There's a theory that the best way to reduce fatalities from car accidents is to put seatbelts and airbags in every car.

There's another theory that says the best way is by putting a big spike in the driver's steering wheel.

So. I guess, if you believe that the only viable solution is model alignment, rather than relying on technical barriers to exfiltrating weights, then this is a decent steering wheel spike.

I get it, but I think you need a new analogy.

Because the car case just has too much empirical evidence that safety features are the way to go for cars. We used to have the equivalent of "spikes" and people still drove a lot, and died, at way higher rates.

https://assets.weforum.org/editor/Tmf51HF4UDnSDHD4RxS75s1_5m...

> We used to have the equivalent of "spikes" and people still drove a lot,

No, we did not. The point of that example is to put a literal spike in the driving wheel, so the driver recognizes a very well known, immediate life-threatening device a few inches from their body. This would act as a deterrent to go fast, because they would be the one certainly dying in basically any case outside smooth driving.

This is so far from the point of the analogy. But when you don't normalize by miles driven, the improvements don't look quite as impressive, especially for pedestrians.

https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/deta...

So your point is that we should put spikes on the front end of cars?

Sounds like this would fix so many problems with cars today, simply by making car ownership something to be dreaded, not desired. From traffic jams and traffic accidents, to car-dependent neighborhoods and cities - all solved by preventing general population from building their lives around driving. Even salaries for drivers of delivery/logistics and utility vehicles, as hazard pay would apply.

Now, a spike may be a good reminder, but practical solution might be more along the lines of mandatory redesign of safety features like crumple zones, so that energy of impact is dissipated primarily into the space occupied by the driver.

(Bonus: that still leaves all the energy dissipation options currently present on the table, so cars would be strictly safer for passengers.)