Air Date: June 22, 2005
The brace position was actually designed by the airline industry to kill people rather than save them during an airplane crash in order to save money by paying off wrongful death suits rather than continuous injury compensations.
busted
The brace position protected the test subject (Buster) from serious and possibly fatal injuries. When the test subject was not braced he received far more serious injuries.
(There is a grain of truth to this myth, however: It was learned through research that the amount of money paid by airlines in wrongful death suits is lower than the amount of money paid for injury compensation.)
Driving while talking on a cell phone is just as dangerous as driving while intoxicated.
confirmed
Both Adam and Kari failed a general-purpose road safety test while talking on a cell phone and while driving drunk, with cell phones by a wider margin. However, Adam commented that one can easily put away a cell phone if necessary, but not simply become sober as needed.
Newer: Episode 34: "Bulletproof Water"
Older: Episode 32: "Jet Pack"
It’s well known that great injury costs more than death. It is said (facetiously) that if you accidentally run over someone in your car and maim him, you should back over him again and make sure he’s dead.
June 23, 2007 at 7:12 PMi’d like to see the driving thing done by people that regularly drink and drive, i know a few and they drive better than they normally do when drunk because they put more effort out in order to drive safely. as for the cell phone thing it is a matter of how invovled they are in the conversation, my sister was looking at a red light with a red car going through an intersection while on a cell phone and continued on until every one in the car yelled at her to stop, while i frequently drive with my cell phone and often times correct those pesky back seat drivers about certain dangers (such as them being there, when the others don’t see them).
July 16, 2007 at 6:33 PMI would like to see them driving drunk, they had like two beers. As far as the airplane myth, they only dropped them from like 10 feet, a plane crashing would get going a bit faster
September 5, 2007 at 8:57 PMVery Good test!!!
September 26, 2007 at 4:13 PMI have always woundered why seats were not turned around to face backwards in all planes,trains,and buses.Much safer!
As for CELL PHONES I have people walk into me because they can’t watch what they’re doing, very rude! Peop;e need schooling in CELL PHONE edicate!
Great test on the Cell phones. Would using a hands free device make any differance?
November 26, 2007 at 4:58 PMI think this one falls in the same category as the “chicken through the non bird strike approved windscreen”. The seats were bolted to a floor structure and the floor structure was dropped to the tarmace. In reality, the seats are bolted to floor beams via seat tracks which have the fuselage frames and skin for support and load transfer. In addition, the fuselage belly beneath the floor beams and tracks provide a “crumple”zone that would absorb impact energy;not all energy would be transferred to the passengers and thus the possibility of injury could be further reduced.
December 6, 2007 at 6:17 PMthe airline conspiracy isn’t completely far fetched. i wish i could remember the specifics but there was a car or tire maker about 10-15 years ago that found out it was making faulty product. and instead of issuing a recall, they calculated that it would actually be cheaper to simply hide the information and just pay off the wrongful death suits out of court. once some documents made it into court though, the judge issued severe punative damages to them.
February 3, 2008 at 5:25 AM“I would like to see them driving drunk, they had like two beers. As far as the airplane myth, they only dropped them from like 10 feet, a plane crashing would get going a bit faster”
Both Kari and Adam were periodically breathalysed until they were as close as made no difference to the legal limit. Had they gone over it, the police would have stopped the experiment. Had they driven while over the limit, their poor performance would most likely have been worse not better.
The airplane contraption was dropped from 15 feet and all the impact measurements were consistent with those of an actual air crash. Wren’t you paying attention when you watched the show?
February 12, 2008 at 11:42 PMDriving while talking on a cell phone is just as dangerous as driving while intoxicated… would be BUSTED if the tests were done correctly.
The common (faulty) procedure for this test is to 1. drive on a course as a control, 2. drive on the course while talking on a cell phone while being asked complicated questions, 3. drive on the course while intoxicated. The results for test 2 and 3 are usually similar.
There are three (3) missing tests. 1. Driving the course while having a normal relaxed conversation on the cell phone. 2. Driving the course while having a normal relaxed conversation with a passenger (not on a cell phone). 3. Driving the course while being asked the same complicated questions by a passenger (not on a cell phone). 4. One more test that should be run is driving the course while holding a cell phone to your ear with no conversation just to confirm that holding the phone is not the problem.
You’ll find that driving with a normal conversation on a phone or with a passenger is similar to the first control test. And driving with the intense questions from a passenger will be similar to driving with the intense questions over the phone. The conversation, not the device causes the distraction.
Also, one major difference is that a phone can be put down if a challenging driving situation arises, the intoxication can’t be turned off at will. If the tests are all run letting the driver decide when to talk and when to concentrate on driving (like in real life) there will be even more contrast between the test drives and driving intoxicated.
The “incomplete” driving with cell phone test is what is BUSTED!
May 8, 2008 at 4:49 PM