risky which in that graph shows some information above 'not to drive is the safest drive'
I just think its also a good point to choose your homebase so your daily ways are short; there are people driving 50 km to work (and more) which the german state has subventions for; They were added to stop the outskirts from dying, but today i'd say its outright wrong since it makes people waste their time on their way to work just because of its "not as expensive"
there are other similar things to see; since the ICE track Cologne <->Frankfurt opened, and there were two smalish cities in between in the middle of nowhere; one is Montabauer:
(zoom out 3 steps to see Frankfurt and Koeln /cologne)
which is ~100km away from Frankfurt, but a growing number of people start commuting from there to FFM because of the distance by the ICE is half an hour; so by effect Montabauer has become a suburb of frankfurt, which is a bad thing if you watch the co2-footprint of such a behaviour.
It's kind of obvious that if you drive for less time, fewer miles, and lower speeds, you're likely to get into fewer accidents or at least have fewer serious injuries.
This is kinda moot if you work 50 miles from home in one direction and your spouse lives 60 miles in another one. It's also kinda moot if your choice is between that and living someplace you consider unlivable or dangerous.
Relative safety of different vehicles is an entirely different issue. Some cars take impact better, others are more likely to flip, etc. Most people will not drive less because of a study, because they feel that the vast majority of their car rides are a necessity. Many people do look at a car's safety rating when they're looking to purchase a car.
Di Jan 25 2011 00:54:00 EST von triLcat @ UncensoredRelative safety of different vehicles is an entirely different issue. Some cars take impact better, others are more likely to flip, etc. Most people will not drive less because of a study, because they feel that the vast majority of their car rides are a necessity. Many people do look at a car's safety rating when they're looking to purchase a car.
yes, another form factor about the big SUVs (next to their balance point being way up in comparison to a sedan -> flipping verticaly) is, that most drivers are just unable to control their vehicle in a safe way for them and their environment because of the overview about whats going around them and they simply don't see stuff.
interesting that bigger people carriers don't seem to have that problem; maybe because of they're operated by proffessional drivers...
at $7.50/gallon, there's not a whole lot of frivolous driving in Israel...though I'm surprised how many people won't carpool b/c it's a little inconvenient.
I'm actually kind of irked at a friend who won't carpool even once a week which means that his wife is always stranded at home with 2 kids even though the car sits in a parking lot all day.
she should get herself a baakfiets ;-)
http://virginbrain.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/bakfiets.jpg
I've even seen a mom around here riding such a beauty with her kidz, though the terain is a little hilly...
I concluded I wouldn't buy a SUV. I can get a small pickup truck, or even a large one which will be more practical, safer, fuel efficient, etc. . Local rich dude(Hugh Morton) had a Buick sedan and a pickup truck. No SUV's at his house in Linville. My cousin, the fire chief, said Jeeps/CJ/Wrangler were useless compared to a 4wd pickup truck. I can take it to Galloway's and have Lester put all the eye candy I can afford on it. Winch, lift kit, skid plates.
heh, more pracical for shure. since you can load more..
but safer? probably only if there is something loaded; else your rear axis doesn't have the traction it needs to.
a friend of mine even had an al camino with _rear_ drive. guess what happened?
did a kickdown on a wet road, it went of into random direction, bang.
My family owns two cars. A GMC Yukon and a Mazda RX-8. For those unfamiliar, the Yukon is classified as a "full-size" SUV. It can seat seven people, or a crapload of cargo, or anywhere inbetween. It's huge, weighs a lot, has a nice hefty 5.2 liter engine block, and can tow a large load even when fully loaded. This is our vehicle for "long haul" trips as it provides the most comfort and cargo capacity.
The RX-8, on the other hand, is a sports car. Not as small as a typical roadster, but definitely smaller than a "mid-size" sedan or coupe. It can comfortably seat two people, plus two children or smaller (or very tolerant) adults in the back. Cargo capacity is medium to small. I've hauled groceries in it, but not much else. It's got a 1.3 liter rotary engine. Little to no towing capacity, but tops out around 200 MPH and can do 0 to 60 in around 6 seconds. This is my primary commuting vehicle.
On the occasions that I drive the Yukon, I drive in an almost completely different style than the RX-8. I accelerate and brake a lot less aggressively in the Yukon than I do in the RX-8. I'm much more careful to slow down when taking turns, and I tend to use the passing lane a lot less in the Yukon than I do in the RX-8. Just the simple knowledge that I'm driving a more massive, larger vehicle, tempers my attitude and reminds me that I need to be more conscious of how I drive. Not that I'm not conscious of my driving in the RX-8. With more manuverability and acceleration at my command, it definitely requires a lot of attention to drive safely in the RX-8 as well.
Driving Binder
The truck's big, slow, heavy, etc etc. But it can haul a shitload of
stuff.
The bike, OTOH, weighs 260lbs ready-to-ride. It's fast, and handles
-way- better than the truck does. It can go just about anywhere being
two feet wide and five feet long.
My accident/incident-avoidance "escape routes", if you will, vary
tremendously between the two. On the bike, I dump the clutch and
squeeze between the cars in front of me and let the idiot that "didn't
see me" hit that car. In the truck there's not much you can do at a
moment's notice like I can on the bike.
A sports car in the old sense, like the 60s where you had to fight with the car to make it do anything, might be some extra physical labor, but the car responds immediately, whereas a family sedan of some kind, you can't just point and punch it, there's a lot of laggy body roll.
With todays "sports cars" that have all the performance of a 60s sports car plus all the power options of any modern day car, (power brakes, power steering, etc) it really is painfully easy to drive a sports car. You don't have to plan or think ahead "how much will I have to oversteer to get the car THAT far over in the lane at 80mph", you just point and it goes.
In that sense the sports car is a better driving deal.
With what I've read about the advances in electronic control of automatic transmissions, I may go with an automatic (with manual override and paddle-shifters, though) instead of a manual transmission. In many cases, the programming is sophisticated enough that you'd have to be professional race-car driver to outperform the automatic version with a manual transmission.
Auto Binder
Admittedly, not exactly the same with an H-pattern stick-shift, but almost the same end-result. :P
Shift Binder