1959 Chevrolet Bel Air vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu IIHS crash test

Agreeing with the article. Car software sucks, but hardware is great. Cars have more horsepower, are more fuel efficient, are more reliable, and are most importantly much safer ( to their passengers at least) than they've ever been. Take one minute to watch "1959 Chevrolet Bel Air vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu IIHS crash test" ▶ this video

Those old boats might be big, but they're not exactly safe or even that heavy. Here's an interesting crash test comparing one to a modern vehicle. ▶ this video Both of those cars weigh about 3,500lbs. Now swap in a 5,000lbs Tesla, or that new 9,000lbs Hummer EV. That big old car will be nothing but a pile of twisted metal. In short, I don't think you can compare large cars of the past to ones that exist today.

"Even for people in the car, some older car designs put the drivers legs under the engine block. In a head on collision at speed, the legs were the crumple zone (meanwhile the steering column was being pushed through your torso)." Anytime anyone waxes nostalgic about how "they dont make cars like they used" I think about this video. They sure as hell don't make cars like they used too, you can get out and walk away from a crash in your ugly newer car that would brutally end your life in one of those beautiful classic cars. For anyone that is curious the key thing to pay attention to in survivability here (besides yah know... the airbag) is.. does the interior cab of the car change shape? The cab of the old car violently changes shape in a way that would destroy parts of your body whereas the newer car's cab doesnt seem to be affected at all. Even if getting crushed between the seats and dashboard didnt kill you immediately in the bel air, I struggle to imagine how emergency first responders would even get you out of that. ▶ this video

▶ this video I always liked this IIHS crash test: 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu It really shows the progress. Seatbelts, the "rigid cage" to protect the driver, air bags, etc. etc. The 1959 Bel Air crash-dummy is clearly dead, bouncing around the cabin during the crash. The 2009 Malibu crash-dummy has a sprained neck and the face hurts from hitting the air-bag, but clearly survives.

Since this touches on the safety of old vs new cars, I'd just like to leave this link to an "old vs new" crash test video here for anyone who might not have seen it before. ▶ this video

> LLMs are impossible to make safe in the same sense that humans cannot be made safe. No. LLMs are impossible to make safe in the same sense that a car designed as if it was the ~1940's would be impossible to make safe for its passengers during an at-speed collision. There's only so much you can do if you're committed to using plate glass, rigid steel everything, and leaving out occupant safety belts because they're unpopular and spoil the lines of the cabin. [0] Back in the day, "the people in the cabin are the crumple zone" was state of the art, but we've learned an awful lot about how to make much, much safer personal vehicles in the ~75 years since then. It'd be massively irresponsible to design and sell a car today that ignored the safety and engineering lessons we've learned since then. "Funnily" enough, the major LLM providers have designed and are selling access to systems that they very much want to be used in situations where you need a reliable, safe tool... but they've -somehow- ignored one of the most fundamental lessons we've learned about the design of safe software systems that are intended to be used in the presence of attacker-controlled inputs. [1] What they've done is no less irresponsible than designing and selling a new car that conforms to the very latest safety regs of the 1940's... AFAIK, it's so irresponsible to design and sell such a car commercially that -in the US- it's a violation of federal law to do so. As an aside: you may have seen this video

▶ this video Malibu vs Bel Air crash test. You better believe that modern cars are better, its incredible how _BAD_ cars were before we cared about safety. And that's just safety. Today's cars have better MPG, go faster, have more power, easier to maintain, consistently hit 150,000 miles, etc. etc.

So the whole rigid box thing is kinda a "they dont make em like this anymore" myth. Here's a 1959 Chevy crashed into a 2009 Chevy ▶ this video . They both crumple, but the 2009 only crumples in the crumple zones. The crumpling on the 1959 impala is more spread out and you can see includes more of the interior

1959 Chevrolet Bel Air vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu IIHS crash test: ▶ this video Sure, a lot of advances in safety were made in the 28 years between 1959 and 1987, so your car won't fare as badly as the Bel Air, but there were plenty of other advances in the 22 years between then and when that Malibu was made in 2009, and likely quite a few in the 13 years since. It's a free country, so you can take your chances if you want. I wouldn't rate them that highly though, FWIW. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That is certainly a factor. Crumple zones do a lot to absorb forces of impact and prevent intrusion into the passenger compartment. See also: [0] We're getting to the point where a lot of cars that could be called "classic" still have the modern safety features without all of the connected bs. Most late 90s-early 2000s cars have multiple airbags, crumple zones, active seatbelts etc. without also needing to have subscriptions, telemetry, or really any connectedness at all. Granted, subscription-based safety features aren't the point here, but they're certainly a future possibility (as discussed here last year with a motorcycle safety accessory[1]). [0]: ▶ this video [1]: link

This reads like something my 88-year-old father would write. "Everything used to be better, and hamburgers should cost a nickle!" Look, as consumers, we make choices. You can still get a safety-razor on Amazon if you want. The trouble is... man, if you don't know how to use them right, you can get some nasty cuts. For me... modern idiot-proof razors that this article rants against... well they're just bliss. I can't remember the last time I cut myself shaving. My Dad said something like, "They sure don't make cars like they used to!" And I said, "No, they don't... they're much safer now, much better gas mileage..." ▶ this video

Nowadays it depends on how new the car is, as newer cars are magnitudes safer than anything 20+ years old. ▶ this video