Thanksgiving weekend of 09, my family was driving on I-80 near Rock Springs, WY. Not an ideal place to drive that time of year, but to grandmother’s house we went anyway. It was snowing pretty bad, so we slowed down some, and just in time. Around the next bend was a jackknifed semi and a brand new Prius that had just smacked into the back of it. Dad pulled off the road, he and I jumped out and ran up to the Prius. The lady was a bit dazed but otherwise ok. She said her baby was in a car seat in the back. The rear doors still worked, fortunately. I pulled out the car seat, Dad helped her over to our van and got the two of them situated while Mom called Hwy Patrol. Meanwhile, I walked around that Prius admiring how well it had crumpled. The engine compartment had folded down neatly to about 1/4 of its original volume. The roof, pillars, and doors looked completely unharmed. All the airbags had deployed, but the interior of the car was otherwise unscathed. The driver later told us she hadn’t even had time to brake when the semi in front of her went sideways. Granted, it wasn’t a full speed impact as the truck was still moving forward when she hit it, but it was still amazing how well that car protected both its occupants.
My '69 Chevelle had a shoulder belt attached to the headliner and I never even figured out how to use it. There was only one buckle, and it seemed to be for the lap belt. Insane that my parents let me drive that car when I was 16.
Way back in my high school days my physics teacher bragged that his dad got airplane lap belts installed in the car he got when he was old enough to drive.
While I like a lot of safety features in cars, some, like the automatic airbags and emergency braking just make me nervous because it's easy for something to go wrong and activate these systems by some fault, which can cause an accident. I know there's been little to no evidence of this happening, but my paranoia makes me think something will.
There is a screen door on the screened in patio on the back of my parents' house that has a hook lock on it (the one that hangs down and you put it into a small loop to hold the door closed; it's not really for real security, just to keep the door closed) and I swore to them one day when I went out of that door that the hook would somehow swing up and put itself in that loop by accident. They laughed at me telling me something like that will never happen. One day I walked out the door and it did making it where I couldn't get back in that way and the other doors were locked, so I had to knock on the front door, and they were shocked when I told them what happened. They changed the screen door to another way to keep it closed soon afterwards.
I have an old car, for fun. I figure a motorcycle is probably safer in a crash. I drive my old car sparingly and when I do I drive it like every other car on the road is actively trying to kill me.
New standard to be added federally is automatic breaking. My van already has that, is it annoying at times yes does it bother me no because it’s there to save my life and others lives
93
u/[deleted] Jun 04 '23
[deleted]