Rob x-7

you obviously have never dealt with a stubborn woman.



If it makes her FEEL safer thats the important thing, obviously its not a force field thats going to shield her from the world.



Ive had that conversation with people I know "you know, a car can help you AVOID the accident better then this Suburban"



"I know, but I feel safer in it, especially if I get into a accident"

Seppuku

I know exactly what your talking about rob.. damn women.

Rob x-7

tell her she is stupid, then you will wish you had shut your mouth, lol

Seppuku

Yeah i said that once, wasnt a good thing. But unfortantly a week after she put it into a ditch and seen what i was talking about. Luckily she wasnt hurt, then without my knowledge she went and bought an rx-8...

teknics

I think not everyone here comprehends exactly what stability control is. All it is is the computer using the brakes on individual wheels to try to prevent a spin-out. However by avoiding a spinout it has the by-product of having limited abilities to prevent roll-overs. Now if you're in the snow and you start to lose control, your stability control does nothing, if not make things worse. Hell ABS is worse in the snow then Non-ABS, its been proven. SO now you have uncontrollable ABS that doesnt need your input. You really think a compute ris judging the situation its in better then you could? If it can, then you shouldnt be driving, but most likely you can judge everything aound you better then a computer. At which point the computer is a liability, making your trip more dangerous.



Sure everything is wonderful on nice dry roads, its easy for the computer to act in those situations. But in all honesty if someone wants to buy me an SUV with stability control i will easily roll in the most perfect weather.



As for "FEELING" safer, that revert back to driver education, they need to LEARN that it is not safer, it was not built bigger to be safer. Saying its ok because someone "feels" its better is like giving a murderer a gun because he feels safer with it then without it.



it still goes back to the fundamental design and driver education. But noooo we're doing the 21st century thing:

Capt: "Oh no its not working"

1st Mate: "Quick get technology, throw tons of technology at it to bandaid the problem!"



kevin



edit: Also i didnt notice your comment about ai rpressure monitors. Wanna know something? They cause more problems then you can imagine. In the winter when you wake up and its 20 degrees outside, it sets off the air pressure monitor and people just assum ethey have a flat. It's like a placebo effect people rely on the computer to tell them they have a flat rather then get a .99 air gauge and check and regulate their air pressure. No instead they come to my shop saying "I have a flat tire, i dunno which one" and it's only because i ask beforehand if their light came on or if their tire is actually flat that i sometimes save people an hour checking for a flat that isnt even there.



Air pressure monitors are again a damn band-aid for the problem of lazy *** people who dont want to maintain their vehicles and give it the needed attention. It takes 5 minutes to check and set your air pressure.....NOBODY EVER DOES IT.



Hell this whole air pressure monitor thing was basically started because of the Ford Explorer Blowout Crisis. Guess what. Had air pressure monitoring been around back then the light would have never gone on. The reason the tires were blowing out was because Ford reccommended using 26 psi in all four tires, the tires they put on the truck were never built to be driven on 26 psi for the life of the tire. Now why would ford say to use 26psi...ANOTHER BANDAID FOR THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS IN THEIR DESIGNS. "Hmm how do we stop rollovers...oh well drop air pressure thats the cheapest way" never thinking that tires dont live at 26 psi for long. (Note: most trucks reccommend around 33-36psi in all 4 tires...ford went with 26 figuring it would prevent rollovers not considering anything else)



SO had there been a monitor it would only go off if the tires went 4 psi under 26psi (sooo 22psi)....but the tires were blowing out at 26 psi. The tires would theoretically be completely full of air so no warnings would go off, and your tire would still explode.



Also if youre in an SUV and your tire goes flat....and you dont notice it until you drive long enough for it to blow out.....then yes YOU ARE STUPID. the truck is going to fall almost 4 inches on only one corner of the truck, if you dont notice that then what the hell are you doing behind the wheel.



as for side curtain airbags, thats not fixing a glaring problem thats just an advancement, all this other crap is a bandaid. I still personally dont like airbags, ive been in very serious crashes, all without airbags, and im doing pretty good.



kevin x2.

Rob x-7

in the event of a accident you dont have time to sit back and say "ok, maybe Ill swerve this way, apply some brake pressure- but not too much, and then swerve the other way and accelerate out of this situation"



it happens so fast you cant react. I hope you dont get to understand what Im saying one day when someone hits you and you have NO TIME to think because you didnt see it coming.



Years ago I got hit in a intersection by someone running a red light, they were coming out of the turning lane, I got hit at the exact time I seen them.



This discussion is about government mandated safety equipment and people thinking its stupid.



What if a guy has a stroke while behind the wheel- you cant say "oh that driver is so stupid, why cant he learn to drive", what if they hit some black ice, hydroplane, the list is endless.



Its not always a case of a guy driving like an ******* and hitting someone, its called a ACCIDENT for a reason.



Now put your wife and kids in that situation and tell me you would not want every possible safety feature at thier fingertips?

teknics

Rob i was in the hospital for extended periods of time resulting from an wet road accident in which my left bicep is still collapsed, a situation in which they sid i was lucky to have ever made it to an ambulance. an accident where i collapsed upon somehow maaged to exit a car which none of the doors worked on anymore.



That car had stability control, i was doing 45mph, the speed limit, took a corner in traffic on a regular one-lane 2-way street and went sliding out of control.



Stability control really saved me in that situation right? Actually now that i recall I also wasn't wearing a seatbelt at the time, they chalked up my urvival to the lack of a seatbelt. I still, to this day, show police my collapsed bicep and explain the pain i have in my left arm when they pull me over for no seatbelt. Had i worn my seatbelt i would've been dead, most likely decapitating myself.



Now lets get back to what you were saying. This topic is is not solely about safety equipment, it's about determining what really IS safety equipment. Stability control is a band-aid, a band-aid WE WOULDNT NEED with proper development from the start. SUV DESIGN IS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. That is the bottom line. You cannot extend the height of an object without extending its width unless you use strong, properly designed and "over-engineered" bracing. SUV's dont receive that kind of treatment, they just slap a bigger body on a box frame and called it a day. Hell look at the 04 ford explorer's... you could se the frame by looking at the side of the car...like the whole frame too.



Now i'm only focusing on stability control, you want to talk about getting hit at a red light, that's something only preventable by the people behind the wheel, cars dont kill people.... people kill people.





Ummm how is ANY government mandated equipment going to prevent that situation? Hell in the event of black ice your satbility control that you love so much IS YOUR WORST ENEMY. the stability control will beging to pulse the brakes at all 4 corners at different times when you hit an icy surface cause your car to begin bucking, and with the bucking causing a weight transfer your care will spin out of control.... whereas without it you cold simply lift off the gas an allow yourself to calmly roll over it.



As for putting my wife and kids in a car, rather then rely on safety features that some guy pretends will save the world I'd rather have the faith and trust in my wife to handle the driving situation properly nevermind the fact that I would assist in choosing a vehicle with an intelligent design one that is NOT fundamentally flawed.



Sure the other drivers will be dangerous no matter how good my wife and kids are, but how do you mandate stupid people or dangerous situations. Hell let's start another prohibition, that went over well last time right?



Anyway i believe were both sort of standing on different topics that dont really relate but sort of do, I mean you're saying you want your family safe. I have nothing against being safe, but YOUR FAMILY WOULD BE 100X SAFER WITH A PROPERLY DESIGNED VEHICLE, rather then a flawed vehicle with a million band-aids on it to make up for it. If anything lets go for the government mandating safer designs to begin with rather then telling people how to make their poorly designed vehicles pass tests using systems that only work 100% in a testing environment and NOT in real life.



so, to restate what i first said. I almost died in a vehicle with stability control which spun out of control in a situation where it should have had no problem. My left bicep collapsed, i have constant pain in that muscle, and i wound up back in the hospital due to internal bleeding. Nevermind the fact that my paranoia of driving has escalated to near psychotic levels to the point wher emy adrenaline rises so much i begin to shake..... which is why i smoke ciggarettes in the car. So technically you could make a connection between stability control and me smoking.... but thats another subject.



kevin.

Rob x-7

nevermind, this is a useless discussion thats off point



my only point is that you want as much on your side thats all, your seatbelt incident is a 1 in a million shot, for the most part seatbelts are to save lives.

teknics

i agree that the things are useful, and yes its nice to have them on your side. Im just saying i'd appreciate them a lot more on a vehicle that was designed smarter from the beginning.



but yea back to the thread lol.



kevin.

Black8

I hated SUv before these crazy gas prices, and now I know for 100% sure that I will never own or let my wife own one of those monstrosities. I drive a dinky MIata, my wife drives the "big car." It's an 05 Corolla. We have 2 kids. Yet everybody I know here in TX has to have a 7-9 passenger Suv. WTF?! Single people, 3 person families, all riding these huge shitboxes. I play frogger everyday in my Miata. I do plan on getting a 2wd Toyota mini-pickup....that's for the weekend chores, transporting car parts, and motorcycles. If I can't do a job with a dinky 2wd mini-truck, then I don't do the job, or rent a U-haul for a day. Oh and about this DSC. I had it in my RX8....It does it's job and it's ok. I always shut mine off. The only thing I hated about DSC, was the whiney moron RX8clubbers that insisted I was dangerous and a threat to society when I drove without it. C'mon. I have owned 30 cars without DSC and I am still alive.