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Forbes reports on Tesla's reaction to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's crash test safety rating for the Tesla Model S:
Tesla does not take criticism well. Tesla has long had an attitude that anything said about the company, its products or CEO that isn't absolutely hagiographic is tantamount to heresy and anyone who disagrees hates humanity and the planet. Thus I was disappointed but not at all surprised to see the company's official, dismissive response this morning to the latest batch of crash test results from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which didn't reinforce the company line that everything it does is the best ever.
The Tesla Model S received only an "acceptable" rating from IIHS on its small overlap frontal crash test, a notch below the top rating of "good," with slack in the seat belt allowing a crash test dummy's head to hit the steering wheel despite the cushioning of the airbag. The less than optimal result comes after Tesla had said it had corrected the problem in the wake of a similar result in an earlier test.
A Tesla spokesperson's response was to besmirch IIHS. "IIHS and dozens of other private industry groups around the world have methods and motivations that suit their own subjective purposes." Yes they do. IIHS's purpose is to protect drivers and of course, in turn, reduce the payouts for insurance companies.
Also at CNET and Business Insider.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday July 07 2017, @04:05PM (4 children)
A) Yes. So potential death. Let's not play this down. Serious head injury requiring trauma care is a potential death. It just depends on who responds to your accident (if anyone).
B) Yes. Like in the scenario I said, for instance. And they check because your head touching the wheel is INCREDIBLY serious and potential death (as above), even if they are treating you and don't happen to realise you did that.
C) Yes. By law. Every day. Since the day I learned to drive. And it is one belt that does lap-and-shoulder and I've never worn it so improperly that one or the other wouldn't be covered (seriously, fucking lap-belts? What era did you cobble that car together from duct-tape in?).
So... thanks. But I went to driving school, passed my test, in a country where seatbelt use is mandatory at all times (slight exception for reversing at low speed, I believe, but to be honest who's turning that far in their seat to see behind them adequately anyway, I could never work that out), and where everyone buckles up by force of habit when they get into a car and the only people I ever have to remind are foreigners who don't have such laws (because I can be liable if they do not, but more importantly the seat-belt light is mandatory to alert the driver and I have to over-ride it from the steering wheel on every trip if someone isn't wearing one or it beeps like fuck at me).
P.S. The seatbelt annoys the fuck out of me on one particular junction on the way home every time, which is almost a blind corner, so you have to edge-out slowly into a road where people don't necessarily notice that it's a junction. Hence you have to LEAN FORWARD to see out the sides properly, edge out slowly, etc. And every time I lean slightly forward to try to see as much as possible, before my car comes to a full halt, which means the seatbelt locks (so if there was a collision, it wouldn't fire the airbag into my face) and I have to wait few more seconds before I can see. Drives me insane and catches me every day for the last three years. But I still buckle up before the car even moves and don't release unless I'm at home. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
Seriously, would you like a signed, witnessed testimonial? Every god-damn time.
And it's not even regarded as that unusual as nobody who gets into my car ever has to be reminded to do the same unless they are American.
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday July 07 2017, @04:38PM
A) Not playing it down. You called it a, "death sentence," which is overplaying it. Many people survive such injuries. Which you seem to deny.
B) Yeah. And it can happen EVEN THOUGH THE AIRBAG DEPLOYS. It can happen in a Tesla. It can happen in a Volvo. It depends entirely upon the physics of the particular accident and the deployment time of the bag versus the forward acceleration of the person less the restraining force of the belt after it deploys. So don't make it out like in order to get a head injury one CAN'T have been wearing the belt. Which is my point here - one can wear a belt perfectly and nevertheless get a head injury from a steering wheel.
(The severity of which depends upon both the speed of impact with the wheel, and the speed with which the brain impacts the frontal bone in coup-contrecoup motion if you want to speak the language of emergency medicine. But if it's enough to leave a mark it gets treated as the crisis it is. Then again, any airbag deployment with any significant vehicle damage gets treated as serious trauma in any event because head injury is just one of the ways one dies in an accident. Just as common is injury to the heart caused by the restraint of the shoulder belt.)
C) You don't have a lap-belt on your car? Even if you have a shoulder strap? Yeah, the part that goes ACROSS YOUR WAIST is a LAP BELT, even in a three point harness where it is part and parcel of the shoulder belt. Sorry if you call that bit something different, or if you live in a backwards country where nothing goes across your waist. (Or you drive a car using a four point harness. More safe but nobody does it outside of racing in the U.S.) And MOST people wear that lap belt above the iliac crest (the top of your hips for any who don't know anatomy.) Such that in an accident it restrains your intestines / bladder and maybe base of stomach if you ride it really high. Which causes unintentional soft tissue abdominal injuries in an accident, because it's meant to ride on that upper part of your hips.
Oh, and in the U.S., seatbelt use for adults is mandatory by law in all states except New Hampshire. I'll grant you that compliance isn't all that great always. And you're right - make it a habit you do without thinking and it is easy and it should be.
I'm sorry I jumped all over you. But your stating all steering wheel head impacts is a death sentence is incorrect. As is your assertion that one can't get a steering wheel injury while wearing a seatbelt. (Or did you miss the bit that said a belt was being used in TFA?) And I've seen enough of them to know, to call that out as bullshit.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @07:24PM (2 children)
Some of my scariest moments while driving have been when I desperately needed to look over my shoulder, but the damn seatbelt had locked up due to braking. Oh, I'm braking hard in a stressful situation, so just take away my ability to see. If I can't see the vehicles around me, maybe I can't hit them?????
Thus I always drive with my shoulder way forward. I both hunch over the steering wheel and twist my upper body.
So far, crash avoidance has worked, despite my seatbelt's attempt to kill me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @08:53PM (1 child)
Sounds like you are a candidate for better-aimed mirrors. I have my side mirrors out so I can't quite see the sides of my own car (unless I move my head slightly sideways), this minimizes the blind spot. And, I'm polling the mirrors constantly in heavy traffic, so I know if someone has entered the blind spot. Only times I turn around are in parking or backing up.
Have you tried any of the newer cars with blind spot warning?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @02:23AM
When I drive a huge van, I do use the mirrors. I can aim mirrors correctly. This is not a nice way to drive; normal cars are much more enjoyable.
When driving a normal car, I want to look around. The mirrors are always small in a car. (vans have big ones) Newer cars have crap mirrors, with an extra lens that gives two small images instead of one nice big image.
I don't know much about blind spot warning. I assume it has latency issues. If it is an actual warning, it probably has false alarms all the time. If it is an LCD screen, it will have brightness problems and blur.