RE: Side impact (was teen driving)

["Geoff Jenkins" <jenkinsg@pilot.msu.edu>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-quattro@coimbra.ans.net
> [mailto:owner-quattro@coimbra.ans.net]On Behalf Of Brooks Ellis
> Subject: Side impact (was teen driving)
>
[SNIP]
>
> >PS:Anyone see the side impact testing results?  They _rated_ the cars
> <..>
> >What's sad is all the cars passed, even the Cavalier, in which it was
> >estimated that "severe trauma and injury, with likely death" was the
>
> That's a PASS?! Shit, I could do better on a $15 used 1970 ten speed
> bicycle. I might get "severe abrasions, potential broken limbs, with a
> possibility of death if folded under front wheel", but my 10 speed could
> pass that test too! (New saftey innovation?)

Actually, the pass for the Cavalier was pretty well a foregone conclusion.
The _sole_ reason that they rated the cars at all this time was that they
are effectively obliged to pass the lot, and yet they wanted some method of
issuing the information that the cars were unsafe. Can you picture the
lawsuit that would emerge from any public statement that one of GM's
(currently selling) products is intrinsically unsafe?

That then has to be combined with the usual bureaucratic paranoia about
taking a decision at all. I knew an academic who had been involved in
reviews of the whole unintened acceleration fiasco, and he said that the
early investigators (back when the story was surfacing) were quite convinced
that they could release a statement along the lines that "the idiots don't
know their brakes from their gas pedals" and be done with it all. However,
their (administrative) superiors, fearful of "making the wrong decision",
sat on the fence, issuing those lovely "nothing has yet been proven
conclusively" statements, while Audi's sales went to the wall.

Personally, while I'd much prefer GM to beuild better small cars, I'm not
too unhappy that the results aren't terribly public, and that everyone
"passed". Why? Because at the moment, there's a horrible likelihood that
associating "small" and "car" with "unsafe" in the public mind will just
lead to more of _us_ associating "large" and "unsafe" with "SUVs all around
me".