Crashing And Burning

I need someone to explain to me how Teslas aren't just fancied-up versions of the '72 Pinto.

Automated Vehicle Safety - Phil Koopman (Substack)

People are still being burned alive in Teslas

Tesla manual door releases are a deadly problem. It just happened again.

Yet another tragic story of people being trapped inside a burning Tesla, this time in Toronto. 

Four dead; one rescued when a bystander smashed a window: https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/four-passengers-die-after-being-trapped-in-burning-tesla-after-electronic-doors-seemingly-wont-open/ar-AA1tYcwj

This has been going on for years. At least some of the victims were definitely alive and trying to escape a burning Tesla when door lock power was lost. Some escaped. Some did not. Below is a writeup I posted on a blog in 2022. Nothing has really changed. The Tesla door release situation is a fatality-via-burning-alive waiting to happen. As it has multiple times at this point.

The usual Tesla fan response is that drivers are responsible for knowing the arcana of their car and, apparently, deserve to die if they cannot operate a manual release in a crisis. In some models this requires removing a speaker grill. While the car is actually on fire.

I have even less sympathy for that argument when casual passengers in the back seat don’t know the emergency release is under the carpet (model S), possibly requiring a screwdriver to access, or that there is no emergency release in the back seat at all (model 3). Do you read the owner manual when someone gives you a ride? Is it OK to not be able to open rear doors when the battery catches fire after a crash? This is a problem long past due for improvement.

Phil Koopman, (May 25, 2022) The Tesla manual door releases -- and lack thereof in some cases -- present unreasonable risk. What in the world were they thinking? Really bad human interface design. The door handles are not operable from the outside if electrical power has been lost. And from inside you need to use a manual release. Cool design shouldn't come at expense of life critical peril. This article sums up the latest, but this has been going on for a long time.

Tesla fans seem to be saying that it is the driver's responsibility to know where the manual release latch is to escape in case of fire. Anyone who doesn't is (and has in past fires) been ridiculed on-line for not knowing where the manual release is hidden. Even if they died due to not successfully operating the control, or having to kick the window out, somehow they are the idiots and it is their fault, not Tesla's. (If someone you love has died or been injured in this way you have my sympathy, and it is the trolls who are idiots, not your loved one.)

On-line articles saying "here's how to operate the door release so you don't die in a Tesla fire" tell you there is a problem. This design is unreasonably risky for real world use. A "bet you didn't know -- so here is how to not die" article in social media means there is unacceptable risk. Example: "Tesla Model Y fire incident: remember, there's a manual door release, here's how to use it in an emergency."

Front doors you have to lift up a not particularly obvious lever in front of the window switches that is easy to miss if you don't know it is there. Maybe if you have used it a few times -- but if you never realized it is there or you have rented/borrowed the car, good luck with that. I'd probably have trouble finding it even if I weren't suffocating from smoke from a battery fire. (Have you ever had to consult the owner manual to find your hood release? Imagine doing that to find out how to open the door when your car is literally on fire -- oh, but if it is an electronic manual and you've lost power, you can't do that on the center console, can you?)

And if you're a passenger and driver is unconscious you will have issues. Do you read all the safety instructions in the driver manual when you catch a quick ride as a passenger with a friend? Does your friend brief you on escape safety features so you can exit before a 5 minute ride? Thought not.

But wait, there's more (pictures later in this writeup).

Model S rear door: "fold back the edge of the carpet" to find a pull cable; some report needing a tool to access the pull.

Model X falcon wing doors: "carefully remove the speaker grille from the door and pull the mechanical release cable..." You might need a tool to do this as well.

Model 3 rear door -- NOT EQUIPPED WITH MANUAL RELEASE (from manual: "Only the front doors are equipped with a manual door release")

So I guess the passengers in the back are kind of expendable. Good to know when you’re in the back seat of a Uber/Lyft Tesla ride.

This is stunningly bad human interface design. It is entirely unreasonable to expect an ordinary car owner to know where a hidden/non-obvious emergency control is and activate it when they are trapped inside a burning car. Possibly using a tool they don’t have available. Let alone passengers. Apparently without mandatory training and mandatory periodic refresher training.

Anyone who thinks it is reasonable to expect someone not trained in military/aviation/etc. to get this right probably has not served or been through that type of training. I have been through tons of training. Emergency drills that might give some nightmares (sealed inside a tank with broken pipes and told to plug the flooding was extra-special — all three times). And sometimes the real thing. Not always with perfect execution, because there is compelling data showing humans suck at performing complicated, non-reflex-trained tasks under stress (and thus, more practice, more drills).

Education and shaming won't prevent the next death from this unreasonable risk. Everyone should be thinking twice about risking their life on this hot mess of an egress system.

I can't imagine why NHTSA wouldn't want to do a recall on this.

Kids In School

Today's LAMF

LEOPARDS ATE MY FACE

As Trump's gang of thieves moves to further gut the system of safety regulations, it's going to get harder to keep track of the dangers, and to know who's at fault when the inevitable bad things start to happen.

We grew accustomed to assuming the FDA is on the job and looking out for us - even though they've been badly impacted already, owing to the GOP's decades-long assault on government's obligation to promote the general welfare of we the people.

California man seeks reimbursement from raw milk dairy after two of his cats die

Joseph Journell thought he was doing the wholesome thing when he fed raw, unpasteurized milk to his cats. Journell also drank the raw milk, thinking it provided benefits that pasteurized milk did not have.

After two of his pets died in late 2024 and a third became seriously ill he realized the raw milk from Raw Farm LLC was dangerous.

Journell’s cats Alexander and Tuxedo died horrible deaths involving convulsions and blindness and a third cat, Big Boy, was hospitalized for eight days in critical condition. A fourth cat that did not drink the raw milk remained healthy. Journell himself was feeling sick just before his cats became ill and now believes it was the raw milk.

He said he is not sure when, or if, he will go back to drinking raw milk, which usually costs between $15 and $17 per gallon.

“I think there should be better testing and regulation to make sure it is safe,” Journell said.

Journell, who lives in San Bernardino, CA, paid for testing that showed Big Boy was infected with bird flu. The testing was done at USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories and the Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University. The testing, medical bills and other expenses for Big Boy were about $14,000.

Big Boy’s recovery is ongoing. He is partially blind and had to use a wheeled device because he could not walk on his back legs for several weeks. His vision is still impaired but he is walking and eating normally.

Journell is now trying to recover costs from Mark McAfee, the owner of Raw Farm LLC, which is the dairy that produced the raw milk that made Journell and his cats sick.

McAfee has denied all liability, telling Journell that his cats must have gotten bird flu from eating a sick bird. This is impossible as Journell’s cats were all strictly indoor pets.

McAfee also told Journell that his raw milk is safe and said that his own cats at Raw Farm’s dairy drink raw milk and are healthy.

McAfee told Jounell that the Raw Farm LLC milk is entirely safe, saying that the H5N1 bird flu virus can not survive in cold milk for extended periods.

I asked an official with the state health department and she told me that isn’t true, Journell said.

McAfee had to recall his raw milk in November and December of 2024 because it tested positive for the bird flu. California health officials shut down the dairy until McAfee could prove that his milk was not contaminated.

“I feel like he (McAfee) just lied to me to protect his own company,” Journell said.

State and federal officials have been warning the public for months that unpasteurized, raw milk can be contaminated with the bird flu virus, which can infect those who consume it.

“I would tell other pet owners that if their cats begin having any symptoms out of the ordinary that they should seek medical attention fast. If I had done that sooner my other cats might still be alive,” Journell said.

Since Dec. 1, at least 11 cats in California that consumed raw milk and raw pet food have died. There have also been cases of cats in Texas and Oregon dying. In December, 20 animals at a big cat sanctuary in Washington State died as a result of infection with the virus.

Journell is represented by the Marler Clark law firm, headed by food safety attorney Bill Marler. The law firm contacted McAfee on Jan. 1 asking that he immediately reimburse Journell for his expenses.

“This incident represents yet another outbreak linked to Raw Farm and highlights ongoing concerns regarding the safety of your raw milk products,” according to a letter sent by Ilana Korchia of the law firm.

Today's Tweet

It was nasty at my place last night too - but nothing like this.

And remember - the smart guys have been warning us about this kinda shit for decades.

Tonight was the scariest night of my life. It started pelting people with hail at Red Rocks and my sister and I luckily found shelter under a sign. I am bleeding and have huge bumps on my head from the hail. Hoping everyone made it out safely. pic.twitter.com/jong1SBuYd

— nicole (@nikkitbfh) June 22, 2023

That Was Close

No word yet on whether or not United imposed an extra In-Flight Entertainment Fee.

United Flight Plummeted in Terrifying 45-Second Dive: Report

A United Airlines flight plummeted from the air and came as close as 775 feet above the Pacific Ocean in a terrifying, previously unreported incident on December 18. United Airlines Flight UA1722 dived in an “unexplained” descent at nearly 8,600 feet per minute shortly after takeoff, The Air Current reports, and lasted approximately 45 seconds before it recovered.

The flight was bound for San Francisco and had taken off from Kahului Airport in Maui at 2:29 p.m. without fuss, despite flying in stormy weather.

Analyzing available data, The Air Current said the flight reached 2,200 feet before suddenly diving. The flight was “in between radio calls with air traffic controllers in Maui” throughout the 45-second ordeal.

“The climb produced forces of nearly 2.7 times the force of gravity on the aircraft and its occupants,” the report said.

Despite the incident, the flight landed in San Francisco after climbing 33,000 feet and departed on its next flight to Chicago just over two hours later. A spokesperson for United confirmed the incident and that a formal internal safety report was filed upon landing.

The craft was also inspected before its next flight. The result led to the pilots of the plane receiving additional training.

I think I won't be traveling any time soon. Seems like shit's pretty fucked up lately.

This Thing Called Science

Smallpox killed an estimated 300,000,000 people just in the 20th century. A number almost the equivalent of the current total population of USAmerica, Inc.

300,000,000 dead - in just under 80 years.

Did you catch the part about the economics of it?

We put enormous amounts of time, energy and tax money into the effort to eradicate smallpox over a span of decades. And that cost is recouped here in USAmerica Inc every 6 days.

Every.

Six.

Days.

The extremely positive economic benefits of good public health policy should be obvious, and we should be shouting it to the heavens.

And good public health policy comes from good government.

Not more government - not necessarily bigger or smaller - but better.

I want a government that does good work for me at a reasonable price.

Today's Opinion Piece

I'm really looking forward to all the new job openings for more decent people.

Opinion

Goodbye, and good riddance

Leonard Pitts Jr.

“If you want to leave, take good care, hope you make a lot of nice friends out there.”

“Wild World” -Cat Stevens

This is for those of you who’ve chosen to quit your jobs rather than submit to a vaccine mandate.

No telling how many of you there actually are, but lately, you’re all over the news. Just last week, a nearly-30-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department surrendered his badge rather than comply with the city’s requirement that all employees be inoculated against COVID-19. He joins an Army lieutenant colonel, some airline employees, a Major League Baseball executive, the choral director of the San Francisco Symphony, workers at the tax collector’s office in Orange County, Florida, and, incredibly, dozens of health care professionals.

Well, on behalf of the rest of us, the ones who miss concerts, restaurants and other people’s faces, the ones who are sick and tired of living in pandemic times, here’s a word of response to you quitters: Goodbye.

And here’s two more: Good riddance.

Not to minimize any of this. A few weeks ago, a hospital in upstate New York announced it would have to “pause” delivering babies because of resignations among its maternity staff. So the threat of difficult ramifications is certainly real. But on the plus side, your quitting goes a long way toward purging us of the gullible, the conspiracy-addled, the logic-impaired and the stubbornly ignorant. And that’s not nothing.

We’ve been down this road before. Whenever faced with some mandate imposed in the interest of the common good, some of us act like they just woke up on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. “There’s no freedom no more,” whined one man in a video that recently aired on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.” The clip was from the 1980s, and the guy had just gotten a ticket for not wearing his seat belt.

Usually, the rest of us don’t agonize over your intransigence. Often it has no direct impact on us. The guy in “The Daily Show” clip was only demanding the right to skid across a highway on his face, after all. But now you claim the right to risk the health care system and our personal lives.

So if you’re angry, guess what? You’re not the only ones.

The difference is, your anger is dumb, and ours is not. Yours is about being coerced to do something you don’t want to do. Like that’s new. Like you’re not already required to get vaccinated to start school or travel to other countries. For that matter, you’re also required to mow your lawn, cover your hindparts and, yes, wear a seat belt. So you’re mad at government and your job for doing what they’ve always done.

But the rest of us, we’re mad at you. Because this thing could have been over by now, and you’re the reason it isn’t.

That’s why we were glad President Joe Biden stopped asking nicely, started requiring vaccinations everywhere he had power to do so. We were also glad when employers followed suit. And if that’s a problem for you, then, yes, goodbye, sayonara, auf Wiedersehen, adios and adieu. We’ll miss you, to be sure. But you’re asking us to choose between your petulance and our lives.

And that’s really no choice at all.

© 2021, The Miami Herald
Leonard Pitts Jr.’s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times.

lpitts@miamiherald.com

hat tip = FB pal BD

Today's PSA

 Noah Lindquist - Wear A Mask

You can shout

You can swear

But listen, Karen - I don't care

Never seen folks so dramatic

Over a fucking piece of fabric

What They Don't Tell Us

No matter what happens, and no matter what the Press Poodles manage to dig up while it's happening, we never get to know everything we should know about any big event.

There's always a few details - usually a whole metric fuck ton of details - that we never get to see.

Once in a while, somebody cracks a little and we get The Pentagon Papers, but that's the exception instead of the rule. And given our commitment to "peaceful transition of power", we've evolved part of the system into a game of Stall 'Em.

Somebody shits the bed, and there's a bad reaction, and the people in power (some of them) get thrown out and new people come in, but the PR guys get to work and before ya know it, a few years have passed, and power has transitioned again, and deals are made and those details are lost until historians suss it out (sorta) and then we learn about some pretty fucking important stuff 30 years after it woulda made a real difference for us.

And here we are again.

WaPo:

U.S. deaths soared in early weeks of pandemic, far exceeding number attributed to covid-19

An analysis of federal data for the first time estimates excess deaths - the number beyond what would normally be expected - during that period

In the early weeks of the coronavirus epidemic, the United States recorded an estimated 15,400 excess deaths, nearly two times as many as were publicly attributed to covid-19 at the time, according to an analysis of federal data conducted for The Washington Post by a research team led by the Yale School of Public Health.

The excess deaths — the number beyond what would normally be expected for that time of year — occurred during March and through April 4, a time when 8,128 coronavirus deaths were reported.

The excess deaths are not necessarily attributable directly to covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. They could include people who died because of the epidemic but not from the disease, such as those who were afraid to seek medical treatment for unrelated illnesses, as well as some number of deaths that are part of the ordinary variation in the death rate. The count is also affected by increases or decreases in other categories of deaths, such as suicides, homicides and motor vehicle accidents.

Is there terminology that's any creepier than "Excess Deaths"?

Anyway - yes, dammit, we have a right to know stuff. Most stuff. Certain stuff. Stuff that wouldn't get the good guys killed if it we knew about it - assuming of course the good guys are who we're told they are, and we're not just being sold another Vaporware upgrade, and only because I believe the guys in charge as long as they're my brand of guys and as long as I'm relatively sure they aren't just fuckin' with me, pretending to be my guys when they really aren't.

So that's clear, right?

Anyway also too, one of the really big things about our slide into this Daddy State authoritarian ocean of shit is the degradation of our official-government-supposed-to-be nonpartisan data gathering and reporting.

The Daddy State must control the flow of information if it's to have any chance of dictating reality to us.

That's why they insist on not properly funding the research at various entities to keep us informed on the public health aspects of guns and pollution and the other profit-over-people activities of this bullshit version of Capitalism that they're always pimping.

He Gets It Wrong

...again.

WaPo:

In a meeting with educators, Trump asked the principal of a center that serves students with disabilities about the prevalence of autism. The principal, Jane Quenneville, spoke about the increasing number of students with autism at the Kilmer Center, a Fairfax County public school. But Trump then claimed that there was a “tremendous amount of increase” in autism in general — “really a horrible thing to watch.”

This exchange is especially noteworthy, because Trump wants to create a vaccine safety commission that could roll back vaccine laws based on the widely discredited theory that vaccines cause autism. Since as early as 2012, Trump has falsely claimed there is a vaccine-autism link. On the presidential campaign trail, Trump again cited the junk science to explain the reason he believes so many children are diagnosed with autism.

So, is autism on the rise?

-and-

The rate in the 2016 report was the same as it was in 2014 — and the definition for autism was broadened in 2013.

The parameters for autism were changed in 2013, so that more kids who need help would get help. Way more important is that the Rate of Incidence didn't change for the three years after they re-jigered those parameters.

But 45* just goes right along pimping the Jenny McCarthy-style anti-vaxxer bullshit.

Here it is, putz: "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" is a Logical Fallacy.

In terms even 45* can understand: A legless dog won't come when you call him, but that don't mean he's deaf. 

So yeah - 45* is that guy.

Today's Tweet

@TitusNation Thought you'd appreciate this. pic.twitter.com/nrtbV7fDOc

— Primrose MK (@PrimroseMK) December 9, 2015

Dead Americans

Between 2000 and 2010:

via: bls/gunpolicy.org