this post was submitted on 08 May 2024
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The flame retardant thing is baffling me, anyway. Flame retardant fabrics/plastics in a vehicle either toting around 10-20 gallons of monumentally flammable gasoline, or hundreds of kWh of lithium batteries. Sure, chief, the fabrics will keep it from catching on fire...
Its not so they stop from catching fire, its so they dont instantly go up in flames, allowing the people inside to hopefully escape.
This, everyone should go lookup those fire department videos where they demonstrate furniture catching fire with and without flame retardant. The ones without are scary AF
It was never about outright preventing fires.
It was always about simply giving passengers the best chance to escape before the fire overwhelms all of the flame-retardant measures.
That said, the carcinogenic and neurological effects do kinda demand that a different solution be found right fucking quick.
Like cotton/linen fabrics? Cotton is pretty naturally flame resistant. Probably can't help you on all the plastics in a modern car interior, though.
All I’m hearing is that you don’t appear to fully understand the conditions under which the materials are mandated to withstand extreme heat and combustion
I think many may now be too young to remember, but in the 70s and 80s, this was a big issue.
NY Times, 11 June, 1983 - DEMAND INCREASES FOR FIRE-SAFE CLOTHING
Plastic fibers can melt to your skin, which isn't great considering you're in contact with the seats and carpets of the car. In an emergency, you're not prepared to deal with additional complications like that.
The article I linked here is pretty good, so I recommend reading it if you aren't familiar with this issue from back then. It will really help give you the other side of the issue to see why these chemicals are there to begin with.
Synthetic fabrics without flame retardants are basically wearable napalm. You absolutely want flame retardants in your synthetic fabrics because without them if you ever get exposed to a fire you can basically kiss your skin goodbye. If you can't live with the retardants you better start wearing nothing but 100% cotton clothing. I mean you'll still burst into flame pretty much instantly like that, but at least it won't stick to you at the same time.
“That”: your pants become bonded to your skin and the car seat
😬
You mean, in the 70s and 80s it became a big issue because that's when we started making clothing out of plastic instead of natural fibers.
Natural fibers will still combust with shocking speed without flame retardants, they just won't stick to you while doing so. From the moment of being exposed to flame to the point at which the entire garment is on fire can be as little as a few seconds. No matter the increased risk I still rather keep the flame retardants, because death from large burns is a nasty way to go.