Quote:
Originally Posted by ecoTex
A story I heard:
A guys wife buys a new car. She has it for a few days before her husband gets a chance to ride in it. She is coming to busy intersection at speed with cars already stopped at a red light. Gets to within a couple hundred feet of rear ending the stopped car at 45mph (with her husband screaming) and slams on the brakes, anti-locks are howling. She stops short of hitting the other car, barely. He asked "what the hell are you doing?"
she replies, " the salesman said I have anti-lock brakes and this is how they work"
Evidently she had been driving like that for days.
|
God, sounds like my ex wife! She went through more brakes and rotors than any person I've ever met.
I hate driving with other people, as many of them are just terrible drivers. Sometimes for work I have to carpool to meetings or events, and I just dread them. It just amazes me how often they floor the accelerator even when we are in stop and go traffic...or how they will accelerate towards a yellow light only to slam on the brakes over and over again.
I agree that sometimes people feel too comfortable or "safe" while driving. However, I'd feel a heck of alot better about getting side swiped or t-boned in my 1 ton vs my Canyon. Maybe it's psychological, but I truly feel that the bigger, heavier, beefier built vehicle will soak up more of the damage than my little truck.
Twice while on deployments I've been in vehicles that slammed into cement barricades at fairly high speed. Once in an MRAP (International type, 40,000lbs with armor and weapons) and another time with in an up-armored Expedition (probably 6,500 hundred pounds total). I got a nasty goose egg on my head, a black eye, and some stitches in the MRAP. The Driver of the Expedition got seriously hurt and I got really banged up in that accident. The MRAP got scratched up and the Expedition got totaled. Obviously not apples to apples by any means, but it did show (to me anyway) some validity to the heavier better built vehicle surviving collisions better.
Not sure how well that correlates to civilian accidents, as the Expedition on the highway would be 1000000% better at avoiding accidents to begin with. Small vehicles get lost in blind spots easier, and aggressive drivers seem more likely to cut off a Honda Fit than they do me with a truck that will demolish their ride.
I guess there just isn't a perfect vehicle out there. If we all went around trying to get the perfect all around vehicle we would all do alot more walking because it doesn't exist. It's all about compromises. I'm willing to trade some of that feeling of "safety" for a cheaper vehicle that gets better fuel economy. Some/most Americans are not willing to make that trade.