Do we really need all that safety stuff?

[gone-ot]

In some states, you have to have special training to ride a horse...but apparently NOT so for driving a car!

In so many ways, flying a plane is just as deadly as driving a car...so, maybe getting a driver's licence should be just as rigorus & demanding to get as pilot's licence!!!

[niky]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

In some states, you have to have special training to ride a horse...but apparently NOT so for driving a car!

In so many ways, flying a plane is just as deadly as driving a car...so, maybe getting a driver's licence should be just as rigorus & demanding to get as pilot's licence!!!

Flying is more dangerous in principle. But in terms of traffic, those highways in the sky are miles wide.

-

I recall reading in Chuck Yeager's autobiography how he and a co-pilot actually fell asleep while commuting cross-country, only to wake up after an hour or so to find their airplane lazily circling a field in the middle of nowhere.

Try doing that in a car.

(errh... or don't... and don't try it in a plane. He was damn lucky to have not died doing that!)

[The Other Andy]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

In other words, If you make something idiot proof, nature makes a better idiot.

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

-Douglas Adams

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

"But your Honor my car was SUPPOSED to avoid the collision, while I was sleeping." I hope I don't live THAT long.

Aw, come on, you've got another 10 years left in you.

[freebeard]

Old Mechanic -- Yeah, don't you have a tadpole to finish?

[user removed]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Aw, come on, you've got another 10 years left in you.

LOL, met Mom and Pop yesterday at Cracker Barrell for lunch with the wife, then my parents and I went to the Cadillac dealership and they bought a 2014 CTS coupe.

He will be 94 this May and she will be 90 in August. They like to compete for the best gas mileage when they ride up the eastern shore to do some gambling.

regards
mech

[user removed]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Old Mechanic -- Yeah, don't you have a tadpole to finish?

Had a little work to do this morning.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Some people use their vehicles mostly in city traffic and at lower speeds, so eventually they would also rather not want to carry a few extra ounces in airbags and seatbelts, or would also think just a lap-belt is enought for them, if they could choose that way at a lower price. Nowadays with the advances in structures and "surveillance cells", an interior trim designed to absorb impacts and minimize the risk of injuries at some extent, in a similar way to what is applied to American school buses, wouldn't be so much expensive to implement, and can lead airbags to become somehow redundant enought to be deemed unnecessary.

I guess many of the folks here is not just obsessed about fuel-economy, but also other aspects such as recyclability of components at the end of its useful life, and airbags require some chemicals to be used for their deployment, which final destination after their expiration is, at least for me, uncertain. Also, if roadworth inspections would be really that strict, I guess it would lead vehicles otherwise in a decent shape to be scrapped just because it could be deemed not economically-viable to replace their airbags due to their overall low resale value.

Anyway, I still feel safer in a vehicle fitted only with ABS brakes and 3-point seatbelts than in another fitted only with airbags and 3-point seatbelts.

[Flakbadger]

See here's the problem I have with the premise of this entire thread.

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

"Anyway, I still feel safer in a vehicle fitted only with ABS brakes and 3-point seatbelts than in another fitted only with airbags and 3-point seatbelts."

YOU feel safer. What about other people? What about the automakers, who have to cover themselves for liability reasons and need their cars to be as safe as possible? Let's not forget the fact that I can't even name a car (in the US at least) that doesn't have ABS AND 3-point seatbelts AND airbags.

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

"Some people use their vehicles mostly in city traffic and at lower speeds, so eventually they would also rather not want to carry a few extra ounces in airbags and seatbelts, or would also think just a lap-belt is enought for them"

This ignores the possibility of drunk/impaired or elderly (I have seen this happen) drivers who run a stoplight at 45 miles per hour. In this scenario, the static capabilities of the car to absorb impact and protect its occupants is the most important aspect of the vehicle. Not whether it has ABS or not.

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr;

"in a similar way to what is applied to American school buses"

You realize that a bus weighs 18 times what a car does, right? So the sheer inertia of that vehicle will carry whatever it hits along with it--IE mitigating its own change in inertia. Not to mention that school bus drivers are paid professionals, not distracted teenagers or people who are texting while driving, or drinking while driving.

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

"I guess many of the folks here is not just obsessed about fuel-economy"

This is largely a forum of people who own cars. There are some who own motorcycles/scooters, and at least one who doesn't even own a car but feels they need to add to the discussions anyway... Point being, the vast majority of users here are looking for ways to improve their existing vehicles' MPG, which--as aforementioned--are usually cars.

This can be through aerodynamics or weight reduction, but for the most part not through the reduction of a few pounds by eliminating ABS systems and shoulder restraints and crumple zones and airbags. Even those users who remove their mirrors for better MPG still usually replace them with smaller interior ones.

Thinking that removing all safety equipment is a viable way to reduce the weight of a vehicle is overlooking a huge number of reasons as to why they're implemented in the first place.

[Frank Lee]

I willingly ride bicycles, scooters, and motorcycles. They don't have and I don't demand all the nanny crap cages are burdened with. I don't have a double standard regarding this.

Funny how so many that "need" 5,000 lb SUVs and trucks for "safety" also ride things like Hardley-Ablesons- helmetless, of course.