On the heels of telling manufacturers they must increase their CAFE standards comes the government request that cars must be built to withstand roll-overs. Something has to give when it comes to balancing MPG efficency and safety. Lighter cars just will not be as safe. If a vehicle is to withstand 3.5 times its weight when it rolls over, it will have to have some structural integrity, and it ain’t going to come from plastics. Try again you stupit morons (congress)! Nothing about dumb drivers either!
higher MPG, but does that mean for the gas gussler’s! what about the new hybrids or other fuels? there is not MPG if does not use gas/diesel. so now we want to protect the roof. um… why not require just to put in a rollbar, but then that woud be uncomfortable for passengers. if folks would drive their vehicles correctly, we would not have to worry about a thing. if they wear seatbelts, the probably sitting in their own vehicles with little physical damage. for example, last nite, in my area a head-on collision, both drivers died and neither had a seatbelt on. yet both passengers alive with minor injuries because they did wear seatbelts. so it’s a matter of doing it for your protection. some companies i have heard, are not paying completely out if they are not wearing seatbelts…so who are we fooling the government or the car manufacturers… if you had looked at the recent car shows, many manufacturers are ready to roll out alternate fuel cars. again, why do they have to wait for the government to say something. many cases, cars already have anti-roll, but that does not truly prevent a car from rolling in an accident. if this is the mind of the government, will that lead to more lawsuits against the manufacturer for not make vehicles safe? when will it become the sole responsibility of the driver for the actions he has behind the wheel. is not the at-fault driver responsible for person’s medical bills?
So you want to stop dreaded rollovers. How about limiting a vehicles speed to 10 MPH and require that the wheel base be at least 10 feet wide. That should do it…
Let’s face it, almost every rollover is caused by the idiot behind the wheel.
That sounds reasonable DWT. Also, when you get in the car you should be encased in styrofoam and the car should drive itself. Or you can just stay home all the time.
First of all, while rollovers may kill occupants, it’s rarely because they were crushed by the roof compacting. It’s usually because they were ejected, or thrown around inside because they had no seat belt. Stronger roofs aren’t the answer. As others have aptly pointed out, it’s the idiots behind the wheel that need some attention. You don’t design your process (or vehicle) to protect the 1% of morons on the road. Speed and loss of control cause rollovers. For those who like to speed, use poor judgement, and don’t belt-up, they earn the right to take whatever comes from rolling their vehicles.
Anybody who could think (and maybe that’s giving the folks who came up with this one too much credit) that rollover protection would work are probably the same ones who passed the law mandating seat belts and air bags on motorcycles and riding lawn mowers.
Here’s some other ideas:
1. Maybe cars should have parachutes in case the driver goes off a cliff or a bridge?
2. Would wings work better to save the .0001 of folks who die when their vehicle drops more than 30 feet?
3. How about giant pillows?
4. What about automatic fire supression systems in case of an engine fire?
5. I like the idea of a small-scale ethanol plant located in the trunk with an ear of corn or two, in case the driver runs out of fuel and doesn’t have the space to pull over to the curb.
6. Flares should be mandatory for night driving. I don’t mean roadside flares; rather, the kinds that boaters in distress shoot up like a rocket.
7. Clear glasses with big dots in the middle would ease drivers looking at oncoming headlights at night.
8. Instead of air bags, cars should have big cans of that spray-in-the-wall foam insulation sold at hardware stores. That way, the occupants won’t shift around too much in a collision, and the one-shot bags don’t provide protection from being hit multiple times.
9. Maybe we could refresh Gordon Beuhrig’s design for the old Cord cars, but have the whole car look like a coffin instead of just the hood. That way, you can be buried without being repackaged. Or drive Grandpa Munster’s drag car which actually was made out of a coffin.
10. And in closing, Ford should build more Exploders (oops, I really meant Explorers) with plastic bumpers (plastic EXPLOSIVES, that is). That way, no one would ever be able to tell if it was the tires’ fault, or the car manufacturer.
Let me get this straight. We want to add more rollover protection (aka more structural integrity to the roof) which means more weight, which means higher center of gravity, which means more rollovers? That seems a little counter-intuitive to me. The heavier a car gets the sturdier the roof needs to be and the car then gets heavier exponentially. Who was the genius that decided on this idea?
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On the heels of telling manufacturers they must increase their CAFE standards comes the government request that cars must be built to withstand roll-overs. Something has to give when it comes to balancing MPG efficency and safety. Lighter cars just will not be as safe. If a vehicle is to withstand 3.5 times its weight when it rolls over, it will have to have some structural integrity, and it ain’t going to come from plastics. Try again you stupit morons (congress)! Nothing about dumb drivers either!
higher MPG, but does that mean for the gas gussler’s! what about the new hybrids or other fuels? there is not MPG if does not use gas/diesel. so now we want to protect the roof. um… why not require just to put in a rollbar, but then that woud be uncomfortable for passengers. if folks would drive their vehicles correctly, we would not have to worry about a thing. if they wear seatbelts, the probably sitting in their own vehicles with little physical damage. for example, last nite, in my area a head-on collision, both drivers died and neither had a seatbelt on. yet both passengers alive with minor injuries because they did wear seatbelts. so it’s a matter of doing it for your protection. some companies i have heard, are not paying completely out if they are not wearing seatbelts…so who are we fooling the government or the car manufacturers… if you had looked at the recent car shows, many manufacturers are ready to roll out alternate fuel cars. again, why do they have to wait for the government to say something. many cases, cars already have anti-roll, but that does not truly prevent a car from rolling in an accident. if this is the mind of the government, will that lead to more lawsuits against the manufacturer for not make vehicles safe? when will it become the sole responsibility of the driver for the actions he has behind the wheel. is not the at-fault driver responsible for person’s medical bills?
So you want to stop dreaded rollovers. How about limiting a vehicles speed to 10 MPH and require that the wheel base be at least 10 feet wide. That should do it…
Let’s face it, almost every rollover is caused by the idiot behind the wheel.
That sounds reasonable DWT. Also, when you get in the car you should be encased in styrofoam and the car should drive itself. Or you can just stay home all the time.
First of all, while rollovers may kill occupants, it’s rarely because they were crushed by the roof compacting. It’s usually because they were ejected, or thrown around inside because they had no seat belt. Stronger roofs aren’t the answer. As others have aptly pointed out, it’s the idiots behind the wheel that need some attention. You don’t design your process (or vehicle) to protect the 1% of morons on the road. Speed and loss of control cause rollovers. For those who like to speed, use poor judgement, and don’t belt-up, they earn the right to take whatever comes from rolling their vehicles.
Anybody who could think (and maybe that’s giving the folks who came up with this one too much credit) that rollover protection would work are probably the same ones who passed the law mandating seat belts and air bags on motorcycles and riding lawn mowers.
Here’s some other ideas:
1. Maybe cars should have parachutes in case the driver goes off a cliff or a bridge?
2. Would wings work better to save the .0001 of folks who die when their vehicle drops more than 30 feet?
3. How about giant pillows?
4. What about automatic fire supression systems in case of an engine fire?
5. I like the idea of a small-scale ethanol plant located in the trunk with an ear of corn or two, in case the driver runs out of fuel and doesn’t have the space to pull over to the curb.
6. Flares should be mandatory for night driving. I don’t mean roadside flares; rather, the kinds that boaters in distress shoot up like a rocket.
7. Clear glasses with big dots in the middle would ease drivers looking at oncoming headlights at night.
8. Instead of air bags, cars should have big cans of that spray-in-the-wall foam insulation sold at hardware stores. That way, the occupants won’t shift around too much in a collision, and the one-shot bags don’t provide protection from being hit multiple times.
9. Maybe we could refresh Gordon Beuhrig’s design for the old Cord cars, but have the whole car look like a coffin instead of just the hood. That way, you can be buried without being repackaged. Or drive Grandpa Munster’s drag car which actually was made out of a coffin.
10. And in closing, Ford should build more Exploders (oops, I really meant Explorers) with plastic bumpers (plastic EXPLOSIVES, that is). That way, no one would ever be able to tell if it was the tires’ fault, or the car manufacturer.
Let me get this straight. We want to add more rollover protection (aka more structural integrity to the roof) which means more weight, which means higher center of gravity, which means more rollovers? That seems a little counter-intuitive to me. The heavier a car gets the sturdier the roof needs to be and the car then gets heavier exponentially. Who was the genius that decided on this idea?
The original Hummer is sounding more like the ideal traffic vehicle after all.
well, imagine the cost of the vehicle going up and then – -how are they going to meet the new fuel standard (mpg) with a heavier car?
What are you even worried about?!!?!
When the oceans start to flood the streets, thanks to “global warming”, we will have to take boats to work anyway.
So don’t worry about the strength of the roof! When your boat rolls over, just roll out and swim.