Date:         Mon, 8 Apr 2002 09:31:42 -0400
Reply-To:     Stones <sstones@IDIRECT.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Stones <sstones@IDIRECT.COM>
Subject:      Re: American Knowhow vs German engineering vs British electrics
In-Reply-To:  <f05100302b8d5cfc38b08@[210.55.243.85]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 10:38 PM 4/7/02 +1200, you wrote:

>A car which cannot get out of its own way is a deathtrap. Add
>tuna-can-sized brakes and a 2-ton-plus mass and it's a recipe for
>disaster. Keep seeing these "Hairiest Police Chase"-style TV
>programs, where US cars are seen wallowing and crashing nastily where
>a car from a nonUS market would have avoided the accident entirely.
>
>Unsafe at any speed... anywhere.
>--


Right, so the people demand air bags, and ABS, every car costs $200 more to
build and then can be sold for $3000 more. The cars are therefore safer in
the driver's mind, so he can eat his lunch and talk on the cell phone while
driving...  Give us a decade, enough of them will be in that accident
perfectly to have the airbag implant the cell phone in to their heads and
the cell phone industry will be able to cash in on a new technology to make
softer, wider phones which won't do so much damage...  And sell them for
those wonderful profits.  Hell, look at dashboard padding these days, is it
there to keep your sun-glasses from breaking if they fly off? Normal people
don't to bang their faces against dashboards, they're probably not going to
do it, remember when people used to want to NOT crash their cars? I hate
the airbags on my 2001 Golf, the steering wheel is bulky and pudgy, you
can't easily reach through it to poke the trip odometer. The ABS systems
make it impossible to lock up the wheels, in order to lose grip you have to
balance accelerated spinning of the fronts with hand-brake use. The
laziness factor of Joe Public has made it damn near impossible to get a
good car these days. Rant rant rant, blargh!    I'll shut up now.