I really, really enjoyed this presentation. Your movement through history was clear and smooth, and your use of landmark events helped me understand how our current standards for automotive safety developed. In particular, I liked learning about how the culpability of crashes shifted over the decades and how policy decisions evolved to reflect those changing attitudes.
I also liked your inclusion of the future of automotive safety in this video, but I wish you had spent more time delving into the more contemporary developments in automotive safety. It would have been interesting to learn about how companies like Mercedes are being publically received with their new passive and automatic safety features. Similarly, Mercedes’ promise to take full responsibility for crashes caused by its new features seems like a bold claim—and it made me wonder if any such crashes have occurred yet.
That being said, I fully understand how difficult it can be to fit every angle into these presentations. So, as a whole, this was a solid presentation and I learned a lot. Great job!
Thanks Emma! It’s a massive topic and I did really struggle to include all that I hoped to with this presentation. Mercedes’ promise is extremely bold, Volvo has made a similar claim. I think manufacturers are making statements like this to counteract the questions surrounding liability and the future of the automotive insurance industry and it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Doyle, J. “GM & Ralph Nader, 1965-1971,” PopHistoryDig.com, March 31, 2013.
Nader, R. (1965). Unsafe at any speed: The designed-in dangers of the American automobile. New York: Grossman.
Norton, P. (2015). Four Paradigms: Traffic Safety in the Twentieth-Century United States. Technology and Culture 56(2), 319-334. Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved May 6, 2018, from Project MUSE database.
Thomas, J. (1990). Road traffic accidents before and after seatbelt legislation–study in a district general hospital. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 83(2), 79–81.
This was a great project and it was incredibly informative. First off, I really like how you started off this project. You took a personal problem, highlighted it and it worked perfectly to begin your project. I like how you focused on one individual persons effect on automobile safety. I didn’t know who Ralph Needer was until this video. But he had a huge influence on changing the tide of vehicle safety. This marked a change in thinking where people accepted that accidents were bound to happen and that vehicle manufacturers should put in more effort on making their vehicles safer. I thought it was a very cool idea to show the two different mercedes models in quick succession. It was easy for me the viewer to notice the striking differences between the U.S. and European models. At the end you tied it all together very well with the modern vehicle safety innovation and even went into self-driving cars safety features. It is reassuring that the vehicle manufacturers of self-driving cars are so confident in their vehicles that they are willing to take full responsibility for any crash that occurs. All in all, this was a great project, you are a great speaker and told a great narrative relating to vehicle safety and how we have gotten to this point and where we are going.
Excellent job on this presentation! It felt as though I was watching a PBS documentary on the history of automotive safety for the first several minutes. I really liked how you included such an in depth look at how the shift in culture affected the shift in mechanics in car design. I never knew that a single lawyer, Ralph Needer, had such a monumental impact on the safety seeding of cars. It goes to show how effective string legislature can be to fixes institutionalized problems.
I also like how you compared US cars during the shift in safety design with the European car designs of the time. If you had more time, it would be interesting to see how the rates of car accident casualties differed between the two regions, and how much of the difference could be placed on the effectiveness of safer cars.
Your delivery and presentation was professional and theatrical throughout, especially in the beginning. The way you started out talking about a real life example of car safety today, brought us back in time, and then worked us all the way back to modern day and beyond made the journey feel very applicable to my life.
Great job!
Hey Duncan! You did a fantastic job with this presentation. I loved how you started with a personal anecdote (especially with Ari in it!). I like how you took the time to explain that the precedent of the drive being blamed for an accident had to start somewhere—it’s something I have always understood and didn’t really think of as coming from somewhere or starting at some point. I also had no idea Ralph Nader had such a big role in automobile safety—I always just thought of him as a perennial Presidential candidate, so that was really fascinating.
I think one of the things you do best throughout this presentation is combining the historical context with the sociocultural conditions that sparked new safety measures in automobiles. You illustrate really well that these conditions don’t exist in a vacuum. I think it’s really interesting that we may be on the brink of “abandoning” lessons learned not too long ago by absolving driver responsibility in some cases, but I found it fascinating that Mercedes Benz publicly agreed to take responsibility for an accident.
This is a really well done slidecast and I feel like I learned a lot about a topic you’re obviously very passionate about. Great job!
This was a really smoothly told presentation. Your transitions were very good and the story was told in a very logical and straightforward way. I like your use of your own knowledge of cars in telling the technical side of the story, because you had a lot of detail in there that does not necessarily have to advance the story, but helps in giving the entire presentation more context.
Because you used your technological knowledge more foundationally in your presentation, your context flowed very well as the main part of the story. I learned a lot here about the progression of safety in automobiles that I did not know, such as the frankly late decision to make seatbelts mandatory, considering its immediate effectiveness. You tied the story back at the end very well with an interesting point about how smart cars just steamroll over the lessons we have learned from the past. It definitely left me interested in seeing how that aspect of smart cars plays out. I also like your use of Ari in making the story relate to your audience.
This was an excellent presentation and you really did a great job of showing a topic to be a lot more than meets the eye. Congratulations on a really strong finish!
Hey Duncan!
I really, really enjoyed this presentation. Your movement through history was clear and smooth, and your use of landmark events helped me understand how our current standards for automotive safety developed. In particular, I liked learning about how the culpability of crashes shifted over the decades and how policy decisions evolved to reflect those changing attitudes.
I also liked your inclusion of the future of automotive safety in this video, but I wish you had spent more time delving into the more contemporary developments in automotive safety. It would have been interesting to learn about how companies like Mercedes are being publically received with their new passive and automatic safety features. Similarly, Mercedes’ promise to take full responsibility for crashes caused by its new features seems like a bold claim—and it made me wonder if any such crashes have occurred yet.
That being said, I fully understand how difficult it can be to fit every angle into these presentations. So, as a whole, this was a solid presentation and I learned a lot. Great job!
Thanks Emma! It’s a massive topic and I did really struggle to include all that I hoped to with this presentation. Mercedes’ promise is extremely bold, Volvo has made a similar claim. I think manufacturers are making statements like this to counteract the questions surrounding liability and the future of the automotive insurance industry and it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Bibliography:
[Donut Media]. (2018, April 30). How Cars Got Safe | WheelHouse | Donut Media [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9KsUA04CrQ
Doyle, J. “GM & Ralph Nader, 1965-1971,” PopHistoryDig.com, March 31, 2013.
Nader, R. (1965). Unsafe at any speed: The designed-in dangers of the American automobile. New York: Grossman.
Norton, P. (2015). Four Paradigms: Traffic Safety in the Twentieth-Century United States. Technology and Culture 56(2), 319-334. Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved May 6, 2018, from Project MUSE database.
Thomas, J. (1990). Road traffic accidents before and after seatbelt legislation–study in a district general hospital. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 83(2), 79–81.
Wojdyla, B. (2009, September 24). From Benz To Bumpers: A Brief History Of Auto Safety. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from https://jalopnik.com/5364740/from-benz-to-bumpers-a-brief-history-of-auto-safety/
Image links:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/10/22/239870539/the-sounds-of-new-york-city-circa-1920
https://forums.automobilemag.com/features/collectible_classic/1601-collectible-classic-1964-1966-ford-thunderbird-convertible/?gallery=open
http://www.autonews.com/article/20160620/OEM02/306209967/nader-honored-by-the-industry-he-challenged
https://www.cheatsheet.com/automobiles/the-corvair-the-misunderstood-revolutionary-chevy.html/?a=viewall
http://clubs.hemmings.com/nvce/FactsMyths.html
https://macsmotorcitygarage.com/bookshelf-unsafe-at-any-speed-by-ralph-nader/
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/26/us/ralph-naders-tort-law-museum-seeks-to-keep-his-crusade-evergreen.html
http://www.autonews.com/article/20150622/OEM11/150629988/nhtsa-blasted-in-audit-vows-to-reform-early-warning-system
https://bluejayblog.wordpress.com/page/97/?archives-list=1
Visit
https://azure.barrett-jackson.com/Events/Event/Details/1985-MERCEDES-BENZ-380SL-CONVERTIBLE-214554
http://bowieliving.blogspot.com/2011/01/1970s-accident-scene-on-old-chapel-road.html
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/163325923963585002
https://www.madd.org/history/
https://www.thetorquereport.com/mercedes-benz/2018-mercedes-benz-e-class-450-voice-commands/
https://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicles/model/class-E/model-E300W
This was a great project and it was incredibly informative. First off, I really like how you started off this project. You took a personal problem, highlighted it and it worked perfectly to begin your project. I like how you focused on one individual persons effect on automobile safety. I didn’t know who Ralph Needer was until this video. But he had a huge influence on changing the tide of vehicle safety. This marked a change in thinking where people accepted that accidents were bound to happen and that vehicle manufacturers should put in more effort on making their vehicles safer. I thought it was a very cool idea to show the two different mercedes models in quick succession. It was easy for me the viewer to notice the striking differences between the U.S. and European models. At the end you tied it all together very well with the modern vehicle safety innovation and even went into self-driving cars safety features. It is reassuring that the vehicle manufacturers of self-driving cars are so confident in their vehicles that they are willing to take full responsibility for any crash that occurs. All in all, this was a great project, you are a great speaker and told a great narrative relating to vehicle safety and how we have gotten to this point and where we are going.
Hey Duncan,
Excellent job on this presentation! It felt as though I was watching a PBS documentary on the history of automotive safety for the first several minutes. I really liked how you included such an in depth look at how the shift in culture affected the shift in mechanics in car design. I never knew that a single lawyer, Ralph Needer, had such a monumental impact on the safety seeding of cars. It goes to show how effective string legislature can be to fixes institutionalized problems.
I also like how you compared US cars during the shift in safety design with the European car designs of the time. If you had more time, it would be interesting to see how the rates of car accident casualties differed between the two regions, and how much of the difference could be placed on the effectiveness of safer cars.
Your delivery and presentation was professional and theatrical throughout, especially in the beginning. The way you started out talking about a real life example of car safety today, brought us back in time, and then worked us all the way back to modern day and beyond made the journey feel very applicable to my life.
Great job!
Hey Duncan! You did a fantastic job with this presentation. I loved how you started with a personal anecdote (especially with Ari in it!). I like how you took the time to explain that the precedent of the drive being blamed for an accident had to start somewhere—it’s something I have always understood and didn’t really think of as coming from somewhere or starting at some point. I also had no idea Ralph Nader had such a big role in automobile safety—I always just thought of him as a perennial Presidential candidate, so that was really fascinating.
I think one of the things you do best throughout this presentation is combining the historical context with the sociocultural conditions that sparked new safety measures in automobiles. You illustrate really well that these conditions don’t exist in a vacuum. I think it’s really interesting that we may be on the brink of “abandoning” lessons learned not too long ago by absolving driver responsibility in some cases, but I found it fascinating that Mercedes Benz publicly agreed to take responsibility for an accident.
This is a really well done slidecast and I feel like I learned a lot about a topic you’re obviously very passionate about. Great job!
This was a really smoothly told presentation. Your transitions were very good and the story was told in a very logical and straightforward way. I like your use of your own knowledge of cars in telling the technical side of the story, because you had a lot of detail in there that does not necessarily have to advance the story, but helps in giving the entire presentation more context.
Because you used your technological knowledge more foundationally in your presentation, your context flowed very well as the main part of the story. I learned a lot here about the progression of safety in automobiles that I did not know, such as the frankly late decision to make seatbelts mandatory, considering its immediate effectiveness. You tied the story back at the end very well with an interesting point about how smart cars just steamroll over the lessons we have learned from the past. It definitely left me interested in seeing how that aspect of smart cars plays out. I also like your use of Ari in making the story relate to your audience.
This was an excellent presentation and you really did a great job of showing a topic to be a lot more than meets the eye. Congratulations on a really strong finish!