Just need to vent...

As a result of the "Bell the Hybrid" act that forces noise makers on hybrids and EVs, I realized there is a structural issue working against the driver:

• "A" pillars on either side of the windshield blocs at least one of the driver's eyes.
• The other eye has a built-in 'blind spot' where the eye nerves pass through the orbit.
• A turning motion makes an arc that can block the driver seeing a pedestrian in a cross-walk.
• I am apparently the only one who understands what is going on.

What clued me was seeing asymmetry in car-pedestrian accidents with driver-side turns having a higher number than passenger-side turns. A driver-side turn has a much larger area blocked by the "A" pillar on that side. Larger vehicles with thicker, stronger "A" pilars also have a lot of pedestrian accidents.



Bob Wilson

 

Some (possibly outdated from almost two decades ago) reference points, from when I was in a 3-way squabble with my local water district and fire district over residential fire sprinkler design and water surcharges:

* 'Typical' homes have 3/4" or 5/8" water meters with billing-quality accuracy ratings up to 20 gpm. For homes needing more water (very few in my water district), the next up size is 1", rated to 50 gpm.

* My house has a fire sprinkler system, a 1" meter and (most likely) 1" water line, about 300' long from the main under the street. At the time, my water district's fixed account charge (the majority of the bill, much more than the water usage charge) was proportional to that meter gpm rating, so I had a high water bill, despite lower than average usage. And the fire sprinkler precluded downsizing to the smaller meter. (Later, after I testified at a legislative committee meeting and learned than the water industry itself was split on this, my district found itself in the minority, so relented and removed its implicit 'residential fire sprinkler surcharge'.

* My static pressure at that time was in the mid-70 psi range. (It was high 20s when we moved in, changed several times as they adjusted neighborhood equipment and pressure zones, and is now about 60.) My 'bucket' test through the faucet at the house water entrance produced a flow rate a bit higher than 30 gpm. My sprinkler system hydraulic model calculations (from various pipe flow tables and online calculations and equations) suggest that most of my flow resistance is from that 300' of 1" pipe to the street.

* The absolute minimum legal corner case flow rate for a residential fire sprinkler system (not including single room tiny homes) then was 20 gpm: 2 sprinkler heads delivering 10 gpm each (no heads were certified for a lower flow rate). That applied mostly to manufactured homes with no large rooms. Typical homes with larger rooms needed more like 30 gpm for their two highest flow sprinkler heads. The water system needs be sized to fully supply only those two heads, on the design goal of just delaying 'flashover' long enough for occupants to escape. (These systems are not designed to save the structure, though about 90% of the time they actually do save it.). It is simply not cost effective to install residential water systems large enough to fully supply all the sprinkler heads in a house (10 in mine, would probably require 14+ under newer fire codes).

Obligatory vent: I have no idea how my home's fire sprinkler passed inspection, especially with the low pressure in the neighborhood at that time. Neither does the fire agency that had jurisdiction when built, as they didn't get serious about record keeping until later, and lost everything for the years I needed. (The other agency that handled plans and permits and inspections of everything except fire sprinklers, had excellent records.) The new head of that agency was actually the most helpful, but no longer had any authority over my area. The new fire department and the water district each had very strong but conflicting ideas what I should do, and both thought in terms of unlimited budgets, spending other people's (i.e. my) money. Meanwhile, no private fire business wanted to touch an existing home unless they could strip out the old system and start fresh, de$$igning and in$$talling a completely new retrofit.

I decided to let sleeping dogs lie, not allowing the new FD to come into my house to inspect the old system without a warrant, and wait until all involved parties have retired. Just one remains ...

 

Not sure how cold it gets in your area but if it does get below 25°f or so in winter ...
All of our immediate Nashville neighbor's fire sprinklers burst due to freezing temps last winter. Our fire lines are pre charged with several gallons of diluted food grade propylene glycol at the business end of the system which is supposed to be good as antifreeze well below -30°f. Our neighbors took issue with the track homes sprinkler contractors for not taking the same amount of energy/effort to protect their lines.
Self-inflicted flood damage from fire sprinklers is no picnic from what they told us
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Another way to avoid flooding due to freezing is an alternative system that uses an air charge in the system to maintain a set monitored pressure on the system. If the system detects a dramatic drop in air pressure and a temperature increase it opens a main fire system valve that allows water to flow into the system and out the open sprinkler heads.

These systems are used to protect systems that will see low temperatures and sans the high temperature sensor large ovens in industry and the like.

An integral air pump maintains air pressure on the system and pressure sensors report out on the status of the systems pressure. The activation pressure drop can be set so that if small air leaks develop the pump automatically activates to recharge the system to its working pressure and a message is sent out to the user that the system may have developed a small leak. Of course a dramatic pressure drop immediately opens the main water valve to flood the system and summon the Fire Department.

These are generally referred to as Dry Pipe Systems.

RCP-1Flyer2_SYS.pdf (nationalfire.com)

 

Truth is probably somewhere in between.
More and more - less tolerance, attentiveness, and raw driving skill with probably a dash of intersection panhandling (or worse!) biasing drivers against taking notice of bi-peds in locations that allow people to partake of this activity.
When I'm a pedestrian, I observe the law of gross tonnage although people in dense urban locations will probably have to assert their right of passage more aggressively.

 

Something was built seriously wrong if this sort of simple wet indoor system freezes at a mere 7° below freezing outdoors.

Mine was built with the sprinkler pipes embedded in the attic insulation, with just as much insulation over the top of the pipes as underneath, so it ought to have survived down to near 0°, at least back then. Later unrelated projects did disturb, compress, and compromise some of the insulation over it, so I had swept and shifted some neighboring insulation over the pipe lines, but not matching the original. It still survived about 8°F after the first degradation, though a flush test at the far end revealed a partial freeze obstruction somewhere, which quickly cleared with some water flow from warmer spots. That was about as cold as it ever gets here in the Puget Sound lowlands.

It was probably low teens when our home's twin did suffer a burst pipe while the new owners were away with thermostats turned down. (It had not burst while previous owners were home during slightly colder temperatures.) But since my attic insulation had suffered additional disturbances over the years, and I had previously thought about upgrading the whole attic, that neighbor's flood pushed my project to the fast track. I doubled total insulation to about R60, and fixed numerous patches that were thin or even entirely lacking insulation (beyond view of any inspectors). For the sprinkler system, this effectively tripled the amount of insulation it originally had over it, to about R45. Plus, I put small cardboard 'tents' over the pipes, and removed all insulation within these tents under the pipes, effectively reducing the insulation between pipe and ceiling to near R0 (from about R15), better thermally coupling the pipe to the living space below to further improve freeze protection.

With no insulation between ceiling and pipes anymore, and vastly increased insulation between pipes and roof, I'm figuring that it should survive a much more severe cold snap than we have ever experienced, even if a power failure takes out our main heat for an extended period and we have to fire up the old woodstove far away from the bedrooms.

Colder climates probably need to keep this type of sprinkler system entirely within the conditioned space. Many office and commercial facilities have the sprinkler pipes hanging just above a false ceiling grid of acoustic tiles, but I don't know if any ordinary residences are built this way.

Our improved attic and floor insulations, and greatly improved sealing against air infiltration, have also greatly slowed the rate at which the house cools during a power failure. When very heavy early snow took out the power last year (at a relatively balmy 28-30°F), the house didn't cool enough to bother firing up the wood stove until after about 12 hours.

 

I noticed that in gen2. The width and angle of the pillar can block a car from sight in some conditions. Though it doesn't explain what happened with the driver making a right turn in @fuzzy1 incident.

 

In newer Prii (and other cars) the advanced safety features (esp. Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking) help with this issue.

JeffD

 

I also had a direct view of the driver through the center of the windshield when he stopped, just before I started crossing and he accelerated into me. The pillar problem was definitely not an issue in this case. Also, my incident was in the 1980s, mom's in the late 1990s, so today's cars are not guilty of either incident.

But these details don't invalidate Bob's points concerning the rising pedestrian toll this century, even back before the Pandemic when the car-occupant toll was still declining.

 

My 2019 Model 3 has three cameras mounted on the windshield also holding the rear view mirror. They are far ahead and higher than my eyes. They have three optimize views with the short range, wide area camera covering a complete sweep:

They are connected to never tired, better than human sun resistant, always running computers looking for hazards both pedestrians and vehicles.

The only technical approach that makes more sense would be the 'invisible car' that uses displays on the "A" pillars to show what is on the other side. But these still require a human to look at and screens with our limited field of view.

Bob Wilson

 

Inattentive drivers are 1/2 of the equation - the other half is the growing number of inattentive pedestrians glued to their cell phones or mobile entertainment centers.

The technology in cars as in the example above is quite advanced and can assist the driver as well as help considerably with inattentive or distracted drivers. The technology in many instances now will override the driver and stop the car as well as sound a warning.

 

Writers saying stuff like "all 298 souls on board were killed".

I mean, I get synecdoche and all, but wouldn't most people who talk about souls be thinking, like, those were the only parts of them that weren't killed?

 

Curious, I rode an a Boeing 737-900, associated with the 737-MAX fiasco. Nice ride.

Bob Wilson

 

More people around the world, die from car accidents then Covid. Prior to Covid just from the common every day house flu we would lose over 50,000 individuals.
So a little bit more from Covid and we shut down the entire world bankrupt many large companies in people lose their jobs, bankrupt many small mom and Pop Businesses, so they lose their life work in earnings
Bankrupt the hard-working, blue-collar worker who may have been lucky to invest in two or three houses that they had mortgages on and the government says their tenants don’t have to pay rent for a year or two while the blue-collar worker who’s almost at retirement age Hass to lose one or two of their homes because they still have to pay mortgage without tenants who pay rent.

Yep, it’s a messed up world.

 

Blame the Coasties, and other rescuers.
It's meant as a simple means of determining how many PEOPLE are aboard using one word with one syllable.

...The primary reason is probably that it ensures there is no confusion between passengers, crew, or infants. Technically, "passengers" is the number of seats occupied, "crew" is both the pilots and flight attendants on duty. So any small children brought on as "lap children" will not be included in the "passengers" count, but should be included in the total number of people on board.

 

Over a million deaths isn't a little bit more than the flu. It would have been higher without the shut down.

 

Finding the hornet's nest.

...with the weedwhacker.


****!

**** **** ****!

Got me twice. At least I got their whole house. Been a loooong time since I felt one of those.

 

That's what they say ... but how does anyone prove it. Seems it was recently revealed CDC revised down the # of deaths ... becase many that died "with" covid as opposed to "because" .... & those deaths being between 10—30% .
.