Solution to a problem

"Beginning in the late 1990s small cars, especially in the European market, really began to pick up a lot of new technology that had previously been reserved for larger, more expensive cars. One particular incident that precipitated this was the bungled launch of the first generation Mercedes-Benz A-Class. Shortly after the initial launch of the A-Class some auto journalists conducted an "elk test". This is a common test for new cars in Sweden where elk are fairly common on the roads particularly in the northern part of the country. The test is essentially an obstacle avoidance test with a double lane change. The A-Class did not fare well in this standard test. It ended up wheels up. Mercedes went back and did a crash program to add electronic stability control, to the A-Class and the smart fourtwo which was due to be launched just a few months later. Less than a year later, all the early production A-Class cars were retrofitted with ESC."


Their solution was to add stability control and whole lot of other electronic whizz bangery, which I couldn't be bothered ctrl c ctrl v'ing. I have a much simpler solution. One that wouldn't have resulted in a wheels up conclusion.

You know what it is?

Don't make the car as tall as a fucking van/4wd/truck/ whatever other tall car there is!

Centre of gravity. You who designed the damn ugly thing. You're an engineer. Remember your basic physics? Low cars have low COG. Low COG = harder to flip.

By having a car that is naturally harder to flip, means you don't need to add the ESP. And since you don't need ESP, you don't need all the extra hydraulics and electronics that operate it. Thus reducing weight. You can probably skimp on the other features like butt warmers, and everything else that unncessarily adds weight. And all these weight reductions mean that the car actually has some grunt.

Oh, and consume less petrol too.

Don't let me get started on the new cheaper petrol prices. I love the cheaper petrol prices. But I hate the fact that now it means people might decide not to downgrade their suburban assault vehicles of mass destruction. You want us to conserve this limited non renewable resource? That's all gone out the window.

Damn you performance oriented goals!

Damn you, damn you I say. GRAAARGH

Society sucks. People suck. What goes around comes around? Utter bullshit.

Way to go. Kill my frickin self esteem, and what remains of my confidence. I hope you people are happy.