Somebody, somewhere in the dim past suggested putting the drivers out in
front of the front bumper.
Probably the first edition of "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" by John
Muir and Tosh Gregg.
I'll have to dig it out and see...
--
Stephen West-Fisher
N4IK
-----Original Message-----
From: mgs-bounces at autox.team.net [mailto:mgs-bounces at autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Barney Gaylord
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 10:04 PM
To: Murray Arundell
Cc: mgs at autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Mgs] MG6 Review
Yes, please. You can kill most of the government mandates on crash
protection.
Crumple zones have been standard issue on just about all cars for
about 50 years, ever since Mercedes patented it in 1952, made it
standard issue in 1959, and gave the production rights away free to
the general public. It was not originally mandated by the
government, but in more recent years the govenment specifies how well
it should work (crash test standards). Crumple zones are essentiall
free in production after the engineering is done. MGA, MGB, and even
the Z-Magnettes have pretty good crumple zones. They can likely take
a 40 mph staight on whack on either end of the car and still be able
to open and close the doors.
While seat belts and side intrusion bars are a good idea, they should
not necessarily be mandated by the government. If we left out the
air bags and most of the other expeneive safety devices, maybe the
idiots who drive bad and refuse to wear the belts would eventually be
weeded out of the gene pool (in about a thousand years). When people
think they are surrounded by a NASCAR crash cage they have lots less
incentive to be careful and courteous drivers.
Somewhere in Europe some years ago (Italy perhaps) there was a study
of Mercedes taxi cabs that were equipped with alti-lock brakes. The
ones without anti-lock brakes had lower accident rates and smaller
insurance claims, because the idiot drivers with anti-lock brakes
thought the brakes would save them from anything and proceeded to
drive more aggeressively (causing more accidents).
By the way, I did not say GPS and Sat Nav was a bad idea, only that
it should not be built into the cars. It is good business if there
is a public demand for it as an optional asseccory, but people who
don't want it should not be forced to share the cost.
$0.015
Barney
At 09:06 AM 3/29/2011 +1000, Murray Arundell wrote:
>You're assuming of course that said lights and brakes are working....
>
>Should we also make seat belts, airbags, intrusion bars and crumple
>zones optional as well...?
>....
_______________________________________________
Mgs at autox.team.net
Donate: http://www.team.net/donate.html
Suggested annual donation $12.75
Archive: http://www.team.net/archive
Forums: http://www.team.net/forums
Unsubscribe:
http://autox.team.net/mailman/options/mgs/steve at coastaldatasystems.com
|