Posts by Kracklite
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fascicle
Is that a frozen Nazi?
One of my faves in the Konspiracy Krowd is "beaurocrat", which I suppose is a particularly dandyish and probably philandering office worker.
42!
Bugger, can't top that.
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I have been known to entertan many at dinner parties with my knowledge, sometimes until they leave.
Did you know that while Reg Smeaton claimed that there is no proper name for the backs of the knees ( Vivian Stanshall, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, album not the film), they are in fact called the popliteal fasciae.
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And as any reader of Pratchett and Gaiman knows, the plan for the M25 was inspired by the demon Crowley and is an ancient Tibetan symbol of evil.
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Points taken about buses, all... and no doubt people have lots of scare stories about white vans on the M25.
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Exactly what freedom of choice does someone hit by one of those things have?
I don't follow this - they have the same freedom of choice as anyone else don't they? Choice of what?
Freedom of choice is not a euphemism for chances of survival & those chances depend on a lot of factors.I was being partly ironic, but there are "active" freedoms - the freedom to use an SUV - and "passive" freedoms, such as the freedom not to be threatened or placed in situations of unnecessary/avoidable risk.
Prejudiced busybody? Maybe, but actually I'm just being selfish - I'd rather not have someone's also selfish exercise of freedom literally impact on me. No freedom can be absolute if it starts to affect the safety of others. I've used the ad hominem myself and I can't criticise you for using it as well, but that is not the sole content or intent of my argument.
European governments have realised that pedestrians vote and have introduced some years ago now design standards for cars and other vehicles to reduce the harm done to pedestrians and other cars in accidents. One visible effect of this is the tendency to bulbous noses apparent in recent cars, intended to cause pedestrians to fall back over the bonnet and roll on top of the car, dissipating the impact forces somewhat rather than simply be, er, splatted I suppose. It also reflects the requirement to have a set gap between engine and suspension components and the bodyshell to allow it to crumple if someone hits it. Jaguar's XK (a low-nosed GT) has a pyrotechnic bonnet that raises in the case of a bumper impact, providing a ramp and a buffer for tumbling pedestrians. External airbags have been proposed.
SUVs are still very problematic, with their bumpers and bluff noses hitting at a higher level, they're more likely to cause massive trauma to the body without allowing one to roll over the bonnet.
If I'm going to be hit, then I'd rather someone had exercised their freedom to buy a safer car.
Steve, regarding stoping and braking distances, this refers only to straight, forward movement, not turns, skids or rolls (have you heard of Mercedes' first generation A-class' failure in the "moose test"?) Basically it's a swerve-to-avoid test to avoid mooses, (meese?) used in Scandinavian countries. Embarrassingly, this compact German technological marvel tumbled. Several years later, the first generation Smart also ran into similar difficulties. The A-class successor will abandon the current layout according to recent M-B press releases. So it's not just big SUVs...
Large tyres are good on dry surfaces, but are more prone to aquaplane on wet, complicating matters.
You can't get past the fact that a high CoG and high mass is inherently a less stable and less safe configuration, both for drivers and for other road users.
As for the NCAP values, they cover side and asymmetric collisions as well as usually-considered head-on, but to suppose that that says anything about the safety of the car overall is wrong - they say everything about the crash itself and nothing about the probability of having that crash. For the govt. to put that as a safety rating on their website is naive.
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What do you propose, everyone has to drive vehicles that are exactly the same size or spec?
Straw man argument. My argument is that anyone who believes that SUVs (or FUVs?) are inherently "safe" is a few ants short of a picnic. In a direct one-on-one collision a heavier massing object will be more likely to kill the lesser (leaving aside geometry, CoG, design etc). It is also more likely, due to inertia, to have an accident in the first place. And people still do die in SUVs, no matter how many airbags they have. The question is how to reduce the overall prevalence of risk and SUVs are a positive (in strictly statistical sense) contribution to risk levels.
Or does freedom of choice still exist on Planet Krack?
Exactly what freedom of choice does someone hit by one of those things have? Freedom seems to be an exclusive personal privelege in such a case. Pardon me, but the standard libertarian argument is usually very disingenuously one-sided.
munich
If it's a VW, it'll be Wolfsburg.
buses, trucks, & vans?
Don't get me started... Buses however however are brighly coloured, driven slowly and responsibly on predictable routes in cities. There is also a difference between amateurs and professionals.
Do I have any right to tell other people what to drive? Of course not
Indeed. Somehow some people think that freedom of choice automatically extends to freedom from criticism by the PC Thought Police, which is somehow as egregious a breach of personal freedoms as being locked up in the Lubyanka.
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Safety wise - it compares to the Vw Passat, which has been named the safest car on the road. According to this site anyway
Supposedly, though the NCAP criteria favour the sort of collision normally suffered by lower CoG vehicles (not swerves, loss of control and rolls on wet/black ice surfaces etc). Sorry, it's still physics. It likely gets a couple of its stars for having enough airbags to be hired out to children's parties as a bouncy castle. It gets one star out of five for safety to others. That's also physics - mass times speed equals momentum, plus the overall higher structure of the vehicle means that SUVs in crashes with normal cars often ride over them or hit at a higher point and plough straight into the less well protected zones (glazed area, roof), making rather a mess of the occupants. Charming. Not.
And at last - None of YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS
Thhhhbbbtttt!!!
And I don't trust a minivan nor stationwagon not to get stuck in a paddock.
Great Cthulhu, someone who actually takes one really off-road and even off-pavement!
I did specifically refer to urban use. A brother of mine runs an aged Nissan Patrol and uses it on a farm or towing horse floats. Certainly a Smart won't be much use for that.
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Icons are for museums and books. If it serves a purpose, then it's all very well, but if something designed and produced for exclusively functional reasons is bought and used for any other reason, it is not serving its purpose, nor fulfilling its designed role and is therefore used for other, irrational reasons.
Admittedly, in practise, motives and functions are mixed with cultural/sociological/psychological imperatives (see Roland Barthes' "The New Citroen") and one may be able to advance a rationale according to these criteria, but it would be idiotic to claim that an SUV is a practical, reasonable proposition. The only practical rationale for an SUV for an urban dweller who is not a builder or tradesperson is ergonomic - one does not have to bend over so much to lift a heavy load from the back seat or loading bay, placing strain on the lumbar region - and even in such a case, the massive overdesign, redundant 4wd and excessive fuel consumption as well as the inherent safety flaws of SUVs are unnecessary and downright pernicious.
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"iconic" removed from function = fetish.
Mind you, it's pretty hard to find much beauty in the majority of vehicles that currently ply the roads.
Agreed. I can't help but think of the ideal of the privately owned car as being but the most current espesssion of tulipmania. If one wants to be absurd, then one should be gloriously absurd. Mediocre absurdity is a contradition in terms.
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I will add too that the inherent proportions of the monstrosities means that there has never been a beautiful SUV and that the neon sign can be footnoted "I also have irredeemably vulgar taste."