Post #29,220
2/21/02 11:41:41 AM
2/21/02 11:51:39 AM
|
Speaking of UAVs, er SUVs...
At least locally on PBS, [link|http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/rollover/| Frontline ] has a program on tonight - Rollover: The hidden history of the SUV. Catch it if you can. If you want to see a synopsis, [link|http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/rollover/etc/synopsis.html| look here], and even more if you follow the links. "We are ignoring the elephant in the tent, which is the much broader problem created by sport utility vehicles, and not just the Explorer." Alex
"Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny
Edited by a6l6e6x
Feb. 21, 2002, 11:51:39 AM EST
|
Post #29,252
2/21/02 1:24:30 PM
|
There's always a counterpoint
They claim 2000 deaths to rollovers. How many people would have died if they had been riding in or driving one of these lightweight fuel efficient putt-putt cars?
Where each demon is slain, more hate is raised, yet hate unchecked also multiplies. - L. E. Modesitt, from his Recluse series
|
Post #29,267
2/21/02 1:59:47 PM
|
Thanks for general reminder - had it marked.
Saw the previews; can guess that it will talk a bit about that weird discipline, now so rarely taught - physics - not only about where the CG resides, but the cost of accelerating that 7300# Expedition with the 170# driver - to pick up the 3# triple-bacon cheeseburger.
One thing's for sure: you'd never see this topic discussed on Corp TV. Another thing for sure: it's time to write congresscritters again re the defunding of PBS - the legacy of Newt and his Contract on Murica. And time to send in a few extra $ locally - as the $1.39/ US person Congressional funding is further reduced this year
That is - if one wishes to see such things discussed *somewhere* (?)
Your Congresscritter is _______________
S/He may be addressed ________________
Cheers,
A.
|
Post #29,315
2/21/02 9:22:47 PM
|
You're mixing up the Expedition with the Excursion again. :)
|
Post #29,338
2/22/02 3:02:29 AM
|
OK Make it the &%#@* Lincoln Navigator: ONE of them weighs
7300 POUNDS. The others? -- they just roll over a lot.
A.
|
Post #29,342
2/22/02 7:45:41 AM
|
Nope. Navigator = Expedition. GVW <> Curb Weight.
We went through this before, but I can't find the post in a Google search. :-)
The number you're quoting is the Gross Vehicle Weight of an Expedition (the middle Ford SUV. Same chassis as the Lincoln Navigator). That's the maximum weight it'll carry.
The Curb Weight (the weight of just the vehicle) is substantially less. Around 4900 - 5400 pounds (depending on options) for a police version according to [link|http://www.fleet.ford.com/products/specialty_vehicles/2002Expedition_special_vehicle.asp|this] Ford page. In contrast, the Excursion's Curb Weight is 6600 - 7600 pounds [link|http://www.fleet.ford.com/products/specialty_vehicles/2002Excursion_special_vehicle.asp|here].
Note that the Excursion is ULEV (an Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle). :-P
If one of your gripes about UAVs is that people use them as commuter cars (they don't carry anything in them), then it doesn't make sense to use the GVW number (the maximum fully-loaded weight) in a rant against them. If you want to use the Curb Weight, then it helps to get the vehicle name right.
In my humble opinion anyway. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
|
Post #29,435
2/22/02 5:03:57 PM
|
Yeah we did.. and ONE of those Does Weigh 7300#
..and I mean CURB WEIGHT. I recall finding that - pity that Zope is fucked re any decent search except via web. Will google it to death; meanwhile, here's the clincher as to the more realistic day-day hazards experienced by folks who haven't the foggiest what "GVW" might mean (nor find that number readily listed in their UAV, either) and who have likely never taken an "accident evasion" course in entire lives... and damn sure don't know what F=MA might mean.
[link|http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/driving/articles/46586/article.html|Miniscule Carrying Capacities of these Rollovers Waiting to Happen]
Also - note how the CG of the vehicle will be further RAISED as anything is loaded - especially something itself 'top-heavy'...
Guess you didn't watch Frontline "Rollover" last night?
A.
|
Post #29,477
2/23/02 9:50:35 AM
|
No need. I remember some mechanics. :-)
My dad has an Expedition. It's big on the outside and surprisingly small on the inside. I don't like it much when I have to ride in it, but there you are. He doesn't do a lot of driving in it. He uses it for long trips and to haul stuff (he's got 14 acres and a big house to care for).
I agree with some of your ranting against UAVs. I think gas guzzler taxes should be imposed on these things to try to make them less popular, and that they should be forced to meet (substantially) the same safety rules as cars (with caveats like that an SUV will always be easier to roll than a Turbo Carerra), and they should meet the same emissions standards as cars, and the tax rules should be examined so that tax breaks aren't given to persons/businesses that purchase > 6000 pound GVW vechicles (as I believe is the case now - something that encourages them in some cases to purchase the bigger vehicle when the smaller one will do). But I also believe that they should be available for purchase by people who are willing to pay the price.
Just recently a young woman was driving her new Explorer home from the dealer, following a friend on the Beltway. It was a very windy day (gusts to 40+ mph). Traffic was heavy and they got separated. She was talking with him on her cell phone, something happened, she crossed the center barrier, the Explorer flipped over onto an oncoming minivan and she and 4 others in the minivan were killed. (I may have misremembered some of the details.) Lots of things combined to cause a terrible accident - distraction, speed, high CG, high wind, ineffective center barrier, inexperience driver in a new vehicle, etc. It might have never happened if even one of those factors was absent. And it might have happened anyway if she'd been in a different car...
Cheers,
Scott.
|
Post #29,485
2/23/02 3:39:46 PM
|
Agreement.
Yes, I also agree that people should have the choice, just as - re skydiving, high-wire walking and.. (and if smoking & alcohol are legal - marijuana isn't even lethal! Speaking of 'risks'.) The accident you cite kinda dovetails with a similar (nonlethal) event: while Frontline was filming the Rollover show: they heard a crash nearby - upside down UAV! (not an Explorer this time). Synchronicity ?
BUT.. all the rest you mentioned. If it is social engineering to publicize the negatives of these turnover machines, to tax them as the disincentives they represent re the [oil] burden - and as an incitement for our next oil-wars: then I guess I'm for that level of social engineering. It indeed appears to be a direction which aids survival of us all, who have to share the roads with these time-bombs.
If I must have a HumVee, for whatever early psychological damage has caused me to 'need' the security of a tank or the look-at-me notoriety (?) - I should not be told NO by Big Daddy - but I should pay for the potential hazard I represent to *every other* driver, via their mistake or my own: which results in my riding-over all their safety barriers and slicing off their passenger compartment. Ditto when I rollover into path of an innocent.
Guess we agree that this falls under that Popular rubric, personal responsibility. I think the program also points out that it is virtually impossible to exaggerate the pure cupidity of the Corporate mind - in daily action, in the face of stark knowledge of the consequences for a statistically predictable number of victims.
Somehow the equation which balances x-lawsuits/deaths VS a net profit of sometimes $20K/car needs to be balanced by a FINE of similar cynicism towards the perps in suits. (Same lethal arithmetic as 30 yrs. ago - re the Pinto gas tank = also at Ford.) Ford isn't alone - just the most blatant to date.
(But that last is likely dreaming, in Murica 2002.)
Cheers,
Ashton
Working for Ford must feel a lot like working for M$.. I wonder about next: for how long 'we' will continue to deem that Corps are immune to every consequence of decisions like the above ones; for marketing lies - known to be lies at the time. Goes to the heart ---> of 'hype', no?
|
Post #29,350
2/22/02 9:41:26 AM
|
ya wanna stop soccer moms from driving them?
tell em it makes them look fat (no janice dont hit me!)
thanx,
bill
"I'm selling a hammer," he says. "They can beat nails with it, or their dog."
Richard Eaton spy software innovator
|
Post #29,381
2/22/02 12:41:37 PM
|
I just hate them
Seems that every time I pull into a parking spot at a grocery store, I get boxed in by two huge SUV's which means I have to back out of my parking spot blind when I'm finished shopping. (Being single and with a grocery store on the way home, typically I buy less than a dozen items at a time. An SUV doesn't make any sense for me.)
Where each demon is slain, more hate is raised, yet hate unchecked also multiplies. - L. E. Modesitt, from his Recluse series
|
Post #29,525
2/23/02 11:50:33 PM
|
use the florida method of backing up blind
backup until someone honks or you hear a crash :)
thanx,
bill
"I'm selling a hammer," he says. "They can beat nails with it, or their dog."
Richard Eaton spy software innovator
|
Post #29,600
2/25/02 8:52:53 AM
|
Great timing
On the way in to work today, I was tailgated by a Durango for about 12 miles. She was close enough* that I could clearly see her laughing at whatever was on the radio. On a hunch I turned on Howard Stern and, sure enough, that's what she was listening to.
* In more concrete terms, her bumper filled my entire rear-view mirror, except at the bottom. The bottom of the bumper was high enough that I could see under it ... over the back of my trunk.
We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules and preserve our open society as if there were no terrorists. -- [link|http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/opinion/BIO-FRIEDMAN.html|Thomas Friedman]
|
Post #29,676
2/25/02 6:29:23 PM
|
A photo of that view - ALONE
Ought to make crystal-clear even to a retard congresscritter that,
We Have a Problem *Here*.
(Do they have to answer ANY questions re 'tailgating', to get a license nowadays?)
Yeah - that bumper, backed by all those extra pounds - just waiting to slice off your (former) 'passenger compartment' -- at about chest-height.
Dum.. da.. Dum.. Dumbth
|
Post #29,440
2/22/02 5:30:59 PM
|
So... NOBODY here: watched "Rollover" last night on PBS?
Pity. *blush* I screwed up! My tirades against these accidents-just-waiting.. have understated both their incompetence as vehicles AND the ongoing duplicity and Billy-like behavior of, apparently - damn near ALL Corps. In ascribing purely ethicless-behavior to most all the ones we recognize by name, I was being generous! to those of the ilk of Ford and other hawkers of Urban Assault Vehicles: vastly overpriced bodies glued onto cheap truck-beds = immune from previous automobile safety requirements.
The gutting of the fuel-efficiency and safety standards began exactly with Ronnie Reagan and his appointees, starting with the puny 2\ufffd MPH "bumper" trashing the 5 mph previous.. and declining fast - CAFE was gutted, etc. All in the name of, "Freeing the Corps from those Evil Safety Considerations - to Make a Profit"
Immensely profitable too:
One anecdote described (I think Lincoln Navigator, that sub-part of Ford) - as being the single most profitable Corp enterprise Anywhere.
After all the sound & fury though: it turns out that, anyone who schleps their children around in these deathtraps - after being made aware of their utterly unacceptable behavior in any sudden traffic maneuver:
doesn't give a SHIT about those children.
The numbers were there, and the history - and the certainty that suited Execs KNEW what they were releasing.
It's impossible to exaggerate the cupidity of the Suited Ones -- from before the Pinto gas tank through the Bronco II and through today: unnecessary heaped dead (sometimes burnt) bodies..
(It's also unnecessary to comment on the mindlessness and easy psychological manipulability of the unwashed who have flocked to these deathtraps. Perhaps it is Darwin at work..)
A.
|
Post #29,441
2/22/02 5:48:43 PM
|
[raises hand]
Yep. Some choice quotes (from memory):
Re: The "most profitable" bit:
"A single factory [where they make Lincoln and Ford versions of the same UAV] is the single most profitable factory in the world, and is more profitable than all but a couple of dozen entire corporations."
Re: Schleping their children around in these deathtraps (from a mom with toddler in arms):
"Cars are built to be safe, so I know whichever one [UAV] I buy is going to be safe."
Re: Are they actually "safe":
"The Ford Explorer is 18 times more likely to cause a fatality of occupants in the other vehicle in a collision than a typical car."
Re: Why didn't Ford follow the recommendation of their engineers to widen the track of the first Explorer by two inches:
"Ford was in a fight against the Chevy Blazer at the time, and no one wanted to be the one to tell the Ford chairman and CEO that we would have to delay 18 months."
You're right about understating the culpability of the manufacturers. Their own engineers told them the vehicles were unstable and they made them anyway. The NHTSA staffers told the administrators about it, and were told to "modify" their reports to "reflect the position of the agency."
For all the attention that the Explorer/Firestone rollover story got, those deaths represented 1/40th of the total rollover deaths of SUVs. No, that's not a typo: 1/40th. ~300 out of ~12,000.
We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules and preserve our open society as if there were no terrorists. -- [link|http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/opinion/BIO-FRIEDMAN.html|Thomas Friedman]
|
Post #29,443
2/22/02 6:16:26 PM
|
Thanks, Drew
I took some notes too.. but I thought - if nobody here even thought it was worth looking at Frontline - WTF should I bother to recap? And you have grokked perhaps the most insidious aspect of the entire UAV hysteria, perfectly IMhO: Re: Are they actually "safe":
"The Ford Explorer is 18 times more likely to cause a fatality of occupants in the other vehicle in a collision than a typical car." Yes.. the start of the Arms Race - get biiger armaments against the Other Road enenmy. Lust after a HumVee, later with gun port. ---> no end to that mindset, in sight. How aptly they described the lobbying; showed that smarmy flak, Jerry Curry (sp?) who launched the Bigger is Better counter to the Bryan Bill.. which would have restored a semblance of sanity re both fuel efficiency and overall safety = also for the NON-UAV drivers. {sigh} The implications are staggering. It's like leaving the reactor-safety design for a fleet of passenger ships to: Dan Quayle and Ballmer. Enough defunding and ennui next - and PBS shall disappear (Frontline and Nova with it) and we shall have 100% Corporate Infotainment 24/7. (Except for small subscription organs one might ferret out, send for). I believe we are actually in danger of that occurring, such is the disconnect between the daily mind-numbing ad-barrage and: actual human conversation and exposition. Are we that near to surrendering to the Suited manipulators, entirely? No proof possible.. but the daily rhetoric causes me to 'feel' that we just might give up on er 'The Open Society'; it's too much trouble to look beyond the daily Disneyland BS - for too many folk, apparently. Ashton glad I saw this. depressed at what I saw.
|
Post #29,455
2/22/02 9:14:34 PM
|
>RAISE HAND< Having mentioned it, I watched it as well.
So, 2000 rollovers /^\\_/^\\_ a year is an acceptable risk to the manufacturers. Makes sense when the profit is up to $15K per vehicle. You can build up quite a war chest for out of court settlements. Simple arithmetic, pure economics.
If the SUV drivers didn't hit others, the gene pool would definitely be improving!
Alex
"Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny
|
Post #29,526
2/23/02 11:54:19 PM
|
why do you blame the makers for stupidity of the drivers?
Short wheel base, High center of gravity != sharp turns at any speed. Common freakin sense.
thanx,
bill
"I'm selling a hammer," he says. "They can beat nails with it, or their dog."
Richard Eaton spy software innovator
|
Post #29,537
2/24/02 2:20:13 AM
|
So you'd let M$ off the hook too?
|
Post #29,602
2/25/02 9:17:59 AM
|
If the government mandated they make Windoze, yes
Dont forget where these sport yutes came from. They are a direct result of the government CAF legislation. When was the last station wagon made? How come you dont see any new ones? CAF is why, so under the Federal Mandates only trucks could be designed to carry enough passengers efficiently so blame all the deaths on government regulation because the federal government stopped the automakers from making station wagons, one of the safest vehicles on the road and insisted they make sport yutes which kill people. Legislation kills :(
thanx,
bill
"I'm selling a hammer," he says. "They can beat nails with it, or their dog."
Richard Eaton spy software innovator
|
Post #29,611
2/25/02 10:00:05 AM
|
Wagons are coming back
The American manufacturers are making small and mid-size wagons. (Ford Escort and Taurus, Saturn) Several Japanese and European sedans have wagon versions: VW Passat, Toyota Camry, several Volvos, Audi, Mercedes even, plus more.
But you're right that there aren't any of the "Family Truckster" variety like the Caprice Classic/Buick Roadmaster: V8 and 7-passenger plus towing capacity.
I had been looking at minivans because I've got a dog, two cats and a toddler. If we're going anywhere for a weekend we have to at least drop the animals off somewhere first, so we need to fit everyone in the vehicle at once. I started looking at wagons when I saw a really clean Volvo 850 Turbo on a used car lot.
We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules and preserve our open society as if there were no terrorists. -- [link|http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/opinion/BIO-FRIEDMAN.html|Thomas Friedman]
|
