Media beatup

[Ash]

So just watvhing gold coast news pretty much slamming the GC parks. They were talking of AA then said this comes 3 months after the tragic event at dreamworld. Really? Unfortunate event at dreamworld, a freak accident but these rides are designed to stop if theres something wrong. Just like a car. Over the media

[bladex]

and you needed to make a whole new thread about it?

 

btw spellcheck dude

Edited January 12, 2017 by bladex

[Cactus_Matt]

Negativity sells, so does sensationalism, we have the unfortunate double edged sword of living in a country that's kind of uneventful in terms of 'bad things happening that make for interesting news' and so even the slightest thing 'going wrong' or in the case of ride stoppages 'going exactly as intended' will be considered newsworthy. I imagine in the US a ride stoppage wouldn't even be considered news given everything else that happens in a day.

[Reanimated35]

Just now, bladex said:

and you needed to make a whole new thread about it?

 

Why not? We did yesterday....

 

[bladex]

and now there's two!

[Jamberoo Fan]

42 minutes ago, Ash said:

... these rides are designed to stop if theres something wrong. Just like a car.

Cars are not designed to stop if something is wrong. In certain circumstances, they are designed to protect you by various means if something is wrong but not stop. If they did stop when something is wrong, it could cause a rear-end collision involving several cars on a motorway and if it did not cause such a collision, the road toll would probably be a lot lower than what it usually is.

[iwerks]

Those automated cars stop.

Yeah, what would they prefer, a ride that stops and is safe or a ride which continues and hurts someone, like in the Smiler accident?

[Jamberoo Fan]

14 minutes ago, iwerks said:

Those automated cars stop.

Ah, yeah, true - I was only thinking of the non-automated cars at the time, which is likely the most used car type still. In any case, most cars are not designed to stop if something is wrong.

[Santa07]

34 minutes ago, iwerks said:

Those automated cars stop.

Yeah, what would they prefer, a ride that stops and is safe or a ride which continues and hurts someone, like in the Smiler accident?

Reading some of the things the media writes, it almost sounds like the second sometimes, just so they can get a really juicy story.

[pushbutton]

1 hour ago, Jamberoo Fan said:

Cars are not designed to stop if something is wrong. In certain circumstances, they are designed to protect you by various means if something is wrong but not stop. If they did stop when something is wrong, it could cause a rear-end collision involving several cars on a motorway and if it did not cause such a collision, the road toll would probably be a lot lower than what it usually is.

Only if people behind the car that stopped were tailgating.

Sadly that's the majority of drivers here. I really hate people who tailgate.

If everyone maintained a safe gap between their vehicle and the one in front there would be hardly any collisions. Unfortunately I doubt that most drivers even know what a safe gap is.

[Levithian]

The thing you ought to be worried about with automated cars is they have to be designed to kill people. Not only that, they have to be programmed to be selective too.

[Brad2912]

15 minutes ago, pushbutton said:

Only if people behind the car that stopped were tailgating.

Sadly that's the majority of drivers here. I really hate people who tailgate.

How do you know the driving habits of forum members? 

Also depends on the deceleration & reaction time. I can be travelling safely 30m behind you but if you slam your brakes on at 100km/h unless I have fighter pilot-esque reflexes I'm gonna hit you. 

 

 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

12 hours ago, iwerks said:

Those automated cars stop.

Yeah, what would they prefer, a ride that stops and is safe or a ride which continues and hurts someone, like in the Smiler accident?

 

11 hours ago, Brad2912 said:

How do you know the driving habits of forum members? 

Also depends on the deceleration & reaction time. I can be travelling safely 30m behind you but if you slam your brakes on at 100km/h unless I have fighter pilot-esque reflexes I'm gonna hit you. 

 

 

Because every time a forum member is near him they try to run him over? i don't know i'm just trying to guess at his logic.

30 metres would be a very unsafe distance on a 100km/h highway. You won't even react that fast, let alone put on the brakes. People misjudge distance while driving, and while 30 metres seems a lot, it's literally nothing. Your braking distance at that speed is around 55 metres. Reaction time varies between people depending on how hazard aware they are, and whether they're actually paying attention at the time. In Queensland I find the answers to both of those questions tend to be 'not very' - but this is generalising and I recognise there are a lot of good drivers up here too - how to tell them apart? the good ones aren't sitting on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck and making a police report (although the bad ones sometimes take out the good ones through no fault of their own)

This is a nice quick article that explains stopping and reaction times http://www.drivered.com.au/following.html

and this is the official word from QLD DoT on the issue https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/road-safety/driving-safely/stopping-distances/graph/index.html

the short answer is in perfect conditions it will take you a minimum of 100m to stop safely - so at 30m, you aren't "travelling safely". The distance is increased in wet weather, if you have worn tyres or brakes, and of course if you are distracted, drunk, tired or otherwise impaired.

[mission]

12 hours ago, pushbutton said:

If everyone maintained a safe gap between their vehicle and the one in front there would be hardly any collisions. Unfortunately I doubt that most drivers even know what a safe gap is.

And when you do leave a safe gap some one decides that's a space and changes lanes into it effectively cutting your safe gap in half... happens all the time on the M1.

[Brad2912]

Yep - mission is spot on. You leave more than 50m on the M1 and 1, maybe 2, cars will merge into it a 110km/h

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

...yes, that happens. and - according to driver's handbooks \ driving instructors etc - when that happens, you are supposed to slow down to increase your gap back to a safe distance. If someone is following too closely behind you're also meant to slow down so that you have more stopping distance in front of you, so that you can decelerate more slowly to make allowances for the douche behind you.

Get a bored cop and you can be fined for following too closely.

I drive highways everyday, and I cringe when I see people pull in front of a truck's stopping space. Almost daily I see people vying for a truck enema.

[rappa]

I think AlexB has the authority here, especially if he is driving highways every day. 

 

NSW always taught safe traveling distance as a value of time not length. You should be 2-3 seconds behind the car in front. The length of that gap increases exponentially as your speed goes up. 

[New display name]

@djrappa that's what I was taught in QLD also.  I also taught how to secure my horse & cart before entering the pub.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

You are of course correct in using the value of time instead of length, and this is referred to in the links I provided. As the specific example gave a length, and specified the speed limit, it was easier to respond using the same measurements.

Per the first link I provided:

Quote

There are numerous sites that talk about the 3-second rule. Thats 3 not 2! But why do we have to keep a three second distance? Those sites explain how to achieve the distance by picking a stationary object that the vehicle in front passes, then you count 'one thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three'. If you pass that object prior to counting to three, you are too close.

I wasn't offering my highway driving as authority, but merely the beginning and introduction of an anecdote. I have a far better authority than 'driving on highways everyday' to quote if you really want to make an issue of it, but as I wasn't quoting an authority in the first place, I don't see a need.

[rappa]

That is entirely a very strange response to someone who was agreeing with you. 

[pushbutton]

Great to see at least some people appear to know what a safe gap is.

 

This is one of the best explanations I've seen about it

And this is one example of what can very easily happen when people don't leave a safe gap. It's just not worth the risk, yet I see numerous people doing it every day, even in heavy vehicles like trucks.

It's terrifying to be honest.

 

[Reanimated35]

How did we go from a duplicate thread about the AA stoppage, to discussing safe travelling distances while driving? 

[Whombex]

Quite simply Reanimated:

[bladex]

[pin142]

Surely you've been here long enough to know how threads work by now @reanimated35