[geeks] Mac definitions

[Phil Stracchino]

On 07/15/11 20:30, Bob wrote:
> [previous attribution lost, sorry]
>> Its not just memory, its well recorded statistics: the common accidents
>> aren't the killers they used to be.
> 
> The driving could be different too.  I remember when the official
> position on 55 being safer than 65 for less highway deaths until some one
> pointed out that 55 was put in to "save gas" during the oil crisis in the
> 70s and because of the increased price, less people were driving and
> that's what lowered the highway death rate.  When adjusted, the
> difference wasn't as much as hyped.

Another factor that was particularly prominent in the large Western
states is that "single-vehicle fatalities due to operator inattention"
went up significantly with the introduction of the 55 limit, plateaued
off at a new level that proceeded to track the ongoing steady decline in
highway fatalities but at a higher level, and then dropped back to the
baseline when the 55 limit was discontinued.  Car & Driver printed an
analysis on this ...  oh, years back.

In plain terms?  With the 55 limit, it was taking so damn long to drive
from one city to the next that drivers were falling asleep at the wheel
and running off the road.

>> Pumping your brakes doesn't make them perform as well as a modern
>> braking system.

False.  A skilled driver can limit-brake, on dry, wet or even icy
surfaces, better than a modern ABS system can.  Not MUCH better, but
better.  You'll observe there's no ABS on Formula 1 cars.

That said, ABS can stop a car in reduced-traction conditions more
quickly and safely than - sorry, but I gotta say it - the average
half-trained American driver.

ABS does not improve the maximum performance of brakes.  What it does do
is make it a lot EASIER to get close to the braking limit, even in the
hands of an unskilled driver whose knowledge of emergency braking
techniques ends at "mash the pedal to the floor".

>> Also pumping your brakes was not just a driver skill for traction
>> issues, it was to overcome serious problems with earlier brake systems.

Sorry, this is complete rubbish.  If your brake system isn't working
properly, whether due to mechanical failure or poor design, pumping the
brakes isn't going to magically make them work better.

> I've driven cars with mechanical brakes, power brakes, "power assist"
> brakes but never got into a skid that I couldn't get out of.  Again, I
> may just drive different.

Or maybe you just have better driving skills.

I'm given to understand most driving schools stopped teaching spin
control some years back, partly for liability reasons and partly because
it "alarms the students".

I'm likewise given to understand that, in similar vein, the Sears
private PILOT school stopped teaching spin recovery some decades ago
now.  Again, because it "alarms the students".


You want fucking alarming?  Try being in a flat spin that you DON"T KNOW
HOW TO GET OUT OF because the flight school thought spinning the
airplane to teach spin recovery to you would alarm you.  I promise you
for DAMNED CERTAIN that spin will alarm you.

...Once.  And after that, it won't matter any more.


Side story:
When I was learning to drive a car, my dad took me to his iced-over
company parking lot in the middle of winter, and spent the whole
afternoon teaching me to spin the car on demand, whichever way I wanted,
and stop the spin with the car pointed any direction I chose.

Years later, I was driving north up Highway 1 from Cambria in my Z28,
with a female friend, and came to a spot that's known to the locals as
Movable Bridge.  There's no bridge there any more, because all the rock
in the area is serpentine, which is slick as shit when wet, and the
bridge kept creeping downslope and falling off the cliff.  When CalTrans
eventually got tired of rebuilding the bridge, they just hogged out the
back of the gully and rebuilt the road in a deep horseshoe, kind of like
a giant chicane.  Road looked dry, but as I started into the turn entry
the rear end started to break away.  I didn't think about it, just kept
power on and steered into it, and we went the whole way around Movable
Bridge in a four-wheel drift.  I casually remarked, "Road was a little
slick back there, must have sprinkled a little rain," and thought no
more of it.  Until I turned to look at my passenger, who still had a
white-knuckle death-grip on the edge of the dash and an "OH MY GOD THIS
IS IT WE'RE GONNA DIE" expression frozen on her face.

Fast forward to last winter.  By now I'm living in central New
Hampshire, driving an all-wheel-drive Volvo XC70 with active stability
and traction control.  And, half-way across the snowy Lowes Hardware
parking lot one day, I decided on a whim to see how the XC70 handles in
a spin.

And I couldn't spin it.  The stability/traction control system wouldn't
let it spin.

Color me impressed.


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
  Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, SQL wrangler, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.