Throwing out newspapers this morning, I came upon this article from the
11/02/03 L.A. Times:- "Tell me exactly what kind of accident you're going to have," a safety engineer once said, "and I can design the perfect protection."
- This truth and others were ringing in my ear when, a few months ago, I purchased a limpid-blue 1990 Miata.
- My dreams of a cut-rate sports car were realized. The Miata slipped through snarled traffic, narrow mountain roads and crowded parking lots like a gentle zephyr. It pitched and floated like my own personal ultralight on Sunday morning flings down Latigo Canyon Road. (My note: Latigo Cyn. on Sunday mornings is starting to get 'busy')
- How would a convertible weighing little more than 2,000 pounds fare, when push came to shove, in a world of vehicles often twice its size?
- I found out when the phone rang one recent Sunday afternoon. It was my wife, Donna. "I am so sorry," she said. "I think your car is totaled." She sounded shaky.
- Chewing the steering wheel, I inched through traffic toward the din, until at last I saw it: a tiny blue Miata sitting, convertible top down, in the middle of the intersection. The car was now shortened by two feet, the front end stove in to the wheels, air bag hanging from the driver's door, glass everywhere. Beside the curb lay the carcass of a huge black Chevy Blazer, crumpled and on its roof.
- Yet there was also the unmistakable afterglow of a minor miracle, for what had happened was clearly the precise application of energy that this sturdy little car was built to withstand. It was the exact opposite for the unwieldy, top-heavy SUV. The tiny car, a low wedge moving at 40 miles per hour, had slipped under the Blazer's frame rail, then stayed put as the big truck, levered off its wheels, went skittering across the intersection on its crumpled roof. Both vehicles were totaled.
Despite the wreckage, no one was bloodied. The combination of air bags, seat belts and safety glass had saved everyone in the Blazer. But the Miata was more impressive. One could see the seat belt had held with no slippage or movement at the buckle; the driver's compartment was completely intact. Even down in the foot well, the pedals still stood up, perfectly straight. And up front one could see how the car's plastic nosepiece had absorbed its limit of energy, with its crush zones, air bladder and closed-cell foam flattened, at one spot, to the thinness of a paper cup.