Friday, May 22, 2009
‘Government Mandating Deathtraps For American Highways?’
Socialism piece by
J. D. Longstreet
Society piece by
J. D. Longstreet
Obama Motors to Build Deathtraps? - In this scribe’s opinion, reports from America’s legendary auto making region describe the cars the Feds are going to force the new “government motor companies” to build as little more than “death traps.” Once you consider their small size, lightweight, and cramped seating spaces to accommodate passengers - you may arrive at the same conclusion.
Small passenger compartments with three rows of seats and little or no trunk space, and tiny little engines that run on about as much power as a one hundred watt light bulb will soon be the standard for all automobiles built in America. What a pathetic excuse for an automobile! I’d be ashamed to even be seen riding in one. My peers would think I had better sense than to climb into something so dangerous. Think I’m kidding? Then go HERE.
I intend to keep my pickup truck until the wheels fall off --- then I plan to secure new wheels or, failing that, have some made! Point is --- I will not, willingly, give up my strong, powerful, and safe truck for one of those “pregnant roller skates” the government intends to force Americans to drive. There is something completely un-American about a tiny little piss ant car, anyway.
I’m from the generation who took old cars from the 1920’s and 1930’s and rebuilt them into hotrods and street rods and drag racers which, off-times, were better engineered than the original car when it rolled off the assembly lines. Mine was the generation that designed and built the so-called “muscle cars.” (And what beauties they were, too!) They remain engineering phenomena, even today. (If you want to see a new car that comes close to imitating our muscle cars go to your nearest Dodge dealer and take a look at the new “Challenger” with the “Hemi” engine.)
In a few years America’s highways will resemble the roadways of Cuba. In Cuba there are a slew of American cars from the 1950’s still running strong because the Cubans learned how to make replacement parts they could no longer obtain because of the boycotts and embargo(es) on all things American. You are going to see Americans driving cars that are 20 - 25 years old. Driving those cars will be people, like me, who refuse to submit themselves to the obvious danger to their lives and limbs presented by those government motors’ “beer cans on wheels.”
Look, we’re are talking about an automobile a couple of men, with their bare hands, could all but destroy in short order. Think back to the last so-called fuel shortage when some American auto companies made those fuel-efficient cars. Remember the small, boxy little things? It was fairly easy for a grown man to cave in the quarter panel of one of those cars with his bare fist. If you put your whole body weight, of say 200 hundred pounds, behind it --- you could, fairly easily, smash in a fender --- and a door panel --- and even the roof.
One police department near me bought a few of them for service within the city limits and when they tried to mount the blue lights and sirens on the roof of those cars --- the roof caved in and they had to be taken back to the dealership and have reinforcement bars welded onto the roof, behind the headliner, just to keep the roof from caving-in from the weight of a set of blue lights and siren (which were easily picked up and carried about by one man). An officer told of an incident in which he had to break off a chase, at 80 mph; because the car was so light he could not control it on the highway.
There is an excellent article at Forbes.com you really need to read. It is titled: “Why Small Cars Won’t Keep You Safe.” Hannah Elliot writes it and you will find it HERE. We learn in this article of a report released recently by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) which says that even with airbags, electronic stability control and strong front-crash ratings--small cars are much more dangerous in head-on crashes than larger vehicles. Death rates in minicars involved in multi-car crashes are nearly twice as high as those in large sedans.
I’m just an ole country boy without a single PHD to hang onto my moniker, but as mentally slow as I am, I could have told them that without even a single hesitation. I mean, in a crash between a grocery store shopping cart and an Abrams tank, which had you rather be in, the shopping cart or the tank? See what I mean?
In 2009 making a fuel-efficient car means making a smaller, lighter, car. We simply don’t have the technology to do anything else --- yet. Smaller, lighter cars are not as safe in a car crash as larger, heavier, cars.
Let us say you are driving or you are a passenger in one of those “rolling coffins,” what do you think your chances would be in a rollover crash? How about a “head-on” collision? Have you stopped shaking yet?
As a former police officer and a former rescue man, I have picked up auto crash victims in situations where I had to make multiple trips to the pile of mangled metal to recover all of the same body! Let me tell you --- it is sickening.
This is where we are headed with the government’s fuel-efficient automobiles. Once those things hit the market (and the advertising does its job) and the cars are sold to the to the public, people will decide they MUST buy them. Then we can just stand back and watch the body count go up and up, because, assuredly, it will. It did the last time we did this. The history is there for you to see. But, unfortunately, this is what you get with a nanny government run by socialists.
America is about to learn another of the hard lessons of socialism --- under socialism we all suffer equally.
J. D. Longstreet
http://csadispatch.blogspot.com/
HowardWasRight 
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