Vehicular Life Insurance

[dgs49]

Text of a letter I sent to the local birdgage liner:

Last Sunday, Dr Lisa Vecchione, the director of orthodontic services at Children's Hospital's Cleft-Craniofacial Center, was killed in a car crash in Ohio. Reading through the details of the crash I cannot help but wonder if she died needlessly.

The car she was driving was a Mini Cooper. She was hit by a tractor/trailer rig, pushed into other vehicles, and died more or less instantly. A Mini Cooper is a three-door hatchback, 146 inches long, 55 inches high, and weighing about 2,500 pounds. Although it has a cornucopia of airbags which would make it relatively safe in a collision with another Mini Cooper, when colliding with anything over two tons, it is little more than a rolling casket.

Had she been driving a large SUV or a full-sized truck (a vehicle with a full frame), it is likely she would have walked away from the accident, or at most experienced a few broken bones. She would have lost the fight with the tractor, but pushed through the cars in front of her – and survived.

One can only hope that people reading this news story – especially other Doctors - will recognize that a large vehicle is literally, a form of “life insurance.” Honestly, no medical doctor should ever be driving a roller skate like she was. What a needless waste.

Why does no one - particularly public figures - acknowledge the inherent safety of large vehicles? If you can afford the vehicle and the gas, it is simply stupid to ride around in a 2500 lb vehicle.

We have a President who pats himself on the back for a (stupid and unachievable) goal that cars average 50-some mpg by some date in the future. Such cars will be death traps, and the regulations that spawn them will cost, literally, thousands of lives.

If a pharmaceutical company tried to sell an anti-obesity drug that would result in the premature death of a thousand people a year, they would never be able to bring it to market. But the EPA writes a regulation that will cost many times that, and they are hailed as being forward-thinking and progressive.

BTW, my new Kawasaki 2000 gets about 42 mpg. It's a lovely vehicle. Really.

[quaddriver]

BTW, my new Kawasaki 2000 gets about 42 mpg. It's a lovely vehicle. Really.

wow, about 3mpg less than I get in my TDI. (and at 3200lb will fare about the same when vs a semi...)

[dales]

BTW, my new Kawasaki 2000 gets about 42 mpg. It's a lovely vehicle. Really.

How does it do against a tractor-trailer rig in a collision?

[Joe Guy]

How does it do against a tractor-trailer rig in a collision?

[dgs49]

Tractor trailer? Hell, I could be killed in a collision with a dog!

[dales]

What was the purpose of your topic?

[Jarlaxle]

Only 42MPG from yoiur bike? Hell, Liz's Easter Egg is averaging 52! (WORST tank was a hair under 49.) Her old Festiva averaged about 46.