Sunday, April 29, 2012

why can't helen keller drive?

...because she's a woman.
We've all known this fact since childhood, but here's the science behind it.

Males have faster reaction time than females:
"in almost every age group, males have faster reaction times than females, and female disadvantage is not reduced by practice (Noble et al., 1964; Welford, 1980; Adam et al., 1999; Dane and Erzurumlugoglu, 2003; Der and Deary, 2006). The last study is remarkable because it included over 7400 subjects. Bellis (1933) reported that mean time to press a key in response to a light was 220 msec for males and 260 msec for females; for sound the difference was 190 msec (males) to 200 msec (females)."

Reaction times dictate how quickly you hit the brakes:
"Traditionally, mental processing time, or reaction time, time for a normal driver under good conditions is considered to be about 0.75 seconds....A car traveling at 65 mph will travel over 70 feet during the estimated 0.75 seconds of processing time. It takes about 0.3 seconds to apply the brake, during which time the car will travel another 28 feet, and actually stopping the car requires another 188 feet with good tires on dry roads. This means that under the best conditions, an alert driver can avoid hitting any obstacle that he perceives when it is at less than 300 feet away. With a brain reaction time of one and a half seconds, the stopping distance increases to over 350 feet. And if reaction time lengthens to two seconds, what some believe is a reasonable estimate of how long it takes for someone to interpret brake lights or turn signals when distracted, the stopping distance increases to over 400 feet. This means that a distracted driver can cause an accident even if following at a responsible 2-second distance (about 200 feet at 65 mph)."
Therefore females are bad drivers.

By the way, "Navy Top Gun fighter pilots typically score between 200 and 225 milliseconds".

on a side note, why i hate my life:
my average reaction time found from one of the sites below is 278ms. that site had collected millions of samples (other visitors to the site), and my reaction time was very far below the mean. my dreams of being a fighter pilot, race car driver, riding a motorcycle, driving in the fast lane, all basically go down the drain. the more i fight against my fate, the faster i try to drive, the more accidents i get into. most things that seem interesting, exciting, exhilarating, all involve fast reaction times - snowboarding (avoiding trees), racing in track and field (taking off at the sound of the gun), to even basketball (catching fast passes), and frisbee (closing your hands quickly enough to catch the disc). those things were and are still my passions. and for 10 years of my childhood, and i actually did want to become a fighter pilot.

i'm constantly amazed at this video

very cool site about reaction times, with alot of stats:

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