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Here's one for you: I'm on my way home from work this evening, sitting as the last car in a long line of non-moving traffic on a three-lane divided highway. I glance up in the rear-view mirror, and see a black Ford Probe barreling (this guy was making time - 50 to 60 m.p.h.) towards me - I can make out that the driver's head is angled somewhere down toward the center console. Realize that in a about the next second I'm going to be rear-ended big time. As there was nowhere to manover, I simply gazed in morbid fascination as this guy closes in on me; with less than two car lengths to go, I see his head look up, and he takes a huge lunge at his wheel to the left. His right front corner impacts my left rear; he careens off into the guard rail separating the north-south lanes and comes to a stop about 100 feet ahead of me on the grassy median along the guard rail. My 9000 has been pushed forward (straight forward, thank God) about a car length - glass flies - the ACC unit pops out of its mounting hole to dangle by its cable tree (never realized how loud the ventilation fan is on the back of the unit). My opposing party has to kick his passenger-side door open to exit his vehicle ('95 Ford Probe) - both of his airbags have detonated, and he has a burn on his left hand from them igniting. I open my door and get out, with basically only a bump on my forehead (don't know what I hit), and see that the left rear corner of my 9000 has accordianed up to the passenger door. Only the left rear triangluar glass panel broke, all other glass is intact, but the body is buckeled even on the roof along the upper edges of the doors. The guy who hit me was actually quite conscientious; he makes sure that I'm okay - his Probe is opened up like a sardine can down the passenger side. Turns out he's a policeman (off duty). I was able to come home to my wife, three children, four dogs, and open up a bottle of a nice Scotch single malt (Oban). My question: Do we ever really give the guys who have the really unsexy engineering assignments like designing and researching structural integrity even a passing thought before all of their (successful) work is put to the test? I have already told my wife that we will be replacing the 9000 with another.
posted by 68.48.103...
, Sat, 25 Jan 2003 04:30:21, Sat, 25 Jan 2003 12:55:32
, Fri, 24 Jan 2003 23:00:36
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