Let me weigh in on this subject....
First off, I survived a 100+ mph rollover racing accident in a MKII Sprite.
Secondly, I knew Geoff Healey well enough to have spent significant time
with him, and we'd talked at length about the Sprite's design. He did, in
fact design it safety in mind. It was not a separate body/frame. Geoff
really was ahead of his time... especially considering the fact that it was
intended to be a low budget car.
There are many factors to be considered...
Maturity of the driver? For instance, in my head, I'm 13 with occasional
bursts to 26, despite my 49 years. But, when I'm in a car, I've always
understood I'm driving the equivalent of a rolling hammer, no matter what
I'm driving. When my first daughter learned to drive, I showed her the
functional difference between trying to drive a 16 penny nail into a 2 x 4
with a bare hand (yeah... ouch) and with a framing hammer. She started to
understand concepts like mass, velocity, and the force of impact.
What's the population density where you live? Lot's of traffic? Wide open
spaces? When I'm driving "sans top", my vision is much better than the bulk
of today's cars. (Toss that example out when the top is up or the hardtop's
on it. I also am also able to avoid many situations due to the nimble
handling, and the fact that I have 30 + years ownership experience, and many
many race miles. Disadvantages include the fact the cars are so small, that
many don't see you. I do get nervous driving a Sprite in heavily populated
areas because of that.
I'm not a real fan of 3 point or better belts in a Sprite unless you've got
a roll bar.
WST
-----Original Message-----
From owner-spridgets at autox.team.net [mailto:owner-spridgets@autox.team.net]
On Behalf Of Mike Rambour
Sent: Monday, April 25, 2005 1:15 PM
To: spridgets@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Spridget wanted.. rant..
Interesting timing on this discussion...
My first car was a 1973 FIAT 124 Spider, bought new in 1974, had 3
wrecks in that car, I rolled off a hill when it was 1 week old and did NOT
yet have a roll bar, less than a year later I rear ended someone with it
and a few months later I got rear ended on the freeway, then I learned to
drive :) My wife to be was with me for all 3 accidents. No more mishaps
since then. My daughter is now 15 1/2 and my wife and I decided to give
our daughter the 124 as her first car. We were both perfectly fine with
the idea and you would not believe the "crap" we have gotten from friends,
neighbors and family about how can we do that to our daughter and make her
drive a unsafe un-airbagged car, etc. So much crap that we are not
re-considering our idea. Her grand-father even told her to drive the 124
to the nearest Honda dealer and trade it in and he would pay half the
difference between the new car and the trade-in value, uh no, its my 124 :)
And this is my daughter who has logged unknown thousands of miles since
she was about 8 years old on the back of my motorcycle, a far more
dangerous practice than driving a car. And they don't complain when I take
my daughter again for thousands of miles over the years in my 53 Singer
with its wood-framed super-thin Aluminium body (required LBC to keep on
list topic).
I must admit that they have me thinking about the safety, as my wife
says we can't wrap her in bubble wrap all her life but maybe they have a
point. We have about 4 months to decide which it will be, today she is
getting a 124 Spider but maybe not...
Mike
~~~~~ I'd rather be sailing and ~~~ .oooO Oooo. ~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike Rambour ( ) ( )
Bug Writer er...Programmer \ ) ( /
mikey@b2systems.com \_) (_/
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