Mid-Year Upgrade - 2012 Civic

I agree with everything you have to say. If you can maneuver (and I drove an XK-140 at Laguna Seca) then you avoid the premise of the study. The study was that if an impact is unavoidable then the bigger the better. Large tanks survive better than small tanks. Sure small tanks are more maneuverable. But, over time, in any computer simulation, or historical analyses, bigger tanks do better. "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet. - Damon Runyon"

I always thought brakes were a weak point on XK 120/140s -- although I liked both cars. I remember trying a friend's 120 out -- right after getting out of an E I owned. What a difference. The 120 was tank-like. He had it up for sale (1966) at the time and wanted $800 for it and it was in good shape except for the interior. Talk about hindsight.

JRStern wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Yes. Two things have happened since the '80s:

1) models have gotten larger, as they tend to do over time (the Civic is no longer Honda's smallest model); 2) "safety" regulations have forced automakers to /really/ load-on the weight.

Crash regulations have gotten stricter and stricter over the years, especially with the newest side-intrusion rules. Crash-standards are responsible for at /least/ 500 to 1,000 lbs of body weight-gain since the late-'80s.

In spite of that, Mazda has made their 3,100 pound 3-series handle very nimbly. So an exciting car is not impossible, even with today's onerous legislation. Get with the program, Honda!

"Doug" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Then buy a Toyota. Toyota is not exciting, but they are better-made than Hondas.

Jim Yanik wrote in news:Xns9FC78298A49E4jyaniklocalnetcom@216.168.3.44:

The "heavier" part is a legal problem, mostly. "Safety" regulations see to that.

That's what they eventually do. The Fit has replaced the Civic as Honda's smallest model; the Tercel/Echo/Yaris has replaced the Corolla as Toyota's smallest (excepting the short-lived Starlet).

yeah. needs separation. have someone else teach them. preferably one of those "adult driver" schools. you can't teach your own kids to drive

- it's at that crucial time when they don't listen to dad so it really is a relationship problem.

skid pan and/or military vehicle driver training are great too if it doesn't send them off the deep end into "i'm a rally driver" mode.

"nimble" is strictly relative and at one heck of a cost in gas consumption. my buddy got a new subie and was raving on at me about how great it handled and its performance. he'd been in my civic before, but i usually drive it in ticket avoidance mode, so he'd never seen what it could do. [it's got headers, a better cam and better brakes, but other than that, is pretty much stock.] i took him for a more "spirited" run and frankly, the civic ate the subie's lunch in a quite shameful way. he ended up giving the subie to his wife and getting a civic like mine. i should have taken him out in my old crx.

indeed - that's my point.

"but "unavoidable" is a function of weight and maneuverability. as discussed before, increased weight has a significant negative impact on braking distances and maneuverability, and this in turn questions the basic assumptions on which these studies are based.

[this is an important point - so often, people look at study results, they don't examine or consider the primary assumptions that predicate the whole landscape on which a study is based. you can no more use study results without considering the initial assumptions than you can say you know a house when you've only ever been in one room - and you arrived and left at night.]

right, but that's on the basis that they're being hit. a tank that's not getting hit is not getting hit!

and small tanks are recon, much more forward of the mbt's.

that wasn't always the case. my toyota pickup is a p.o.s. compared to my civic. or my accord.

Oh, *absolutely*.

I was thinking something like the series that Honda offers:

"Douglas C. Niedermeyer" wrote in news:jd7nvk $9ro$ snipped-for-privacy@news.albasani.net:

Sure they do. The problem is, more and more people are buying something /other/ than Hondas, specifically Hyundais.

We who like Hondas wish to see that trend reversed. Hence this thread.

Technically, we who likED Hondas want to see whatever it is Honda did that drove people to Hyundai/Kia reversed.

Maybe it can't be. Maybe Honda will forever be that girlfriend back in college, the one you were with for a fantastic 6 months or so...

you mean you bumped into at the game? the one that's now obese, married with three kids, has halitosis and still wants to give you a bj in the back of her dodge caravan? the one who now gets all bent out of shape when you're not interested? /that/ girlfriend from back in college?

another thing worth considering - a lot of the modern computerized technology that goes into cars these days doesn't weigh much. and a lot of already existing installations such as the engine computer can potentially display information such as safe stopping distances relative to speed for example. add things like proximity sensors, and suddenly you have a significant safety tool. use the g-force detectors already in your air bag computer system, and you could have safe cornering speed indicators. poor visibility sensors wouldn't cost much. [etc] all these are potentially very useful in crash avoidance and add little or even nothing to a vehicle's manufacture cost. and if it did cost something, it would be easily comparable to 500 extra lbs of processed steel.

now, if you think about the [lack of] government focus on crash avoidance, vs. weight increasing "crash safety", it's an interesting exercise. crash avoidance technology doesn't keep body shops in work. it doesn't keep manufacturers selling new cars after write-offs. and it doesn't keep insurance companies and all the multitudes of peripheral people involved with them in work. there's a /huge/ industry built around people getting into accidents. things that heavy, less maneuverable cars find it harder to avoid.

Her 1995 Dodge Caravan.

Yes. THAT girlfriend.

jim beam wrote in news:jdgrjo$4v6$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org:

sorry,but too much info can be a distraction and lead to LESS safety. if you need sensors to tell you you're cornering too hard,or you're too close to the car in front,you should not be driving. G-Force sensors don't tell you the road surface's condition,which is more critical to cornering. it won't warn you if you hit an oily,sandy,or icy patch. An indicator that tells you if there's car in a blind spot would be useful and practical,though.(although a decent driver should be aware that a vehcicle was approaching their blind spot) The IR Heads-Up Display could be good if you're caught in a heavy fog,BUT,should you be driving in those conditions,or be pulling off the road as far as you can get?

IMO,cars SHOULD be risky to crash,occupants should NOT be protected against extreme collisions. I also don't believe cars should be constructed idiot- proof for the "lowest common denominators";the clueless and incompetents. Let them walk,take the bus,or other modes of transpo. Such cars give drivers a sense of invulnerability (witness SUVs) and create a worse hazard than the "safety" they give the occupants. Becasue there are 18 wheelers on the roads,does that mean every other vehicle should be as well armored? I think not. Besides,put an idiot behind the wheel of a large semi,and you have a REAL hazard to others,both in vehicles and buildings. IMO,a driver in a lightweight,unarmored car pays more attention to their driving AND surroundings so that THEY don't get crunched,because they know they would not survive a crunch. Thus,everybody is safer.

But don't take this as my being against reasonable safety systems,like anti-lock brakes,seat belts or airbags.

I also agree with your arguments against unmaneuverable vehicles and accident avoidance.

That information shouldn't be sent to the average end user; however, it's there and the computerized controls can easily be set up to use them to present a balanced chassis to the average driver, over a very wide range of conditions. In other words, that information can easily be used to prevent the driver from getting in over his head.

It exists today--it's called the side mirror.

Most people have their side mirrors set completely wrong, though, and that's where this idea that "we need electronic doodads to tell us when there's a car coming up beside us" comes from.

Just set the damn mirrors correctly. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be driving AT ALL. Once the mirrors are set correctly, both the side mirrors and the rear view mirror, AND if you're (correctly) scanning your environment, you will know exactly where every car is--when it's coming up behind you from the side, when it's beside you, and when it's passing up front of you on the side.

No electronic doodads required. Just DRIVER TRAINING. Oh--and driver responsibility, too. Of course, we're America--we can't have THAT! No sir, it must be the MANUFACTURER'S fault that I didn't know about the car beside me!

absolutely.

this mirrors thing is complete bullshit. in europe, they have drivers door mirrors where the inner portion is plane, then the outer portion is curved convex. the field of view is complete. yet they're neither seen, not i believe, even allowed in a single piece of glass over here. for the same retarded reason the passenger door mirror, which is all convex, has that stupid "objects in mirror are closer than they appear" message etched on it.

so, why do we continue to suffer from retarded regs that prevent use of decent mirrors that cover the blind spot from factory? follow the money. follow who stands to profit from drivers getting into accidents.

that's easy to say, but as you are probably aware, what is common sense for you doesn't necessarily mean it's common sense for the other people on the road. i mean, tailgating is pretty much the norm despite it being ridiculously dangerous. it may not be popular, but a car that bugged the s*** out of you for being too close for your speed sure would be a significant safety improvement.

g-force sensors tell you if you're setting up to slide if there's a loss of traction for the reasons you list.

use a convex mirror. they should be standard on all cars imo.

sure. and in fact, an i.r. sensor/camera would be dirt cheap. the heads-up display would cost a little more, but if it contained all the instruments, the incremental cost would be reduced significantly.

there's a lot of logic to that - google "risk compensation". however, if you're taking the "crash industry" into account, with all the people that make huge amounts of money off people having crashes and either repairing or buying new cars, then killing off the customer base doesn't work. you need to shear your sheep, not skin them.

couldn't agree more.

indeed.

seat belts, yes. air bags, no. i've said it many times - if we were taking accident safety seriously, every vehicle would have a full safety cage, 6-point harness belts, and everyone would wear a helmet. just like race car drivers that can hit the barrier at 100+ and walk away, no airbags required.

anti-lock brakes? i don't like them personally. they're great for my grandmother whose idea of cadence braking is to try to press the pedal to the floor and just let the car sail on into a death spiral. but for myself, i like the option of locking brakes in mud or snow, and i know how to cadence brake in the dry or wet. there's nothing worse than driving an anti-lock braked car and finding yourself running out of road because it's not stopping as quickly as an ordinary braked car.

but then again, for some types of motorcycles, they're a life-saver. tough call.

hey now, isn't the whole claim to fame of these things that they do bring you do a stop in the minimum time, exactly by spiking the pedal and letting the computer work?

I've wondered a bit, now and then when I hit the brakes hard and the antilock turns on at modest speeds (say 10-30mph) and especially if the wheels aren't dead-on straight forward, if it wouldn't stop me faster to lock the wheels, even if that did scrub the front or spin out the rear, a little.

J.