Motor vehicles / cars crashing into buildings

Thanks, I probably should have thought that someone would have that stupid idea, but I didn't.

It's been the same since the start of motoring--blame the environment, not the driver, then try to change the environment. It never works, only causes faster driving and its consequent problems. People thinking that crashing into posts is no longer a problem will drive less carefully. Trees? Oh, you just chop them down--like in Germany in the 60s, to facilitate widening roads. The slogan then was 'every tree is a potential murderer', citing those well-known murderous intentions that trees have.

Shouldn't this thread title be "Motor vehicle / cars being driven into buildings"? I'm sure it isn't them doing the crashing.

Sure, but if you read the first post, that was kind of part of the joke. :)

Aah yes, I recall that now.
As you were.

Ultimately I think it's a good idea - there's a number of reasons to do this beyond reducing the danger of an impact. However, people still describe hitting a tree as 'wrapping yourself around it'. The tree didn't do it, the fuckwit behind the wheel did.

As always, it comes down to the same old argument/debate/tussle/balance between personal freedom and protecting people from themselves and their own stupidity. I was listening to an (old - turns out its the first) episode of the freakonomics podcast about safety gear and how it changes incentives, this is exactly the same.

Yes, or look at John Adams passim:

http://www.john-adams.co.uk/

I don't think it's a good idea, and I'm convinced ultimately it wouldn't do any good. There are loads of parallel cases that show it.

If we were to take the argument against making lampposts less deadly to hit through to it's logical conclusion should we not therefore be making them spiky or explosive to really discourage people driving into them?

Perhaps we should do away with the central dividers on motorways to help focus the mind and do away with seat belts to ensure we all concentrate.

spiky

It has been suggested elsewhere that a spike on the steering wheel of vehicles would do a lot to improve driving standards.

^
^^

Yes. See pages 154ff in this:

http://www.john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/RISK-BOOK.pdf

Car perfectly wedged between lampposts on OKR last night

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How do they do it ? what's the speed limit along there, 30mph with some 20mph sections.

It's a bit of London i regognise because of the Dun Cow pub converted to a surgery :)

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/975318836298878976?s=20

And just to prove it's not only London, a nice bit of parking from Morpeth.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/18/a-mess-of-chaos-and-panic-man-arrested-after-driving-car-into-nightclub

Fox will be on your case in a moment for posting a structure. :) Quite astonishing, though--it reminds me of that picture of the lorry stuck between drystone walls somewhere in the countryside after the driver followed his sat nav there.

That's another beautiful visual metaphor for Brexit.

A traditional British mini would have cleared that. It proves these modern European safety standard compliant messed about with by the German type are no good and have created so many problems for us we can’t back out easily.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-43543144

Two injuries, one of them 'possibl[y] life-threatening'. It doesn't say whether the injured were bystanders or if the driver was among them.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/horrified-shoppers-rush-to-free-person-trapped-under-car-after-collision-in-north-london-a3801201.html

A good example of an article in which a driver is not mentioned, as noted by the first commentator.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-43662862

Pretty shocking that a 73 year old man is getting the blame for a Porsche driving itself through a wall.

Another said: "Beats me why a 73-year-old is driving a car like that anyway."

Is a Porsche harder to control for the seniors ?

Not a crash into a building, perhaps we finally do need a thread for 'motor vehicles crashing into structures'. Still, it seems to have been a more or less frontal crash into a wall, which as with house walls has left the driver uninjured. It's fortunate that nobody was walking into or from the subway at the time.

These people are so lucky that mean fence didn't kill anyone
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-43698343

"four of the luckiest people our officers have ever seen"
um...
"man who was driving the car suffered serious head injuries"

Doesn’t sound like head injuries, or even decapitation, would have been life-changing.