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When the US Government Built Ultra-Safe Cars
Jalopnik has a piece on a mostly forgotten piece of automotive history: the US government built a fleet of ultra-safe cars in the 1970s. The "RSV" cars were designed to keep four passengers safe in a front or side collision at 50 mph (80 kph) — without seat belts — and they got 32 miles to the gallon. They had front and side airbags, anti-lock brakes, and gull-wing doors. Lorne Greene was hired to flack for the program. All this was quickly dismantled in the Reagan years, and in 1990 the mothballed cars were all destroyed, though two prototypes survived in private hands. "Then-NHTSA chief Jerry Curry [in 1990] contended the vehicles were obsolete, and that anyone who could have learned something from them had done so by then. Claybrook, the NHTSA chief who'd overseen the RSV cars through 1980, told Congress the destruction compared to the Nazis burning books. ... 'I thought they were intentionally destroying the evidence that you could do much better,' said [the manager of one of the vehicles' manufacturers]."
of an AMC Pacer and a Delorean
They could have combined things like fantastically expensive construction (to make them very light) and unimpressive performance.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I've heard of threads getting Godwin'd..... but this one had it in the summary.
Doesn't that, by itself, mean that no further replies are necessary?
Engineers shouldn't exaggerate.
Except when giving time estimates to their captain.
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
I was a Republican and I drove an Audi. Then I was a Democrat and I drove a Chrysler-built Jeep. Then I became an Independent and drove a Lexus. Now I drive a Prius.
Showed him.
See? You're abrogating your responsibility (and the privilege) of being the ultimate power in America with your "we don't have a democracy" attitude.
Your voice alters what your representatives see as being in their best self-interest. If the lobbyist's money is talking, you need to talk louder.
binding contract based on their platform promises with clearly defined sanctions for not following them. Sanctions up to and including personal liability.
Already exists. It's called "having to get elected next time". The trick is to make sure you find out what their real agenda is so that they have to campaign on that, instead of letting them carpet-bomb your district with litmus-test issues and fear-mongering.