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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxa!wetcw
From: wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler)
Newsgroups: net.auto
Subject: Re: More on Trucks
Message-ID: <701@pyuxa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Apr-84 08:41:50 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxa.701
Posted: Tue Apr 17 08:41:50 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Apr-84 07:09:48 EST
References: <690@pyuxa.UUCP>, <451@spuxll.UUCP>, <390@hou2h.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 39

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Hold on there Au.  I have never owned a gas guzzler.  I drive a Honda
and a Datsun right now.  I have driven, in the past, Bugs(4), Toyota,
Lark, and Anglia.  The Garden State Parkway has a very large proportion
of small cars on it during the rush hour.  In my observations over the
past year on bothe the GSP and hwy 287, I have observed that the smaller
cars do much more of the popping in and out of tight spots than the
monsters.  The bigger cars just plow ahead, usually at less than the
speed of the surrounding traffic, but that's another problem.  I used to
love the Bug owners who bragged that they could go anywhere in the snow.
I usually passed them somewhere on the road as they were trying to
dig two feet of snow out from under their wheels. 

I do not mean to malign the cautious driver, be they big or small car
drivers.  I was just trying to point out that there are brainless
idiots out there who try to squeeze into spaces where they ought
not to be.  The most brainless are those who do this little trick
in front of an 18-wheeler at 70 mph.  There have been countless times
that some dummy has done this only to have the car in front of him
slam on the brakes and then the truck try to turn his car into an
accordian.  The Trucker gets the blame for following too close.
Of course this makes the family of the dummy happy as they plant
him 6-feet under.  

When a small car driver pulls this stunt, their chances of survival
are a hell of a lot less than for someone in a Detroit Tank.  Why
add to the probability rating for a fatal accident by shortening
the stopping distance of the driver behind you?  I saw this very thing
this morning again when some dimbulb in a little yellow MG pulled in
in front of another guy who was already tailgating causing the guy behind
to slam on his brakes to avoid him, and, causing the driver of a
Peterbuilt tanker to jump on the air to keep from clobbering both of them.
Ther was less than two feet between the MGs front bumper and the next guy,
and the back bumper and the guy behind.  He was just damn lucky the
truck driver was alert and had good brakes or I would still be out there
explaining it to the staties. 

T. C. Wheeler