Another tragedy of falling into the water in Guizhou! Why can't cars be completely waterproof?

The Guizhou bus falling into water incident has touched the hearts of people across the country. Before the investigation results of the accident are announced, we should not make irresponsible speculations about the cause of the accident. We only hope that such tragedies will not happen again in the future.

There are usually two types of accidents related to vehicles and water, one is a falling into water accident, and the other is a water-related accident.

There have been many accidents of vehicles falling into the water before, such as the Chongqing bus falling into the river accident on October 28, 2018, the Gaoyou agricultural and industrial shuttle bus slipping into the water on June 28, 2018, and the Hanzhong bus accident on February 11, 2019 Car crashes into rivers, etc.

Water-related accidents are often accompanied by heavy rains and floods. During the heavy rainstorm in Beijing on July 21, 2012, the tragedy occurred that the owner of a vehicle waded into water and drowned. During typhoon and flood seasons every year, low-lying road sections and culverts are high-risk areas for water-related accidents. Especially recently, most of the country has fallen into the rainy season, and cars in many cities have turned into "boats." Optimistic people jokingly call it the "vehicle and boat tax" and it is not unreasonable.

There are complex reasons behind every accident, and after seeing so many water-related car accidents. An idea suddenly came to me: With technology so advanced now, why can't cars be made waterproof?

It is possible to completely waterproof, but it is unrealistic

It is not impossible to make the vehicle completely waterproof. Many armored vehicles in active service have the ability to wade through water. A certain American armored vehicle can sink completely in 3.5-meter-high waves in 10 to 15 seconds. But obviously, it is impossible for ordinary passenger cars to be waterproofed in the same way as armored vehicles, and the cost difference is more than an order of magnitude.

At the 2008 Geneva International Motor Show, the famous Swiss sports car manufacturer "Rin-speed" launched the world's first amphibious concept car Squba. The convertible has a top speed of 124 kilometers per hour on the road, about 5 kilometers per hour on the water, about 3 kilometers per hour underwater, and a maximum diving depth of 10 meters.

This car does not use an internal combustion engine, but uses three electric motors. One is responsible for driving on the road, and the other two drive the propellers at the rear of the car, which together with the jet propellers at the front, drive the vehicle into the water. Providing power for driving. The nano-carbon fiber body makes the vehicle weigh less than one ton, making it very lightweight. But the body is not closed, and passengers need to use oxygen bottles like divers (seeing this, I can’t help but ask, what is the significance of this diving car?)

This car can be said to be a luxury toy. It does not provide much technical reference for vehicle falling into water accidents. The high cost also destined it to be unable to be mass-produced.

In recent years, there have been rumors that car companies want to develop amphibious vehicles, and Tesla is very enthusiastic about this idea. However, considering the cost and market prospects, the amphibious vehicle should only remain a concept in the short term.

The wading ability can be improved, but the price is expensive

Improving the wading ability is the simplest and crudest way to solve the problem of vehicle wading distress. Brabus, the official tuner of Mercedes-Benz, once launched a model-BRABUS G550. This car can ford up to 1 meter of water and can withstand most wading risks. But not only does this car cost over 6 million, it is also a limited edition in the world.

Land Rover, which has outstanding off-road capabilities, has a unique technology called the wading sensing system. The ultrasonic sensor on the underside of the exterior rearview mirror can monitor the distance between the rearview mirror and the water surface. Its independently developed wading sensing control unit Wade Sensing calculates the wading depth and displays the information on the central control screen. Alarm when maximum is reached.

However, this configuration itself is expensive and is mostly installed on high-end models. In reality, many people are not even willing to buy water insurance, and only a few people can care about this configuration.

Accident prevention focuses on driver management

Can we prevent falling into water and water-related accidents from the source? In addition to the water wading warning function mentioned above, the existing prevention mechanisms in this regard are really very limited. Water-related accident scenarios are relatively simple and can actually be avoided by the driver's subjective awareness of safety, but preventing falling-into-water accidents is much more complicated.

Accidents involving cars falling into the water are essentially no different from ordinary traffic accidents. It is simply that other accidents occurred on land, and the car falling into the water accident happened to occur near the water, causing the car to fall into the water.

Therefore, preventing cars from falling into water is essentially preventing traffic accidents.

The Chongqing bus crash into the river on October 28 was caused by a dispute between the passengers and the driver. They grabbed the steering wheel and the vehicle lost control, rushed off the bridge and fell into the river. In recent years, in order to prevent passengers from interfering with the driver, many buses have installed isolation doors to prevent this situation from happening again. This method is relatively easy.

For situations such as a driver running out of roads or bridges while driving due to fatigue, or a driver experiencing emergency physiological problems causing the vehicle to lose control, the response is much more complicated. In the past few years, we have seen many reports about bus drivers using their last efforts to pull over the vehicle when they suffered a heart attack, thus preventing the lives of a group of passengers from being threatened. So can this sudden driver's illness be prevented?

The famous American safety engineer Heinrich proposed a famous rule: behind a major accident, there must be 29 minor accidents and 300 potential hidden dangers. This rule is used by many insurance companies and companies. If we follow this rule, then behind the accidents we know, there are still many potential accident risks that are unknown.

The driver health monitoring system should be the best solution to this problem, and car companies have been researching and developing it for many years. As early as 2015, Ford applied for a patent called "Medical Data Collection and Reporting." This patent uses sensors to monitor the driver's health status in real time and contact medical personnel in an emergency.

In the early years, Ford also developed smart seats. Six sensors were implanted in the seats to monitor heart attacks and other conditions by reading heartbeat signals, and to provide early warning to drivers in the early stage of the disease. Later, due to the rise of wearable technology, which was cheaper in cost and more accurate in data, Ford abandoned the project.

The Audi Healthy Driver System monitors heart rate and body temperature through a bracelet or watch to determine whether the driver is tired, stressed or in poor health.

Volvo, which has always focused on safety, launched a car camera in 2019 that can judge the driver's blood sugar level by observing the pupils, and call relatives or the hospital as soon as possible when a physical condition is discovered.

Concept cars of Toyota, Honda, Lexus and other brands are also equipped with various systems that can identify physiological information such as driver emotions, heartbeat, body temperature, etc. The in-vehicle health monitoring system of the domestic brand Great Wall, Use 77GHz millimeter wave radar to monitor human body micro-movements to monitor heart rate and respiration.

It can be seen that within feasible dimensions, car companies have not given up their attempts to enhance car safety. However, configurations like in-vehicle health systems, in addition to cost and R&D difficulties, also involve ethical and legal issues such as privacy rights. The maturity and popularization of this configuration still has a long way to go.

Policy guidance, promising future

In 2018, the Ministry of Transport issued a document requiring: in the existing three or more types of office buses, tourist charters, dangerous goods road transport vehicles, rural passenger vehicles, Intelligent video surveillance and alarm devices are installed on heavy-duty operating trucks, and intelligent video surveillance and alarm devices are installed on the front of vehicles newly entering the road transportation market with the "Two Passengers and One Danger" vehicles to realize automatic identification and real-time alarm of drivers' unsafe driving behaviors.

In 2017, the European New Car Safety Assessment Association (Euro-NCAP) classified driver monitoring as a primary safety system. Starting from 2020, only vehicles with driver monitoring functions can obtain the EU five-star safety rating. Certification.

From the policy orientation, it is not difficult to see that driver monitoring is a big trend, and as this technology matures, various vehicle accidents caused by subjective and objective reasons of the driver may Accidents can be prevented and controlled. Accidents on the road may be difficult to prevent, but with good driver management, there is still hope.

Finally?

In traffic accidents, the biggest factor is often people. No matter how advanced the safety configuration is, at this stage it is impossible to override a person and take over the vehicle. The system provides more assistance to the driver, and it is humans who play a key role in the accident. While we look forward to technological development bringing more advanced and safer configurations to cars, we should pay more attention to drivers. As the Ministry of Public Security emphasized in its report on the Guizhou bus falling into water accident on July 8, strengthening daily safety precautions and optimizing emergency preparedness are the most effective preventive measures for this type of accident at this stage.

Copyright statement: This article is an exclusive original manuscript of Xianwaibang. Please do not reprint without authorization

(Some pictures are from the Internet. If there is any infringement, please contact Xianwaibang)

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.