OK let's look at your rants in order
In a message dated 01/10/2000 9:27:32 PM Pacific Standard Time,
microdoc@apk.net writes:
> I think you call them "B" pillars. Mount the belts to the "B" pillars. If
> they
> are not strong enough to support the safety belt... throw the whole car
> design in
> the dumpster where it belongs and start over.
This is just a guess, but I'll bet that you have never built a race car.
Competition belts (the shoulder portion) need to pull straight back from the
seat with various limitations as to the angle between seat and the belt. If
you were to attach them to the B pillar you would most likely break your
clavicle in the first accident that came along. If you have any doubts about
this consult a Simpson catalog or call Diest Safety and ask for the sheet on
mounting Comp seat belts.
This past weekend, actually
> yesterday, I had another first hand view of a fatal collision on I-80 in
> Western
> PA. Word had it on the CB channels that an eastbound minivan rubbed
> shoulders
> with some other eastbound vehicle, thence the driver lost control of the
> vehicle,
> drove it across the grassy median (at least 100') banged the front bumper
> into a
> deep drainage ditch in the center that should have stopped it; that blew
the
> balloons off, sealing the fate of all in the minivan.
So why did the airbag deployment seal the fate of the minivan? I would think
the loss of control, or perhaps the lack of an effective center divider would
be more to the point. Also since you seem to have heard about it on the CB
it reads like you did not witness the accident first hand, so how do you know
that the bags went off in the ditch?
The vehicle continued
> across the median to collide head-on with a massive 18 wheeler that tore
the
> minivan in two as it ran it over.
Gotta a news flash for you here. On any car (street, race, what ever) with
any, I repeat any, safety system yet devised when the passenger compartment
ceases to exist, it's game over.
Those airbags did nothing to protect the
> occupants (they all blew in the ditch.) nor did those flimsy seat belts
help
> anyone, nor did the State of PA or the US Govt. and whatever other lax
> government
> agency that claims to be interested in safety.
OK, now I repeat when the passenger compartment is no longer there you are
dead. Period I know this is hard to take, but that's life. No seat belt is
going to save you when the thing it is attached to is torn in half.
Do I sound angry? Damn right
> I am.
> I hate seeing people who were alive a few minutes earlier torn to shreds
in
> a
> brutal accident that they thought they were protected from.
Does anybody really think that they would be protected from serious injury or
death in a head on with a Semi? If so I suggest that they are living in a
dream world, in the real world when 4000 lbs hits 80,000 head on at speed bad
things happen.
> I will have
> nightmares for months re-seeing the horrid aftermath. Airbags are
dangerous,
> if
> for no other reason than they lull people into the infamous "false sense of
> security".
IMHO I don't believe this to be true.
Watching a fire truck washing human blood off the pavement is too
> sickening for me. That poor family was being driven by an incompetent
> driver, in
> an incompetent vehicle, on an incompetent highway, patrolled by
incompetent
> cops.
Driver I agree, vehicle Possibly, while I am no fan of the safety features of
mini-vans (I wouldn't own one) I am not convinced that the structure had that
much to do with the fatalities, but may have been more a simple act of
physics (referred to above) I am sure that no one held a gun to the owners
head and forced him to buy this vehicle, it was their choice in a free
society. We are free to make poor choices in this life. Highway design sure
sounds like it could have been improved, I consider the lack of a center
divider a major design screwup. Highway patrol? Why are they incompetent?
What in this whole tragedy would point to an incompetence on behalf of the
police? Or are you just out to lash out any everybody? No rant against fire
& EMT's? Weren't incompetent? You lashed out at everybody else.
> That carnage should never have been able to occur.
Better highway design with a center divider would seem to cover this.
> We should wake up to the
> reality that air bags are next to useless, and demand their replacement by
a
> safety device that works.
OK bucko put up or shut up, what vehicle safety device would allow for a head
on crash with a 80,000 lb semi at speed without serious injury? Please don't
anyone answer an M1 tank. We all know that this is not an option.
Here in the real world seat belts save lives, airbags also save lives, but no
safety system can save every life in every accident. Seatbelts are just one
bullet in the safety clip, airbags are another, various passive safety design
features are also ammo. The more ammo you have in your clip the better your
chances of living through an accident. But there two thing never to forget:
1. A person can shoot themselves in the foot, and 2. all the ammo in the
world didn't help Gen Custer, there were too many Indians.
$.02
Flame suit on
Rick Ewald
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