Chao, the billionaire former CEO of dry bulk shipping giant Foremost Group, tragically died at the age of 50 on Feb. 10 after accidentally backing her car into the pond making a three-point turn.
Stupid cosmetic designs have been an issue for a long time. There was a theater fire in Chicago in the early 1900’s where a bunch of people died because they couldn’t figure out how to use the fancy door handles while panicking and being crushed by everyone trying to get out. That’s the reason why exit doors on buildings with a high occupancy are now required to swing out, and have those pushbar locks that allow the door to open even if you’re just falling on it.
If it’s possible that someone will need to use something while panicking, it needs to be as simple, intuitive, and failproof as possible
Wanted to chime in and clarify, the major issue there is you cannot operate a door handle in a crush, no matter how much of your senses you have. Can’t use a door handle if you can’t use your arms. Am drunk on the internet and hope this isn’t interpreted as a hostile reply.
But isn’t the point of crash bar locks that just the act of being crushed against the door will force it open? The only thing you have to do to open it is push on it or be pushed into it. Of course that won’t help you when you fall as the door swings open and get trampled, but it’s better than everyone burning to death.
It wasn’t that they didn’t know how to use the door handles. It was that the doors opened inward.
There were also ornamental doors that were an issue, but those weren’t actually doors, so it wasn’t that the victims couldn’t figure out how to use the handles, it’s that the “doors” weren’t really doors. They were walls.
If I had my way, regulations would require a physical connection for all door handles, and not just that a secondary physical release be available. I don’t know how you would go about finding injuries associated with each design as a layperson, but I bet there’s a death or two associated with each novel design.
An old man roasted in his Cadillac XLR because the battery was dead and he didn’t know where the secondary release was. I think it’s under the seat on that car. I don’t care how cool that electronic door release was, or if the old man was negligent in not knowing his exits; it wasn’t worth his life.
This is why I liked driving the newer Army vehicles or well cared for Humvees. Everything was labeled. Anything important to not hit accidentally had a safety cover. And anything not obvious like an out of sight fire extinguisher has a high visibility sign pointing to it from your normal field of view.
Fuck fashion, give me cars that are comfortable and safe.
I love how they made the emergency door release a multi step process, which on some models recommended a flat head screwdriver or in others only is for the front doors.
I thought you couldn’t open normal doors underwater anyway due to water pressure so the recommendation is to kick out your windshield. Do newer cars have doors that open more easily underwater?
No, electronic door handles are not cosmetic, they save a lot more lives than than they kill by people drowning or burning alive in their car because they are too stupid to read their cars manual.
Since you apparently do not know this, the purpose of electronic door handles is for the car to be able to lock you out from opening the door if there is a car or bicycle approaching from behind in your blind spot. That’s why you only see them in cars with blind spot radars
That being said, Teslas design is still terrible. In Audis the electronic door handle doubles up as the mechanical emergency door handle, you just need to pull on it harder than normal and it will engage the manual mechanism
the purpose of electronic door handles is for the car to be able to lock you out from opening the door if there is a car or bicycle approaching from behind in your blind spot.
Seems like they created a lot of unnecessary risk to alleviate a relatively minor problem.
Don’t forget the fancy electric door handles that stop working when you back into a pond.
There are emergency override handles, but not everyone knows where they are or how to use them, so they’re not all that useful in an emergency.
These deadly features are purely cosmetic, so I would lay a decent amount of blame is on tesla
Stupid cosmetic designs have been an issue for a long time. There was a theater fire in Chicago in the early 1900’s where a bunch of people died because they couldn’t figure out how to use the fancy door handles while panicking and being crushed by everyone trying to get out. That’s the reason why exit doors on buildings with a high occupancy are now required to swing out, and have those pushbar locks that allow the door to open even if you’re just falling on it.
If it’s possible that someone will need to use something while panicking, it needs to be as simple, intuitive, and failproof as possible
Wanted to chime in and clarify, the major issue there is you cannot operate a door handle in a crush, no matter how much of your senses you have. Can’t use a door handle if you can’t use your arms. Am drunk on the internet and hope this isn’t interpreted as a hostile reply.
But isn’t the point of crash bar locks that just the act of being crushed against the door will force it open? The only thing you have to do to open it is push on it or be pushed into it. Of course that won’t help you when you fall as the door swings open and get trampled, but it’s better than everyone burning to death.
Absolutely.
Crash bars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_bar
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He’s gotta do time at his neuralink first
It wasn’t that they didn’t know how to use the door handles. It was that the doors opened inward.
There were also ornamental doors that were an issue, but those weren’t actually doors, so it wasn’t that the victims couldn’t figure out how to use the handles, it’s that the “doors” weren’t really doors. They were walls.
If I had my way, regulations would require a physical connection for all door handles, and not just that a secondary physical release be available. I don’t know how you would go about finding injuries associated with each design as a layperson, but I bet there’s a death or two associated with each novel design.
An old man roasted in his Cadillac XLR because the battery was dead and he didn’t know where the secondary release was. I think it’s under the seat on that car. I don’t care how cool that electronic door release was, or if the old man was negligent in not knowing his exits; it wasn’t worth his life.
And let’s not forget that there are people who have flexibility issues that can’t reach under their seat in an emergency.
Or might have gained injuries during the accident preventing them from reaching.
This is why I liked driving the newer Army vehicles or well cared for Humvees. Everything was labeled. Anything important to not hit accidentally had a safety cover. And anything not obvious like an out of sight fire extinguisher has a high visibility sign pointing to it from your normal field of view.
Fuck fashion, give me cars that are comfortable and safe.
I love how they made the emergency door release a multi step process, which on some models recommended a flat head screwdriver or in others only is for the front doors.
A flat-head screwdriver for an emergency door O_o
How do these cars pass regulations?
When you regulate yourself, it’s easy to pass
The only regulations we have is that we’re not allowed to implement European safety features.
An exaggeration, but damn does it feel that way.
This would be at least the second time this “feature” has been tied to dying horribly.
The front driver and passenger emergency handles are so intuitively placed that every Tesla owner has to warn all their passengers not to use them.
The back is another story entirely if they even have them, but the front are fine.
Edit: I will grant people might forget after not using them for years in a moment of panic. But they know.
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I do have to find these but ….
IMO, the real answers are:
I don’t know if I’d do any better in a panic, but I really ought to get window breakers for all my family’s cars
I thought you couldn’t open normal doors underwater anyway due to water pressure so the recommendation is to kick out your windshield. Do newer cars have doors that open more easily underwater?
No, electronic door handles are not cosmetic, they save a lot more lives than than they kill by people drowning or burning alive in their car because they are too stupid to read their cars manual.
Since you apparently do not know this, the purpose of electronic door handles is for the car to be able to lock you out from opening the door if there is a car or bicycle approaching from behind in your blind spot. That’s why you only see them in cars with blind spot radars
That being said, Teslas design is still terrible. In Audis the electronic door handle doubles up as the mechanical emergency door handle, you just need to pull on it harder than normal and it will engage the manual mechanism
Do they? Can you provide any examples?
Seems like they created a lot of unnecessary risk to alleviate a relatively minor problem.
So it needs to fail open then. Without a charge it should fail into a position it can be opened or actually open itself.
This is not a new issue. Failure engineering has been around for a long time.
Bro, you dont need electronc door-handles to have electronic locks,