-
Image via Wikipedia
Yesterday on slashdot I read an article about how the UK and Aussieland are going to attempt a program to prevent drivers from speeding. The idea is to fit cars with a GPS tracking device (big brother much?) that would monitor the vehicle's speed then warn the driver when they're speeding. Ultimately if the driver doesn't stop speeding the device would take power from the car and make it physically impossible to speed. Although I do wonder if it won't automatically also send you a citation for your thought crimes ...
There is a similar crusade against speeding going on in Slovenia at the moment. We have TV commercials, that nobody actually watches, and billboards, that nobody really cares about, and I'm sure some other things as well - all trying to make us think OMGSPEEDINGISSOVERYBADFORMEISHOULDDRIVELIKEANANNY ... must say I like how they're making a visual play on cigarette warnings and saying things like "Speedy drivers die younger"
However, I don't udnerstand why. Speed doesn't kill. Speed doesn't cause accidents. If anything, speeding makes it more likely for you to take part in a car wreck. The only thing speed does do is make crashes a bit more devastating once all the other factors cause them.
Now I won't claim to have any sort of statistical data on what I'm about to say (because it's all rigged to show speed and alcohol are the only ways you can die on the road). All I can offer is anecdotal evidence and some basic common sense salt that makes it sound very plausible ... at least in my head.
Most wrecks are caused by inattentiveness and bad driving.
The rationale is that manufacturers are trying their best to make our rides more comfortable and less like driving a car. This is bad. When you can't hear the engine, you can't feel the road and the wheel turns softwer than the average house door, it becomes very easy to forget you're driving. The driver stops paying attention or becomes complacent, they think of other things and so on. Then they crash. Official verdict? Ill adjusted speed ie. speeding.
Cars shouldn't feel like your living room, the steering wheel should properly translate the road into your hands, you should feel the road in your bum and you should hear the engine. In fact I'd go so far as to make a legal limit as to how quite the engine can be inside the car and how stiff the wheel et cetera. If the driver becomes unattentive, hell, stiffen everything up! Snap them back into reality!
However accidents do happen, no matter how attentive the driver is, unexpected things can always happen on road. Hell, the road can suddenly become slick at some point and then you're in trouble.
But the problem is, people simply arent' trained to react properly. So they crash. Official verdict, once more, would be speeding. Although inability to manuever the car properly would be a much better verdict. It is my personal oppinion that driving school shouldn't be just teaching us how to drive in traffic and not to speed, by god how annoying they were with the not speeding - I failed thrice because of it. What they should be teaching is how to brake effectively (I think 70% of the people don't know just how short of a stopping distance their car can have), how to steer effectively, what to do when the car understeers/oversteers and most of all, just what on earth the car is capable of because most cars out there stick to the road much better than people give them credit for.
-
Image via Wikipedia
If I could have it my way all drivers would be required to take a driving skill test every five years. We should also be adopting Finland's (or is it the whole of
Continue reading about Stop making cars into living rooms and speeding won't be a problem!
Semantically similar articles hand-picked by GPT-4
- Drunk driving is manslaughter!
- The day I drove a Porsche 356 Speedster
- Science Wednesday: Self-driving cars
- I learned two things today 10.8.
- GoKarting is better than both sex _and_ bacon
Learned something new?
Read more Software Engineering Lessons from Production
I write articles with real insight into the career and skills of a modern software engineer. "Raw and honest from the heart!" as one reader described them. Fueled by lessons learned over 20 years of building production code for side-projects, small businesses, and hyper growth startups. Both successful and not.
Subscribe below 👇
Software Engineering Lessons from Production
Join Swizec's Newsletter and get insightful emails 💌 on mindsets, tactics, and technical skills for your career. Real lessons from building production software. No bullshit.
"Man, love your simple writing! Yours is the only newsletter I open and only blog that I give a fuck to read & scroll till the end. And wow always take away lessons with me. Inspiring! And very relatable. 👌"
Have a burning question that you think I can answer? Hit me up on twitter and I'll do my best.
Who am I and who do I help? I'm Swizec Teller and I turn coders into engineers with "Raw and honest from the heart!" writing. No bullshit. Real insights into the career and skills of a modern software engineer.
Want to become a true senior engineer? Take ownership, have autonomy, and be a force multiplier on your team. The Senior Engineer Mindset ebook can help 👉 swizec.com/senior-mindset. These are the shifts in mindset that unlocked my career.
Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, for frontend engineers 👉 ServerlessHandbook.dev
Want to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz React components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization
Want to get my best emails on JavaScript, React, Serverless, Fullstack Web, or Indie Hacking? Check out swizec.com/collections
Did someone amazing share this letter with you? Wonderful! You can sign up for my weekly letters for software engineers on their path to greatness, here: swizec.com/blog
Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com
By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❤️