zlacker

>>jasonc+(OP)
There’s degrees of “conquered”. Seat belts ‘conquered’ motor vehicle trauma before airbags did. Each new thing helps fill in the gaps left by the already-existing things.

>>taneq+wG
Auto safety has shown a very consitent rate of improvement with deaths per passenger mile halving about every 20 years, since 1920.

That's the red line in this chart: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/US...

The period of most rapid car safety improvements came during a single ten-year period, from 1910 - 1920, where deaths, again, expressed per passenger mile, halved in only ten years.

>>dredmo+O51
Any idea what major improvements there were between 1910 and 1920? I had no idea there were any improvements made before seatbelts in the 1950s.

>>hacker+c61
The switch to hydraulic brakes was a huge improvement, but I'm not sure when that happened.