>Right, so the people demand air bags, and ABS, every car costs $200 more to
>build and then can be sold for $3000 more.

If my car had bags I'd probably disconnect them. Somehow I just don't
like them.

>The cars are therefore safer in
>the driver's mind, so he can eat his lunch and talk on the cell phone while
>driving...  Give us a decade, enough of them will be in that accident
>perfectly to have the airbag implant the cell phone in to their heads and
>the cell phone industry will be able to cash in on a new technology to make
>softer, wider phones which won't do so much damage...  And sell them for
>those wonderful profits.  Hell, look at dashboard padding these days, is it
>there to keep your sun-glasses from breaking if they fly off? Normal people
>don't to bang their faces against dashboards, they're probably not going to
>do it,

They sure do! Especially with older-type inertiareel belts (no
grabbers or pyros), the belts stretch and the reel is pulled tight,
allowing belt to "lengthen" with such cars it is quite normal to hit
your head on the dash when "securely" belted. That padding is there
for a very good reason... and the Vanagon's minimalist padding is
just a useless token!

>remember when people used to want to NOT crash their cars? I hate
>the airbags on my 2001 Golf, the steering wheel is bulky and pudgy, you
>can't easily reach through it to poke the trip odometer. The ABS systems
>make it impossible to lock up the wheels, in order to lose grip you have to
>balance accelerated spinning of the fronts with hand-brake use.

So switch your ABS off... if there's no switch, install one! That's
what I'd do. Many ABS systems seriously degrade braking on loose
surfaces.

>The
>laziness factor of Joe Public has made it damn near impossible to get a
>good car these days. Rant rant rant, blargh!    I'll shut up now.

Actuelly, this trend was started by everyone's best friend Ralph Nader...
--
Andrew Grebneff
165 Evans St, Dunedin 9001, New Zealand
<andrew.grebneff@stonebow.otago.ac.nz>
Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut