Yeah. Yeah...
Quiet down, Zangoose... You'll get us all-expenses paid tickets to Guantanamo Bay
No worries, boss. Not taken as mean or unfair.
Out of curiosity... what credential would make you trust an automotive journalist more? If it's academic paper, I'm S.O.L.
The About Us, I didn't realize folks would have a hard time finding it if it were in the header! What do I know about websites, right. But I can fix that, I'll duplicate the About Us entry into the dropdown, that should clear up any confusion.
I'm not trying to win you over, that's not really my bag... but you might find this interesting. I've had a couple folks, some with recognizable names, reach out to me through the website. The pitch is a little different each time, but they all seem to want to know my name, they share your view that it ISN'T Kay Leadfoot. I wonder why they're so interested about that? Haha, I'm sure they wouldn't publish it if I told them, they seem trustworthy... Some folks start with a more direct approach, and they just hit me with the threats from the word go, and THEN get to the "we'll see you soon" part. I wonder what those two groups would do if one knew who I was, and the other WANTED to know?
Ain't that funny? I tell jokes about cars, who cares who I am? Apparently, several folks care, some of them real ornery about it. It's less funny when you think about the actual journalists who don't have the same options... the wave after wave of threats probably has a chilling effect on their coverage, god knows what that does for a democracy in general if your press core is afraid to speak their mind and follow facts wherever they go in case some crazies come knocking.
Thanks for the feedback, by the by, it helps.
This just got suggested to me in my random feed and it delights me - thank you!
I just discovered... a scientist tested my findings! Well that's real nice, we held up with statistically significant findings.
Well, I don't know. You see deer strikes all the time where I live (rural folks will know what I'm talking about).
You rarely see deerS strikes, where the deer get chopped into multiple deers. It happens, it's just rare, other than like, 18 wheeler hits.
I shared the story because I thought that was strange and alarming. The truck that looks like a guillotine blade seems to cut just how it looks like it would.
No, no, that's how you heil the Cybertaxi.
The Cybertruck can't see well enough to recognize hand signals, you'll get plowed for sure.
That's more than 1 brake check per hour at the speed they were testing the system at.
Thanks Iceman. I loved your work in Top Gun.
I think you touch on something important here. Some folks say the sample size is too small, on a strict statistical basis. Automotive safety works on different scales, often fast-paced decisions are made about auto safety and we don't wait around for "statistical significance" in an academically rigorous sense.
Ironically, the smallest production run of cars to receive a recall in the United States (that I could find) was... the Ford Pinto, because the accelerator pedal got stuck! That was its first year of production. All 26,000 were recalled 2 months after the model was released.
DOUBLE ironic... the smallest production run of pickup trucks to receive a recall in the United States (that I could find) was... the Tesla Cybertruck! ALSO because the accelerator pedal got stuck! All 4,000 were recalled a few months after deliveries started at scale, in the first full year of production.
Isn't that funny? History doesn't repeat itself, but it is basically a dirty limerick. And what an awful chapter of automotive history to repeat, our vehicles should be vastly safer in 2025 than they were in 1971.
KayLeadfoot
joined 4 days ago
I'm just copy pasting from above, but here's my thoughts on that:
"People often ask about me including the Las Vegas case, so maybe I answer that concern, too. That's the methodology - I set out to count every fire death for the Cybertruck that I could confirm through reliable news sources. And I struggled with that one. I worried if I didn't include it, I'd be open to the opposite criticism - folks would say "wait these stats suck, I literally saw a guy die on the news in a flaming Cybertruck, and y'all didn't count it, so these numbers can't be right." So, sort of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. It was controversial, I knew it would be, so I flagged it in the article so folks could make their own decision about it. Ultimately, it didn't meaningfully change the final findings. I've run the numbers with and without it, and the story is fundamentally the same either way."