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Air bags and ABS

>Similarly, if you wear your seat belt and shoulder belt, why do you
>need an exploding steering wheel or dashboard so you can't see where
>you're going?

For a good look at how well seat belts will protect you in a crash with
no airbags, go to the NHTSA web site.  In the NCAP pages are some crash
test movies.  My favorite is the 1995 JEEP WRANGLER 4x4.  The crash
dummies are strapped in as well as they can be, but this one EATS the 
steering column.
  http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/testing/ncap
and click on the SUV, then select 1995, and from the list pick the JEEP.
On the details page there is the option to view the crash movie.  The
windows mplayer.exe will play it.

As for ABS, there are times when not all four tires are on the same kind
of surface.  Rather than risk locking up one with the others working at
full braking, my ABS will get me maximum from all four.  It also lets me
spend some extra brain cycles picking an exit route and downshifting to
get the ____ out of there before the guy behind me arrives.
- -- 
Pat Donahue
Vienna, VA
'91 /////
'72 MGB