The dangers of DRLs 4622

On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 20:31:59 -0400, James C. Reeves

Of course they should NOT be interested. Spending a lot of time and money to convince a handful of fanatics takes away from making better cars for the people, who are interested in the first place.

Only a total moron would base their decision for or against a car solely on a detail like DRLs.

No, you just think it did. Giving kids hell almost always produces rather screwed up examples and in the very few cases where it indeed does produce decent examples they are mentally strong enough that they would have come out ok without receiving hell.

My parents never gave me hell and I am neither in debt to my eyeballs nor into anything nasty or irresponsible. I know quite a few of people, who have been given hell by their parents. Not one of them is not into something bad, from alcoholism to driving irresponsibly to beating up their own kids.

No, I do think discipline is valuable, but giving someone hell has nothing to do with discipline. If you don't know that you are unfit as a parent.

The 10% rants and 10% raves equate to zero gained sales, simply because the nutcases on either end of the spectrum either don't have enough money to buy or they would buy what they want anyway.

I am not saying 'don't listen to complaings', just 'discard rants and raves because they are not complaining customers but nutcases. If someone writes a well thought out and civil complaint letter I am sure it is going to be taken seriously, but what you are pulling here (and same goes for your buddies) has nothing to do with civil or well thought out.

Sorry, no Mr. Hyde here. You should probably lay off that elixir of yours, so your Mr. Hyde disappears and stops making your replies that uncivil.

And GM is better off losing these 1-2% disgruntled oldtimers.

I am sure that GM has gained about the same percentage because of people who like and want automatic headlights and DRLs. Law of averages.

No.

Of course they are. You claim that this safety device uses some 'huge number' energy. I say that that the numbers in reality are small compared to the numbers even wasted on things like A-C and loud stereos.

It doesn't. The gasoline consumption of a car doesn't increase measurably for having both front turn signals on all the time. IOW the gas consumption is only a fraction of a percent of the total gas consumption of the same car. In other words your big numbers are meaningless because you forgot to put them in relation to the total gas consumption.

US drivers use about 130,000,000,000 gallons of gas per year. your 450,000,000 are about 0.3 percent of this consumption. So I would get between 20.06 and 30.06 mpg without my DRLs.

In other words, your big number means nothing whatsoever because you did not put it into the proper relation.

In other words, you waste about thirty times as much energy per mile driven with your automatic transmission as I use up with my DRLs. I think it's time you learned how to drive a stick and junked your automatic.

Fortunately DRLs are not waste, but save lives as the study I posted shows.

No, but you are very bad at reading comprehension.

Not every person, who drinks alcohol, is an alcoholic.

That leaves the bias, which you clearly have. q.e.d.

Until there is DRLs and automatic headlights make sense.

That actually might work if not the bozos too stupid to switch on the light by themselves were the same control freaks, who are likely to switch off DRLs and auto headlights because they feel a certain body part shrinking if they can't decide when to turn on the lights themselves.

I suggest something along the lines of press the trip odo reset, turn the light switch and cycle the dome light four times :)

It more than meets GMs projected numbers, i.e. they are selling all the cars they get.

The 6000 were for half a year. And it was well known by GM that the GTO fills a niche, albeit a lucrative one.

On the contrary, it would cost lives.

Even Nate admitted that it is only 'possible to regain control', IOW control is lost, unlike when doing a controlled skid with accelerator or parking brake modulated by a send foot-hand.

In most cases where someone attempts a maneuver like that it ends with either running out of road or crashing into the obstacle before 'regaining' control. The number of accidents where a controlled skid helps avoid a crash is small to begin with and your experiment in losing and 'potentially regaining' control is even worse.

None of them uses the brake to induce the maneuver, because that's much too unprecise.

That's why they don't simple 'unsettle the car with the brake and then hope they regain control'.

ROTFLMFAO. You claim to know that ABS has never saved my hide, but seriously want to tell me that your control loss maneuver has saved yours? Not a chance. Not one.

If you need to steer of course you have to get off the brake. And ABS makes that unnecessary, which is good for the large majority of drivers, who don't have the balls to get off the brake when moving towards an obstacle at a speed that makes an impact likely even under braking.

ABS keeps a car controllable under full braking. As you admit yourself you can only brake very gingerly in low friction situations, having to maintain a healthy margin to make sure you don't lose control. And still have to severely limit steering input because your wheels already are close to the lockup point.

So you have a car that is not braked at an optimal rate, cannot be maneuvered easily and safely and you are telling me that this is safer than a system that not only provides a near optimal deceleration rate under low-friction conditions but also keeps the car maneuverable and automatically compensates for the loss of friction due to the lateral component introduced when steering the car?

No, these cars already handle and brake so bad that you are not really able to gage the impact of ABS on safety.

Oh yes, you have. You even claimed to know better than I do whether ABS saved my skin in situations you don't even know.

I am so impressed... not. Driving instruction is a case for professional instructors exclusively. Parents only botch things when left to something they have no proper training in. You are an excellent example for that.

That's why you have to get off the brakes in time to maneuver around it. With this method you not only make sure you impact with the least possible speed if you don't make it around the obstacle, but also significantly improve your chances of actually making it around the obstacle over your 'gingerly braking and then trying to make the evasive maneuver with a much higher speed and possible even under further gingerly braking'.

Because if you have done it that way hundreds of times I want to know why you instead taught your kid to brake gingerly.

Face it, braking gingerly is for situations where braking merely serves to stop at a traffic light or such. In an emergency situation braking hard and getting off the brakes when steering input is required is by far the better strategy.

ABS systems are reducing real accidents. The numbers are fudged by the initial problem of people believing the first ABS ads about a miracle brake. But since then the numbers have steadily and quite heavily declined.

You are a perfect example for why ABS is so necessary. You are not quite sure about the correct way to decelerate a car in an emergency situation and thus taught your kids total nonsense about gingerly braking and whatnot and claim you yourself brake hard and release when you have to add steering input. ABS solves that problem, brake hard, steer and you will make it around the obstacle.

And one valuable lesson: Never believe any insurance statistics and believe their interpretations even less.

No. I can list a whole bunch of total bozos who get into a situation where someone else saves their hide on a daily basis and who at the same time claim a clear driving record. A clear driving record says you are lucky, nothing more.

Statistics are the most elegant form of lying.

It's funny how you basically confirm my opinion about ABS and it's effect but let yourself be so influenced by this insurance bullpoo that you end up not believing your own reasoning. What a pity.

I on the other hand hope that you will never get in this situation.

I doubt they will benefit you much when the coroner comes to pick you up.

Statistics indicate that most people, who never have been in an accident, eventually get into one. As they say, there are two types of motorcyclists, the ones who have been down and the ones who will be. Same goes for cars.

Chris