<VV> Medical waivers - making Corvair safer

[Mark Corbin]

A note of caution about your Sub. It may not be as safe as you think. All
that "massive body" is behind you, whereas it should be in front of you, if
you're thinking of crash protection. So it may be working against you in a
frontal crash, as crash tests of a few years ago showed that it had a
medocre rating vs a like pickup, which had a better rating.

Anymore it's all a matter of design. Take the GM U-van (Pontiac TransSport,
Chevy Venture, etc.) for instance. The original plastic version had a
decent rating, but the next gen (slope nose) steel version was horrible. It
was so bad that the Insurance Institute doing the testing actually mounted
their test subject on a display, to illustrate what NOT to do. GM took
note, and redesigned the third gen (bull nose) version from mid-van
forward, so that it's rating went from worst case to just short of a "best
pick". You just have to keep up on the Insurance Institute's tests to see
what fares well and what doesn't.

It would be interesting to see what the Corvair would do at the Insurance
Institute, but who would want to sacrifice some perfectly good Corvairs for
such tests? (Required Corvair content.) Maybe we could get rid of some of
those ugly LM coupes that way..... (hehehe)

-Mark

> [Original Message]
> From: The Robbins <therobbins82 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: <VV> Medical waivers - making Corvair safer
>
> If I had to ever be in a wreck I'll take my Suburban with that massive
body
> and air bags vs. an old car especially a ragtop. But you never know when
> your ticket is punched so it can happen anytime anywhere I guess. Did you
> see the study done where they did a head on test with a new Impala against
> an old Impala, you know one of the old land yachts and the results showed
> the old car the driver would have been killed and the new Impalas driver
> escaped with a leg injury. I would have never guessed that result thinking
> the old boat would protect you best because of the sheer size of it. Never
> know and don't want to.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Subject: Re: <VV> Medical waivers - making Corvair safer
>
> Consider it the 'admission fee' for doing whatever it is - smoking or
> driving a classic car or not wearing your helmet or seat belt.
>
> If you enjoy riding your mountain bike or motorcycle without a helmet
enough
> to pay more, it your choice.
>
> Sometimes driving a classic car can be an advantage if it doesn't suffer
> from structural rust, and a Corvair is actually made of real metal and
> should stand up pretty well ?
>
> We've seen a few Corvair accidents and I wonder if anyone looked to see
how
> they stood up against the modern cars involved.
>
> It's probably too soon to look at Eddie Corson's 1962 Corvair, but is
there
> anything we can learn from that tragedy ?  I don't believe he hit another
> car but what can we do to prevent the accident, or minimize injury.
>
> Isn't that how Ralph into Corvairs in the first place ?  He picked the
> Corvair as a vulnerable target simply because GM handled it badly, but did
> make cars safer, too bad it was at the expense of the Corvair (yes, that's
> not why GM stopped production - another story)
>
> The fines levied go to the local community, and don't go to covering the
> cost of their potential medical expenses, which are still 'socialized' ?
>
> Charlie
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mark Corbin" <airvair at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: <VV> Medical waivers - No Corvair
>
> So the sad truth is that for every person who refuses to accept
> responsibility for his own contributory neglegence of not wearing a helmet
> or seat belt, we (the clients) all end up having to share the added burden
> of those unnecessary expenses in the form of higher premiums.
>