Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | dublinben's commentslogin

How many drivers of $150k cars die after driving into floodwaters? It costs nothing to turn around and not drive through a flood.

https://www.weather.gov/safety/flood-turn-around-dont-drown


Arizona has a "Stupid Motorist Law" (ARS 28-910) because there are so many idiots who think they can make it across a flooded road and don't.


> (In USA) "over half of all flood-related drownings occur when a vehicle is driven into hazardous flood water."

In this context, the advice "Turn Around Don't Drown®" seems correct.

Though perhaps the BYD solution could be more effective for dumb drivers (which, according to CDC, seem abundant).


There was a bizarre case where a drunk Texan drove her Tesla into a pond, got trapped inside, and drowned.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68622898


Is it gonna be one of those things where increased safety encourages dumb people because "it is watertight you know" so now a lot more people drive into the floods, and even though it's a smaller proportion more people in total drown.


> It costs nothing to turn around and not drive through a flood.

Sometimes it may be the least bad option, floods can get pretty wild and extensive. Maybe someone travels around in deltas commonly and like the extra safety?


Yeah but Musk tweets that his cars "will briefly serve as a boat" and then all the clout chasers film themselves KO'ing their Cybertrucks in streams and salty beaches.


Public transit should be worth the (inexpensive) cost of a ticket. The money used to make fares free should instead be spent on improving the quality of service. Better service attracts more riders, bringing in more ticket revenue, enabling further service improvements, and so on. It produces a positive flywheel effect that benefits current passengers, new passengers, and even drivers!

Free transit is a downward cycle, where increased ridership just increases costs, creating a negative flywheel.


Counterexample: Public transport throughout Luxembourg (the entire country, not just the capital city) is free. As in beer. Clean, safe, and reliable, too.

The positive "flywheel effect" where transport connectivity enables network effects does exist, but it does not follow that free public transport leads to negative effects.


Behavior by cyclists certainly has a bias towards survivorship. Every other vehicle on the road represents a potentially lethal threat at any time.

Inadequate dedicated infrastructure for cyclists leads to behavior like "Idaho stops" that look counterintuitive to drivers, but improves safety for cyclists at intersections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop


You did not read the thread did you? I have asked how is this supposed to improve safety, this is what is this thread about.


Horse-drawn busses predate private automobiles by almost a hundred years.[0] The movement to pave roads was started by bicyclists decades before the rise of the automobile.[1] Cars usurped preexisting infrastructure and drove out other road users, like trolleybusses and streetcars.

We have so thoroughly remade society in the service of cars that it can be difficult to recognize any possible alternative.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsebus

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement


Paved roads have been around for thousands of years longer than the bicycle.

> Horse-drawn busses predate private automobiles by almost a hundred years.

And they used roads that already existed for transit and transport. People have always built roads.

> Cars usurped preexisting infrastructure and drove out other road users, like trolleybusses and streetcars.

This is some significant historical revisionism. You’re making it sound like all the roads were built for buses and streetcars.

The good roads movement is certainly interesting history. But I don’t think it changes the reality that buses are only workable because they are mostly piggybacking on infrastructure buit for other vehicles.

Of course, that’s rather the point of roads, that they are infrastructure that benefits many forms of transit and transportation.


Roads that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years certainly weren't built for cars.


Unfortunately it sounds like this program is designed to maximize revenue for the private vendor, not make roads safer by changing driver behavior. The county is also using this surface-level fix as an excuse to avoid more fundamental road design changes that would actually improve safety for vulnerable road users.

Other automated enforcement mechanisms like average speed cameras and automated tolling are more effective at achieving their purported goals. Ultimately, enforcement will always be secondary to proper road design in both cost and effectiveness.


Unfortunately the example included (geekatlas.com) appears to be long gone, so we're not able to enjoy this ourselves.



The EU is still buying billions of dollars of fossil fuels and other resources from Russia.[0]

[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/3/how-much-of-europes...


Nefarious actions by others shouldn't justify your own. We can do better.


It's a matter of scale. Objectively, yandex is a great resource, and Kagi's results would be degraded without it. Pennies per user go to them. The sum of the entire money that has ever transferred from Kagi to yandex is what? 30 seconds of EU oil and gas purchases?

In short: pick smart battles.


Sony Pictures Core and Kaleidescape are as close as it gets, and both require expensive proprietary hardware.


That's really disappointing; I have zero interest in allowing a device like that on my network, or in spending that much on hardware for a single proprietary service that could go away or change its terms, or in having a service that only works with one device rather than many services that all work on the same device (e.g. Android TV).

Sigh. Where's the video equivalent of music stores for "just let me buy a high-quality DRM-free download I actually own" already?


That’s corporate for “would you like to discuss this off the record away from public view?”

Especially with a non-native English speaker who may be more comfortable expressing themselves in writing asynchronously.


Absolutely. Rule #1, always leave a paper trail when talking with companies. The social contract is long broken, there is no room for "off the record".



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: