Monday, August 30, 2010
A Toyota saved my wife's life.
Given all the bad press Toyota have had recently, I thought a positive note would help out. My wife drove a Yaris - a reasonable sized car in Europe but considered to be "too small" in the US. And by "too small" people equate that to "not safe". Fact: they're perfectly safe. Unfortunately my wife found that out the hard way. An early 90's Ford Explorer ran into her in an intersection last week. You know the ones - chunky, boxy, with I-beams for bumpers. My wife was able to get out and walk away because the Toyota did its job and protected her. We found out this morning that it was a total loss. So next time you have concerns about "small" cars in crashes with SUVs, look at this photo and remind yourself that the only injuries to my wife were seatbelt and airbag burns.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
As far as I can tell, most American males seem to think the size of their vehicle correlates directly with everyone else's perception of the size of their penis, and that somehow this matters.
The whole bloody country's got testosterone poisoning.
Very glad to hear your wife's doing fine after the crash!
Good to hear that she's ok.
Agree entirely that small doesn't necessarily unsafe. Having said that, it always makes me cringe when I see one of the Smart cars dodging 18 wheelers going down the Interstate.
Smarts are a special case. They're only safe because the surrounding cars are safe; they depend on the crumple zones of whatever they hit to mitigate impacts. A friend t-boned a pickup in his Smart recently (entirely the pickup's fault; attempting to drive perpendicular to freeway traffic is stupid no matter what), and his passenger suffered a broken jaw...
So sorry you had to find out the hard way that the Yaris is dedicated to taking care of you. I've been driving them for years, and, if I won a million, I would only want to change to a newer one.
Regarding Smart cars - you do know, don't you, that the last action on the production line is to install the "Braincell Negator Aerosol" in the dashboard? It activates when the driver turns the ignition key.
Glad your wife's okay. Just came across your blog because I was researching steering boxes--Thanks for maintaining your car bibles!
Glad to know your wife's OK!
No surprises here. Inferring that small cars are unsafe is wrong. Fact.
Post a Comment