Re: IML: FEELING SAFE

["Frederick Joslin" <fljoslin@xxxxxxxx>]

I live in Eastern WA and there are many two lane roads around here.

Every month or so there is a report of a head on crash usually with an older pick up truck crossing the center line and hitting a small car head on.

Usually there is one person in the truck who does not even need to go to the hospital and usually there are multiple fatalities (1-3) in the small car.

Early last year there were two older trucks that hit head on. Both drivers survived, but five kids in on of the trucks died. No seat belts.

 

Also last year there was a 1991 Imperial that was T-boned on the passenger side by a pick up truck while the Imperial was turning left onto a residental street where the speed limit was 35 mph. An older gentleman was driving with his wife of many years in the passenger seat. She died at the scene. I saw this car at the local Pull and Save. WOW. The car was about half as wide as it should have been. Most of the time you see wrecked cars and you do not know the story. This one I did. I was surprised that the driver survived. One brief poor decision caused so much tragedy.  

I want to be the best driver that I can and have the best and safest vehicle that I can and then hope for the best.

 

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: 50scars@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: IML: FEELING SAFE
> Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:57:23 -0500 (EST)
>
>
>
> OK people, answer this question--in the last 20 years, how many of you
> have been in an accident that made use of the fact that more mass beats
> less mass; i.e. where the small mass occupants went to the hospital, but
> large mass occupants didn't?
> Just visible damage or cost of repairs is meaningless. If you run your
> 0 MPH headlights into someone elses 2 1/2 MPH rear bumper, it is going
> to peel the sheetmetal and plastice back until it finds something
> solid, like the block to slow it down. If you got it with your plastic
> bumper and the stuff that is behind it, then the damage stops pretty
> quick, unless you were still moving at a serious clip when you hit him.
> How about this one--Anti-lock brakes are supposed to be a fantastic
> safety feature. Name the last 3 times you came to a locked wheel
> stop, or seriously used the anti-lock brakes. I don't mean you were
> stopping with a little gravel or ice on the road, and they cut in for
> a pump or two, I mean really stood up and panic stopped, where the
> pedal was kicking back at you big time, or you heard serious tire
> noise.
> Just taking the raw population figures and dividing by the number of
> traffic deaths, your number comes up once every 7145 or so years.
> Obviously, there is something else killing us. By the way, that
> statistic is not just cars, trucks, busses, motorcycles--it is all
> forms of land transportation except railroads---including pedestrians,
> bicycles, toys, horse drawn conveyances, off road equipment like farm
> and construction machinery, and off road RVs too.
> Since our newest Imperial is over 20 years old, it is pretty safe to
> say that none of them have ever been in an accident where the shear
> mass saved anyone's life, let alone what ever safety design was
> incorporated into them. Unless it is a current model, when you deform
> them like that, the cost of repair exceeds the cost of replacement,
> and they go to the bone yard.
> Few of us are likely to find out whether we are safer in an old
> Imperial or a newer car, because we don't drive that way. That is why
> our insurance rates are relatively cheap. Insurance is to protect your
> assets from somebody else's lawyer.
>
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Fred Joslin