On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:01:58 -0600, Julia Thompson wrote: >I've been enjoying reading this thread. I have a comment or three, and >a question (and the question is something I could probably look up, but >I figure someone knows the answer....) > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >>On Sun, 27 Oct 2002 23:42:23 -0600, Dan Minette wrote: >> >> >>>You might be my age, but then you would remember the 50 mpg cars that >>>existed in 1979. I owned one of them: a diesel rabbit. SUVs are big >>>monsters that get low milage...plus the pollution controls cut gas milage >>>significantly. >>For the record I am 38. >>The Ford Focus is the most popular car in the world. >>You've mentioned this before so I have to ask. Do you advocate removing >>pollution controls from cars to improve efficiency? > >1) I don't remember the Rabbits in 1979, but I remember them a couple >of years later. I learned to drive stick shift on one in 1986. That >was an incredibly forgiving car; I've never driven another one that >would have actually let me drive 10mph in 4th gear. I'm younger than >Dean.
The thing I remember about the couple of Rabbits I drove in was how solid they felt. My parents had a Beetle through the 60's. Another fine car mostly due to it's simplicity. Probably not the best mileage. I remember my father working on the engine. he pulled it out of the car and carried it down to the basement to work on. >2) How many people does the Ford Focus seat? How many infant/child car >seats can you get into the back seat of it? I don't know anything about them and I've never been in one. I threw in this fact just to point out that people still want small cars too. They are also a popular base for electric conversion. >>This seems like an honest analysis. >>http://enews.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/EETD-SUV-Safety.html >A large car will, on average, probably protect you better. I looked at >the article and I can believe what it says about the SUVs not being as >safe as large cars. Heck, if I were driving my car at high speed, the >way a state trooper driving the same model did during a high-speed chase >a few years back, and I hit an SUV just the right way, I could walk away >from the collision and everyone in the SUV would be dead. (But I'd have >to hit it at a crucial spot to get those results.) I think the conclusions of this study were that quality of design and manufacture was more of a factor in accident survivability than weight. Also, the SUV's were more likely to kill the person in the other car. And with the higher CofG, more likely to roll over. I don't think they mentioned the invincibility factor, which likely causes fewer people driving SUV's to wear seatbelts and drive with care. I just don't think an escalation of road metal is the path to highway safety. In European and Asian cities they drive small cars like maniacs and have fewer accidents. Putting a small car up against a Ford Excursion means about as much as putting a Ford Excursion up against a cement truck. I don't want to have to drive a cement truck. They're a bitch to parallel park. >The article >mentioned various makes and models, but I didn't see Volvo on there. >I'd like to see what the latest results are regarding the safety of >Volvos. Looks like they're not popular enough to be included in the >22-page report whose URL is at the bottom of the article. Looks like a >very interesting report, and if I get time later this week, I'll try to >read all of it. I vaguely remember in a college statistics course discussing Volvo and how they manipulated their safety statistics in the late 60's early 70's when they were making their push into North America. I can't remember the details but somehow they made them appear safer. They bragged about how strong they were. Which they were. You might remember the ads that had them stacking other cars on top of theirs to demonstrate their strength. This was a disadvantage to accident survivability because they were so strong, all of the energy of an impact was imparted on the driver. This was before the advent of crumple zones. They are a different car today. Dean _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
