Four things you didn’t learn there. I hadn’t thought about the airbag and hand thing. One more reason to dislike airbags.
10 thoughts on “Drivers Ed”
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Four things you didn’t learn there. I hadn’t thought about the airbag and hand thing. One more reason to dislike airbags.
Comments are closed.
Properly-configured airbags — with a lower level of explosive force tailored to supplement a shoulder-and-lap belt combination — are actually a great thing, but you can’t buy them. No, your car has airbags with explosives strong enough to theoretically protect you if you are NOT wearing your seatbelt. Which means that small people can be killed by them. Idiotic regulations at work.
Makes me think of the Dilbert panel where the car salesman and he have gotten to the point of negotiating extras, and the salesman says: “Would you like the air bags filled with fresh mountain air, or the standard gravel?”
Anyway, the 9:00 position isn’t very good either. A friend had his airbag deploy in a minor fender bender, and it slammed his left arm into the door and broke it.
More of a five n’ seven guy, myself. They teach us that in DWB-school…
They are telling people to hold the steering wheel lower in defensive driving now. At least the last few classes I took did.
One time I was going past a wreck and they were just pulling an old lady out of the car. The airbag had deployed and apparently crammed her glasses into her face and lacerated the bridge of her nose. She was bleeding all down face and no doubt was going to look like a raccoon for a few days.
First, let me say, I hate ABS. If you can’t learn to drive and use the brakes correctly [like we did before ABS]…WALK or take a bus. Of course I likewise don’t understand driving adults who can’t drive a stick or change a tire. Who puts the Colgate on their tooth brush, who ties their shoes?
Go ahead, call me a dinosaur, it will not be the first, nor I suspect, the last time.
Plus, I’ve seen studies that say ABS is saving 10K lives a year. I’ve seen other studies that say they aren’t saving anyone. So who do you believe?
Second, even if you don’t lose teeth from the air bag, you might wind up with a broken nose and busted shoulder. That’s what happened to my younger brother years back.
But the alternative to broken bones, black eyes and such, might be a bad case of death otherwise. I’ll take [yet another] laceration or busted wing to keep barking and carping about life.
My boss always smokes a pipe while driving, and its exact orientation varies quite frequently. You can guess what would happen if his airbag went off at just the wrong moment.
I hate both air bags and ABS. Informed consent rather than nanny state should determine the equipment in a vehicle.
ABS does not stop as fast as an experienced driver can. You can steer, but for the people that can’t drive that doesn’t help much. Knowing to break or steer is part of being experienced.
As for air bags – I was T-Boned twice in one accident; Once by the truck that hit me in the driver door (above the frame) then dead center in the front into the tree the car flew into (yes flew.) No air bag. Cracked my teeth. With air bag, would have probably cracked my neck. Interestingly I lost memory from the moment I was pulling out of my parking slot (about a full ten seconds before the accident.) About ten years later the nerves in my left arm came back. Weird.
I’d settle for driver’s instructors teaching people why and when to indicate (to signal your intent, before you start executing the maneuver). Also, when to use your horn and that it’s always more dangerous not to do so than it is rude to do so. Also, we have these things call “roundabouts” which no-one knows how to navigate properly: signal your intention before getting on, signal your intention when you’re getting off, and stay in your own god damn lane!
The chances of smacking yourself on the nose with an airbag deployment are higher than most people realize, often the driver reacts to avoid a collision by turning suddenly, with the result that the hands move to the 12 and 6 positions.
Huh. Neither of my cars have ABS or airbags.
And even if they did, I’m willing to take the tiny risk of smacking my hands into my face in to keep the long-distance-comfortable 10-12 o’clock position.
(On the plus side, experience has shown me that I have decent reflexes and don’t automatically oversteer, so that’s good.)
(And contra other commenters, I think ABS is far more a good thing than a bad, having lost traction in the rain in a squirrely pickup [the only kind of pickup, if it’s not loaded] – my vehicles lack it due to age, not decision.
Also given the real-world fact that something like 99.9% of motorists are never ever in a million years going to learn threshold braking or do more than panic? I’d rather they have ABS so they don’t plow into me, thanks.
I also find no serious evidence for the idea that even a skilled driver can beat ABS on pavement or concrete, wet or dry. On gravel or deep snow, ABS is a significant negative… but that’s a footnote of a footnote for almost all driving. If they’re driving like that on gravel, they’re already screwed.)