On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 06:38:11PM -0800, Tim May wrote: (snip)
> Since my life and my safety is vastly more valuable to me than saving > $350-$600 a year in gas, I'll be keeping my 3500-pound S-Class. Ah, yes, the old "big cars are safer" arguement. I've seen studies that went both ways, yes, bigger crushes smaller if it hits it, but smaller cars dodge better. Personally, I don't believe there are many "accidents", just a lot of inattentive people. I've made it to age 60 driving a lot of small cars, motorcycles, and bicycles, somehow managed to survive. Haven't had an "accident" in a long, long time, although I've seen a lot of people doing pretty stupid things on the highway. OTOH, when I was younger and wilder I managed to smash up quite a few cars, some of them quite badly, one head on at 75, another one spun out a 110. A bad bike spill racing another guy put in a wheel chair for 6 weeks. Fate, I think, also has a lot to do with it. Last Winter I was doing about 55 when a *huge* SUV spun going the other way, hit the guardrail between the lanes and rolled right over it, right in front of me. He was rolling and spinning around, pretty spectacular to watch, I managed to dodge it. About 6 month before that I had a big van pass me, then broadside another big van right in front of me -- awesome, like two big whales colliding -- I just went around them. Attentiveness and fate, I guess. > > (Actually, the little golf car runabouts are slightly popular (maybe > one car in 2000 is one of these golf carts) near the downtown beach > area around here. But not on the California freeways, and most > definitely not the on the highway which consumes most of my driving: > the mountainous Highway 17 between Santa Cruz and San Jose, with > 18-wheelers only a foot away. I wouldn't want to be sitting inside a > golf cart "just over a meter high" when the wheels of an 18-wheeler are > taller!) If a semi tries to kill you, driving your MB ain't going to do you much good. Believe me. I had semi force me off the road a couple years ago, I was driving a pickup but it wouldn't have mattered what I was driving if I hadn't been able to get out of his way. I hit a school bus once head on doing 75 when he suddenly turned left in front of me, and I was driving a full-sized '54 Ford. The only thing that saved me then was that it was a convertible and I wasn't wearing the seatbelt. I went right out thru the top (it was down) and luckly so, because the engine ended up in the drivers seat. > > And then there's the issue of carrying passengers, cargo, plus the Right, if you need a truck, fine, but most of us have at least a couple of vehicles, and also most of drive alone 90% of the time. > availability of repairs in small towns, etc. That's irrelevant to me, if I can't fix it, probably no one else can either. Nor would I let them. > > A lot of "theoretically good" solutions fail for market reasons, what > someone correctly said is Metcalfe's Law, or the fax effect. Until > fueling stations carry exotic fuels, or until all cars and trucks are > reduced to golf cart sizes, the disadvantages outweigh the slight > savings in fuel costs. > To you perhaps, as long as your investments hold out. I'm trying to arrange my life so that I don't have to pay for fuel, food, rent, heat, lights, or taxes. Switching all my vehicles to diesel engines that can run on biodiesel I can grow myself, and get excellent economy besides, is part of that. > I'm quite surprised to see, on this list and on other lists, the > ignorance of basic economics. Markets clear. Gas costs what it costs. > To argue that there is a "moral cost" to consider, as some on those > other lists have been arguing, is silly. Prisoner's Dilemma and all the > usual arguments apply. > > It's why I'll be safer when I run into Harmon on the freeways. His > heirs will appreciate his savings in gasoline for the time he owned his > Lupo. Diesel, Tim, they run on diesel. Too bad MB won't import any of those hi-tech diesel they make to the US because of the crummy fuel here. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
