Friends:
I'll have to go with the 'wait til they're a bit older' crowd on this
one. The Offspring is just about 16 now, and in the throes of learning
to drive. Although she'd like a B, and has expressed interest in having
one, (and sometimes makes noises about liking the looks of a *gasp*
Spitfire) I've got severe reservations about letting her (or anyone)
loose on the roads of Northern Virginia and DC in something that is, for
all practical purposes, invisible to other drivers (and particularly big
trucks). She herself, having been in an auto accident with her mother
(front-end collision at 45mph with a dump truck ... the truck's fault,
too), and having lived through it, swears by airbags and is a little
leery of driving a car without one. So, we'll likely have another lbc in
the family soon, but as a 'weekender' or fun car, rather than her
primary transportation.
What will we get her? Probably a Volvo or some other variety of armoured
car. Perhaps something from the mid-sixties with a slant-6 and a lot of
good Pennsylvania iron in it. I ran across an interesting study a
couple of years ago by an independent group of engineers. It tested very
old cars against new ones in a variety of collisions ... including ones
the highway safety and auto manufacturers usually ignore, like
quarter-front impacts. Their conclusions were probably startling to
anyone but our, and a few other, list members: in anything but a
straight head-on collision (in which the motor of the old iron usually
found its way into the cockpit), you are safer in any car from the
mid-sixties to the early seventies which has a seatbelt than in anything
else they tested. The old cars usually absorbed the impact with frame
and steel plate; the new ones sort of crumple up (sometimes
disasterously) in non-front end collisions, particularly quarter-fronts.
Airbags helped, but in situations where they rammed the passenger front
quarter into a telephone pole or tree, the airbags often did more harm
than good (ostensibly because of odd torsion forces in the car). I
remember finding it interesting if not totally convincing ... I'd
suspect there's an element of randomness that just can't be accounted
for in any car. Ah, well, the idea is there for consideration.
Cheers and safe speed ...
Corey
75 MGB 'Rags'
RD#373750
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