This belongs in the series “What’s wrong with our educational system.” I saw this Ford Exploder on campus (Florida State U.) the other day advertising two things. One is a worthwhile fund raising dance marathon. The other is the level of education many of our students get here! It just goes to show that you can buy them a nice big SUV but you can’t buy them an education… that they have to work for.
Filed under: Our World
I have to wonder what’s behind all the hype surrounding the recent Toyota recalls. Here are some facts to put this into perspective:
Ford Motor Company is recalling 17,600 hybrid cars for the same problem that Toyota’s are suffering, a software glitch that makes it seem like the brakes are not working. I haven’t heard much about this in the press.
That software glitch causes a lapse in braking for 0.6 seconds. So? “If you hadn’t been tailgating you wouldn’t have hit me!” I drive a lot and I see a lot of sudden braking because people aren’t paying attention. All of a sudden they realize the car ahead is not going 85 but only 75! They hit the brakes, the driver behind them hits the brakes and if we’re all lucky it just causes another ripple-jam, and not a serious accident. In those situations, which are the result of driver error, maybe a 0.6 second delay in braking makes a difference.
People need to stop driving like they’re in the Daytona 500.
We consistently get over 50mpg in our 2006 Prius with over 60,000 miles on it. It’s one of the best small cars we’ve ever owned, and we’ve owned Saabs, Subarus and Fords. The only way I can beat our Prius’ gas mileage is to drive the 1938 BMW motorcycle with sidecar. Talk about brake problems. You’d better start applying the brakes on that beast before you even think you might want to slow down!
