Two safety ideas: starting with proper safer spare tires

In Texas in March 2022, according to the accounts I read, a group of golfers and their coach were hit head-on by a Dodge pick up truck. The truck was driven by a 13 year old driving a vehicle with a 'spare tire'. 

Spare tires used to be large.

Photo author RLGNZLZ from Chile. For Thunderbird 292 hardtop 1956. From Wikipedia.

A tire on the back of the car, left room inside the boot (Americans say trunk) for your luggage.

 Let's take a closer look. I shall enlarge it for you.

Some designers put the tire inside the lockable boot (trunk). Additional advantages were streamlining the car shape for speed.

1960 valiant car (automobile).

Spare tires

The modern spare tire is thin and is supposed to be driven only at low speeds for a short distance to a garage to get a replacement tire.

The idea is that a thinner tire makes more space in the car boot (Americans call it automobile trunk). Bring back proper spare tires.

If you really put space in the car above passenger safety, you could dispense with spare tires and pull over and wait to be rescued by the Automobile Association (AA for short). (The American version is not the AA but the AAA, American Automobile Association.) But the AA would not want that. The cost of premiums would go up. More cars sitting around on motorways, waiting. And where would they wait?

Where do they go now to change the tire? In the slow lane, waiting for somebody to plough in the back of them. A common cause of death is not the first accident, but the second one, the pile-up. The pedestrian, contemplating the broken down car, stepping out in front of an overtaking vehicle.

When my car was hit on the M4 in London, I was horrified. My car shot across into the fast lane where the car revolved and stopped. The driver side door was hit and damaged and could not be opened. A driver of a lorry (Americans say truck), stopped (Forced to stop by debris across three lanes of the road). He ran up to help. Either the window was already down or I was able to wind it down. Whilst I contemplated trying to climb out of the window, or vaulting over the front seats into the back - but the back passenger seat was also dented, he pointed out, "You can get out on the passenger side!"

I did. I was horrified to find that the central reservation did not have enough kerb for a pedestrian to stand on, out of the way of traffic. 

My Accident

Two accidents waiting to happen just killed several people. When I was a child a spare tire was a proper tire. 

A motorway had a hard shoulder where you could move or be moved if you broke down. There the vehicle could be pushed in the case of an accident. So called smart motorways, which are really dumb motorways were unknown. 

Bring back the real smart motorways which have a hard shoulder. With clearer wide luminous strips to show where they are. Bring back proper spare tires.

Do you want to read that again? I would like to say it again.

Two accidents waiting to happen just killed several people. When I was a child a spare tire was a proper tire. A motorway had a hard shoulder where you could move or be moved if you broke down. There the vehicle could be pushed, in the case of an accident. 

So called 'smart' motorways, which are really dumb motorways were unknown. Bring back the real smart motorways which have a hard shoulder. Add clearer wide luminous strips to show where they are. Bring back proper spare tires.