The Legal System-Help! I need legal advise cont.

   / The Legal System-Help! I need legal advise cont. #1  

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In order to try to prevent the <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=rural&Number=156565&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1>Help! I need legal advise re:easements</A> from being hijacked out of control I started this thread for our ramblings on the legal system.

Like Chuck52, I too am dying to find out how the original story ends. I get excited every night when I check in and see there is a new message or two there only to be slightly disappointed when it is off subject.
 
   / The Legal System-Help! I need legal advise cont.
  • Thread Starter
#2  
<font color=blue>Would you really want your gas tank made out of 2 inch steel plate if it 'would save one life' (after all a 1 inch plate tank might rupture if hit by a railroad locomotive running at 80 MPH...)? Would you like the size of gas tanks limited to 1/2 gallon (the less fuel present in an accident the safer)?</font color=blue>

I'm not an idealist on many subjects, but this is one of them. If it would save one life - ABSOLUTELY. I wouldn't want to lose my daughter, my brother, my wife, a good friend or even a stranger, even if it was only one of them.

If a train hit your truck at 80mph it wouldn't matter if the fuel tank ruptured, you'd be dead anyway. My point here is that they could make it safer without resorting to the use of 2 inch plate. For instance, it is common knowledge that inboard fuel tanks offer a greater measure of safety than a side saddle design. Is it necessary to mount them this way? No, but it would be safer.

I think above average engineering and a genuine desire to make a better product would solve so many problems. Suing the pants off of anybody and everybody doesn't help anything. I think it hinders engineering and product design advances more than anything because people are less willing to try new things. As I said before, if they didn't know about and couldn't forsee it, they shouldn't be punished.

Again, I may be an idealist when it comes to this, but I believe one life is too many to lose. It is very easy to dismiss when you have no idea who the person was that died, but that person was worth something to somebody. They shouldn't be a casualty of a management decision.
 
   / The Legal System-Help! I need legal advise cont. #3  
I have to assume then that you must drive a Volvo automobile (usually rated safest in the world) and have one for each member of your family as well. That would certainly fulfill your idealist hopes as much as is possible today.

Truth be told, we all make choices regarding safety and that's one of the great things about this country-we can! I seldom wear a seat belt on short drives even though I know better. I only wear a helmet on my Goldwing when it's cold outside (ironically, I always wear a bicycle helmet on my Schwinn) /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif.

I don't think you or I should be forced to pay for more extreme safety features as standard equipment. I also don't believe I should be legislated into using existing safety features if I choose otherwise. I'm thankful every spring Indiana has the good sense not to have a mandatory motorcycle helmet law. If I want side impact airbags I can buy a Volvo or Mercedes. I don't want to price the Chevy like those by requiring side impact bags, though.

I'm guessing that your political leanings tend to be more liberal than conservative and that if you had to choose between two beasts of burden, you'd go with the donkey instead of the elephant. If that's the case and if you care to share those things you might enjoy reading how I can take your idealism as expressed here and show it to be a bias against minorities. It's really not a big stretch, either. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
 
   / The Legal System-Help! I need legal advise cont.
  • Thread Starter
#4  
I really don't see how someone saying they believe vehicles should be made to preserve the life of the occupants during a crash somehow automatically makes that person liberal or conservative. It has absolutely nothing to with it and fails to constructively advance the debate.
I thought I read that this forum was to be used to discus TRACTORS and the related topics and not to degenerate into a liberal conservative name calling waste of time.
And buy the way I think anyone choosing to ride a motorcycle without a helmet voids their access to any public assistance (health care, social security, tax deductible medical expenses etc …) when they end up a vegetable - not all go out in a blaze of glory. So just like Kubota not covering an engine if you chose to not change the oil - you basically "void the warranty" so you get to pay.
Back to the topic at hand, if companies see less cost in loss of a few lives than in implementing safety features then they will continue to pump out what ever they can get by with. The litigation costs puts the bucks into the life Vs. implementation equation. I seem to remember old mister Chrysler saying air bags would cost too much and people wouldn’t pay for them. Well I don’t see any car manufacture using the “ we don’t believe in air bags” as their latest sales campaign.
Why do we have safer tractors today, surly it isn’t because of the benevolent goodwill of large corporations.

Dog
 
   / The Legal System-Help! I need legal advise cont. #5  
msmccabe-

I agree with you that manufacturers shouldn’t be sued by everyone under the sun (see my previous posts about personal responsibility) because at best, it stifles product development, at worst, it removes perfectly good products from the market that were misused by morons (e.g. I don’t like the aspect of removing functionality/effectiveness because an item has been engineered so the village idiot can get away with misuse without hurting himself. /w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif) That though is where the similarities in our beliefs end.

Although you may claim you are "idealistic" in that area and "one life" is "worth whatever cost," you are no different than everybody else in that you too make choices every day and subject yourself, and your family, to unnecessary serious injury or death by the choices you make.

As Gary pointed out, some cars are "known" for being "safer" than others - yet, I'll take it one step further - just by driving you are subjecting yourself (and your passengers) to an activity that killed ~36,000 people in the U.S. in 2001. You could ride a bike, or even walk, but if you do it on any street, you're at risk too (almost 6,000 people were killed doing that in '01).

What about your home? Is it made of 3 foot thick concrete? Does it have an automated sprinkler system? Backup generator and H20 source? (To run the sprinkler system.) Video surveillance? How about razor-wire surrounding it to keep “bad guys” at bay? All of these things can be done, and would overall improve the safety of you and your family - but I’ll go out on a limb here and bet you haven’t implemented many (if any) of the above “safety measures.”

I’m not saying you should implement any of the above by any means, but all the items I described are currently available today and could be implemented. But you choose not to. Maybe it’s because you choose to spend your money elsewhere or you’ve decided that implementing such “safety” precautions would reduce the quality of your life and those close to you. Or maybe it’s because you think the risk is infinitesimally low. Hey, whatever your reason - that’s fine - as Gary points out, that’s your choice, but don’t fool yourself - you do put a value (whether it be dollars or something else) on your own head along with the heads of your family with every choice you make.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t take any precautions when it comes to living your life and that yes, people do make poor choices with regards to their personal safety. What I am saying is that even with your proclamation that “a single life is worth any cost”, you are just like everybody else and you make choices every day that do not agree with your stated position. You make a “judgement call” as to what you believe is “reasonable” and what you believe isn’t. That’s fine - and the way it is supposed to be. However, the minute you try to shrink my gas tank down to .5 gallon to “save me from myself,” well, that’s when your advocacy for “safety” goes to far. Sorry, I don’t want your protection - I’m big enough to make my own choices. You want to remove your gas tank and put a .5 gallon one it its place - go for it, but stay away from mine! (BTW, yes, I know this was an example introduced by dekker in the other thread.)

While everybody would like to live in a world without accidents and tragedy - it just don't work that way - it’s called “life.” I’m willing to accept responsibility for my actions and the risks associated with them (which include death). The last thing I want is some “do-gooder” stepping in and telling me what I should drive, where I should live, what products I should use, and overall tell me how to live my life. Sorry, it just isn’t your place to do that.
 
   / The Legal System-Help! I need legal advise cont. #6  
Sorry Dog but the reason these things were called liberal is because that's exactly what they are. The agenda that we're too stupid to be responsible and have to have someone else look over us is purely a liberal concept.

Now your statement,

"And buy the way I think anyone choosing to ride a motorcycle without a helmet voids their access to any public assistance (health care, social security, tax deductible medical expenses etc …)

To me it doesn't get any more liberal than this. With this thinking because I ride horses and I get hurt I should be shut off from any help from society. Nevermind the fact that I pay half of every dollar I make in taxes. Or the guy that chooses to go rock climbing, parasailing, hang gliding, sky diving, etc. etc., fill in your dangerous sport. Unless we live in a glass house and heaven forbid cause the "system" any grief or money then we're outcasts from society and have no right to what we've already paid for!

This country was founded on the basic premise of a man to do as he pleases with his life. There are so many of these basic rights getting taken away every day by people like youself that believe big brother has to take care of us all and stop us from hurting ourselves.

Social security, insurance, etc. We all pay for these things in the event that something happens and we can't take care of ourselves. That's what it's there for. It's the land of the free and the home of the brave. Not the land of the slaves and the weak.
 
   / The Legal System-Help! I need legal advise cont. #7  
Doc,

I think you missed the mark.

<font color=red> "And buy the way I think anyone choosing to ride a motorcycle without a helmet voids their access to any public assistance (health care, social security, tax deductible medical expenses etc …) </font color=red>

<font color=blue> There are so many of these basic rights getting taken away every day by people like youself that believe big brother has to take care of us all and stop us from hurting ourselves. </font color=blue>

The original statement didn't call for mandatory helmets laws, it called for personal responsibility: a very conservative concept. Certainly you should have the right to ride a motorcylce without a helmet, but are you entitled to have big government care for your injuries if you don't carry sufficient insurance?
 
   / The Legal System-Help! I need legal advise cont.
  • Thread Starter
#8  
Let me dip an oar into this pond, from the perspective of someone who has had a full sized Chevy pickup ripped out from under them by a drunk driver.
The gas tank did get punctured, probably from a sapling when the truck was rotated 180 degrees and thrown 120 feet from the pint of impact, and the tank did not burst into flame. The rear end was knocked loose from the truck completely on the right side. I was definitely less injured because I was wearing a seat belt.
The Ford Crown Vic police car situation is a totally different matter. Ford knows full well what the intended purpose of these cars is before they come down the assembly line, and could easily have prevented the cars from turning into a long burning road flare, like the pinto, by simply installing either a bladder lining in the tanks, or a fuel cell as is used in race cars.
Failing to do so was clearly an engineering versus cost choice by Ford, probably with the same thinking that was used in the case of the Pinto.
A police Crown Vic and a civilian market Crown Vic are NOT identical cars, beyond body panels, so any suggestion Ford couldn't build them safer for police use is pure bullcrap.
Ford did a cost benefit analisys, and the bean counters said a safer fuel system wasn't cost effective. To me, this stinks, because Ford knows they have probably 90% of the market for these cars.
 
   / The Legal System-Help! I need legal advise cont. #9  
Actually, the CVPI and the "regular" crown are a lot closer than you might think in areas relevant to the explosion discussion. I manage a fleet of 50+ CVPIs of various model years and have been under the lift more times than I care to admit.

The guard package being installed by ford is a step in the right direction but will probably not be the end of the discussion by a long shot. Check out www.cvpi.com for a overview.

There are so many variables in a crash that the NHTSA and Ford engineers are even studying what was in the trunks and where as possible contributing causes. That 1/2 second of impact sure is getting a lot of attention.

BTW the guard package retrofit is free and takes about 20 min per car to install. Cheap insurance.

Regards all.
 
   / The Legal System-Help! I need legal advise cont.
  • Thread Starter
#10  
<font color=blue>you too make choices every day and subject yourself, and your family, to unnecessary serious injury or death by the choices you make.</font color=blue>

Maybe my point isn't very clear here. I have no illusions about the risks I take every day just getting out of bed. However, choosing not to upgrade, replace, or inform the consumer public about a potential problem is not a choice that I made. Give me the information I need and I will do my own cost/benefit analysis. I expect a manufacturer to provide me with the information needed about the safe operating limits of their product. If I choose to use it outside of these limits and kill myself, so be it, it was my fault for being stupid. But don't withhold information or not change something because you thought that having me or my family killed would be an acceptable number of casualties. I'm not trying to protect me or anybody else from themselves, that's the individuals job. I just don't want other people making decisions that affect my life over something as trivial as a car and a buck.
Liberal or conservative, paint me or yourself into whatever corner you want. I think for myself and subscribe to neither ideology, I've formed my own.

Helmet Laws - don't care, while I would certainly choose to wear one, if someone doesn't want to that's their perogative.

Seat Belts - same thing

Guns - If they've got 'em, I want one too.

and the list goes on....
 
 
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