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Comment by xlbuttplug2 | Hacker News Reader

Huh. I'd never thought of this. If that is actually meaningfully beneficial, I wonder if they'd design self driving cars with the seats facing backwards, given there's no longer a necessity to look at the road.

(edit: I guess it's more of no-brainer on a train/bus where you don't have a seat belt)

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Not the author, but I think there was some research and it's indeed better for you if you have head support, to be facing back towards the front. If prevents a whole range of injuries, from your neck, to becoming a projectile yourself.

But it's really theoretical, and does not account for the passenger in front of you headed head-first into your throat.

PS: I laughed hard that xlbuttplug2 is answering to deadbabe. The internet lives!

Interesting. I didnt know this, i always get motiom sickness if i sit facing the opposite direction.

Not sure what kind of cars you drive but in mine all the seats face the same direction. Why would they change that when making it safer?

Consider the "booth seats" in trains and busses. So people can chat etc facing each other. If you've got a waymo with your friends why wouldn't you want the seats facing each other so you can be social, excluding this safety factor.

Sitting backwards is beneficial if looking at accidents.

But sitting backwards is very very uncomfortable if there is any kind of uneven acceleration, bumps, swaying, rolling, curvy tracks or whatever. Humans need to look forward at the horizon to get their visual stimuli aligned with their motion/balance sense in the inner ear. If that alignment isn't there, you will get seasick. Backwards makes this even worse.

Babies don't suffer from this, because closing your eyes helps, and infants don't have as strong a reaction to motions anyways, due to them usually being carried by their parents until walking age. So reverse baby seats only work for babies.

That's a serious overgeneralization. It's true for some people, but trains mostly don't bump and swerve enough for that to be a significant problem. Finnish trains have lots of seats facing backwards and while they're not anywhere as fast as something like a TGV, they're still often going 200+ km/h. People seem to be just fine. I just spent 1 hour 40 minutes yesterday sitting backwards, mostly reading a book, with no ill effects.

Infant car seats face backwards, they recommend backwards facing for a long as possible (until the kid is too big to fit comfortably in a backwards facing position).

Disclaimer I work for Zoox, but here is us crash testing https://youtu.be/597C9OwV0o4

I enjoyed watching that - though it wasn't really related to the seating direction, specifically.

Are you one of the safety engineers? Have you discovered anything which isn't included in normal safety tests which should be?

It's incredibly beneficial. However many people dislike it and want to be facing the direction they are moving in, so best case is probably a train-style 4-seater. Which 2 seats facing forward and 2 backwards.

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