As expected – It’s not a vehicle design issue. It’s the driver behaviour and driving conditions.
–––
“Most of these vehicles received excellent safety ratings, performing well in crash tests at the IIHS and NHTSA, so it’s not a vehicle design issue” [1]
“The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities.” [1]
Here's the raw data of the top 10 models involved in fatal accidents according to the study.
1 Hyundai Venue
2 Chevrolet Corvette
3 Mitsubishi Mirage
4 Porsche 911
5 Honda CR-V Hybrid
6 Tesla Model Y
7 Mitsubishi Mirage G4
8 Buick Encore GX
9 Kia Forte
10 Buick Envision
This looks like the sort of data you'd expect to see if there was absolutely no correlation whatsoever between the class of vehicle and accident rates. And then the data was massaged to put Tesla in the headline because clickbait — and even after that massaging, Tesla was pretty much tied with Kia. So what have we learned from this data? Nothing. It's meaningless data. Might as well be random.
This is individual cars and in particular mostly heavy SUVs. But if you group this data by car brand, Hyundai has many smaller cars. But all Tesla’s are heavy (and fast!). So stop buying heavy/fast vehicles if you care about fatalities.
I was walking down the road, beside me a young man with airpods on. He was walking on a side lane which is intended for parking lots. Suddenly, a Tesla was driving behind him with about the same speed, but at a distance of less than 10cm behind him.. forcing him off the street. He didn't hear or see the car.
So, how stupid a driver must be to drive that close behind a walking one?
It's Tesla drivers. In Germany I saw that kind of behavior more than once.
If someone could drive "less than 10cm behind" a pedestrian without them noticing, my reaction is to be impressed with such astonishingly precise driving.
> So stop buying heavy/fast vehicles if you care about fatalities.
The report makes precisely the opposite claim. It says small cars have a higher rate of fatal accidents. From the report:
"When broken out by size, small cars have the highest fatal accident rate while midsize and full-size cars are both below average. While modern small cars benefit from the latest engineering and safety tech, they still have a size and weight disadvantage in accidents with a larger vehicle."[0]
Perhaps you are right and weight is a critical factor, but then you'll need to explain why the heavy Model S was lower in their rankings than the Toyota Prius. It should also be noted that Tesla vehicles are generally lighter than most comparable EVs, and typically 0–10% heavier than comparable ICE cars.
I contend that this report is junk data. The authors haven't published the statistics (or methodology for collecting the statistics) used to normalise the raw NHTSA FARS data. Without it, its conclusions are as useless as you might suspect when looking at their top 23 list. (I wonder... if we knew what the 24th car was, would we know more about the motivations of the authors?)
That the only automaker name in the headlines stemming from this report is Tesla is proof that there's no intellectual integrity associated with its dissemination — it's just vibe, and an opportunity for people to push their pet explanations, even when the report itself contradicts them. Or when the pet explanation doesn't make sense of literally any data point.
As expected – It’s not a vehicle design issue. It’s the driver behaviour and driving conditions.
–––
“Most of these vehicles received excellent safety ratings, performing well in crash tests at the IIHS and NHTSA, so it’s not a vehicle design issue” [1]
“The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities.” [1]
- Karl Brauer, iSeeCars Executive Analyst
[1] The 23 Most Dangerous Cars On The Road
https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024
Discussion (297 points, 7 days ago, 442 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42150443
How is it the cars fault when the user switches on self driving mode?
Because the car has the feature? Also your bias is apparent, that you're not referring by it's advertised name - Full Self Driving
https://tinyurl.com/ybbycszc
Here's the raw data of the top 10 models involved in fatal accidents according to the study.
This looks like the sort of data you'd expect to see if there was absolutely no correlation whatsoever between the class of vehicle and accident rates. And then the data was massaged to put Tesla in the headline because clickbait — and even after that massaging, Tesla was pretty much tied with Kia. So what have we learned from this data? Nothing. It's meaningless data. Might as well be random.This is individual cars and in particular mostly heavy SUVs. But if you group this data by car brand, Hyundai has many smaller cars. But all Tesla’s are heavy (and fast!). So stop buying heavy/fast vehicles if you care about fatalities.
Or maybe it's not the type of car but the type of person who buys these cars :)
Two days ago:
I was walking down the road, beside me a young man with airpods on. He was walking on a side lane which is intended for parking lots. Suddenly, a Tesla was driving behind him with about the same speed, but at a distance of less than 10cm behind him.. forcing him off the street. He didn't hear or see the car.
So, how stupid a driver must be to drive that close behind a walking one?
It's Tesla drivers. In Germany I saw that kind of behavior more than once.
If someone could drive "less than 10cm behind" a pedestrian without them noticing, my reaction is to be impressed with such astonishingly precise driving.
We're veering into the pew pew topic territory. It is the cars :)
> So stop buying heavy/fast vehicles if you care about fatalities.
The report makes precisely the opposite claim. It says small cars have a higher rate of fatal accidents. From the report:
"When broken out by size, small cars have the highest fatal accident rate while midsize and full-size cars are both below average. While modern small cars benefit from the latest engineering and safety tech, they still have a size and weight disadvantage in accidents with a larger vehicle."[0]
Perhaps you are right and weight is a critical factor, but then you'll need to explain why the heavy Model S was lower in their rankings than the Toyota Prius. It should also be noted that Tesla vehicles are generally lighter than most comparable EVs, and typically 0–10% heavier than comparable ICE cars.
I contend that this report is junk data. The authors haven't published the statistics (or methodology for collecting the statistics) used to normalise the raw NHTSA FARS data. Without it, its conclusions are as useless as you might suspect when looking at their top 23 list. (I wonder... if we knew what the 24th car was, would we know more about the motivations of the authors?)
That the only automaker name in the headlines stemming from this report is Tesla is proof that there's no intellectual integrity associated with its dissemination — it's just vibe, and an opportunity for people to push their pet explanations, even when the report itself contradicts them. Or when the pet explanation doesn't make sense of literally any data point.
[0] https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024
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