• set_secret@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    i know many of you all just LOVE to hate on Tesla, it’s like the shit flavor of he year for hating and no doubt Elon’s shit fuckery is partially driving it, but honestly this is an absolutely classic Forbes piece of garbage. Firstly, it’s a masterclass in selective bias - focusing solely on Tesla while barely whispering about Ram’s near-similar accident rates. Classic move to sensationalize one brand over another. Then there’s the U.S. only scope, which conveniently ignores the global context which could paint a vastly different picture. The article kicks off with a ‘non-causal’ disclaimer but then spends the rest of the time subtly linking Tesla’s Autopilot to the high accident rate, without concrete evidence. It’s a bit like saying ‘no offense’ before offending someone.

    The Tesla recall is mentioned, sneakily implying a connection to the accident rate, despite the lack of direct correlation. The article is less about informing and more about crafting a narrative that fits a preconceived notion, all while skating on thin ice made of half-truths and strategic omissions.

      • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        They’re not, though. Elon can suck it but my Tesla is the best vehicle I’ve ever owned and it’s not even close.

        • Bizzle@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I heard that you don’t even have to open the door, you just slide in through a panel gap

        • Death@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Are you comparing with other cars at the same price range or cheaper cars?

          I don’t know but based from my experience(since you also commented based on your experience), compared to some other brands although Tesla are better than some cheaper models of other brands, some are better than Tesla if you compared to the models with the same price range

          Yes, some brands might be worse, but Tesla is not quite considered as being the best

          • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Some cheaper, some the same price range.

            What’s your experience based on? Do you own one? Or is this just third-hand?

            I don’t care what it’s considered. It’s the best car I’ve ever owned and I’ve owned Fords, Dodges, VWs, Toyotas, and BMWs.

        • limelight79@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          I love that you were downvoted, for all we know your previous vehicle was a Daewoo or something. A Tesla is likely a better quality vehicle than a Daewoo.

          • Jarix@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            You sound like a forbes article

            Edit for clarification. My comment was intended to a be a bit tongue in cheek and its because of this part of the top comment that i made what i thought was clearly a light hearted joke. Sorry if it wasnt so obvious

            The article is less about informing and more about crafting a narrative that fits a preconceived notion, all while skating on thin ice made of half-truths and strategic omissions.

            In response to the assertion of owning a Daewoo. I assumed your comment i replied to was also referencing this quote

          • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Lemmy is pretty toxic. There are 5 opinions allowed on here and your personal experience is irrelevant.

            • limelight79@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              Pretty much. I’m looking through the replies I’ve received, and one says, “You sound like a forbes article” with two upvotes and only one downvote. Why would I continue to contribute to this community if that’s how people are going to act?

              • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                There’s a small center of people who are actually knowledgeable and courteous here. You just have to wade through the shit and sewage to get to it.

                • limelight79@lemm.ee
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                  7 months ago

                  Yeah, and I need to get back to blocking people. The signal improved drastically when I was doing that a while back.

        • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          but my Tesla is the best ve

          Sadly, you’ll never be able to say anything nice about any Musk properties here without massive downvotes by people who wouldn’t purchase anything from Musk.

          The hardware (occasional bad quality control aside) is pretty awesome. My neighbor has one, His holiday update was an absolute hoot. They’re fast, clean, comfortable and are generally long lasting, low maintenance cars.

          When you factor in EV and Price, there’s nothing that stands out as nicer from a pure hardware standpoint.

          They could use a few more buttons inside. When they become disabled on the road, their requirement for you to have them do the towing and taking hours to do so sucks. Suing people over selling their vehicles second hand is pretty bad. No second party repairs allowed is a problem.

          The real 800 lb gorilla in the room is the autopilot. The only redeemable thing about the auto pilot is that it mostly works and it’s pushing the tech forward. They have enough money to lobby congress to make it legal, all those 730+ wrecks and *42+ deaths as horrible as they are, will lead us to the feature being viable eventually.

          *edit: found a newer source

          • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I bought mine way before Musk became a right-wing nutjob asshole and wouldn’t buy another of his cars now unless something changed with their leadership structure.

            That doesn’t mean that I can retroactively say the car sucks now. It is a fantastic vehicle. I don’t use Autopilot so that part doesn’t apply (tried it during a trial and wasn’t impressed) but, as a car, I have no qualms.

            • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Yeah, I wonder if he became one, or if he was already one and just did a better job at hiding it.

              • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                Probably a bit of both. Before the hair plugs, he probably did want to help the world. Now he just wants to help himself.

        • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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          7 months ago

          Ah yes a personal anecdote is 100% more valid.

          That said, from what I’ve heard the big problem is the disparity of build quality. Some Tesla’s (like possibly yours) are built amazing. Some others are put together like shit.

            • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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              7 months ago

              Every brand isn’t evangelized in the same way the cult of Elon pushed their golden goose. They’re run of the mill or worse than industry averages.

              https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/who-makes-the-most-reliable-cars-a7824554938/

              https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2022-us-initial-quality-study-iqs

              Couple this with the ridiculous price point on the vehicles and you have apple cars so to that point I can understand the delusional obsession with the brand and supporting it

              • gian @lemmy.grys.it
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                7 months ago

                Every brand isn’t evangelized in the same way the cult of Elon pushed their golden goose.

                Maybe, but ask an Alfa Romeo fans about the brand… they are way worse than the Tesla fans… 😉

                They’re run of the mill or worse than industry averages.

                Look, I can tell way worse things about Renault if I look at how my car came out, so ? And I would concede that Tesla is pretty new to mass producted cars. During the years I found many quality problems also with brand that are even more evangelized and have a way longer history.

                Couple this with the ridiculous price point on the vehicles and you have apple cars so to that point I can understand the delusional obsession with the brand and supporting it

                In Italy, a couple of models (Y and 3) are pretty much aligned with other brand’s cars of the same category, so they don’t seems to be that expensive. Or the other brands are too expensive.

          • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            At least I provided some kind of evidence, even if it’s an anecdote. You made a generalization with absolutely no evidence.

            That’s fine if there’s a disparity but it’s not as common as your statement makes it seem.

    • limelight79@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      When this was posted yesterday, I brought up issues with the sample selection (not random) and universe the “study” looked at (people using one of those sites to shop for insurance), and while I think most understood my point, some people got upset at me “defending Tesla drivers”…

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldOP
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      7 months ago

      To be fair, Tesla / Musk spend a LOT of time talking about how they’re autonomous driving product are critical for reducing accidents and saving lives. Also, there isn’t a lot of public quantitative data around this major recall. That’s why they’re getting the headline.

      Maybe autopilot is great, and it’s the non-autopilot drivers that are terrible, but right now, the brand has net accident rate that rivals a company that sells massive rolling blind spots to people who love Calvin pissing stickers.

    • Lev_Astov@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Last time a garbage clickbait hit-piece like this pissed me off, I looked into the crash statistics myself and found Tesla vehicles were around 1/80th the average crash ratio per capita.

      I’m sure this is somewhat skewed by the kinds of people driving them versus the average work vehicles and clunkers out there, but still, it just feels absurdly false to claim Teslas even approach the highest crash rate.

      And even the sketchy “study” not even endorsed by the site it’s posted to, then linked by Forbes, then says Ram vehicles as the highest crash rate (lol), so it’s wild that Forbes goes on to say it’s Tesla at the top spot.

      • argarath@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Comparing with the per capita means nothing here, you need to compare with other car companies, as comparing to the per capita is like comparing the number of lung cancer deaths to the number of all deaths, of course it’s going to be a very small number, but when you compare with other cancers then you can see that lung cancer is one of biggest killers amongst cancers

    • Landmammals@lemmynsfw.com
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      7 months ago

      They also don’t make any adjustment for fault. Tailgating a Tesla is just a bad idea, they brake insanely fast.

    • NZV65572@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Thank you. This is exactly right, it’s a hit piece designed to get people who already don’t like Tesla all worked up… and it worked remarkably well.

  • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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    7 months ago

    A friendly reminder that road safety advocates recommend against the use of the word “accident” to describe car crashes, because it downplays the fact that many crashes are preventable, either by better safe road design or by the drivers being more responsible with with 2 tonne machinery they are operating.

    • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      If it isn’t intentional then isn’t it by definition an accident?

      If I break my leg while mountainbiking it seems a bit unreasonable to claim that it wasn’t an accident because mountainbiking is an extreme sport and this could’ve been avoided if I was knitting instead.

      • 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        I’m speeding through a school zone at 60km/h… I didnt INTEND to kill anyone, but i didnt see the crosswalk and mowed down a bunch of pedestrians.

        This is not an accident. Entirely preventable. Intent doesnt matter

        The vast majority of car collisions are entirely avoidable.

        • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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          7 months ago

          This is not an accident. Entirely preventable. Intent doesnt matter

          This is quite literally the opposite of the truth. You should consult a dictionary.

          E: if any downvoters want to point me to a definition from a legitimate source that says “accident” means “not preventable” and doesn’t mention intent, I will delete this comment in shame.

          Otherwise 🖕

    • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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      7 months ago

      Which “road safety advocates” are those?

      “Accident” simply means it was not intentional and has absolutely nothing to do with preventability.

  • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    This is purely my anecdotal experience, but Tesla drivers appear to be some of the worst drivers on the road. There are stereotypes of drivers. BMW’s never signal their turns, Jeeps think they can drive basically however they want including on shoulders, and Tesla drivers are oblivious to any kind of spatial understanding of the road around them.

    • formergijoe@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Fun fact, the Lending Tree analysis listed in the article showed that Ram drivers have the “highest incident rate,” which looks at accidents, DUIs, speeding, and other traffic citations. This makes them the statistically worst drivers. BMWs have honorable mention as the having the highest DUI rate.

    • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      and Tesla drivers are oblivious to any kind of reality

      Fixed based on experience. I really do feel like these are scarlet letters to being thundering assholes, and they communicate with their king like wifi routers.

    • variants@possumpat.io
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      7 months ago

      Yeah all the priest drivers switched to tesla’s, I’ve seen them so many times getting in the highway going to slow and merging across all lanes just to cause traffic

    • viking@infosec.pub
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      7 months ago

      I came here to say exactly that. You can blame Musk for many things, but the cars are only as good as their drivers, and they are some of the worst I’ve seen indeed.

      • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        the cars are only as good as their drivers,

        The design of the car isn’t that great. No physical buttons so you have to constantly look away from the road to interact with any car feature. Wipers, mirrors, climate control, music, etc… the blind spot and side views are on the display. Need to merge left but have to look right to see if it’s clear.

        • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          They do have mirrors, you know… The lack of physical buttons isn’t that bad either. You shouldn’t be fucking with things while driving whether there are buttons or not.

            • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              I don’t adjust anything unless I’m stopped. Red light, stop sign, etc. Also, at this point, I can reference all that stuff without looking at the screen so, even if I needed to, I don’t have to take my eyes off the road.

              It’s nonsense that Tesla drivers are somehow less safe because of the screens considering every other driver is staring at their phones.

              • JonEFive@midwest.social
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                7 months ago

                You might be able to adjust things without taking your eyes off the road fairly safely if you had some sort of tactile feedback. Like a knob to adjust the volume of the radio or another knob or lever to adjust the heat/AC. I doubt you could do so just as reliably and without accidentally hitting a different button with a touch screen without looking at all, but even if you can, most drivers couldn’t.

                There’s also a learning curve to contend with. Put me in a car with a standard stereo that has a volume knob, and I’ll be able to use it without looking pretty quickly and without error. Put me in a car that has only a touch screen with a UI that is different from every other manufacturer’s UI, now I have to memorize where buttons are. And until I have it memorized, I have to look.

                It isn’t at all reasonable or feasible to suggest you shouldn’t adjust any control unless you’re stopped. That completely ignores the fact that the US is comprised of many highways and interstates that won’t have any stops for hours under the right conditions. You’re telling me that you exit the freeway just to adjust the AC? That’s a lie and you know it. And again, even if that’s the case for you, it isn’t the case for most drivers.

                Cars marketed to the masses should be designed for use by the masses and should be designed with safety in mind. These are 80 mph tin cans that can do a ton of damage and need to be treated as such. Especially modern EVs with batteries that burn with the light and temperature of 1000 suns when damaged.

                Also “every other driver is staring at their phone” sounds like a disingenuous way to suggest that taking your eyes off the road is okay because everyone else does it too. Yes, lots of people do, but lots of people do not, and just because some do, that doesn’t mean we should design our cars in a way that requires the same level of inattention.

                • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  If you’re driving, you shouldn’t be doing anything that distracts you from driving. Period.

  • littlecolt@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    Is it possible that there’s a large overlap between idiots who are bad at driving and the type of people who buy Teslas?

  • stewsters@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I blame the touchscreen first ideology. Give em some physical buttons that you can feel without taking your eyes off the road.

    That and the sheer power can make accidents happen faster than you can react.

    • babypigeon@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I don’t understand how using a cell phone while driving is a violation in most places, but using a touchscreen as the dashboard is is just fine. Whaaaa …?

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      7 months ago

      Those cars with only touchscreen terrify me. I don’t even dare to turn down the AC in the EV car I drove last month when I feel a little cold because it would took THREE precision taps (small UI buttons) at DIFFERENT locations on the screen just to open the Climate Control screen. I have to pull over just to adjust the fan speed, smh.

      The dashboard is also a fucking screen with multiple tabs that I have to “scroll” through with a knob on the wheel.

      I hate the fucking thing the entire time I’m driving it.

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      This is a very good point. The more a person is forced to take their eyes off the road, the less safe they become as a driver.

  • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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    7 months ago

    How can you write an article like this with zero citations? They mention Lending Tree, who is a mortgage originator and that’s it.

    • formergijoe@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      They’re going off of Lending Tree’s internal insurance quote data. That link about the lending tree quote showed this, “Our latest analysis uses QuoteWizard by LendingTree insurance quote data…”

      Insurance rates are usually determined by risk associated with the car and driver and the value of the car. The lending tree analysis showed they were looking at several factors as well as accidents. They said also that Ram drivers have the “highest incident rates,” meaning they lumped together accidents, DUIs, speeding violations, and other traffic citations. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen a Ram.

    • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      The actual source is on the first sentence, this is just a tabloid repost

    • Lev_Astov@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Even the Lending Tree “article” has a disclaimer at the top that they haven’t reviewed or approved any of it.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    And doesn’t his newest atrocity, long overdue and underdelivered/overpriced, also have a front end like a knife?

  • Bizarroland@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    My guess it’s kind of like when you get solar panels and you’re tied to the grid you feel a little better about using electricity willy-nilly, and so you use more electricity with solar panels than without.

    I’m willing to bet that Tesla drivers were told that this vehicle will prevent them from getting an accident and so they are driving worse because they feel like they don’t have to be as on guard as they do behind a non Tesla vehicle.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldOP
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      7 months ago

      Could also be things like fast acceleration pulling the numbers up. A lot of people are going to gun it if you give them something that can do 0-60 under 4 seconds. Those are numbers that were relegated to expensive sports cars a decade ago, not a grocery getter.

      • Legendsofanus@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Is this speed special in Tesla cars or all consumer electric or normal cars? Why waste money to give a grocery getter that much extra power

        • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldOP
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          7 months ago

          Most internal combustion cars tend to hover around 8-9 seconds with a 0-60. Something with some kick was often considered sub 6 seconds.

          Telsa prides itself on fast acceleration. Their slowest car is in the 5’s, but many hover in the 3-4 second band, which is quite quick. Telsa’s slowest base model car is often performance that many brands would have for their top performing internal combustion car.

          It is often easier to make electric cars that accelerate quickly, but not every brand has decided to make their EV soccer mom cars launch like a corvette. A base Kia EV6 will 0-60 in 7.2s and Ford’s Mach E Mustang does 6.1s.

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    7 months ago

    I have a hard time seeing why the average person should have a zero to 60 in the sub 6 second range. People fucking suck at driving.

  • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Oh fuck off lending tree. Made up nonsense.

    Edit: Why am I getting downvoted? Oh, Tesla bad? Yeah, Tesla bad. LendingTree bad too. It’s spin and propaganda for the mortgage industry. They publish clickbait “research” using non scientific metrics to reach whatever conclusion they set out to reach, usually it’s just shitting on blue states. They frequently reach the opposite conclusions of credible researchers with no explanation as to why they created their own formulas when perfectly valid, standard formulas exist.

    • AlternateRoute@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      Our latest analysis uses QuoteWizard by LendingTree insurance quote data to determine which car brands have the worst drivers.

      Wonder how many drivers of each brand they actually have, that would very much sway the numbers if they have smaller numbers of some brands insured.

      This sounds like less of a “study” and more of a top ten list for page views.

      • Lev_Astov@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        The right source for this kind of stuff is the NHTSA’s database, but you can’t manufacture juicy headlines from that.

  • Andy@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    While I love to jump on the anti-Elon bus, I have to query: the highest accident rates, or highest accident rates as a percentage of vehicles on the road? If you have 10 Tesla cars on the road, and there are 2 MGs on the road, and 2 Telsas and one MG crashes, then what? 20% of Tesla vs. 50% of MG, but also that could be framed as ‘double the number of Teslas crash compared to MGs’ or ‘Tesla has the highest accident rate of any auto brand’.

    • OrteilGenou@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Good question

      Tesla drivers had 23.54 accidents per 1,000 drivers. Ram (22.76) and Subaru (20.90) were the only other brands with more than 20 accidents per 1,000 drivers for every brand.

      • Drusas@kbin.social
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        7 months ago

        lol, Ram isn’t even a make (the make would be Dodge), but owners are such bad drivers that they have a category of their own.

  • calypsopub@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I don’t know how many of these collisions are with pedestrians, but I have nearly stepped out in front of one twice just because they’re so quiet.

    • PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      My 1994 Ford Probe was so quiet you couldn’t tell it was running most of the time even standing next to it, and there are plenty of ICE cars around today with even smaller and quieter engines. Most people learn to look both ways before crossing the street when they’re toddlers.

  • limelight79@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    Oh this is hilarious. First, I own a Mercury and a Ram, so I’m apparently the best and the worst at having accidents, DUIs, and tickets.

    But I think there’s an inherent terrible bias in the data: “Our latest analysis uses QuoteWizard by LendingTree insurance quote data…” In other words, people who are regularly shopping for insurance. Probably because they have high rates, so therefore they are looking for better rates. Why do they have high rates? Probably because they have more crashes, DUIs, and other tickets than the average drivers.

    I doubt that most people with normal rates go changing insurance companies regularly.

    • Patches@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      You should always rate shop on a regular basis. There is no such thing as loyalty to an insurance company. I cannot think of any corporate entity with less loyal than an insurance company.

      • limelight79@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Yes, there are a million things I should be doing, if you watch the financial advice. But no one really has the time to do all of those things. And you have to watch that you’re getting an actual quote from the company, not just a pre-quote that can be revised later. It’s a lot of time and work.

        Also, with the horror stories I hear about other companies, I’m inclined to stick with mine even if they are a bit more. When our car was totaled a few years ago, they offered exactly what similar condition cars of the same make and model were selling for in our area, plus tax and fees, minus our deductible. We had done the research, and I was bracing for a fight, so I was stunned when they opened with that amount, then added the taxes and fees. We literally could have taken the check we received, plus our deductible, and replaced the car with one in similar condition and mileage (I wish we had, because I really dislike the car we bought instead). I see the horror stories people post about other companies, and I’m always thinking, “yeah, that wasn’t my experience.”

        • JonEFive@midwest.social
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          7 months ago

          Here’s where the loyalty part comes into play: if the insurance company doesn’t like something, they can and will drop you or refuse to renew your policy depending on relevant laws. They might have decent service and pay claims without much of a fight, and those are incredibly valuable service qualities. So you’re making the right decision for yourself if that’s what’s important to you and that’s the experience you’ve had.

          But if all things are equal, there’s no good reason to pay a higher premium for the same service. You better believe that insurance company will drop you in a heartbeat if their analysis indicates that they won’t have the level of profit from you that they want. As a for-profit business, that’s their perogative just as much as it’s yours if you want to switch.

          I tend to agree with you by the way. Loyalty comes in many forms. I might not be loyal to a company per se. If they’ve consistently provided me with a level of service that I’m satisfied with at a price that I feel is appropriate for the value, then I’m not going to go through the trouble of checking prices and switching carriers every year just to save a few bucks. And there’s the hassle of being hounded by a half dozen companies that now have your contact info after you requested quotes. That’s all a big no thanks from me.

          • limelight79@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            It’s not really loyalty, per se…it’s that they seem to be offering a reasonable price and good service, so I don’t see a reason to change. If some other company offered much better rates for the same coverage and service level, I’d switch. But I’m not spending hours and hours each year to find I might save $50/year either; that’s a waste of my time.