Saw this on Drudge linked to Reuters about Volvo having the plan to end death and injury in their vehicles by 2020. I've been impressed by what I'm seeing from Volvo innovation, such as the blind-spot sensors, and I do like this goal.
My concern is not with the design, but with the um, design of humans and their personalities. As with the notion of with hubris comes nemesis – how is human behavior likely to be affected by the notion of being impervious to injury? Most likely to take more risks. Then again, I would feel safer with the typical Volvo driver [i.e. my brother] taking more small risks than say some of the drivers of behemoth SUVs who believes their beast has built-in right-of-way. Just as youth take more risks because they have little sense of mortality, adding speed and power to that sense may not bode well for those who get in their way. This sort of thing can be seen with extreme sports, with easier recovery, better medicine and safety equipment, more people take risks to see how far the notion of extreme can go.
