Quote:
Originally Posted by elhigh
Part of the need for all these power assistance systems comes from the great mass of the vehicles. If we didn't insist on weighing them down with sturdy side intrusion beams and ABS and power everything the silly things would weigh a lot less and be a much lesser threat to each other on the road in accidents. And then we might not NEED so much in the way of ABS and side intrusion beams because the vehicles would be easier to stop and not thrust so intrusively into other people's cars.
Light is right. Less mass is gooder.
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You're right. With these cars getting bigger and heavier and with more and more electronics monitoring and controlling things, I'm afraid that some thing doesn't work as expected. Drive-by-wire steering? well, maybe it will be lighter, but if something electric fails, you have nothing to do unless you have an auxiliary system, as a full steering rack, so it's heavy again to make it safe. Safety has made cars heavier and I would agree with you, because a good driver with a good and light chassis would overcome many of the hazards, but now people buy cars just to go from A to B and don't care about the car (or in some cases, in their surroundings) and get distracted, so you need all the safety measures possibles
