Car Replacement Summarized

Since I dropped a link in the latest Gizmag post, I'm expecting an influx of international visitors.... welcome to my blog! I didn't want to put a bunch of links in my comment, so instead I'm going to weave them all together in this summary post.

When we consider what makes a vehicle energy efficient, two things are more important than anything else: weight and aerodynamics--the lower the weight and wind resistance, the lower the energy required to move. Consider the ratio of cargo weight to carrier weight (in kg): for me and the average sedan, that's about 72.6/1360.8 or 0.053; for me and my electric bicycle, 72.6/18.1 or 4.0; me and a racing bicycle, 72.6/6.8 or 10.7. It is clear that the bicycle represents one of the lightest forms of transportation, and it is thus also one of the most efficient. I am convinced that bicycles can save the world--the outline of my argument in support of this is found in my post titled A Radical Proposal (for any literature fans, yes this is a play on A Modest Proposal).

But the bicycle alone may not be enough, maybe in a sincerely fitness oriented culture, but that kind of mentality takes a long time to develop... technology develops much faster. For instance, the road I live on has a hill with a grade around 10%. In days past I was fit enough to ride my bicycle up worse, but in the time I've lived here I don't recall ever being able to make it up without feeling like I was about to keel over dead. Quite recently I added an electric motor to my bicycle, and despite more than doubling the weight I can haul up that hill in nearly my tallest gear, without even standing up--I've done this almost every day since I got the kit. Also, my legs look better than they have since shortly after I finished my trans-America tour; just because there's a motor doesn't mean I'm not doing any work! I'm going to do a very rigorous overview of electric bicycles at some point in the future, but until then this will have to suffice.

As I mentioned, weight is only part of the battle; the more significant part is wind resistance. The only way to significantly change the aerodynamics of a bicycle is to add a fairing, which generally necessitates the use of a recumbent tricycle. This vehicle is called a velomobile, which is discussed in my post Rise of the Velomobile.

The last part of the puzzle that I mentioned in my Gizmag comment is autonomous navigation and solar roadways. Autonomy is more a necessity for the very heavy and fast every day car, but the benefits of such a system would still be reaped by this ultralight human/electric hybrid. The concept of autonomous transportation and a few different perspectives on energy are covered in depth in the post Intelligent Transportation Systems. The danger caused directly by cars is covered in several posts, notably How Dangerous is the Road?, which also links to information about the very promising solar panel roadway. Solar roadways and roadway to vehicle power transmission are important because they enable significant weight reduction by reducing battery capacity requirements, which leads to further weight reduction by allowing for the use of a smaller motor.

There is still much to be covered (for instance, the average US citizen spends 17% of their income on car related expenses), but not enough time to cover it right now.

Thanks for visiting, please enjoy

Rise of the Velomobile

The velomobile will be the next great technology to reach ubiquity. 

(Assuming that everybody behaves in a perfectly rational manner, which is not a safe assumption, unfortunately)

Near the beginning of August the web was abuzz with news that obesity incidence in the US has continued to increase; more recently, it was suggested that obese people visit general practitioners more frequently than smokers and generally unfit folks. Obesity is bad, this is not news--with the distributed costs of public health care, obesity is even worse. Another bit that isn't news is that a moderate, sudden, and sustained escalation of petroleum prices, perhaps as a consequence of finite/dwindling supply, would likely lead to cataclysmic economic destabilization because of our profound reliance upon it--a point practically self evident in the most rudimentary economic perspective. Of course for whatever reason many more people have petroleum centric anxiety manifested as fear of global warming, for which the more dire consequences won't happen until a fair while after we've already run out of gas if we keep increasing our consumption.

But for a culture in which the automobile was supplanted by the velomobile, these problems amongst many others would be made irrelevant.

What is a velomobile? It's a pedalcar, resembling a grown-up soapbox racer with bicycle pedals. This is a velomobile:

The typical modern velomobile is little more than tricycle recumbent with a fairing, but these two things together make for something of an advanced vehicle. Here's what it looks like in the cockpit of a good DIY velomobile that was constructed for under $1500 (full flickr here):

Recumbents are increasingly popular as they can provide more comfort than the usual bicycle and also utilize the mechanical advantage from having lower back support while pedaling. The fairing adds the benefit of aerodynamics, a good thing as air is the principle force that slows a cyclist. But the fairing does more than that: by enclosing the tricycle, it is suddenly a vehicle equipped to ride in inclement weather; perhaps even more important, what was a bike now strikes the casual bystander as a car. Unfortunately the fairing adds weight... and with intuition it becomes clear that with the minor addition of a small electric motor, this vehicle is the most sensible form of transportation ever devised.

On flat terrain with no wind, an average person can sustain 25 MPH in a velomobile without much difficulty. With an electric motor I'd expect one would be able to sustain 25 MPH while going up a decent hill.

There are many exciting things about velomobiles--by my figuring they potentially represent the cheapest, safest, cleanest, healthiest, and most sustainable form of transportation ever conceived--but the most exciting thing about it all is that like bicycles there's already an international legal precedent for their use on public infrastructure. In the US a velomobile is classified as a moped, as long as it has pedals and doesn't exceed 20 MPH (varies by state). Because of this a velomobile can be piloted on public roads with all the rights of a cyclist, which tend to be more generous than the rights of motorists, no registration or insurance necessary. Newer velomobile designs incorporate headlamps, turn signals, and brake lights; with an electric motor you could drive with city traffic as though you were one of the internal combustion monstrosities. The biggest problem with velomobiles is that they haven't caught on yet, and as part of that, nobody has been able to produce one on a large scale for a price within reason.

This is an incredible custom velomobile, replete with water-filled airbag suspension (full flickr here):

This velomobile is somewhat commercially available, total price >$6000 (retail site here, worklog here):

With the widespread adoption of velomobiles our country could reap the benefits of increased general health with vastly reduced vehicle related expenditure, and thus an increase in overall prosperity. Perhaps even more important, we'd reduce our exposure to calamity by decreasing our extreme dependence on a steady (and foreign) supply of petroleum at a steady (and low, and further subsidized) price. Not that I think adoption should be limited to US.

Motorsport: Rally

Despite my fervent conviction that cars should not be used as they are, I'm actually something of a sucker for motorsports. In particular, it is with ceaseless amazement that I witness rallying. As far as forms of vehicle races go, few are in the same league as rally racing; certainly none require traversing such a diversity of surfaces, including none at all.

The World Rally Championship (WRC) is the best known international rally series. This video clearly shows that being a rally driver requires equal portions of insanity and talent, and, in the case of the co-driver, the ability to maintain literacy while under extreme duress. Coincidentally, the song played for most of the video is one that has also been showing up in my Pandora.

By the Numbers

I presume most people recognize that there is a vague connection between statistics and probability, but, having taken a course in probability theory, I'd be willing to bet the farm that very few people realize the full breadth of intimacy between the two. This is true in particular because despite having studied both, I'd count myself as one amongst the naive. From the outset probability is simply difficult, and often counter-intuitive. Not only does probability proceed in ways contrary to our intuition, it does so in such an amazingly tricky way! Maybe it is a function of how easy it starts out: given a typical six sided die, most everyone knows that the chance of guessing which number comes up is one in six. Easy enough, you pick one side out of a total 6, so the probability is 1/6. The common understanding of probability stops there, for the simple reason that any situation even marginally more complicated than that becomes remarkably more logically and mathematically sophisticated. Suppose I'm flipping a coin and you're guessing the results. For some reason you're having terrible luck and you've guessed wrong 10 times in a row, what's the probability that you guess the next flip wrong as well? Think about it for a minute and when you've logically arrived at what must certainly be the answer, highlight the following space for the answer:  1/2

Next, try to logically deduce the probability of guessing incorrectly for 10 coin flips in a row. Answer:   1/1024

It only gets so much worse from there, to the extent that I'm really not confident I could present the correct answers myself! Even admitting that I can't help but try for one more. Assume that 4 out of 5 people prefer Crelm toothpaste. What's the probability that from a selection of 5 people 4 of them prefer Crelm? Answer (I think): 256/625

The important notion here is that a probability says something both nebulous and concrete about reality. If a truly random die is thrown 6 million times, in all likelihood each number will have come up about 1 million times. If 4 out of 5 people really do prefer Crelm, then the chance that a randomly selected person prefers Crelm is 4/5 or 80%. As much as we all like to think that the statistics don't apply to us (because we're special), if the statistics are accurate there's no way to escape them. Most of the time this is a banal statement, as when referring to whether or not you prefer Crelm--either way it's not exactly a big deal. But then... there are the other statistics. "Around 50% of US marriages end in divorce" can be a pretty hard pill to swallow for a couple walking down the aisle. I have reason to believe the number of couples who'd figure they end up on the successful half of that statistic while exchanging vows is much higher than 50%--clearly if they thought it wasn't going to last they'd probably not be entering the commitment in the first place. Similarly, doubting the success of the marriage from the outset probably isn't going to increase the chance of a favorable outcome. What's left is an awkward position, objectively maybe the best one can think is that at least the odds aren't as bad as they could be, better than any casino game. However marriage is a particularly special case for a number of reasons, the primary one being the shift in locus of control which is applicable to all interpersonal relationships; though a bit less severe, anyone who's been dismayed by the lack of a second date (etc.) knows the score. To be fair the actual divorce rate changes based on many factors, where 50% is just the overall rate. The lowest divorce rates are found in each of the following categories: first marriage, atheist or agnostic, age 30 or older, residing in the Northeast and no cohabitation prior to marriage.

Uncontrollable statistics naturally lead to other more personally manageable probabilities. For instance, 28% of car accidents in the US happen while at least one of the drivers is using a cell phone. This is the part where I reiterate: we love to think we're special and that the statistics don't apply to us, but it just doesn't work that way. We are all special, I'm fully on board with that, but that doesn't grant any of us statistical immunity. Using a cell phone while driving (even with a hands-free headset) substantially increases the chance that you will be in a car accident, which could result in your death, or, arguably worse, the death of another/others with the accrual of manslaughter charges and the lifelong burden of knowing that you've killed someone. It's very simple: while the car is in gear, your phone doesn't exist. There are absolutely no excuses.

Demonstration of feasibility

I'm a bit too busy to give the normal glyphic flood, but as proof following my plea for autonomous vehicles this demanded mention. The Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS) is planning to send an autonomous Audi up Pikes Peak at race speeds. Pikes Peak is a mountain road used as a rally stage, with surfaces varying from packed dirt to loose gravel. Actually an autonomous car has finished the course previously, but "only" at an average 25 mph. There is some reason to suspect the Stanford team will succeed in their intent, as they won DARPAs Grand Challenge and took 2nd place in their Urban Challenge; the car can at least drive 120 mph across the salt flats. I cannot wait to hear the results!

Intelligent Transportation Systems

In 2004 it took an estimated 6400 megajoules to build a typical computer, including 17" CRT. This works out to 1778 kilowatt/hours, or about the average consumption of a house in the US for two months. Based on the 2009 US average industrial rate of $0.07 per kwh, assuming that only electricity was used and at 100% efficiency, $124.46 of the cost of the computer went to energy alone. I reckon this would represent somewhere around 10% of the total cost.

A gallon of gasoline has about 1.3x10^8 joules or 138 mj, meaning the computer would require about 46.4 gallons of gasoline to build. Using a rough average of the current prices, $2.70, this means about $125 worth of gasoline. Note that 1 gallon of gasoline has about 36.6 kwh.

Alternatively, the current average residential rate for electricity is $0.12 per kwh, meaning the cost to build the computer would be $213.36. Notice that a mere change of 5 cents to the cost of a kwh nearly doubles the end cost of the energy, which would most likely be reflected in the purchase price. It's important to recognize that energy and the cost thereof, from, gasoline, electricity, or beyond, is extant in all facets of our modern lives. In other words, if the price of gasoline goes up, the price of everything goes up. Of course most of our electricity is generated from coal and natural gas, so the price of gasoline doesn't seem directly related to building a computer. Unfortunately that's rather short sighted, as gasoline is required in order to move the computer parts to and fro, not to mention to transport the coal to the power plant to begin with.

Clearly if the cost of both gasoline and electricity were to rise by a nickel, we should naturally expect everything we buy to become quite a bit more expensive. It isn't difficult to see that this in turn would most likely have dire economic consequences. This is why there's so much buzz about energy, it should be obvious that the extreme consequences of demand outstripping energy supply readily justify extreme evasive efforts.

Imagine it was discovered that a meteor sufficient to absolutely obliterate Earth was headed straight towards us with a 100% probability of collision. Our dependence on gasoline is kind of like that. Buying a Prius would be like building a large bomb shelter: it would show that you probably realize there's some kind of problem, but that you nonetheless have absolutely no understanding of its magnitude. Do you know how much energy it takes to turn bits of iron buried in the Earth into a shiny new Prius? According to an average figure per car, not the Prius specifically, given by Toyota, around 22,519 kwh or 22.5 megawatt/hours , the rough equivalent of 615 gallons of gas. This means that driving a Prius 31,000 miles uses about the same amount of energy as building the thing to begin with! 22.5 mwh would power the average house for over 2 years, it's quite a lot of energy.

One implication is that by buying a used car instead of a Prius you are preventing the use of the equivalent 615 gallons of gas--buying a used 15 mpg beast and driving it 9,000 miles uses less gas than a new Prius with 0 miles on it, making the beast more sustainable and conscientious up to that point. I realize I always pick on the Prius but I don't mean to be too disheartening, the Prius is one of the better options available, even if I think it's not as extreme as it should be. Anybody who buys a new Prius with legitimate environmental concern is now obligated to drive that car into the ground.

New cars aside, one Mythbusters experiment showed a 39% increase in fuel efficiency from drafting a big rig--driving 10 feet behind it. Assuming every car could always draft in such a manner and increase efficiency by 39%, well then the yearly consumption of gas would decrease by a monumental 39%. That's a big assumption, but there's one way it could be realized, and that's with autopilot.

We can't all draft all the time because it is very dangerous to drive at almost any speed 10 feet behind anything, and the reason is simply biological: it takes a measurable and substantive amount of time for information to traverse the nervous system, this phenomenon is commonly referred to as reaction time. When you see brake lights, the light must activate an action potential in your retina, which travels into the brain. Once processed, another signal is sent down the looong path (compared to microscopic neural cells, inconceivably long) to your foot, telling it to press the brake pedal. If a truck moving 60 mph slams on the brakes with you at 10 ft behind, that reaction time is simply way too slow and it's game over. On the other hand, with autopilot brake lights aren't even necessary, the computer in each vehicle would be in constant communication with the cars in front and behind; the vehicles could be 10 ft apart, 2 ft apart, even physically connected like a train without any problem. I imagine the optimum arrangement would be a physical connection for a number of reasons. Of course, if all drivers were computers, the brakes themselves would hardly be needed, especially on the freeway. If you know the status of every car around you, about their planned movements, power characteristics and beyond, less wasteful air friction could be used to decelerate as appropriate, perhaps to allow a car to enter the train, which is itself a task much easier for computers than humans.

It isn't hard to envision that traffic lights would disappear with irrelevance as well, indeed I doubt it would make much sense to sit at an intersection when precise control and rapid, traffic-omniscient computer communications would allow cars of all headings to pass through synchronously. Sure, it will take a while to get used to constantly missing that other car by inches, but abandoning the familiar start/stop/wait process will give tremendous fuel savings, as it is the most inefficient part of driving and why the distinction between city mpg and highway mpg exists. Accordingly, the pace of society will see a new and considerable boost as not only the time between locations diminishes, but we are also free to spend that time doing something other than driving. Not only will we get places fast, ambulances, police, and fire trucks will be able to reach their destinations in the maximum possible time. If that weren't enough, we should expect that we are all a noticeably wealthier as our expenditure on gas shrinks, car insurance disappears, and as mentioned above practically everything drops in price along with energy cost. It's such a win for everyone it feels like cheating, but all of that is just the start.

The first thing people say when they hear of computers or robots driving cars is "but that sounds So dangerous, it would never be safe enough, I would never trust it!" Well, the bleakness of reality readily illustrates the absurdity of such a thought. Think of it this way: the autopilot system could have 5 million accidents a year and that would still be a huge improvement over humans driving cars! There were around 6.4 million car accidents in 2005. 100 people could die every single day in a computer driven car and it would still be safer, because 115 people are dying every day in the current system. One hundred and fifteen people sure seems like a lot, doesn't it? Well, consider that 3,303 people died in car accidents in the month of September, 2001. That month is and always will be bitterly remembered solely for the terrorist attacks that fell the Twin Towers, acts that meant the death of 2,819 people. There is no doubt that 9/11 was a tragedy, but so was 3,303 car accidents. Death by car accident and terrorist attack are fundamentally similar in that the victims of either are generally no less expecting nor deserving the outcome--incidence is practically random. Just because the first figure elicits strong memories and the next is unfamiliar doesn't make the prior any more tragic! Personally I'm inclined to think that every person is more or less equally valuable (namely, invaluable) and thus that each person's death is equally tragic. That being the case, the 2,819 terrorism related deaths on 9/11 are quantitatively about 85.347% as tragic as those due to car accidents in that same month. Alternatively, if we were to assume that only the death of a relative or dear friend qualified as measurably tragic then the majority of people would see that 2,819 random strangers and 3,303 random strangers are pretty close to each other, and we might expect to estimate their relative tragedy as similarly near. Objectivity aside, you would have to be colder than cold to somehow consider 3,303 lives lost any less tragic than 2,819 lives lost regardless of the details, these are all people that could have been you or I, yearning to be alive just like you and I: husbands, daughters, mothers, brothers... neighbors, friends and mentors; they were real people!

So it's established, there were two significant tragedies in the US in September, 2001, now what? Perspective: the 3,303 fatal car crashes in September was actually fewer than that for the two months post and prior, which makes 5 tragic months in a row. If you figure that anything over 2,000 deaths is sufficient to be labeled tragic, every single month in 2001 was a tragedy considering car accidents alone... 37,862 people died. Every single year from 1994 to 2008 has been a tragic year, with an average 37,500 fatal car accidents per year. 1994 is the earliest data I have, but I'm willing to bet the numbers don't improve much by going back further. Over the 14 years that span 1994 and 2008 562,712 people died in car accidents. If instead of happening over 14 years it happened in one day, that day would be about 199.6 times as tragic as 9/11, like the events of 9/11 replayed 199.6 times in one day. 562,712 is 2.5 times the total number of people that died from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Know that those weren't the most devastating though--strategic firebombing of Japanese cities killed around 500,000 people, inconceivable yet still fewer.

Cars driven by people are as deadly, if not more, than world wars.

Then how dangerous would it be? Because an intelligent transportation system would need to be implemented everywhere all at once and thus a massive project, breadth and depth of testing at all stages is a certainty. To start, there has been decades of dedicated research on this specific issue, and the state of affairs is amazing (see DARPA's grand and urban challenges). Given the talent inevitably attracted to exceptional challenges (such as top engineers to NASA), a category for which this certainly qualifies, I presume each issue arising throughout development would be deftly handled. Finally, I would expect that some qualified organization would be intimately involved, dictating the requirements and governing the development to ensure safety and reliability, much as the FAA does with all things aerial. An autopilot system made properly as thus, I predict less than a hundred accidents per year from the very start, probably no deaths. With such a system the probability of dying in a car accident would go from frighteningly high to somewhere less than being struck by lightning. The current estimated yearly cost of car accidents is over $230 billion dollars, so... cha-ching! There's an extra $229.98 billion dollars floating around. Nonetheless we would expect the system to improve over time, transforming cars from most dangerous to safest form of transport.

Optimally the typical commuter car should be prepare for transition by being made small and ultra-light, with aerodynamics engineered in terms of chains of cars. The majority of cars should seat one passenger since most often a car carries only one person and any empty seats means wasted energy. With standardized interfacing and characteristics, other vehicle forms would fulfill the need for cargo haulers, high capacity vehicles, and so forth. Ideally vehicles would be public property, eliminating the need for a family to have multiple vehicles for commuting and family outings, but realistically this is the US and people want to own the things they use. Regardless, thanks to the reduced complexity and altogether more efficient vehicle design coupled with energy efficiency savings, a family could afford to own a number of vehicles which nonetheless add up to a fraction of the energy and materials cost of the present steel monstrosities, maybe able even to be stored in the same amount of space. Alternatively a sufficiently large platform could allow for modular passenger compartments; though the platform size would be less than optimum for single passengers, needing only one drivetrain would decrease materials consumption. The subsequent implication is that modular drivetrains could be used instead of modular passenger compartments.

The aforementioned efforts combined would make for an increase in efficiency so marvelous that domestic oil production would actually be sufficient for the first time since the 70's, when it peaked. Since we're making a whole new concept of car, it would make sense to complete the metamorphosis: ditch internal combustion for electrical, pave the road with solar cells, and oil becomes practically irrelevant for the first time since the second industrial revolution. Rather than carry around the really heavy main batteries, leave them stationary and build contact strips in the road so that cars can zip around like full scale slot cars. The relatively lightweight backup batteries would still be carried so that in the case of main power failure the vehicle could still maneuver and communicate safely. With the sum of these modifications, we should expect our busiest roads to give the impression of losing much of the normal traffic--in reality, the same road may have even more traffic, only seeming less because more cars fit in less space for less time. Each intersection would know about every car planning to traverse it from the earliest possible moment, and would assign each car a set of parameters with which it is to use for traversal, including possible alternate plans. Each car would then communicate with every other car assigned to the intersection around the same time to verify that everything works out, a sanity check independent of the intersection. For example, two chains of several cars each plan to travel east and north through the same intersection at the same time. The intersection may dictate that both chains enter the intersection moving 80 mph, the first at 5:00:00 and the other at 5:04:00. The chains verify together and find that they will pass within 6 inches of each other, but that this is an acceptable margin given the wind conditions and other factors. The plan is confirmed with the intersection and each car passes through, deviating a few hundredths of an inch from their predictions--these deviations would then be incorporated back into the prediction model which is distributed across the whole network. Suppose four very long chains travelling in every direction are approaching the same intersection. This time the intersection would probably dictate that the lead cars split and accelerate through such that at any moment there are 4, possibly 8 cars in the intersection, each one missing the other by a hair. Eventually it is expected that the traffic network will maximize efficiency of the whole system in unexpected ways. Maybe previously busy intersections will be used as though there were no crossing, or all but a handful of wide, long, straight thoroughfares will fall into relative disuse.

I am a driving enthusiast, I really love driving. Many days it seems my highest aspiration is to do laps around Laguna Seca in some kind of ultra performance four wheeled vehicle. But despite my pleasure in driving there is no way that I can call the present system workable. It's extremely dangerous, terribly slow, woefully inefficient, and absurdly expensive. The truth is that we have the technology to automate the roads, people have been working on it for decades and the resulting systems have proven reliable even in novel situations many humans might otherwise fail. It might not be perfect, but it's much better, and as I've shown we're so terrifically awful at driving that that's not saying much. The transition is ready to happen, and when it finally does our world will simply become safer, faster, better, and wealthier. The only downside is that it can't be done over night.



Once we finish automating our roads, what's the next revolutionary development? A space elevator. More on that some time.


some sources:

"Energy Intensity of Computer Manufacturing" by Eric Williams, United Nations University
  http://www.scribd.com/doc/4183/Energy-Intensity-of-Computer-Manufacturing
"How much does electricity cost? What is a kilowatt-hour?"
  http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cost.html
"How much electricity do computers use?"
  http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers.html
Energy Content of Fuels (in Joules), other useful tables
  http://physics.syr.edu/courses/modules/ENERGY/ENERGY_POLICY/tables.html
"Weekly U.S. Retail Gasoline Prices, Regular Grade"
  http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_home_page.html
"Average Retail Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State"
  http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html
"Energy to build a car?"
  http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18240
"Most and Least Fuel Efficient Cars "
  http://www.fueleconomy.gov/FEG/bestworst.shtml
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System
  http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
Wikipedia - "Intelligent Transportation System"
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_transportation_system
U.S. Dept. of Transportation - "Intelligent Transportation Systems Benefits and Costs, 2003 Update"
  http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/jpodocs/repts_te/13772.html#4.0

Nissan Succumbs to Logic

Making the rounds on the web is a new Nissan Land Glider concept vehicle. My opinion is that this represents the first indication of a correct step towards a sustainable near-range vehicular platform from a major automobile manufacturer. Included with all the sites discussing it are a few pictures and the following video (which has a very interesting choice of music with what I'm quite certain is the avant-ambient work of Steve Roach):



Get more after the jump!

Old cars are not safer!

Here's another common misconception ready to be exposed: old cars aren't safer. By older cars it is typically meant late 60's and prior, and the thought goes that because they are heavier, they are safer. This is absolutely false, weight doesn't matter in vehicle safety; what really matters is the ability of the frame to absorb impact while maintaining structural integrity of the passenger space. The safety of a vehicle accident is very simple physics: by spreading an impact over time and distance the force of impact is also minimized. This matches our intuitive understanding, just imagine dropping an egg from 10 feet. If the egg hits concrete, it breaks--it goes from speed to stopped instantaneously. If the egg hits 5 feet of padding, it will be fine--it will slowly go from speed to stopped over time and distance, as the padding absorbs energy from the moving egg. The "padding" in a car accident is mainly of one form, the crumpling of steel. Of course this is all moot if the passenger cabin is compromised, as our soft, fragile bodies are no match for hard things moving at high speeds, and that's the rub; no matter how much energy is absorbed, if the engine block ends up in the driver's seat or the vehicle explodes, there is little hope of walking away from the accident. Excluding air bags, seat belts, and other obvious safety features, modern cars still have the advantage because they are designed to crumple up to the cabin, which is in turn designed to be as rigid as possible. As far as I know, older cars weren't designed with any energy absorption in consideration, and thus a double edged sword: if the car doesn't crumple at all, no energy is absorbed and it is like an egg hitting concrete; if the car does crumple, it will most likely continue to crumple well past the engine bay and into the cabin, rendering all energy absorption for naught. And now, for the demonstration:



The cars collided each moving at around 40 mph. As is usual for the Internet, a number of people (I think it's safe to assume they are classic car enthusiasts) have stepped forward challenging the veracity of the video, suggesting that the chosen car was not representative. As in any scientific pursuit, contentions are often valid and desired, and the responsible scientist will acknowledge, explore, and respond to any valid concerns. I found this on Consumerist, where amongst the comments arose criticism (from user Nighthawke) as follows: the appearance of reddish dust that may indicate the presence of structure-compromising rust; the lack of seat belts used in the test vehicle (which were available as a dealer option); The expense of an unsafe frame for the aesthetics of the curved front pillar specific to Bell-Airs; Finally, the frontal offset test is unfair because the skinny engine didn't have the opportunity to absorb energy.

The responses are easy, as only the first point is really valid. The IIHS, which conducted the test, assured that the "rust" was just accumulated dirt and the car appeared structurally sound. For the final 3: the optional seat belts were lap belts only, and almost certainly wouldn't have made a modicum of difference; perhaps the Bell-Air has uncommonly poor structural integrity (I'm not sure, but I know of other classic cars with the same pillar shape), but the whole point is to show that collision safety design has improved tremendously and no other modern American car has performed anywhere near as bad as this Bell-Air; Last but not least, life isn't fair and the frontal offset test is one of a scant few standard tests that all cars undergo. Likewise, it's an important test for how common this type of accident is; James Dean died in a frontal offset collision. Frontal offsets have a particular propensity to cause extensive damage--the energy of the collision is focused on a smaller portion of the vehicle, thus causing more damage. In fact, in terms of energy absorption, a direct, in-line/"head to head" collision is safer! Clearly our intuition begins to fail us at this point, our instinct even more so; two people destined for a head on collision will swerve, unfortunately magnifying the danger of the impact be reducing the surface area of the collision. Nonetheless, this idea of applying a force over increased surface area is one that is often understood (or at least utilized) by people using snowshoes. This same principle is what allows people to lay on a bed of nails.

At least we have some kind of standards! Check out other poorly fairing vehicles here and here. In closing, I want to point out that heavy modern cars aren't safer either--in fact many large vehicles (trucks, SUVs) fare worse in passenger protection than smaller vehicles for a few fairly obvious reasons. Also, it's a matter of perspective: presume large vehicles are safer for the occupants, what about the people in any smaller car that may be hit? You'll probably walk away from your Suburban with a few scratches, but how will you feel about having possibly killed several or all of the people in that Yaris? The truth is, large vehicles aren't safer, they're more dangerous for everyone. The only reason huge cars can be viewed as safe is because there are other huge cars out there, and that's just an unsustainable and foolish perspective--keep it going and before long we're all driving monster trucks. Unfortunately even that won't help just as our huge SUVs haven't helped because more and more people will be getting injured in single-vehicle rollovers.

Certainly cars have gotten a lot safer, but as long as they are being driven by people, they will never be safe enough.

A Radical Proposal

What if you could decrease the US's oil consumption (and the foreign dependence requisite therein), cut greenhouse gas emissions, increase general public health, reduce obesity substantially, and preempt cardiovascular deterioration in one stone's throw? It isn't difficult to imagine how it could be done, they're all related problems.

In the USA:
Percent of all energy consumption that is used for transportation: 29
Percentage of that energy used that comes from oil: 95
Percent of all trips that are 3 miles or fewer: 50
Percent of those that are driven: 72
Percent that are by bicycle: less than 2
Percent of all trips that consist of driving 3 miles or fewer: 36 
Percent of bicycle trips that are 3 miles or fewer: 85
Estimated average speed of a moderately fit cyclist: 12 mph
Time for this cyclist to cover 3 miles: 15 minutes
Estimated time for a lawful driver (regardless of physical fitness): 15 minutes
Estimated gasoline used by the car to cover 3 miles: 0.1215 gallons
Amount of energy this represents: 15,800,000 joules
Estimated energy expended by the cyclist: 135,000 joules
Estimated additional food calories the cyclist burned: 32
Estimated total food calories the driver burned: 29
Amount of food calories the car burned: 3,775
Food calories in a gallon of gasoline:  31,070
Example daily Caloric intake of an ultra-endurance athlete: 6,000
sustained horsepower of Lance Armstrong: 0.67
sustained horsepower of an average male: 0.20

In Amory's video below, it is mentioned that less than 1% of the energy consumed in moving a vehicle is moving the driver - obviously, too, the car weighs an awful lot more than you do and weight costs energy to move. So we are wasting 99% of our highly condensed energy to move a hulking steel shell a couple of miles. Cars are great vehicles for moderate distances, 30 miles and up at least, but they're too wasteful for anything less--just the same as how you wouldn't taxi an airplane to travel a few miles.

But wait, weren't we supposed to be talking about health? Where does health fit in? Right here.

Bicycles. Yes, they've been around for ages, all the laws regarding their use are (internationally) in place, they're cheap, familiar enough in culture to not be mocked (ahem, Segway), and just about every business has some kind of object a bicycle can be locked to, usually closer than the handicapped parking space. The bicycle is a legitimate form of transportation; having ridden a bicycle the ~3,600 miles that span the US this is a statement in which I have authority to represent. A healthy human being can sustain an average of 15 miles per hour for one hour without much problem. The result is that anything within a few miles of where you are is a short bike ride away. For me, and I'm nowhere near as in shape as I was, riding my bike 3 miles takes about the same time as in a car. When closer, the bike is definitely faster in most cases, and a whole lot more pleasant. Of course, the more you ride a bike the more fit you become, and so forth. If everyone were to abandon their cars for short distances, the streets would be flooded with cyclists. You wouldn't need to worry as much about being hit by a car because there wouldn't be near as many cars, and many of the people who were driving would realize what it would be like to be a cyclist and would drive more defensively. Bicycle collisions aren't much of a worry, nothing like auto collisions which are the 4th greatest cause of death in the US--cars are, to people, a disaster; the human brain is not built to process the number of things at the speed required for driving, as much is clear in the amount of accidents that happen every day. Add on top of this our increasing distraction by the fast pace of modern life (drivers on cell phones, grrr) and that a four thousand pound vehicle (such as an average SUV) moving at 35 mph has tremendous kinetic energy, about 11% of a stick of dynamite: kinetic energy is 1/2 * mass * velocity squared, which ends up as 222,088 Joules. A stick of dynamite has around 2.1 million Joules of energy, so the percent of dynamite's energy the vehicle has is 10.6%. The result is clear: people just shouldn't be allowed to drive, we aren't capable of doing so safely. I love driving a lot, but there is no question here, no way to justify allowing people to drive. The way to make a vehicle inherently safer is to reduce its energy, which means lighter and slower; bicycles are singularly wonderful in that they represent one of the lightest forms of transportation conceivable, however even they are not perfect, as in the wrong hands they can be tricked into traveling at dangerous speeds ;)

Pushing cars off the road and people into the streets with motivation/education for physical fitness is, very unfortunately, not enough. We need to truly revolutionize our understanding of existence--not a new same-as-usual car with an astonishingly expensive marketing campaign that uses the word "green" a lot. In this small domain of personal, local transportation we already have the technology, we just need to use it!

The craziest thing about the low utilization of bicycles is that self-powered transportation would be an overwhelmingly positive thing for the majority of people. It comes down to health, wealth, and happiness.

Wealth is obvious, bicycles are a lot cheaper than cars, even absurdly expensive bicycles. 17% of the average USAmerican yearly income goes to transportation, which is the second largest spending category after housing. Furthermore cycling naturally supports the very local economy, which the cyclist necessarily participates in and at least indirectly benefits from. The savings can even be realized directly with participation in the Bicycle Benefits program, with presently almost a hundred local, conscientious businesses (some of my favorite) offering incentives such as 10% off purchases.

A widely accepted goal for life is to live a long and healthy life. Healthier lifestyles would substantially reduce the majority of deaths, including their often extensive associated medical care/cost, by the biggest killers (followed by the chance any person will die from it):

1. Heart disease, 1 in 5
2. Cancer, 1 in 7
3. Stroke, 1 in 24
4. Motor vehicle accident, 1 in 84
5. Suicide, 1 in 119

I included suicide because there is evidence that shows exercise effective in mediating the symptoms of depression. There is no reason I know of to imagine that an active society will have significantly reduced cancer rates (except for the decrease in environmental pollutants), as the many causes of cancer aren't so well understood. For the next greatest causes of death some arguments could be made for the effectiveness of cycling in prevention, though they get weaker: number 6, falling, could be diminished by increased muscular fitness of elderly folks and increased spatial coordination for (tragically) clumsy people; number 7, firearm assault, could be decreased by the increase in social interaction that is inevitable when you aren't enclosed in a glass and metal box and by increasing the wealth of immediate neighbors through the support of local economy. Number 8, pedestrian accidents, would clearly decrease with the amount of cars on the road and number 9, drowning, could also decrease with increased general fitness. Of course each of these causes have instances in which the fantasized bicycle culture won't help, but there is little question that increased mean health of the population ultralight human powered vehicles would have an incredible impact on healthcare expenses. There is no other way to say it but that bicycling is a miraculous thing that a (growing) few take advantage of. Riding a bike leaves the air cleaner, your self happier and your body healthier, where's the downside? You can't say safety because cars aren't safer, car accidents kill way more people than bicycle accidents. There is no downside, ride your bike.