When the US Government Built Ultra-Safe Cars 520
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]."
I wonder what they did with the... (Score:2, Funny)
...flying cars!
it's the love child (Score:5, Funny)
of an AMC Pacer and a Delorean
Re:1970s and 32MPG...? (Score:3, Funny)
They could have combined things like fantastically expensive construction (to make them very light) and unimpressive performance.
I've heard of that car before... (Score:3, Funny)
It's the one that also got 100mpg due to the fuel vaporizing carburetor. :)
Godwin (Score:4, Funny)
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?
Re:1970s and 32MPG...? (Score:5, Funny)
Engineers shouldn't exaggerate.
Except when giving time estimates to their captain.
Impossible (Score:2, Funny)
another case of someone not wanting anyone to manufacture a competing model that could shake the current makers out of their lowest common denominator complacency.
If it's not straight out fiction.
Maybe you've heard this one, folks, but I think it's time to tell it again:
If Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, An Efficient Government, and a Private Corporation are at a four way intersection, and in the center, there is a nice crisp 100 dollar bill, who will get to the money first?
The Private Corporation, of course, because the first three are figments of your imagination! Ha!
It's just good common sense. Everybody knows it. It's been scientifically, irrefutably proven, so anybody who tells you differently has an agenda: there is no such thing as a government ever producing anything better than private industry, and the sooner we learn that, the sooner we'll be free of all the problems we've got here in modern socialist America -- and particularly free to ignore or simply be amused by obvious fictions like this article.
Re:Disheartening (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Disheartening (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:1970s and 32MPG...? (Score:3, Funny)
Its a well known fact that people from all other countries are consistently killed when attempting to get onto the highway. This natural culling effect is the main reason other nations drive less than their less horse-power challenged American brethren.
As indicated in this thread horse power has doubled over the past 20 years while traffic deaths have gone down. The numbers speak for themselves, horsepower saves lives!
Re:30MPG was not uncommon (Score:3, Funny)
IMHO Nukes are the only way forward.
Yeah, but didn't the guy who put a nuke into his car go backward in time?
Maybe Tom Lehrer was Right (Score:3, Funny)
People like you make me angry. You're so stupid
I'm not stupid, but apparently I need to work on my deadpan delivery.
Either that, or Tom Lehrer was right when he said satire is obsolete [avclub.com].