Urban Life

Anatomy of a Car Crash

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Anatomy of a Car Crash

Without the details of how crashes happen, we tend to dismiss them as the work of “idiots”—drivers who occupy the lower echelons of driving skill and common sense. But while humankind’s measured intelligence is increasing, so is the number of deadly car crashes. After a lifetime of improvement, we saw an 8 percent jump in crash fatalities during 2015, the largest in 50 years. That number rose again in 2016, when more than 40,000 people died in collisions.

Fortunately, science is coming to the rescue. We no longer have to rely solely on dents, skid marks, and the lawyer-vetted remarks of drivers to figure out what happened and to tell us how to avoid the next crash. In a landmark study published in 2008, researchers at the University of Michigan combed the scene of 6,950 crashes to give us a more detailed analysis of what happened during each crash. Naturalistic driving studies are now equipping cars with accelerometers, sonar, sensors that track driver inputs, and lots of video cameras. Drivers sign up to participate in these studies, and they sometimes crash, leaving researchers with valuable data. We’re also benefiting from the rise of road cams—dashboard-mounted video cameras owned by everyday drivers, aka cammers, who cruise around, record crashes, and then post them on websites like Reddit.

 

#112 Hagerbach – The Bat Cave of Tunnelling

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#112 Hagerbach: The Bat Cave of Tunnelling

6/17/21 by Reby Media

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/124557747
Episode: https://media.blubrry.com/engineeringmatters/content.blubrry.com/engineeringmatters/TTP_HAGERBACH_mixdown_mp3_VERSION_1_ENG.mp3

Every good superhero universe has its origins story. Hagerbach’s begins with Rudolf Amberg, looking to innovate and find new efficiency savings for his iron mine. So began a 50-year journey from testing equipment and explosives, to fire and tunnel safety simulations, and ever more creative uses for underground space. Ultimately the mining industry in Switzerland failed, but Hagerbach survived, and is still an iconic test site for the mining and tunnelling industries. This year it will celebrate its history and look towards its future with the NXT 50 Festival. And some of the ideas on display will push the use of underground space to greater heights than ever before. Guests Antonia Cornaro, Business Development Manager, Amberg Engineering Felix Amberg, President, Amberg Group Michael Kompatscher, CEO, Hagerbach Test Gallery Resources For more information on the Hagerbach NXT 50 Festival, click here For a previous episode of The Tunnelling Podcast that covered underground farming in Hagerbach, click here and a video explaining the concept can be found here For information about Mission Earth First click here

For the International Tunnelling Association’s Committee for Underground Space, click here
And to learn more about Edge Computing Underground, click here Supporters The Amberg Group is a unique knowledge, engineering and technology provider of logistics and infrastructures for smart cities, hubs and networks through innovative combinations of above and underground space usage. Its products and services cover in a digitalized manner the entire life cycle of the infrastructures and all engineering and technology aspects. ACO is the leading supplier for drainage solutions in the building industry. Drainage Solutions for the tunnelling industry is one of the core competencies of ACO. The combination of unique materials with the ACO safety concept for tunnels offers the optimal solution for every project. The prefabricated systems are built to the individual design of every project and ensures an easy and fast installation.