American Truckers, a word of "warning"

Maybe these small cars will have the 8' tall orange flags that bicyles in the 70's used to have as an option.
Ricky

 

eww back before I considered driving truck I had an incident with a full tractor trailor that almost got me killed. This is in PA on I99. There was a pretty good snowstorm, interstate was covered with packed snow. I'm in my little rav 4 and come up on 2 big trucks doing maybe 40mph. I hop into the passing lane to get around them so I'm not following the white out those big trucks make in a snowstorm. As I get to the point of no return passing the rear truck he decides to pass the truck in from of him. I about crapped my pants. That boy really had no business being out there. Lets just say on the next big hill he had to downshift a few times. Hes lucky I didn't pull him over. Verry scary stuff. Vowed once I start driving I will never let that happen to someone else.

Oh and the giant grill in my rearview at 70mph, thats bs too lol.

 

Put a bike flag on it!!!!!

 

Thats not a car its a speed bump. I've just started driving and it already blows my mind how many times ive been cut off, and im still driving a rig that says STUDENT DRIVER in big red and yellow letters. the smart cars and such are just mobile speed bumps. I would never feel safe in something that small.

 

Worked pretty good with the phones,so why not try'um on a car too

 

Hmmmm a guy on a moped got hit by pickup here in Casa Grande yesterday. It took them most of the day to clean him off the pavement. I'm serious.

 

Fiat has a horrible history of reliability, and unless they've given over design and spec to Honda or Toyota, they're in for a short-lived run in the US... Fiat was essentially run out of town on a rail, just like Renault, back in the 80s.

FIAT stands for Fix It Again Tony.... and I cannot WAIT for all the lemon law cases to start rolling in.

 

I think a more reasonable plea would be for the owners of these cars to keep their heads out of their ##### while driving on the highways. The general motoring public has gotten lazier, dumber, and more impatient in the past few years. Every day o see people risking their lives for a cheeseburger or to get home 10 seconds faster.
and its not just the fourwheelers either. I have seen the quality of truck drivers spiral downwards considerably in the past 5 years. Wake up people.

 

OK...

What most of you are missing with the 'Micro' cars is...

1. COMMUTER VEHICLE.
Restricted to 45 MPH zones or less.
Otherwise they have to have air bags, safety bumpers, and pass all the crash tests of any other american driven vehicle...

These will mostly be in larger cities where the speed limit doesn't restrict them.
Never seen a 'Commuter Class' vehicle on the open interstate or high speed highway yet, so I don't expect to soon...

2. 'SMART CARS' are HATEFULLY expensive.
At around $18,000 for the base model, and with dealers needing up to $22,000 up front, and with an 18 month or longer waiting list, they won't be any more of an issue than the 'Mini Cooper' has been.

Since 'Smart Cars' are highway certified, they have all the crash testing (and did pretty well in crash testing!) of any open highway vehicle in america.

3. What will be a 'Problem' for city drivers in the future will be 'Commuter Class Vehicles',
High mileage, single or double occupancy vehicles intended for less than 45 MPH.
Some states restrict them to 35 MPH,
And they have to get at least 40 Miles Per Gallon, and have engines ONE LITER or smaller.

This makes them very light weight, underpowered, and to do that, they are VERY SMALL.
They have a different crash test safety standard than open highway vehicles.
Insurance is VERY HIGH on them right now, because of all the drunken, drugged, distracted SUV driving soccer moms out there right now paying attention to NOTHING...

That will change as fuel prices go over $5 a gallon and stay there...
You WILL see more of them.

4. CRASH AVOIDANCE technology will help the commercial driver.
The only way this technology will be in ALL trucks is when enough 'Micro' drivers get killed and the government mandates it in new vehicles.

A 'Sender' in micro vehicles that receivers on the big truck pick up and warn the driver is a REALLY good idea,
But I'm sure there will be 'Big Brother Is Watching' bunches that think it's a bad idea...
Even if they are all on the same frequency and you can't tell one vehicle from another,
But the receivers will tell you how many are tailgating you, hiding in your blind spots, ect.

5. Many cities are allowing GOLF CARTS on surface streets.
These have NO crash testing, NO safety equipment and NO RESTRICTIONS as to use, day or night.
I find these a much more appalling idea than a 'Micro' or 'Commuter' car.

I recently saw a golf cart loaded with lumber to the point the rear was dragging the ground, no lights at all and I saw it after dark...
The idiots driving couldn't turn a corner due to the weight in the back, front not making enough contact with the street, so three of these morons were out pushing the front around in the center of an unlit intersection after dark!
If I hadn't needed to turn, I would have went through that intersection and CREAMED them! (I didn't have a stop sign, they did...)

6. Golf Carts are a Good idea gone HORRIBLY wrong!
Although golf carts are low cost to purchase (Which makes insurance cheaper also) they don't have DOT approved lights, turn signals at DOT mandated heights,
They don't have DOT approved tires, brakes, fuel tanks, ect.

And the premise is flawed,
Most golf carts are still gasoline powered,
And if the idea is to move to NON-Polluting energy,
Then they should be mandated to be ELECTRIC, NON-Polluting during operation,
And they should have DOT approved lights, signals, tires, brakes, ect.

-----------------------------------------

WHAT WOULD BE A BETTER IDEA...

Have a TRUCK LANE on the LEFT SIDE, where the HOV lanes are now.
Through trucks can get over there, go through without having to deal with 'Toy Cars' and other idiots...

Trucks ONLY, so no 4 wheelers can worm in there unseen and cause problems.

ON SURFACE STREETS,
The 'Micro' should Yield to the big trucks (Commercial Class).
Common sense & self preservation should make them do that automatically, but the human gene pool is so diluted the self preservation instinct has been deleted in a lot of people...

So the only option is to give right of way to the big trucks.
This is a legal distinction, since the micro drivers will commit suicide under big trucks like they have all along,
But at least the judgments against the drivers/companies will be limited when they do...

 

That is the ugliest POS since the Gremlin