The gravity of the situation

That's good.

Uh, they're working on it (I just think they aren't finished yet)... So you think they can only understand enough about physics to create the roads and the vehicles, and then you'll take it from there? Sure, but it won't last. There are obviously too many problems with drivers for that to be the end of the story. I don't think physics is the whole story, when all of science cannot seem to fix the lowest common denominator in drivers, except to replace them (you can't fix stupid as it were, and stupidity is as fashionable as technology; go figure). I was mostly wondering how much the laws of physics took over by default (well I guess that would be about entirely, one way or another).

In the meantime, I think it might help if drivers were made more aware of physics (because you can fix ignorance, when that's the problem)... think about it: automated vehicles would be safer in theory, simply for being more 'aware' at all times than the average driver of the physics involved. Therefore, making the average driver more aware could be promising too.

There are other factors of course, but looking at how traffic moves, very few people on the roads take this fundamental problem seriously enough to modulate their speed at a distance. I suppose a lot more people are aware of the defensive driving techniques (like the Smith System or even CDL training) than actually follow those. Well, maybe they don't quite understand the physics behind it, which literally has an impact on them (they cannot drive to save their own lives). Since traffic often forms unecessarily, and just about always moves to maintain a position that makes pileups and other accidents imminent—as if the drivers were mindless—I figure it couldn't be worse if the vehicles were technically driverless. I'd like to think otherwise, but don't see any reason to trust the judgement of an overconfident and litigious society (which is pretty much the only way people know how to solve problems—after the fact that they've created them—again and again). We didn't create the laws of nature though, and don't totally understand them either. Especially when being ignorant of our manufactured problems, involving the forces of nature, tends to cause more harm than good.

"The history of the automobile is short but bloody. In 83 years the automobile, with the cooperation of the person behind the wheel, has killed more people than all our wars combined. And in just one year, more people can be injured in traffic accidents than have been wounded in all our wars combined. The only instrument as efficient in mass murder and mayhem as the automobile is the hydrogen bomb. Strangely enough, the hydrogen bomb is considered too horrible to use in war, but the automobile rolls merrily on . . ."

 

I don't think it has to be a "want". I get the sense that visual reflexes are involved in pursuit predation (like a dog chasing a truck, just because it's moving, since the dog wouldn't go after a parked one). People may automatically pursue other vehicles, based on a smooth pursuit kind of reflex (or as a kind of distraction). Physiologically, in the midbrain (which is associated with vision and motor control, etc.), a major component is the superior colliculus, which is related to eye movements (such as tracking a moving object), and it is also related to distractibility.

If I'm not paying attention to my speedometer, I'll occasionally increase my speed, relative to a vehicle that accelerates at a distance in front of me, which seems to be a reflex, not a desire to get closer to the vehicle (or to increase my speed). So I think being aware of this reflex or distraction is psychological, but it is initiated physically (autonomically), as they say 'most people are unable to initiate pursuit without a moving visual signal'. I think people in vehicles tend to gravitate toward others in response to tracking movement visually, as an extension of that reflex, unless they think about not reacting this way for a reason.

People may also have a false sense that they can maneuver or stop their own body reflexively, when they're driving along in a smooth pursuit, as if they were on foot. Not realizing that they amount to being way too heavy and cumbersome inside a vehicle to actually react as usual, when the relative speed of what they're pursuing gives them the impression of moving at human speeds (like how a dog doesn't realize a truck is too large and fast to avoid running into it). The innate sense would be relative to natural circumstances, which these are not.

 

Fog is the force of gravity (f.o.g.), especially when vehicles collide in it. Well, gravity waves can collide with the fog. They become visible when the air mass is near saturation, as ripples in the atmosphere. Those are different from gravitational waves, which are ripples in spacetime.

I was just reading about traffic waves too. That's kind of an analogy, but there are actually seismic waves on the road. A magnitude 3 earthquake feels like the rumbling of a passing 18-wheel truck... The instruments designed to detect gravitational waves or gravitational force are said to be disturbed by traffic, such as trucks rolling in the area.

"The Nobel physics prize goes to the spotters of gravitational waves: Despite its sensitivity, LIGO’s initial run came up empty-handed. It was only after a series of upgrades, starting in 2010, that it became sensitive enough to detect the waves finally and unambiguously. Spotting them meant ruling out interference created by things like lorries travelling on nearby roads . . ."

"The Cavendish Experiment: This is a common experiment performed in undergraduate laboratories, but it is quite challenging. Passing trucks outside the laboratory can create vibrations that overwhelm the gravitational forces . . ."

Such disturbances to the gravitational field have since been found to detect large and distant earthquakes faster than seismic sensors (at the speed of gravity).

Speaking of natural disasters, a number of trucks driving together, or trains have been known to induce avalanches and landslides. So it's probably best not to drive around other trucks, or next to a train, when moving through those areas (they say that all of the roadways in Utah are threatened by snow avalanches, and they also had the largest landslide there in modern history).

 

Interestingly, one study found that "collision with a stationary object was more likely in sleep-related than in not-sleep-related crashes . . ." So when the driver has zero influence in the matter, those stationary objects seem to become most attractive, along with road geometry tipping the scales of chance.

Did you know? Nationwide, there are:
THREE lane departure fatalities every hour.
ONE lane departure injury every minute.
THREE lane departure crashes every minute . . .

 

I was just reading something else, which describes in practical terms how the 'geometry' of spacetime may be involved in the steering of one object toward another (kind of like the road geometry), whether or not the steering wheel turns (as I'd pictured):

If an object's presence bends space-time then why do other objects want to go towards that object that bends space-time? Why are other objects attracted towards that object?


"Imagine that the bike’s handlebars are actually welded to always steer perfectly straight ahead.

The bike should always go straight forward in the direction it started, right? Well, guess what - there’s a berm in the track, and even though the handlebars stay perfectly straight, the bike still ends up traveling in a wicked curve.

If that berm is actually shaped like a a funnel, akin to the space-time distortion that objects in space create (plus a dimension), then - if it doesn’t pedal its way out and/or steer away - the bike’s going to end up at the bottom.

Objects aren’t really 'attracted' to one another - they’re just following the curvature of space-time in a straight line, while simultaneously bending it around themselves proportionately to their mass."

Velly interesting... Well, I wouldn't rule out a more powerful force (or the superposition of more than one force) on the roadside, but the way gravity shapes spacetime, it seems like a factor in such coincidental crashes (like clockwork).

 

I was also wondering if a parked vehicle could influence the dynamics of air surrounding a moving one, and it seems like an approaching vehicle could become directionally (or yaw) unstable (as it may when it approaches a moving vehicle), causing it to veer toward the parked vehicle. Perhaps this effect would be influenced by the wind in the area, as wind tunnel tests involve a parked vehicle, in order to simulate it moving (so that's the same thing in essence).

Analysis of Vehicle Passing
"This paper presents results of the simulation of two vehicles overtaking each other at highway conditions...

Observation of velocity vectors and contour plots clearly show that the air is squeezed by the rapid advancement of the overtaking body towards the overtaken body. This causes the flow to accelerate rapidly or squirt through the narrow gap presented to the flow, causing the maximum flow velocity encountered at any point in the passing to occur. The acceleration causes a pressure drop. However, it also induces flow separation from the inner trailing edge, and the recirculation acts to further reduce the pressure in this zone. Thus a two-fold effect acts to induce a very low pressure aft of the body for a very short time, and we find the powerful, yet exceptionally brief, drag pulse.

In comparing the magnitude of the drag coefficient at this point we see that the effect of the overtaking body's relative velocity cannot be ignored. Simultaneously, the stagnation of flow at the aft inner surface acts to induce a negative side force and negative (clockwise) yawing moment in all cases..."

Vehicle handling attributes are strongly driven by transient effects . . .

"A transient event is a short-lived burst of energy in a system caused by a sudden change of state."

Transient aerodynamic phenomena induced by passing manoeuvres
"The overtaking manoeuvre between two vehicles yields additional aerodynamic forces acting on both vehicles. These additional forces lead to sudden lateral displacements and rotations around the yaw axis of each vehicle. Such sudden changes of the side force and of the yawing moment, complicates the steering corrections performed by the driver and can yield critical safety situations, in particular in adverse weather conditions, such as crosswinds or rain. Intensities of these forces are extrapolated when the overtaking manoeuvre involves a light car and a heavy-truck. Moreover, such a manoeuvre implies a disturbance of the aerodynamics of vehicles."

So it would seem that both the vehicle geometry and road geometry could make roadside collisions more likely than near misses, particularly if the driver was not paying attention the time (leaving the vehicle to go in the direction of those unsteady aerodynamic and gravitational inclinations).