IML: FEELING SAFE

[<50scars@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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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