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.

>>Walter+S61
Between 1918 and 1946 mechanical brakes were phased out. By ww2, they were nearly extinct except on the cheapest or older styled cars. I would argue the bigger advance was tires. Even mechanical brakes are plenty to lock your wheels, but tires are the actual road interface, and old ones are amazingly fragile. Vulcanization was not even known at the start of the auto age, and the rubber would tear off in chunks.

>>Jamwin+8r1
> mechanical brakes are plenty to lock your wheels

It's not that. It's pretty tricky to get 4 wheel mechanical brakes to put even pressure on the wheels, rather than most of the force going on just one wheel. Mechanical brake linkages are fragile, susceptible to rust, dirt and jamming, and likely need constant tuning.

With hydraulic brakes, it's easy to get even pressure on all the wheels. You can even put a "bias" in that puts more pressure on the front wheels, which makes for more even and controlled braking. Maintenance is minimal, and there are a small number of (protected) moving parts.