Date:         Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:23:42 -0600
Reply-To:     Jim Felder <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jim Felder <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: VW bus and beetle on Yahoo's 10 deadlies car list. Any thruth?
In-Reply-To:  <89604.77667.qm@web45312.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

What occurs to me in looking over this snarky little article is that
the writer is conjecturing that these designs MIGHT kill you, not that
they have killed a lot of people. He admits it in the section on the
pinto--

'The barbecue that seats four' didn't really kill thousands as urban
legend would have you believe, but the potential was there.

He seems to revel in his belief that aircooled cars didn't produce
much heat, and that the austin healy sprite didn't have seat belts.
He's probably so young that he doesn't remember that almost no cars
came with seat belts. I put them in my Sprite and moved them to my
Triumphs and MGs and VWs and whatever I drove after that, like
everybody else did.

He doesn't mention the many, many other more well-known examples of
dangerous automotive design such as the fifties-era cadillacs whose
sharply-pointed steering column boss was a spear aimed at the driver's
heart. The cadillac didn't have seat belts either. Why pick on the
Sprite?

He complains about the handling of the Porsche 930 as if he was
uncovering some hidden automotive secret. EVERYBODY who ever owned a
nine-series Porsche knows you'd better have the guts to keep your foot
in the accelerator if you put it there in the first place, especially
in a turn, or the car will swap ends with you. These and other obvious
points indicate that the guy isn't really connected with the
automotive world in the first place. It reminds me of the scene in The
Jerk where Steve Martin intercepts Bernadette Peters' plate as the
waiter is bringing to the table (she had ordered escargot) and tells
him "there are SNAILS on her PLATE!!!!"

He just got paid to do an article that nobody else has done. Or maybe
he just did it for fun, even worse. This schlock style of journalism
comprises 99 percent of what you read, including the news, financial,
crime, environment and political reporting.

It's just about all there is out there. You just caught this one
because it's not just wrong, but unfair.

Jim



On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Poppie Jagersand
<poppie.jagersand@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> Both the VW bus and beetle are nr 10 and 4 respectively on the
> deadliest car list, prominently flashed on Yahoo's Canadian home page
> this morning. (maybe time to switch email provider?)
>
> http://ca.autos.yahoo.com/p/1145/deadliest-car-designs
>
> Is there any objective truth to this? I once saw an article that
> despite the obvious challenges in making a forward cab vehicle safe
> in head on collisions, the T3 bus/vanagon is in fact one of the least
> accident prone vehicles in the insurance statistics. Obviously
> accidents are caused by vehicle plus driver. (The no 6, Corvette,
> on the list might have been safer if marketed as an "Oldsmobile" to
> that segment of GM customers.)
>
> My guess is that the list is a product of a clueless journalist
> who did little real research. If someone can find true statistics
> on vehicle models and deaths and then enough of us email Yahoo,
> with these facts maybe they would feel compelled to up their quality
> of journalism?
>
> Martin
>
>
>
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