Talk:University of Michigan Solar Car Team

University of Michigan Project
University of Michigan is not represented with a project at Category:WikiProject Universities. Please comment at Talk:University_of_Michigan.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:05, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Dubious
Recent edits make claims regarding an overtake that occurred during the 2019 BWSC race. These edits repeat the accusations of cheating from the Seeker Documentary "Light Speed" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLfJ08OXxI4). However, the evidence presented in the documentary to support these accusations is quite thin. In reality, the documentary makes use of several factual errors and editing tricks in order to support its claim. This implies that it might not be a reliable and unbiased source of information.

First, the narrator in the documentary incorrectly summarizes the competition rules around overtaking, saying “all vehicles are required to give way to solar cars”. However, the exact text of regulation 3.25.2 reads

"To avoid obstructing other road users, each driver of a team vehicle other than the solar car and front and rear escort vehicles must leave at least 200 metres of space in front of their vehicle so that other road users can overtake and occupy the space in front of them. If it is safe to do so and will help clear traffic building up behind a vehicle, drivers of team support vehicles should pull off the road to allow other road users to pass."

Here we can see that the rule the narrator is referring to includes a specific exception for "front and rear escort vehicles" such as the Michigan vehicle in question.

Additionally, the documentary uses deceptive editing to imply: A) that the overtake procedure took a long time with many attempts, B) that Michigan's front escort vehicle is closer to Tokai's than it actually was, and C) that Michigan's conduct created a safety hazard for Tokai's solar car.

We can see the evidence of A and B by looking at the reuse and out-of-sequence use of footage. Carefully observing the documentary at 11:54 and 12:22 one can see that the same footage has been re-used (after being cropped considerably). This re-use implies that the pass took longer and that Michigan's front escort vehicle got further away from Tokai's vehicle during the pass. In reality, the footage was played out of sequence to create this effect.

Stepping frame by frame at 11:36 one can see that the footage from two different overtakes (and likely two different cameras considering the quality & color differences) has been cut together to imply Tokai's vehicle is following closely behind Michigan's front escort vehicle. Again, this goes toward the objective of making the overtake seem longer and more complicated than it actually was.

We can see that evidence for claim C is fabricated as well by carefully observing the footage at 12:29. The person holding the camera exclaims "Oh ****, Sidd's about to have a head on!". Based on their determination that a vehicle is approaching in the oncoming lane. However, this person is mistaken. If we zoom in on the image and compare it to the vehicle shown in the distance at 13:00 we can see that this vehicle is actually on the side of the road at the time of the overtake. This is also consistent with the fact that the clip starting at 12:29 is cut before the "head on" could happen (or Tokai's vehicle could swerve to avoid it). Footage of a near crash would surely reinforce the claim that the documentary is making here, so why cut it out if they have it?

The film does show a vehicle passing after the "head on" exclamation. However, if we look carefully we'll see that this footage (at 12:39) is actually just re-used footage of the truck which passed earlier (at 11:42).

Additionally, the narrator at this point claims that "Tokai has to surrender to oncoming traffic". This reinforces claim A, that the overtake took a long time. However, if we look carefully at 12:29, 12:53, and 13:00, we'll see that this is all footage of the same overtake attempt. In fact, after accounting for footage re-use, the documentary only shows Tokai attempting to overtake Michigan's front escort vehicle on two unique occasions.

97.91.3.229 (talk) 21:58, 16 December 2020 (UTC)