[Praxius]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

No, I was not trying to put words in our mouth. My apologies if you took offence. My point is that obviously you and I have the self control to not act on our impulses.

No offense taken, I was just a little confused.

$1:

I thought you might have also caught on that it's therefore not cool to defend those unibrows who do not have such self control. Their sort should be identified and removed from the herd at the earliest opportunity, before they can contribute to the gene pool.

Agreed... yet at the same time, I still think the smart car flip was pretty funny generally speaking

I mean, worse things have happened. Granted these guys should be found and delt with, as I wouldn't want it to happen to me (it's always funnier when it's someone else afterall, lol) But I can think of worse people who've done worse actions who diserve to be removed from the gene pool then those who pulled this stunt.

Which raises another question though.... what did you have in mind in regards to "Removed" before they contribute to the Gene Pool?

Isolation for the rest of their natural lives or death?

[DrCaleb]

Praxius Praxius:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

No, I was not trying to put words in our mouth. My apologies if you took offence. My point is that obviously you and I have the self control to not act on our impulses.

No offense taken, I was just a little confused.

No worries.

Praxius Praxius:

$1:

I thought you might have also caught on that it's therefore not cool to defend those unibrows who do not have such self control. Their sort should be identified and removed from the herd at the earliest opportunity, before they can contribute to the gene pool.

Agreed... yet at the same time, I still think the smart car flip was pretty funny generally speaking

See, and I don't find it funny in the least. Specifically because it wouldn't be funny if it happened to me.

Praxius Praxius:

I mean, worse things have happened. Granted these guys should be found and delt with, as I wouldn't want it to happen to me (it's always funnier when it's someone else afterall, lol)

Absolutely! Like all the times I've had my windows shot out by BB guns, because some young snots were bored. Hilarious! Or the other day, when some other upstanding members of society decided to spray paint stuff on churches, or synagogues. Their literary use of German terms was most hilarious.

Nope, I just can't seem to find vandalism funny.

Praxius Praxius:

But I can think of worse people who've done worse actions who diserve to be removed from the gene pool then those who pulled this stunt.

Which raises another question though.... what did you have in mind in regards to "Removed" before they contribute to the Gene Pool?

Isolation for the rest of their natural lives or death?

I was thinking a tattoo across their forehead "POOR IMPULSE CONTROL" as a warning to others. Or, they could have their sense of ironic sarcasm removed. Who was your surgeon?

[Choban]

I like your tat idead Caleb. Lets expand on it to include any and all convicted criminals, it would make the diddlers easier to spot

[DrCaleb]

I can't take credit for the tat idea, Choban. It's from a book, called 'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson. But I do like the idea, as a third offence kind of a sentence.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

There was an inmate a few years back that got his forehead tattooed by another inmate.
Turned out the tattooer was related to a little girl the tattooie raped.
The tattooer got extra time tacked onto his sentence.
Personally, I think he showed remarkable restraint in not killing the piece of shit and should have received NO extra time. He just did the community the child rapist would eventually move into, a service.

[ASLplease]

I don't advise you to hit a moose in any car.

[saturn_656]

ASLplease ASLplease:

I don't advise you to hit a moose in any car.

Sometimes you don't have a choice, I just wrote one off doing just that.

Moose... stupid animals...

[Praxius]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

See, and I don't find it funny in the least. Specifically because it wouldn't be funny if it happened to me.

Agreed... having it happen to yourself is never funny. Someone flipping over my car would piss me off.... which is why I would make sure I had a car that wasn't so easy to flip, like a smart car.

$1:

Absolutely! Like all the times I've had my windows shot out by BB guns, because some young snots were bored. Hilarious! Or the other day, when some other upstanding members of society decided to spray paint stuff on churches, or synagogues. Their literary use of German terms was most hilarious.

Nope, I just can't seem to find vandalism funny.

Well there's nothing funny about any of those, agreed.... but in my biased view of the subject, a smart car being flipped is an exception.

To me, Smart Cars fall under the category as Gremlins, Pintos, Chevettes and all those other poorly designed vehicles in human history. You're just asking for trouble in their various ways.

Knocking over someone's car isn't right, and as I said before, I hope they do get caught and punished for what they did and nobody should have to worry about someone flipping their car.

Nobody should also worry about their car catching fire or exploding like the Gremlins.

But considering through common sense that humans on average are stupid, small minded idiots who are easily entertained..... why would someone risk the chance of buying a car that's so small that one or two people could easily over turn and cause a lot of damage?

I'm not saying the guy was asking for it.... but there are idiots out there who can't control their stupid behavior.

I'm just someone who trusts very few people, and society as a whole when it comes to my personal security.

$1:

I was thinking a tattoo across their forehead "POOR IMPULSE CONTROL" as a warning to others.

Hmmm.... may work.

$1:

Or, they could have their sense of ironic sarcasm removed. Who was your surgeon?

Myself.... why get someone else to do a job you can do on your own?

All you need to do is locate the right spot and hit it just right with a frozen pacific salmon. Not a frozen haddock... they just don't have the same density required.

And I chose a Pacific salmon over an Atlantic because they're simply cheaper.

[Choban]

saturn_656 saturn_656:

ASLplease ASLplease:

I don't advise you to hit a moose in any car.

Sometimes you don't have a choice, I just wrote one off doing just that.

Moose... stupid animals...

Very much so, they don't move for nothing. I've seen them charge trains

[ASLplease]

well, if you hit them with a smart car, you might not knock them over.

[saturn_656]

Choban Choban:

saturn_656 saturn_656:

ASLplease ASLplease:

I don't advise you to hit a moose in any car.

Sometimes you don't have a choice, I just wrote one off doing just that.

Moose... stupid animals...

Very much so, they don't move for nothing. I've seen them charge trains

Perfect scene for one of those "epic fail" de-motivational posters.

It's a wonder the species survives given the absolute lack of intelligent thought they display... or any kind of thought for that matter.

[Arrow]

Might even sneak under. Mind you, realistically, how many Smart cars are going to be driven through moose country?

[saturn_656]

Arrow Arrow:

Might even sneak under. Mind you, realistically, how many Smart cars are going to be driven through moose country?

I've seen a few in NWO.

[Bodah]

Whats screwy about the smart car is one of the selling points it being environmentally friendly. I dont know whats so environmentally friendly about 24 batteries sitting in a landfill.

[Yogi]

Vehicle ratings | News | Consumer brochures & videos | Research & stats | Laws & regs | Status Report newsletter
News Release | May 14, 2008

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First Institute crash tests of Smart car: diminutive two-seater earns top ratings for protecting people in front & side crashes

ARLINGTON, VA — The Smart car is getting a lot of attention for its small size and style, and now it's earning impressive crash test ratings. In recent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests, the 2008 Smart Fortwo, the smallest car for sale in the US market, earned the top rating of good for front and side crash protection. Its seat/head restraints earned the second highest rating of acceptable for protection against whiplash in rear impacts.

Smart Fortwo is classified a microcar, meaning it's smaller even than minicars. Weighing about 1,800 pounds, the Smart is more than 3 feet shorter and almost 700 pounds lighter than a Mini Cooper. It weighs about a third as much as one of the heaviest vehicles the Institute has tested, the BMW X5, a midsize SUV. As the price of fuel climbs and tougher federal fuel economy requirements kick in, auto companies are expected to introduce more small vehicles to the market. The Smart is the smallest car the Institute ever has tested.

"The big question from consumers is, ‘How safe is it?'", says Institute president Adrian Lund. "All things being equal in safety, bigger and heavier is always better. But among the smallest cars, the engineers of the Smart did their homework and designed a high level of safety into a very small package."

The Institute's test results generally demonstrate how well vehicles stack up against others of similar size and weight. Frontal ratings can't be compared across weight classes, meaning a small car that earns a good rating isn't safer than a large car that's rated less than good.

"People base their buying decisions on a lot of factors," Lund says. "If you drive only in congested urban areas where speeds are low, a small car may be more practical than a big one. We conduct crash tests so people who want small cars can choose the ones that afford the best protection."

The Smart has a crashworthy design for its size and is equipped with the latest safety gear, which is especially important in a small car. This vehicle's standard equipment includes seat-mounted combination side airbags designed to protect both the heads and chests of the driver and passenger. Also standard is electronic stability control (ESC), called electronic stability program in the Smart. ESC helps drivers maintain control during emergency maneuvers or on slippery roads. It engages automatically when it senses vehicle instability, and Institute research has found that ESC lowers the risk of fatal single-vehicle crashes by about half.

Restraints do more of the work in frontal crashes: The Smart mostly lacks a front-end crush zone, which is a key component in reducing injury risk in serious frontal crashes. Typically, front-end structures are designed to crush and absorb crash energy, allowing occupant compartments to slow more gradually, ideally with little or no intrusion into drivers' survival space. Then a vehicle's safety belts and airbags slow occupants further and are designed to spread crash forces more evenly across people's bodies. The longer the front-end crush structure of a vehicle, the more gently occupants are slowed and thus protected from injury.

To compensate for the lack of front-end crush space, the Smart's restraint system does more of the work of absorbing energy as occupants "ride down" a crash. "We recorded a high head acceleration when the driver dummy's head hit the steering wheel through the frontal airbag," Lund explains. This indicates the test dummy used up all of the available ride down room in the Smart's interior.

A stiff side structure and standard side airbags contributed to the Smart's good rating in the side test, which replicates a crash with a pickup truck or SUV. Injury forces recorded on the driver dummy's head, neck, torso, pelvis, and left leg all were low. However, the driver door unlatched during the crash. This confirms a finding of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's side test of a Smart released last month. The Institute downgraded the Smart's structural rating from good to acceptable, but the opening didn't appear to affect dummy movement during the test, and injury measures on the driver dummy were low. Still, doors shouldn't unlatch because in some crashes it could allow partial or complete occupant ejection, especially if an occupant is unbelted.

Small car safety: While small cars are safer now than before, so are large cars. In every category of passenger vehicle (car, SUV, or pickup truck), the risk of death is higher in crashes of smaller, lighter models. For vehicles 1-3 years old during 2006, minicars experienced 106 driver deaths per million registered vehicles compared with 69 driver deaths in large cars.

People often choose very light cars for fuel economy, but "you don't have to buy the smallest, lightest car to get one that's easy on fuel consumption," Lund points out. "The Toyota Prius, for example, earns good front and side crash test ratings. It gets better fuel economy than a microcar, but it's bigger and weighs more so we would expect it would be more protective in serious crashes."

How the Smart was evaluated: The Institute's frontal crashworthiness evaluation is based on results of a 40 mph frontal offset crash test. A vehicle's overall evaluation is based on measurements of intrusion into the occupant compartment, injury measures recorded on a Hybrid III dummy in the driver seat, and analysis of slow-motion film to assess how well the restraint system controlled dummy movement during the test.

The side evaluation is based on performance in a crash test in which the side of a vehicle is struck by a barrier moving at 31 mph. The barrier represents the front end of a pickup or SUV. Ratings reflect injury measures recorded on an instrumented SID-IIs dummy in the driver seat, assessment of head protection countermeasures, and the vehicle's structural performance during the impact.

Rear crash protection is rated according to a two-step procedure. Starting points are measurements of head restraint geometry — the height of a restraint and its horizontal distance behind the back of the head of an average-size man. Seats with good or acceptable restraint geometry are tested dynamically using a dummy that measures forces on the neck. This test simulates a collision in which a stationary vehicle is struck in the rear at 20 mph. Seats without good or acceptable geometry are rated poor overall because they can't be positioned to protect many people.






View/download: includes color ratings chart
Video: crashworthiness evaluations, Smart Fortwo, May 2008

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