TSA hasn't forgotten about us...

[ScottM]

That will buff right out.

It reminds me of the truck accident I saw just outside of Tianjin when driving back up to Beijing.

Two of these ubiquitous blue dump trucks

Had smacked into each other.

You really have to understand Chinese rules of the road, they appear to be whoever is in the Mercedes and has the loudest horn has the right of way. Many times people will drive in the oncoming traffic lanes if their is a traffic jam. It has gotten better in the cities but the country is still wild and woolly!

But I digress.

These two trucks had hit each other and appeared wholly undamaged. But as you can see by the picture they are not too shiny to begin with.

Out of the front windows of each truck were the dead and bloodied bodies of the two drivers. A crowd gathered, we stopped, I did take photos (no I won't post them). The road was blocked and we had no where to go until the mess was cleaned up. Eventually the body removal service took the two guys away and new drivers showed up, broke out the remaining glass and drove the trucks away.

 

[dmccormack]

It reminds me of the truck accident I saw just outside of Tianjin when driving back up to Beijing. .... Out of the front windows of each truck were the dead and bloodied bodies of the two drivers. A crowd gathered, we stopped, I did take photos (no I won't post them). The road was blocked and we had no where to go until the mess was cleaned up. Eventually the body removal service took the two guys away and new drivers showed up, broke out the remaining glass and drove the trucks away.

My guess is seatbelts aren't exactly a priority for blue truck drivers in China?

 

[ScottM]

My guess is seatbelts aren't exactly a priority for blue truck drivers in China?

what belts?

Seasalt belts



China is a country devoid of liability lawyers. There is almost no safety devices anywhere. You will see all kinds of stuff that would never, EVER, be allowed in more developed countries.

You will drive down streets that will suddenly end, without warning, into large holes and construction. Steel bars sticking up out of sidewalks. Warning labels? What are those. That is why you get baby formula with bad contamination in it, lead paint everywhere, not just in kid's toys. I could go on.

 

[dmccormack]

what belts?

Seasalt belts

China is a country devoid of liability lawyers. There is almost no safety devices anywhere. You will see all kinds of stuff that would never, EVER, be allowed in more developed countries....

I only wore seatbelts after an Air Force Driving Safety instructor said, "They added $400 to the price of your new car -- might as well use them!"

NY State passed a seat belt law that same year.

Four months later we had our collision.

If we had not been wearing seat belts, April 4th, 1981 would have been on two headstones.

My father and his wife died in a car crash two weeks later.

Neither were wearing seatbelts.

 

[Matthew]

what belts?

Seasalt belts



China is a country devoid of liability lawyers. There is almost no safety devices anywhere. You will see all kinds of stuff that would never, EVER, be allowed in more developed countries.

You will drive down streets that will suddenly end, without warning, into large holes and construction. Steel bars sticking up out of sidewalks. Warning labels? What are those. That is why you get baby formula with bad contamination in it, lead paint everywhere, not just in kid's toys. I could go on.

A couple of our guys just got back from a business trip to China. They had a photo of a corded-drill, plugged into a power strip that was laying on the floor in a puddle of water. The plug had been cut off the cord from the power drill and the bare wires were pushed into the power strip outlet.

 

[N801BH]

Yup... around here we call that a Ted Bundy connection.....

He only smoked for a few seconds.

 

[John Baker]

sigh. What will it take to make this a police state?

It's already been done, the line has already been crossed. If silence can be considered approval, then the American people have approved wholeheartedly. The Patriot Act, The Department of Homeland Security, The T.S.A. etc.

Then consider the number of new laws and regulations that take effect each year, well over a thousand. In just ten years, over ten thousand new laws and regulations to make governing us easier and more efficient have gone into place. There is no letup in sight, we are just at the beginning of it. In just fifty years, there will be fifty thousand new laws and regulations added to the millions we already have.

We already are a police state if you think about it. How many people are there, not counting the military, who have badges and are packing weapons, walking among us? I'm just taking a wild guess, but I'll bet it's more than a hundred.

John

 

[Ghery]

The only place I have feared for my life in a taxi is Shanghai. Those people are CRAZY!

 

[ScottM]

The only place I have feared for my life in a taxi is Shanghai. Those people are CRAZY!

You have not gotten a taxi ride in Dehli yet? We actually would touch other taxis and push them out of the way. Shanghai is a dream compared to that!!

 

[flyersfan31]

The Smart is a fascinating exercise, and the level of safety that they have managed to innovatively design in is amazing. They are a remarkable and useful appliance for use in the places where they make sense.

Which is nearly nowhere in the USA.

In mainstream driving, they are hazardous because of their ****-poor handling at speed (ever drive one?) and gutless inability to keep up with traffic. This, and they are expensive and don't get all that great gas mileage.

Nonetheless, I see 'em scurrying all over around here, which is a testament to salemanship, P. T. Barnum style.

You have to admire their remarkable achievements in energy vectoring.

Absolutely. They're fine in the relatively small confines of European cities. Here? Not so much.

 

[Matthew]

The only place I have feared for my life in a taxi is Shanghai. Those people are CRAZY!

ehh - I was hoping there would be enough of me left for my family to bury during one of my taxi rides in Chicago.

 

[gismo]

The problem with Ryder (and similar) trucks is that you have to provide your own destructive material and load it yourself. Too much potential to get caught.

I can't imagine that it would be all that difficult to manufacture your own "destructive material" from readily available components acquired over a sufficiently wide range of time and place to avoid suspicion. And then to load said cargo into the truck in the security of your own backwoods barn without evoking any law enforcement interest. At that point all that's left is to drive it to whatever destination you wish to target.

A much simpler and effective technique would be to hijack a fuel tanker and drive it through the side of a building with a couple of (ignited) road flares sitting next to you.

Fuel tankers are easy to find (just hang around a corner with a gas station), easy to operate (many even have automatic transmissions), have the mass necessary to penetrate a building. And with tens of thousands of fuel burning on the first floor, no one is going to get out - particularly if you target a building with an "open" floor plan. The only difficulty would be to make sure of ignition. I would think it would be worthwhile to take the time to stick a couple flares in convenient external spots - unless anyone has a better idea.

Given that all but the most dedicated terrorists aren't likely to favor the notion of being fried to a crisp while still semiconscious, I'd think that a small explosive device sufficient to destroy the integrity of your borrowed tanker could easily be brought along and set off by a short timer or other means. I'm pretty sure that would ensure ignition of the tanker's load but a couple of burning flares in the cab couldn't hurt.

What really amazes me is that like you I can think up all sorts of effective means of causing all sorts of havoc in ways that would be tough to stop or detect in the making as long as my survival wasn't a concern yet little such activities ever take place here. Is that because the terrorists aren't very smart or is it that their martyrs aren't as readily available as we've been led to believe?

 

[gismo]

I would add "criminals, and themselves".

There's a difference?

 

[Ted]

What really amazes me is that like you I can think up all sorts of effective means of causing all sorts of havoc in ways that would be tough to stop or detect in the making as long as my survival wasn't a concern yet little such activities ever take place here. Is that because the terrorists aren't very smart or is it that their martyrs aren't as readily available as we've been led to believe?

I've often thought the same thing. My guess is that it's harder to find the martyrs willing to do such things over here. You have to be really dedicated to something to knowingly die for it. Going off into a gunfight isn't assured death since many people survive them, that's significantly easier to find volunteers for.

It only takes one or two to cause mass panic, as we've seen.

 

[gismo]

I survived a head on with a drunk driver -- my speed was 50, his in excess of 60.

My new wife and I were both wearing seatbelts. The engine was under my legs, the roof was where the steering wheel used to be.

The car was a 1980 Ford Fiesta.

I'll take the truck, thanks.

You always have the potential to inflict more decel and associated damage with a heavier vehicle. The same can be said of a stiffer design, a runaway
Camry crashing head on into a '57 Chevy with both at 30 mph prior to impact will likely result is the Chevy making more forward progress towards the point of initial impact but the occupants of the Camry are far more likely to survive and/or sustain less serious injury even if the Chev was retrofitted with good seat belts and the Toyota's airbags were defeated. The lack of designed in crush and energy deflection in the older vehicle has safety disadvantages even when smashing up a smaller, lighter car. A good friend of mine and his wife were in a head-on collision a few years ago when the driver of a 3/4 ton pickup experienced some sort of seizure and crossed the double yellow lines. Both were traveling at around 35 mph just prior to the crash (my friend barely had time to get on the brakes because his view of the truck was blocked by a vehicle between them that darted out of the way). The truck suffered significant front end damage but didn't look anywhere near as destroyed as my friend's Volvo which not only had a completely crushed front end, but also sustained major damage as far back as the rear axle due to the way the Volvo "folded up". My friend and his wife survived with some broken bones and non-life threatening internal injuries but the pickup driver died from massive internal damage even though he was wearing a seat belt. Bottom line, the truck doesn't always win, just most of the time.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

Old vs. new
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMK1WZjP7g

Big vs. small
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4k0FWvGoSM&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7wG4uy-Phs&feature=related

 

[fgcason]

Old vs. new
Big vs. small

Summary:
Get a high mass vehicle of new design.

 

[dmccormack]

Summary:
Get a high mass vehicle of new design.

A Ford F-series, perhaps?

 

[bigred177]

A Ford F-series, perhaps?

Dodge 1-ton. CUMMINS ALL THE WAY!!!

 

[JeffDG]

 

[dmccormack]

That's the new M1A1SEP -- with reactive armor, loader armor, and infantry telephone.

Fuel economy is rather poor, however (1gal/mile in the M1A1)

 

[gismo]

A Ford F-series, perhaps?

AFaIK, trucks aren't required to meet the same occupant safety requirements of passenger cars. If accident survival is the primary concern, a recent model of a large luxury passenger car is probably the best bet. OTOH if you just want to smash up cars you run into and then drive away, a large truck is the way to go.

 

[JeffDG]

Fuel economy is rather poor, however (1gal/mile in the M1A1)

Yes, but I'll bet it has phenomenal front-end and offset crash performance.

 

[dmccormack]

Yes, but I'll bet it has phenomenal front-end and offset crash performance.

Yes it does.

And that's all I have to say about that.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

You have not gotten a taxi ride in Dehli yet? We actually would touch other taxis and push them out of the way. Shanghai is a dream compared to that!!

You get the fun drivers! When I'm there they don't seem to do that! They seem to drive much better now than they did only a few years ago.

 

[kkoran]

Anybody remember what this thread was about?

 

[ScottM]

Anybody remember what this thread was about?

Nope, why do you ask?

 

[dmccormack]

Nope, why do you ask?

Yeah, Bangkok taxis was riiiiight on point....

 

[ScottM]

Yeah, Bangkok taxis was riiiiight on point....

Bangkok is in the country of Thailand. Gherry brought up Shanghai taxis, that city is in the country of the People's Republic of China and I responded with Dehli taxis, that city is in the country of India. Lets hope your knowledge of evolution is not as flawed as your knowledge of geography.

Now which thread was it that the evolution vs creationism discussion was on??? Oh yeah the one about how wonderful watching birds fly. Glad that thread stayed on track

 

[dmccormack]

Bangkok is in the country of Thailand. Gherry brought up Shanghai taxis, that city is in the country of the People's Republic of China and I responded with Dehli taxis, that city is in the country of India. Lets hope your knowledge of evolution is not as flawed as your knowledge of geography.

Now which thread was it that the evolution vs creationism discussion was on??? Oh yeah the one about how wonderful watching birds fly. Glad that thread stayed on track

YAWN

whaddya say?

 

[Ghery]

You have not gotten a taxi ride in Dehli yet? We actually would touch other taxis and push them out of the way. Shanghai is a dream compared to that!!

I haven't been to India, so I haven't had the experience.

ehh - I was hoping there would be enough of me left for my family to bury during one of my taxi rides in Chicago.

Meh! Chicago taxis are amateurs compared with Shanghai taxis.

Yeah, Bangkok taxis was riiiiight on point....

We haven't discussed Bangkok, but now that you bring it up, I've been there a couple of times and will ride in taxis there with much less worry than Shanghai.

 

[fgcason]

Anybody remember what this thread was about?

Cylons?

Or was it lego's?

 

[ScottM]

Cylons?

Or was it lego's?

Maybe both!

 

[alaskaflyer]

Fake picture or not, that's a classic wait to die scenario. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no time to get out, just sit there and watch while waiting to be converted into a sandwich and crushed out of existence.

On the motorcycle, I actually escaped from that scenario and heard the kablamo when the suv behind me rammed the pickup ahead of me. Two cars ahead were also involved in the smashbanger. I was watching the mirrors and didn't like what I saw behind so I dumped the clutch and ran up between stopped cars. The smart car would have had no chance to escape yet the narrow motorcycle can easily. Final score -- 4 safety designed vehicles: 0. Motorcycle: 1

Then there was last week when my nerves wimped out. The behavior of the car/suv drivers were nothing short of blatant active terrorism/attempted murder. I gave up and rode about a mile and a half on the sidewalk.


Crashes or near misses are scenario based probability. IMNSHO, you either want to completely escape the situation (motorcycle) or outmass the enemy (truck or larger) when push comes to bang.

Saw this tonight, thought of this thread

http://www.adn.com/2010/03/26/v-printer/1201108/3-arizonans-1-louisianan-killed.html

A fourth person has died from injuries after a dump truck slammed into a group of motorcycles stopped at a red light in north Phoenix.

 

[AuntPeggy]

The Smart is a fascinating exercise, and the level of safety that they have managed to innovatively design in is amazing. They are a remarkable and useful appliance for use in the places where they make sense.

Which is nearly nowhere in the USA.

In mainstream driving, they are hazardous because of their ****-poor handling at speed (ever drive one?) and gutless inability to keep up with traffic. This, and they are expensive and don't get all that great gas mileage.

Nonetheless, I see 'em scurrying all over around here, which is a testament to salemanship, P. T. Barnum style.

You have to admire their remarkable achievements in energy vectoring.

No, I haven't driven one, but would like to. I actually see them keeping up with East Coast highway speeds.

I see the 2010 Smart Passion listed for $14,000 and about $1,000 more for options I would like. Mileage ranges around 36 mpg. The 2010 Ford Taurus is about $22,000 to $38,000 with mileage in the 20 to 22 mpg range.

I've been impressed and concerned with the integral roll-cage and philosophy of bouncing after impact instead of crumpling. It does seem as though whip-lash would be an issue. I understand Ted's concerns and wonder whether there are actual survivablility statistics to back up WAGs.

 

[jesse]

Ah, but they aren't. Your motorcycle is much more dangerous. Besides the problems typically associated with riding a motorcycle (handling, other people crashing into you, slipping in the rain, etc., - all problems that this car doesn't have), you also get ABS, something like 4 airbags, and more visibility.

I'd much rather drive a one of these than a 1998 Ford Exploder. Much safer in so many ways.

-Felix

If a truck is about to rear end me at a stoplight I simply ride my motorcycle between the cars and get the hell out of the way. (Yes I always stop in a position that lets me get between the cars in front of me. Yes I always watch my mirror. Yes it has saved my ass before).

In that thing. You'd just be toast.

 

[EdFred]

If a truck is about to rear end me at a stoplight I simply ride my motorcycle between the cars and get the hell out of the way. (Yes I always stop in a position that lets me get between the cars in front of me. Yes I always watch my mirror. Yes it has saved my ass before).

In that thing. You'd just be toast.

But it's the Lear of piston aircraft, er cars.

 

[Ted]

I see the 2010 Smart Passion listed for $14,000 and about $1,000 more for options I would like. Mileage ranges around 36 mpg. The 2010 Ford Taurus is about $22,000 to $38,000 with mileage in the 20 to 22 mpg range.

But a Smart is not a Ford Taurus, it's more similar to a Ford Focus, Kia Rio, etc. Mileage is about the same as the Smart, cost is similar or lower...

I've been impressed and concerned with the integral roll-cage and philosophy of bouncing after impact instead of crumpling. It does seem as though whip-lash would be an issue. I understand Ted's concerns and wonder whether there are actual survivablility statistics to back up WAGs.

The problem is that it depends on the type of accident, and statistics can't take into account accidents that aren't reported. Kinda like the thought about engine outs in a twin kill people, because nobody ever reports the engine outs in twins that are non-events and result in successful landings.