Unsafe at Any Speed
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Wow I had no idea, that's kind of scary how far they went. Wasn't there something similar recently with a Nissan harassment campaign? Is this behavior somehow specific to automakers or are they just the only ones we hear about engaging in it?
No. Not unique at all. Just usually the people complaining about come off as consipiracy nuts. That's because the campaings are that effective. Great, now I sound like one of those people.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau...
Not being a lawyer or other legal minded type, WTF is this? Is this judge just so into their vendetta to do something crazy, or is this something that is allowed for in legal manuevering? How is it not judicial activisim AF?
Pretty sure I've heard of Facebook trying something as well.
Troll army raiders add swatting to the list.
US crash safety tests only use dummies in the size and shape of adult males. Crash safety for women and children is not tested.
Safety for other road users: other drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, is also completely unconsidered in US testing, directly contributing to the trends of wall-frontend pickups and SUVs that are now often deliberately designed and advertised for their ability to cause harm.
I think this is false. Under the NHTSA's "crash test dummies currently in service", they use dummies with the size and weight of men, women, children, and infants.
> female dummy either rides as a passenger or doesn’t participate in the test at all
> Currently, there is no physical crash test dummy that represents an average adult female anywhere in the world.
A thorough article on it: https://news.yahoo.com/crash-test-bias-male-focused-14022684...
And the scale is totally unrealistic: the "woman" dummy is 4'11" and 100 pounds, smaller than 95% of women in the world, and it is never tested in the driver seat.
No, smaller than a majority (don't wish to state 95%) of USA women, sure. But of the world, no.
No. You can confirm this by clicking on my link. The 3-year-old child's head is vastly larger in proportion to its body than the adult male's.
I think you are taking a pretty biased reading into the commercials you've referenced. Nearly every example provided in the subthreads is promoting the idea of the car representing performance and aggression, which are standard rhetoric for marketing high-performance/sports vehicles, which tend to be bought by men and tend to be bought by people who modify them for off-road (race track) usage.
There is definitely a fair argument to be made that these advertisements are inappropriate since they show people doing things on public streets which would be illegal if it weren't a closed course, and a fine print disclaimer isn't really sufficient. But to claim that they are /designed/ and advertised for their /ability to cause harm/ is a bit far based on the examples provided.
The reality is that vehicles are definitely categorized and marketed for different purposes and driver personality profiles, and that one of those profiles is definitely a masculine profile, and the mere existence of this is not harmful to non-masculine people which seems to be the argument you are making. There are just as many (actually much more popular) vehicles marketed to non-masculine profiles. In fact, one of the things I like to do with my partner is to discuss whether a commercial was targeted at me or them when we get commercials on Hulu. A lot of the commercials are for cars, despite neither of us looking to buy a car anytime soon.
The number of people tracking vehicles is so incredibly small that I don't think you can say any vehicle in mass production "tends to be" bought by those who would do it.
LOL! Surely you don't actually think that, right? There are far, FAR more "performance" vehicles on the road than on race tracks.
Whilst the IIHS isn't the NHTSA, it's certainly still used for safety tests when searching and looking for vehicles to purchase.
Whattttt? Can you provide some examples?
Note the "share the road" sign flying off the road. Yeah, nice visual there for anyone who might be outside that car.
Or maybe this one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MoJEj2X8NMI
That's the only example from this article [1] that I had saved for containing a list of egregious examples of aggressively dangerous car advertisements that is still online. The dangers of relying on youtube embeds of the things you wish to criticize.
1. https://archive.curbed.com/2020/1/31/21115593/super-bowl-wor...
This is a clear fantasy.
Are you mistaking this fantasy for reality? Or are you against the fantasy itself?
Is this the way you react to Hulk going green?
A gunman stands in a hallway, aiming down sights. "What do you get when you buy an AR-15 chambered in 5.56 with a full bump stock and 500nm laser sight?", a laser dot appears on a child's crying face, it explodes into a ball of confetti. "You get the fuck out of the way" A cop enters, is rapidly shot eight times in the chest while he fumbles with his holster, he falls to the ground. Superman appears, the gunman quick-swaps to a kryptonite mag and draws an S of bullet holes on his chest.
subtitle: [professional shooter on closed range, do not attempt]
Smith and Wesson: Empowering Americans since 1852
Do you think it would be totally normal and tasteful for such an action movie to end with instructions and a limited time offer on how to purchase the guns that were used by the terrorists and vigilantes in the movie?
I guess action movies don't make any profit from promoting violent behavior. I forgot that movie studios are non profits who donate their money to charity.
Do you also think that Doom and other video games are making kids violent and making them shoot up schools?
Do you think rap music will turn everybody into a violent gang member?
Will watching Elvis shake his hips on TV turn you into a sexual deviant?
I think what it comes down to is, you don't like cars because it's trendy these days to say cars are evil. But you like action movies, and video games, so it's all good.
What other product category advertises with felonious lawbreaking in the same way that car ads do?
There's an entire industry devoted to product placement and promotional consideration. Evolution was an ad for shampoo. Fast and the Furious was an ad for cars. Independence Day was an ad for computers.
Beyond direct product placement, movies are vehicles for inculturation and promoting or demoting certain values.
Vin Diesel doing stunts in a Dodge in a movie is not comparable to a Dodge ad that interrupts your TV show or football game extolling you to UNLEASH THE DEMON showing their car breaking 100mph and doing donuts on city streets, totally demolishing a "share the road" sign, buy now!
It seems like you jumped a step. The fantasy wasn't a driver mowing down people. I want pedestrians to get out from in front of my vehicle in just about every setting.
For real: what other product is regularly portrayed in advertisements being used in such criminally reckless ways?
I would say that this is common in advertising for movies and video games. Both regularly depict fantasy behavior that would be illegal if anyone did it in real life.
If you exclude product placement in fiction then I can't think of any commercials with illegal Behavior.
What is the central point that you are trying to make? You don't like cars that go fast or the depiction of them in commercials?
This is not a fantasy, it's an advertisement. You don't put something unless an ad unless it resonates with your target audience.
I was absolutely blown away by this.
Joke aside, anyone thinking these ads depict acceptable behavior is nuts, and will find ways to harm others even if they never drive. Any thinking adult knows this is fantasy.
This seems like disinformation.
The 1960 Corvair suspension design (swing axle) is shared with many older European cars, the most popular being the VW Beetle (with which it also shared the rear engine position). It was no more unsafe than most other cars on the road, and Nader is generally considered to be incorrect on this specific point in the book.
I can't speak to the rest, as that is the point that I'm most familiar with.
Also, the second generation Corvair is one of the most beautiful cars ever built IMO [0], and shares it's suspension design with the Corvette (unequal A-Arms at all four corners). Interestingly it's design study is what was used to do the first generation Camaro/Firebird as GM had nothing ready to compete with the Mustang.
To get even more interesting about the Corvair (I grew up around someone who had 12+ of them...): the engine is one of only three families that spins "backwards": The Corvair, The Renault (correction from comment: Citroën!) 2CV, and the Honda D/B/H series. This was due to the transmission being a standard GM transmission thrown in a different case with the rearend attached, and a jackshaft going back to the engine, making the reverse rotation necessary. A couple of people have actually installed Honda B series engines on these [1], which surprisingly works quite well on the old transmission since they make little torque and rev very high. It's also why there were kits to put a V8 in the back seat by removing the jackshaft and mounting it to the normal GM transmission input.
[0]: https://www.hotrod.com/uploads/sites/21/2012/03/hrdp-1202-19...
Yes and no, I believe there are more than three, here is a fourth one:
The FIAT 100 engine[0] (in it's latest incarnation actually 903 cc that was derived from the original FIAT 600 was originally 600, then 750 and 850) was rear mounted on the 850[1] (and was spinning in one direction) the following series of cars (FIAT 127 [2], Autobianchi A112[3]) used the same engine but front mounted and it was spinning in the opposite direction).
But most probably there are more examples in lesser known brands around the time they all moved from rear wheel traction to front wheel (roughly end of '60's begin of '70's).
[0] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motore_FIAT_100 [1] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_850 [2] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_127 [3] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobianchi_A112
Thanks!
Do you mean the Citroën 2CV or the Renault 4CV? I assume the former, because I recall something about the reverse spinning of its engine.
Arguably though, the pendulum may have swung too far to the point that cars sold in the U.S. are boxed in by the crash-test requirements. I have seen where, for example, small, efficient commuter vehicles are only viable in the U.S. if they are 3-wheeled since, curiously, they are considered "motorcycles" then and are therefore exempt from many safety requirements.
Is there no category for 4-wheeled vehicles sort of like "buyer beware, this is a dangerous vehicle but you are welcome to purchase and register it with that understanding"?
Not for use on public roads because "people are stupid and need to be saved from themselves" or something along those lines.
https://youtu.be/iXUBU0eieLc doesn't look all that bad.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Smart_pa...
Most Corvair fans will tell you it's not any more dangerous than any other 1960 car if you set it up right. (I'll elaborate later) The manual tells you specific tire pressures to run: 22psi in front, 32psi in back. That differential tire pressure is critical to compensate for the swingaxles and rear weight.
The problem was that this spec is different from other cars people were used to, and like today, no one read the manual. Especially mechanics. So you'd take it to a shop for something, they'd notice your front tires were a little low, and "fill" them up with air for you. And you didn't know.
I think there's some willful misinformation on both sides of this argument. There's a lawsuit between Chevrolet and National Highway Traffic Safety Admin that resolved in 1972 (3 years after the last Corvair was made) that settled saying that the 1963 Corvair (the one being tested) wasn't any worse than other small cars at the time.
Early Corvairs, however, have more and more safety features added in over the years. There's an early 1960 (mine) and a later 1960 model, and there were significant suspension changes between 1961, '62, '63, and '64. After that, the Corvair had a full redesign and was honestly a different car (still rear-engined, air cooled, unibody, but a different model). Each model year for early Corvairs the car was refined and made much better, so that '64s are really nice, pretty damn safe cars for the era.
I suspect the '60 definitely has some rollover issues if you drive it hard. "Spirited driving" was the term they used back in the day. I don't - I baby mine and keep it slow and easy. I'm not great with driving a manual yet anyway.