TIL! I had never heard the typhoon was used for both tornados and hurricanes in China, had just heard of their Typhoon rating sytem that seems to apply more to what would be called a hurricane in the states.
But the storm in the article was not a tornado. The 3 people who were pulled from their homes lived in a high rise, and had large windows that failed in the wind, and they were blown out.
A typhoon is what we call a hurricane when it is over the northwest Pacific Ocean. A tornado is a very different event. A hurricane covers an area 1000x or more larger than a tornado, but the tornado has significatly higher wind speeds, and is much more dangerous if you are directly under it, but you will likely be fine standing in your yard half a mile away. As many cell phone videos show. Until it turns towards you, because they don’t always travel in consistant directions. As many cell phone videos show.
Well, as far as crash safety, I would think it would almost always safer to be facing backwards. That’s the way infant car seats are. Facing backward would mean your whole body would absorb the inertia change against the seat and your head would be supported. Better than seat belt bruises and a bobble head imitation, seems like.
That’s assuming the forward facing people in the back row are buckled of course. 60 mph headbutt would be…bad. Turn those seats around too maybe?
I believe they are kei cars. I looked up the safety ratings on them when I heard about them, and the D.O.T. equivalent board that rated them gave them 5 stars. But it could be that was a kei car specific rating. It did show diagrams with front and side air bags, and all the electronic crash avoidance systems. It’s bigger and seems like it would be safer than a smart car. I honestly think the hold up is that if we had options like that in the US fewer bigger, more expensive, cars would be sold. Maybe not a lot fewer, but enough fewer that it is overall more profitable not to offer them.
Nissan Sakura and Mitsubishi eK X EV are $14-16k, but are only for sale in Japan. Nissan closed orders for the Sakura because they already had more orders than capacity to make them. We need vehicles like that everywhere! That would drive EV adoption far, far more than another “affordable” $45k SUV.
Growing crops to make ethanol is not particulatly green. In fact, in most existing production loops we would be better off environmentally to just burn pure gasoline than produce the ethanol to mix into it, unfortunately. Too much water, too many tractors and trucks, and way too much electricity into ethanol production to be worth what we get out of it. And the bit of carbon the crops sequester doesn’t overcome it. Electric vehicles are by far the greenest option right now.