Found this on The370Z forums. It is a good read so if U have time, please try. It can be a bit of a wake up call for many people and serve as a reminder to others to be careful and mindfull when you are driving........
Dead Man Driving
Car crashes happen to other guys, right? Maybe they don't have your quick reaction time or uncanny ability to multitask behind the wheel. Or maybe they're simply lesser drivers. If you believe that, let us introduce you to Adam LaBar, 1970-2008. We suspect you'll recognize him. We hope you'll learn from him.
-----------
A light rain patters the windshields on Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania. The traffic sighs and groans and pushes forward.
At the sight of the emergency vehicles huddled on the berm, the southbound drivers hesitate, some from a superstitious caution, as if the doom that claimed the crash victim might at any moment extend another tentacle; some in a gesture of respect, a kind of automotive bowing of the head; but most, let's face it, because they want to see.
We dismiss the impulse as unworthy, and yet we wouldn't want to look so badly if there wasn't some lesson in this spectacle. "That could have been me," some part of us mutters. But before the thought resolves, the traffic quickens and the serene forgetfulness of highway driving resumes.
Meanwhile, a few cars back but gaining, the statistics take up their morbid pursuit: roughly 40,000 dead every year on our roadways, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and an annual injury count of 3.2 million. One day, sometime in the next 6 years, the odds say, you're going to be one of them.
So, this once, let's indulge that dire curiosity. Who was the victim, and where was he going? How did he lose control, and why didn't his car protect him? Because maybe if you know what happened back there, you can prevent the same thing from happening to you.
--------------------------------------------
T-Minus 00:42:00 || 6:40 pm EST
The crash on I-81 stands out for no particular reason. The victim is young, full of life, and well loved. His name is Adam LaBar. At 6:40 p.m. he's just leaving work. He is 38 years old, married, has four kids -- the two oldest are boys, the third a girl, the youngest a happy surprise. LaBar's a joker, a peacemaker, a fan of Jack Nicholson and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He is by all accounts an intelligent, educated, savvy man, and yet he is entirely ignorant of one critical fact: In 42 minutes his life will undergo a violent interruption.
Tuesday is LaBar's early day. Most days he works 10 to 10 at a car dealership in Chambersburg. He never chose to be a salesman. One day he went in to buy a car and negotiated so well that they offered him a job. He was young and the job paid well, so he took it. With his head for numbers, it wasn't long before he worked his way up to sales manager, moving more than 100 units a month.
Still, the hours are brutal, and he never has enough time with his wife, Lisa, and the kids. He knows too well what it's like to grow up with no father. His own dad died when he was 10, of a heart condition. LaBar's oldest is 15 -- a difficult age, when good parenting is crucial. Recently Stephan was in trouble for reenacting a slo-mo fight scene from The Matrix -- in the middle of science class. It wasn't a big deal, but school administrations are easily freaked.
Now LaBar buckles into his '07 sedan (which happens to be one of the best-selling cars in America, not that it matters) and starts to pull out. The traffic on Route 30 is always dicey this time of day, and a left turn requires a keen sense of timing. At the tired end of a gray afternoon, it'd be easy to be T-boned and end up impaled on your own elbow. In fact, driver drowsiness is a contributing factor in up to 24 percent of all crashes and near crashes, according to the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
LaBar thinks he's a pretty good driver. He's not unusual in this respect. According to one study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 72 percent of drivers regard themselves as more skilled than everyone else. Researchers call it the Lake Wobegon effect -- a tendency to think we're above average, particularly at relatively undemanding tasks. (It's the rare person who considers himself an above-average juggler.) Studies trace the bias to a fundamental information imbalance, namely that the poorest performers are also the least able to recognize skill (or lack of skill) in themselves or others.
Some evidence suggests that this overconfidence is exacerbated by the design of cars themselves. For instance, studies show that the same insulated engine compartment that reduces road noise also impairs your sense of the vehicle's speed and makes you more likely to drive closer to the vehicle in front. The speedometer, which in many vehicles reaches 140, makes whatever speed you're driving seem manageable by comparison. And if you're driving an SUV, with its higher vantage point, the illusion of control becomes even more pronounced.
But while cockpit ergonomics encourage a feeling of control, the truth is borne out by the car's hidden arsenal of safety features. Behind the elegant facade, crumple zones brace for brutal impacts. Airbags hang on hair triggers. The headrest waits for the moment your head snaps back, the energy-absorbing steering column for the moment your torso crunches forward. Electronic stability control, antilock brakes, shatter-resistant windshields, all grimly anticipate statistical inevitability. By this light, your car is as much a crashing machine as a driving machine.
LaBar knows all this, on some level. He has sold the model he's driving so many times he can reel off the safety features in his sleep. Top-of-the-line crash ratings on front and side impacts. Best acceleration in its class. Recipient of numerous awards. All he has to do is stand next to it. The thing sells itself.
Now he sneaks a right onto Franklin Farm and rolls down into the hollow. The speed limit drops to 35. A flock of starlings dodges over a cornfield. The next stop is the restaurant, which LaBar opened last month. This is his ticket out of the car business. It's his second try. The first was a hotel that burned down in 2004. LaBar continued to work at the dealership, biding his time, waiting for the next opportunity. Now he has a second restaurant planned for Hagerstown -- step 2 in his own little empire.
------------------------------------
T-Minus 00:39:00 || 6:43 pm EST
Franklin Farm Lane ends at Walker Road. As he reaches the stop sign, LaBar's risk of mishap multiplies. Intersections are the site of 40 percent of all crashes and 22 percent of fatal crashes. Risk is the landscape that every driver moves through, and part of being a good driver is how well you perceive it. One measure of risk perception is the position of your hands on the wheel. If they're at 10 and 2, chances are you're alert to danger. Right now LaBar's are at the base of the wheel. Certainly intersections can be dangerous, but he's passed this way maybe 2,000 times. If anything bad could happen, it would have happened by now.
The effects of familiarity on risk perception are well known. The more accustomed you are to the road, the more difficult it is for you to imagine disaster. And so it is with LaBar. His eyes stop scanning, his attention withdraws, his response time drops from around 450 milliseconds to about 1,300. Mental resources are allocated elsewhere, to a review of recent events or the anticipation of future ones. The restaurant is just 2 minutes away; the books must be checked, the kitchen inspected, the manager assuaged. Traversing the highway overpass and converging on Norland, LaBar discards his dealership persona and assumes the role of restaurant owner.
As he curves left on Walker, various road signs slide into view. We rely on signage to alert us to changes in our risk landscape--an intersection, for instance, or a construction zone. And yet studies suggest that the better marked a road is, the faster we tend to drive. Researchers call this "risk homeostasis"--the tendency to adjust our behavior to preserve a preferred level of risk. Risk taking is part of our nature. It's what allows us to experiment, to remain undiscouraged by previous failures, and to keep cool in the midst of danger. It's also what can lead us into danger when danger may be completely avoidable.
Highways, which are engineered for maximum safety, are particularly susceptible to risk homeostasis. The berms are cleared to reduce the chance of collisions with trees, but then the landscape seems to pass by more slowly, which invites greater speed. Lanes are widened to provide a larger safety margin, but in effect they telegraph a tacit permission to pay less attention. That's the great thing about rumble strips, says Tom Vanderbilt, the author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do. "They increase your safety without increasing your perception of safety."
Even if we were immune to this sort of behavioral blowback, not even the best signage could warn you of the deadliest hazard: the other driver. But just who is the other driver? Surveys indicate there's a nearly 80 percent chance that he speeds regularly, and a 53 percent likelihood that he talks on the phone while driving. There's a 4 percent chance he runs red lights--on purpose--and a 2 percent chance he has driven after he's had too much to drink. The more you learn about this person, the less you want to meet him. Yet chances are you will, because you share the road with him every day.
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Dead Man Driving
Car crashes happen to other guys, right? Maybe they don't have your quick reaction time or uncanny ability to multitask behind the wheel. Or maybe they're simply lesser drivers. If you believe that, let us introduce you to Adam LaBar, 1970-2008. We suspect you'll recognize him. We hope you'll learn from him.
-----------
A light rain patters the windshields on Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania. The traffic sighs and groans and pushes forward.
At the sight of the emergency vehicles huddled on the berm, the southbound drivers hesitate, some from a superstitious caution, as if the doom that claimed the crash victim might at any moment extend another tentacle; some in a gesture of respect, a kind of automotive bowing of the head; but most, let's face it, because they want to see.
We dismiss the impulse as unworthy, and yet we wouldn't want to look so badly if there wasn't some lesson in this spectacle. "That could have been me," some part of us mutters. But before the thought resolves, the traffic quickens and the serene forgetfulness of highway driving resumes.
Meanwhile, a few cars back but gaining, the statistics take up their morbid pursuit: roughly 40,000 dead every year on our roadways, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and an annual injury count of 3.2 million. One day, sometime in the next 6 years, the odds say, you're going to be one of them.
So, this once, let's indulge that dire curiosity. Who was the victim, and where was he going? How did he lose control, and why didn't his car protect him? Because maybe if you know what happened back there, you can prevent the same thing from happening to you.
--------------------------------------------
T-Minus 00:42:00 || 6:40 pm EST
The crash on I-81 stands out for no particular reason. The victim is young, full of life, and well loved. His name is Adam LaBar. At 6:40 p.m. he's just leaving work. He is 38 years old, married, has four kids -- the two oldest are boys, the third a girl, the youngest a happy surprise. LaBar's a joker, a peacemaker, a fan of Jack Nicholson and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He is by all accounts an intelligent, educated, savvy man, and yet he is entirely ignorant of one critical fact: In 42 minutes his life will undergo a violent interruption.
Tuesday is LaBar's early day. Most days he works 10 to 10 at a car dealership in Chambersburg. He never chose to be a salesman. One day he went in to buy a car and negotiated so well that they offered him a job. He was young and the job paid well, so he took it. With his head for numbers, it wasn't long before he worked his way up to sales manager, moving more than 100 units a month.
Still, the hours are brutal, and he never has enough time with his wife, Lisa, and the kids. He knows too well what it's like to grow up with no father. His own dad died when he was 10, of a heart condition. LaBar's oldest is 15 -- a difficult age, when good parenting is crucial. Recently Stephan was in trouble for reenacting a slo-mo fight scene from The Matrix -- in the middle of science class. It wasn't a big deal, but school administrations are easily freaked.
Now LaBar buckles into his '07 sedan (which happens to be one of the best-selling cars in America, not that it matters) and starts to pull out. The traffic on Route 30 is always dicey this time of day, and a left turn requires a keen sense of timing. At the tired end of a gray afternoon, it'd be easy to be T-boned and end up impaled on your own elbow. In fact, driver drowsiness is a contributing factor in up to 24 percent of all crashes and near crashes, according to the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
LaBar thinks he's a pretty good driver. He's not unusual in this respect. According to one study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 72 percent of drivers regard themselves as more skilled than everyone else. Researchers call it the Lake Wobegon effect -- a tendency to think we're above average, particularly at relatively undemanding tasks. (It's the rare person who considers himself an above-average juggler.) Studies trace the bias to a fundamental information imbalance, namely that the poorest performers are also the least able to recognize skill (or lack of skill) in themselves or others.
Some evidence suggests that this overconfidence is exacerbated by the design of cars themselves. For instance, studies show that the same insulated engine compartment that reduces road noise also impairs your sense of the vehicle's speed and makes you more likely to drive closer to the vehicle in front. The speedometer, which in many vehicles reaches 140, makes whatever speed you're driving seem manageable by comparison. And if you're driving an SUV, with its higher vantage point, the illusion of control becomes even more pronounced.
But while cockpit ergonomics encourage a feeling of control, the truth is borne out by the car's hidden arsenal of safety features. Behind the elegant facade, crumple zones brace for brutal impacts. Airbags hang on hair triggers. The headrest waits for the moment your head snaps back, the energy-absorbing steering column for the moment your torso crunches forward. Electronic stability control, antilock brakes, shatter-resistant windshields, all grimly anticipate statistical inevitability. By this light, your car is as much a crashing machine as a driving machine.
LaBar knows all this, on some level. He has sold the model he's driving so many times he can reel off the safety features in his sleep. Top-of-the-line crash ratings on front and side impacts. Best acceleration in its class. Recipient of numerous awards. All he has to do is stand next to it. The thing sells itself.
Now he sneaks a right onto Franklin Farm and rolls down into the hollow. The speed limit drops to 35. A flock of starlings dodges over a cornfield. The next stop is the restaurant, which LaBar opened last month. This is his ticket out of the car business. It's his second try. The first was a hotel that burned down in 2004. LaBar continued to work at the dealership, biding his time, waiting for the next opportunity. Now he has a second restaurant planned for Hagerstown -- step 2 in his own little empire.
------------------------------------
T-Minus 00:39:00 || 6:43 pm EST
Franklin Farm Lane ends at Walker Road. As he reaches the stop sign, LaBar's risk of mishap multiplies. Intersections are the site of 40 percent of all crashes and 22 percent of fatal crashes. Risk is the landscape that every driver moves through, and part of being a good driver is how well you perceive it. One measure of risk perception is the position of your hands on the wheel. If they're at 10 and 2, chances are you're alert to danger. Right now LaBar's are at the base of the wheel. Certainly intersections can be dangerous, but he's passed this way maybe 2,000 times. If anything bad could happen, it would have happened by now.
The effects of familiarity on risk perception are well known. The more accustomed you are to the road, the more difficult it is for you to imagine disaster. And so it is with LaBar. His eyes stop scanning, his attention withdraws, his response time drops from around 450 milliseconds to about 1,300. Mental resources are allocated elsewhere, to a review of recent events or the anticipation of future ones. The restaurant is just 2 minutes away; the books must be checked, the kitchen inspected, the manager assuaged. Traversing the highway overpass and converging on Norland, LaBar discards his dealership persona and assumes the role of restaurant owner.
As he curves left on Walker, various road signs slide into view. We rely on signage to alert us to changes in our risk landscape--an intersection, for instance, or a construction zone. And yet studies suggest that the better marked a road is, the faster we tend to drive. Researchers call this "risk homeostasis"--the tendency to adjust our behavior to preserve a preferred level of risk. Risk taking is part of our nature. It's what allows us to experiment, to remain undiscouraged by previous failures, and to keep cool in the midst of danger. It's also what can lead us into danger when danger may be completely avoidable.
Highways, which are engineered for maximum safety, are particularly susceptible to risk homeostasis. The berms are cleared to reduce the chance of collisions with trees, but then the landscape seems to pass by more slowly, which invites greater speed. Lanes are widened to provide a larger safety margin, but in effect they telegraph a tacit permission to pay less attention. That's the great thing about rumble strips, says Tom Vanderbilt, the author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do. "They increase your safety without increasing your perception of safety."
Even if we were immune to this sort of behavioral blowback, not even the best signage could warn you of the deadliest hazard: the other driver. But just who is the other driver? Surveys indicate there's a nearly 80 percent chance that he speeds regularly, and a 53 percent likelihood that he talks on the phone while driving. There's a 4 percent chance he runs red lights--on purpose--and a 2 percent chance he has driven after he's had too much to drink. The more you learn about this person, the less you want to meet him. Yet chances are you will, because you share the road with him every day.
-------------------------------------
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