At 01:48 PM 10/31/98 -0600, you wrote:
>I bought my R/T about the time these tests were done. The comment I
>heard almost as much as "Nice truck", was "Did you see the crash test on
>this truck?" It was a little unsetteling, but I own it, and I sure ain't
>trading it, so here's to all us brave Dakota drivers, may we never
>crash. Alan S.
Personally, I think the bad reputation that Dakotas have as far
as crashing goes is a crock. (Of course, I'm not biased at all...) ;-)
These people smash one vehicle into a wall, and that one vehicle is
held up as a representitive of all Dakotas. What about 4x4 vs 4x2?
What about club cab vs regular cab? Etc... Also, the test itself
isn't very realistic. C'mon, smashing into a solid wall? In real
life, the other object "gives". Telephone poles break off, other
cars crumple, real walls break, etc.
Check out the Dakota graphics page on the DML Home Page...
(http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/WWW/DAKOTA/PICS/graphics.html)
Page down about 3 times, and take a look at the pics of Josh Brown's
'97 Dak which was involved in a ~200mph combined speed collision. The
other driver was killed instantly and his passenger died a little
later in the hospital, but Josh's only injuries were a scrape
and a shattered kneecap because he wasn't even wearing his seatbelt!
I'm not going to do the same thing as Consumer Distorts, the NHTSA,
and the like by saying that Josh's experience represents all Dakotas,
but I think its more than enough to cast a lot of doubt on the so called
"poor crashworthiness" of the Dakota.
-Jon-
.--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ------------------------------------.
| Affiliations: DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA. RP-SEL |
| '96 Dodge Dakota v8 SLT CC (14.58@93.55), '96 Kolb FireFly 447 |
`----------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:10:51 EDT