Mark said:[...]
Judging the traffic I'm in every morning, I actually wonder the opposite.
Seeing all these cars at 120+ km/h with more often than not less than 5m of
space between them, makes me wonder why it's doesn't go wrong more often.
If an accident does occur it usualy involves a commercial van (like Peugeot
Partners, VW Transporters, Mercedes Sprinters), that underestimate their
reaction time and their decelleration rate.
Tailgating is a big pest around here, but despite this the police only focus
on people exceeding the speed limit, because that generates much more money.
In fact our government has ordered the police to issue more fines.
The tailgaters are probably the same who will speed. After all, tailgating
suggests that they're not satisfied with the prevailing speed and wants
to move faster. They usually get their way since nobody is keen on getting
their car shortened. Then there are those who deliberately cuts across lanes
millimeters in front of you, usually someone in a souped up car. Then there
are also those, when overtaking at very fast differential speed, move as
far as possible towards your lane to let you feel the whoosh. Just had one
of those today. All this is immature bad driving that ought to be stamped
out. BMW drivers usually annoy me the most, but then I stay calm and lets
nothing affect my driving. I don't know those people, don't want to know
them, hence no reason to impress them or otherwise.
Hal Whelply said:I'm surprised at the mention of Toyota. The Camry, at least a couple years
ago (perhaps they've fixed it) had only "2 stars" on side impact.
But the larger omission is Subaru. My '04 Forester is "5-stars" front and
side. Weighs 3,300 lbs., so it's in the same weight class as
Camry/Accord/S60 Volvo. Further, the new '05 Subaru Legacy/Outback received
the highest crash ratings ever from the Australian New Car Assessment
Programme. See
Thanks for playing.
The Diesel said:You are certainly correct, the Forester is one of the safest SUVs out
there, I wasn't looking for an SUV, but if I had the money and was
looking to buy an SUV, then off the top of my head I think that the
the Forester, Acura MDX, Chrysler Pacifica, and the Volvo XC90 would
be the top 4 choices.
good at people hauling (4 seater, not particularly safe) or trailering
(2000lb tow limt). But it does go off-road damn well...
-Fred W
griffin said:I dunno if I agree with the safety on the Wranglers ...I've been around
Jeeps and Jeep owners for awhile now and can't even think of anyone who's
died in a Jeep or know anyone who's told me stories of such. They may not be
safe "feature-wise" with side airbags, crumple-zones, etc, but in terms of
life-and-death crashes, I'd rather be in a Wrangler than almost any car out
there (especially in a rollover). And it's very inexpensive and easy to
install 5-point harness systems, padded rollbars, and a few other "safety"
options in Jeeps that make them even better. If we're talking about backseat
passengers tho, then ya, it's not safe at all. I had a friend fall out of my
Jeep once in the backseat (no seatbelt obviously ...but still). Not cool at
all.
like to drive it fast. Sure, it's got the 4.0L six so it's capable, I just
don't like to. That and my knobby tires make a racket at highway speeds.
Other cars in the driveway are far better for high speed driving.
-Fred W
Ideally a 1N5406 Diode, Rectifier, Fast Recovery, General Purposethe diode is across the coil to shunt the back-EMF, which is a pulse of
reverse polarity current that occurs when the magnetic field in the coil
collapses when the power to it is turned off. Probably can be replaced by
any diode from Radio Shack... look for something with a PIV rating of a
couple hundred volts, and it would be hard to find anything on the rack that
can't handle an amp or so.... Just observe the same polarity as the original
when wiring it in place.....