ABC had a story on today which illustrates why we need civil suits and regulation of industry.

[Skidmore]

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/road-warning-death-big-rig-guillotine/story?id=13026797

Truck Underride Accidents: Drivers Endangered When Cars Slide Under Trailers
Trailer Bumpers Not Good Enough, Says Insurance Institute for Highway Safety


More than 350 people a year are killed when a car
strikes the back of a big truck and slides underneath.
There are safety standards to prevent these so-called
truck underride accidents, but a new study shows the
protections aren't working.

Rear impact guards, fastened to the backs of big rigs,
are designed to stop cars and prevent them from
sliding underneath. The Insurance Institute for
Highway Safety (IIHS) put them to the test. The
Institute crashed a 2010 Chevy Malibu, traveling 35
miles an hour, into the back of parked trailers. The
rear guard that meets the U.S. standard gave way, and
the car slid right under the trailer, crushing the
vehicle. If there had been real occupants instead of
crash dummies in the front seat, the IIHS said they
would not have survived. "Our tests show how easily
some of these guards are failing at relatively moderate
speeds," said institute president Adrian Lund. "The
standards need to be stronger. These crashes don't
have to be deaths or serious injuries." Canada
requires rear impact barriers that are 75 percent
stronger than those in the U.S. In the IIHS crash tests,
the Canadian-style guard held up properly when the
car hit it. For Nancy Meuleners, a rear under-ride
crash has meant 40 surgeries and a changed life --
she lost her jaw and parts of her tongue. "Speaking
can be an issue. Eating. I can't eat normal foods,"
Meulener said....

[Orrex]

1. Why does your text show up in that narrow column mode?

[madinmaryland]

2. He chose a brazillion text formating font.

:P

[Orrex]

3. That explains why it's so smooth and hairless.

[Dappleganger]

8. At least it's not in comic sans.

[Tesha]

5. They probably insert line breaks to make it read that way.

It's a good idea; usability experts routinely
recommend that text be wrapped into relatively-
narrow columns which is why every newspaper and
magazine has done this for hundreds of years.

It's only with the coming of the web that
typography has almost-universally turned
to shit.

Tesha

[Orrex]

6. I tend to find it suspect

Postings in that format often turn out to be cut-and-paste jobs or else some sort of weird affectation. Not saying that the current post is either of those, but the format evokes the same sense that something is amiss.


And one reader's assessment of "turned to shit" is another reader's assessment of "easy on the eye."

[Tesha]

7. Why don't you go find a resource that supports your contention that...

lines that run the entire width of the screen are easier
to read?

Tesha

[Orrex]

9. Yeah, I'll get right on that.

Do you read a lot of novels that print the text in two narrow columns?

Do you find yourself lapsing into apoplexy when you struggle through a full-width post on DU or elsewhere?

In school, did you format your research papers into two neatly ordered columns side by side for the ease of the instructor?

Why not?


The obvious point that you mysteriously seem to be missing is that the formatting is context dependent. That is, the standard posting format for DU results in lines that are--generally--of a certain width, so when a post shows up that's pointedly inconsistent with that expectation, it draws undue attention to the format rather than the content.

After you're done impressing yourself with your whiz-bang source material, perhaps you'll look into the phenomenon whereby arbitrarily conspicuous formatting is counter-productive in conveying meaning.

And if you should happen to be envisioning some sort of gotcha! comeback along the lines of "harrumph, I am able to look past the formatting," I would in that case remind you that apparently you are not.

[Tesha]

10. As a matter of fact, books *ARE* set in two relatively narrow columns of text.

And whether you choose to believe it or not,
these principles of good design have been known
for years. As I said, it was only with the coming
of the web that many of these principles have been
temporarily forgotten as everyone suddenly became
"a designer".

You may certainly choose to ignore these principles
or claim they don't even exist, but that choice
will limit you.

http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/em/

Tesha

[Orrex]

11. For the life of me, I have no idea why you're so upset about this

And I've seldom read a novel that was divided into multiple columns per page. How many have you read in this format?

[Tesha]

12. I'm not the least bit upset.

I am sufficiently observant, however, to note
that when one has a book open in front of
oneself, the layout of the open book creates
two columns, one on the left-hand page and
one on the right-hand page. And both of those
columns are a good deal taller than they are wide.

And as I've mentioned, this is a good principle
of design for laying-out text, followed by the OP's
author and by me. And you may obviously disregard
it if you wish, but text that flows from gutter to gutter
on a very wide web page will be a lot harder to read
than text that is the more-usual ten to twelve words
wide. You and I are both trained through years of
experience to expect that sort of layout. And it's
because centuries of use have shown it to be best.

Tesha

[malaise]

4. I saw it

Thank Reagan