The Toyota's Corps. sudden Acceleration Problems still unresolved.

[Bill, KD0HG]

Ever drive I-80 across Nebraska?

I just never want the double-nickel speed limit to return.

[DMOD]

Never underestimate the human factor, or trial lawyers.

For sure. Don't think the trail lawyers aren't feeding the media for more "disclosures."   

Personally, I like the feel of a little power surge in my V8 TrailBlazer when Modulatin' with my AM rig.

Phil - AC0OB

[W8EJO]

Ever drive I-80 across Nebraska?

I just never want the double-nickel speed limit to return.

Neither do I. Neither do most people I know. I proudly fly the Gadsden flag. 

I just wanted to point out that the recent Toyota Show Trial had nothing whatever to do with real, significant, highway safety and that the inquisitors conducting the show trial had other (IMO obvious and transparent) motives.

[Bill, KD0HG]

Ever drive I-80 across Nebraska?

I just never want the double-nickel speed limit to return.

Neither do I. Neither do most people I know. I proudly fly the Gadsden flag.  

I just wanted to point out that the recent Toyota Show Trial had nothing whatever to do with real, significant, highway safety and that the inquisitors conducting the show trial had other (IMO obvious and transparent) motives.

Mark Twain and Will Rogers observed and commented on the exact same things a century or more ago.
Hasn't changed since.

Watching how they make sausage is also revealing..

[k4kyv]

Listen across the band to 75m SSB any evening.  Assume these people represent a cross-section of the US adult population. Are you really comfortable putting your life in the hands of hundreds of average Joe Bloes at the controls of potentially lethal 3000-6000 lb machines, every day?

[W1UJR]

Listen across the band to 75m SSB any evening.  Assume these people represent a cross-section of the US adult population. Are you really comfortable putting your life in the hands of hundreds of average Joe Bloes at the controls of potentially lethal 3000-6000 lb machines, every day?

I agree. The common sense factor seems to decrease every generation, I suspect along with the general IQ.
Our tax dollars subsidize the dysfunctional, who breed and breed, while those who do try to contribute have
to actually work for a living and limit their family size. Those who excel pay a disproportionate share of the tax burden, what can only be called an penalty on achievement. The lack of personal reasonability is astounding, the sheepeople have been indoctrinated to look to the government
to solve their problems. Clear definition of insanity!

[Bill, KD0HG]

Here ya go, Don..From my mis-spent college days.

Demagogue: "One who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."
H. L. Mencken

[DMOD]

Listen across the band to 75m SSB any evening.  Assume these people represent a cross-section of the US adult population. Are you really comfortable putting your life in the hands of hundreds of average Joe Bloes at the controls of potentially lethal 3000-6000 lb machines, every day?

Little boys, with little minds, with little toys, and no clues.

Phil - AC0OB

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Assume these people represent a cross-section of the US adult population.

Bad assumption. They don't come close to a real cross-section of the population.

[Bill, KD0HG]

I always thought that hams, in general, were more intelligent and motivated than the general population. More than just a cross-section.

If that's true, then we really are in a heap of trouble.

[W2XR]

Listen across the band to 75m SSB any evening.  Assume these people represent a cross-section of the US adult population. Are you really comfortable putting your life in the hands of hundreds of average Joe Bloes at the controls of potentially lethal 3000-6000 lb machines, every day?

I agree. The common sense factor seems to decrease every generation, I suspect along with the general IQ.
Our tax dollars subsidize the dysfunctional, who breed and breed, while those who do try to contribute have
to actually work for a living and limit their family size. Those who excel pay a disproportionate share of the tax burden, what can only be called an penalty on achievement. The lack of personal reasonability is astounding, the sheepeople have been indoctrinated to look to the government
to solve their problems. Clear definition of insanity!

Well stated, Bruce! I agree wholeheartedly. And Don makes a good point, too.

It is just unfortunate that to take such a position using a venue such as the mass media is considered politically incorrect. Politicians are well aware of this. Their greatest fear is that the truth hurts their chances for reelection.

73,

Bruce

[WA1GFZ]

HUZ, sad but true, it gets a lot worse out there in the flat lands.

[W1RKW]

40,000 deaths a year cannot be blamed solely on the automobile itself.  I would submit that of that 40,000/yr., of those that are automobile related are probably in a low percent range or human/engineering error. The vast majority would be driver/end user error.

[WA1GFZ]

I bet a large number of the deaths are caused by someone else doing stupid moves.

[W1RKW]

I bet a large number of the deaths are caused by someone else doing stupid moves.

I would agree to that!

Frank, you've been down rt 85 many a times. I've seen a lot of stupid stuff on the route.  I'm sure you have too. And you're aware of its reputation.

Even the route I live off of is nuts.  I've been passed on the left by nit-wits when trying to make a left turn into my street. It's a 2 lane secondary with a double yellow line.  

I got clobbered in that intersection back in 2001 trying to turn left, result, a 4 car accident. Totaled my vehicle and sent 2 of us to the ER, yours truly included.  Driver that caused it was not paying attention, fiddling with a cell phone.

[WA1GFZ]

been going up and down 85 for 59 years.
Then there was the old RT2
The worst I ever saw was a kid against a pole when someone passing ran him off the road. The Sunday morons from the city come down our way and trash the state park. Glad they doubled the feas this year.

[K5WLF]

I always thought that hams, in general, were more intelligent and motivated than the general population. More than just a cross-section.

If that's true, then we really are in a heap of trouble.

AM'ers are special though, right? 

73,
ldb
K5WLF

[WU2D]

I worked for a start up in the mid 1990s and spent a lot of time out at the old Chelsea Proving Grounds with a team putting in a robotic driver system on an automated durability track. This system became operational in 1997 but is not even acknowledged since The Germans took the technology and shut the robotic track down.

http://www.allpar.com/corporate/chelsea-proving-grounds.html

Anyway on the Proving Grounds they had a big RV full of the best HP equipment of the time, and amplifiers and EMC antennas that they could drive out to the track. This was like an RF Compliance lab on wheels. Basically they would blast the vehicle under test with RF at high levels and record the data with a logger. All car companies do this because they fear RF interference would cause an accident good buddy.

[WA1GFZ]

just be glad the test methods for airplane stuff is a tad tighter than cars.
I've heard of some real bogus test methods used for car computers.

My Father in Law has a friend who was 17 or 18 when he did the Batan Death March so can't feel too bad for Toyota. I hear he just published a book that I need to read. He faked his birth records to get in the service.

[Bill, KD0HG]

God Bless him.

My grandpa did the same to enlist in WWI.

[WU2D]

There was an old man Arthur Locke who worked at our local Hooksett NH library for many years and he seemed to be a real handful. He published Kobe House POW #13 about three years before he passed away. I had no idea that he was a Bataan survivor.

Arthur Locke's "Kobe House P.O.W. No. 13" which relates his story from capture on Batann and ultimate rescue in Kobe. In Kobe the men were used as ships dock slave stevedores. Well written and very factual.

1945-10. 'KOBE HOUSE' POW CAMP SURVIVORS ON WAY HOME FROM JAPAN ON HMS FORMIDABLE. (DONOR: B. TAYLOR). Picture in public domain.

[WU2D]

As a hardware engineer, I can assure you that it is a software issue.

Even if it isn't - blame software.

In Software Defined Radios - everything usually works but the software.

[K5WLF]

My Father in Law has a friend who was 17 or 18 when he did the Batan Death March so can't feel too bad for Toyota. ...

A business partner of my Dad's was a survivor of the Bataan Death March. He told his story one time at a church meeting, and wept as he was telling it. I was just a kid then and used to go to his house to swim in the pool with his kids. I asked him once to tell me more about it and he teared up as he said he didn't want to talk about it. I never asked again, and I still have a major problem feeling too damn sorry for Toyota.

73,
ldb
K5WLF

[w3jn]

My wife's father's family spent most of WWII hiding in the jungles in Leyte, as her paternal grandfather was a minor official with the Land Transportation Office and got sideways of the occupying Japanese somehow.

My wife's aunt, remembering the horror and deprivation of the war, could never bring herself to buy a Japanese car.  Remembering how the Americans kicked the Japanese out, and her first taste of a Hershey's chocolate bar, til she quit driving she had an old Willys CJ-3, although she could afford just about any car she wanted.  She also had an old Zenith TV that she kept going by gosh and by golly.

She just died last week, and the stories she told of those days would curl your hair.

[The Slab Bacon]

Forgive if you can, but never forget!

As the old saying goes: "F... me once shame on you, F... me twice shame on me!"

OR even better put: "He who forgets history is doomed to repeat it."

                                         The Slab Bacon  (I drive a Ford.)