"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
David Billington wrote:
Calif Bill wrote:
"Wes" wrote in message
...

"John R. Carroll" wrote:


What I find extremely humorous is a guy with a motorcycle calling
anything "a death trap ".

Decent weather, no snow, I think I'd take my chances with the
motorcycle. I could out
brake, out accelerate, out steer, and fit through smaller gaps in
the traffic ahead.

In the case of a collision, I'd rather be thrown from the bike
rather than compacted in
the 'smart' coffin.

Wes


Actually the crash cage in the Smart seems to hold up well. But
anything inside the cage is broken as they is very little crash
deformation.



Not just a problem with the likes of Smart cars. In the UK some test
have been done with 4x4s hitting passenger cars and while the 4x4
looked relatively undamaged and the passenger car badly damaged, the
occupants of the 4x4 came off worse than the passenger car occupents.
These were older 4x4 with separate chassis and poor crumple
facilities so the occupants, well test dummies, were subjected to
higher decelerations which results in greater injury.

The short version of all this is lead, follow or get out of the way.
I wouldn't sat SMART is THE future, but something like it will be.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews


--
John R. Carroll



The problem with the electric cars, is electricity. Both the fact the range
is not that far and the other problem is the lack of electricity. Unless we
decide to build a bunch of Nuke plants or burn a lot more coal, there is not
going to be enough electricity to charge the cars. California has brown
outs now in the summer.