wow, i understand now...

well i finally got the plates on my miata (first car) yesterday, and now i understand why they are loved so much probably the most nimble thing ive driven.. wow trying to keep the goofy smile off my face all day today

My niece wants a Jeep Liberty as her first car, I just wish she would drive a Miata as I'm sure she would quickly change her mind. As a bonus, I'd get to drive it (I hope) occasionally. Her parents are leaning towards some kind of SAFE SUV as her first car/truck?

I see more 'Safe SUV's' on their roofs than those un-safe sportscars. Something about that high center of gravity and panic situations and inexperienced drivers = potentially deadly combination

I'm trying to steer my Daughter into a Miata (albeit an automatic)...she wants a Pilot....

The best way to survive an accident is to avoid it. Nimble sports car + high performance driving school = safe.

Take people to an auto-x in a variety of cars. Let them compare the avoidance abilities of an SUV/Truck, mid-size sedan, and sports car.

Even a sedan is way better than an SUV. My girlfriend, driving her 95 Accord, almost got in a head-on collision with some moron who managed to lose control of her car on a perfectly strait road with no traffic. I'm guessing the other gal nodded off or was futzing with something in the car. My girlfriend avoided the accident handily by driving onto the shoulder and then spun out trying to bring it back onto the road. In a bigger heavier car, things would not have gone so well. She might not have had space to swerve, or might have had too much momentum and rolled down the soft shoulder into the drainage ditch, or rolled instead of spun. And I don't know of any car that I would trust to be safe in a combined 100mph head-on.

Back in high-school during the late 90's when the SUV kick was really getting strong, one of my best friends lived on the top of this ridge. There was a road leading from it to the main street that was downhill with a long sweeping S in it, and it was easy to take too fast. Just about every week there'd be another moron in the ditch on the outside in an upside down SUV with the roof crushed down to the door frame.

Hey, if they really want her to be safe, they should get her a P71! Then she won't have to avoid stupid people driving crazy since everyone will slow the heck down.

My brother was in Vail for years, and he said that if there was a vehicle upside down in the median, it was always an SUV. You never saw a Saab or a Subaru in the ditch.

Keith wrote: The best way to survive an accident is to avoid it. Nimble sports car + high performance driving school = safe.

Or

The best way to survive an accident is to avoid being it one by driving a car that makes you realize that if you are in one you are likely to get hurt, NOT one that makes you feel invincible! (teenagers have enough of a problem with that already)

Fear is a very valuable thing to have when driving.

rl48mini wrote: Something about that high center of gravity and panic situations and inexperienced drivers = potentially deadly combination

I've discovered trying to explain the laws of physics to people who don't want to listen is impossible... they will buy the SUV... and when it gets wrecked, will blame anyone but themselves...

TR3only wrote: My niece wants a Jeep Liberty as her first car, I just wish she would drive a Miata as I'm sure she would quickly change her mind. As a bonus, I'd get to drive it (I hope) occasionally. Her parents are leaning towards some kind of SAFE SUV as her first car/truck?

Safe SUV for a teenager is a little bit of an Oxymoron. I too think beginning drivers should be put a the vehicle that makes them feel vulnerable.

So long as we continue to require NO driver training at all (and don't try and tell me driving around the block at 25mph and parallel parking count) we'll have people that think like this. Come to ohio in the winter and listen to all the excuses people give about wrecking in the snow. "My car just spun out of control". No. No it didn't. You were going WAY too fast for the conditions on worn out all season tires. When you tried to turn and lost traction you stood on the brakes. The car did exactly what you told it too. You started a rotation in a very low traction situation and then violently transferred all the weight to the front wheels.

When your only experience is that cars are dangerously out of control death traps you're going to want to be in the biggest one you can afford. Driving is a truly terrifying experience for lots of people.

I got my wife to drive my car in an autocross last year. It was a huge eye opener for her and I think she learned a lot. If I could only get her to goof around in snowy parking lots with me we'd make tons of progress.

I cannot understand why drivers-ed classes do not have some sort of performance driving school part of the class. Or at least take us to a parking lot and induce a spin, teach us how to get out of it. And they don't even teach that when you are in snow, you do NOT hit the brakes if you are turning. My girlfriend still freaks out when i go into a turn with my foot on the gas when there is snow on the ground.

I was considering taking my niece to a snow/ice covered parking lot this past winter and letting her experience a few spins....I figured, I have a 17 year old car...so what? It would do kids a world of good to get out in a snowy parking lot and trying some "accident avoidance" maneuvers.

She doesn't have her permit, yet.

mtn wrote: I cannot understand why drivers-ed classes do not have some sort of performance driving school part of the class. Or at least take us to a parking lot and induce a spin, teach us how to get out of it. And they don't even teach that when you are in snow, you do NOT hit the brakes if you are turning. My girlfriend still freaks out when i go into a turn with my foot on the gas when there is snow on the ground.

I heard a rumor that insurance companies seem to think that any kind of actual training will encorage reckless driving.

Though now that I have said that, it really seems to dumb to be true...

Salanis wrote: Hey, if they really want her to be safe, they should get her a P71! Then she won't have to avoid stupid people driving crazy since everyone will slow the heck down.

Hmmm that is probably a really good suggestion...

If you can ensure that the hard molded plastic rear seats are still installed when you purchase the vehicle, there is another bit of trouble you don't need to worry about your daughter getting into....

well at least in the rear seat of the car

Ahem:

http://prodrive.net/driving_school.shtml

Find something like this near you, or schedule a trip out here to take it (really, Portland is a pretty town and flights aren't too expensive these days) Think about how much money you'd spend in insurance premiums after accidents, or hospital bills? Or worse, funerals.

Recently I took this course again myself and brought my dad and my girlfriend along as well. We had a great time, my girlfriend probably learned the most and was forced to learn to keep her eyes up and where she wanted to go. Throughout the entire thing, she had a huge grin on her face, and was quick to point out where she was looking and where she should have been looking after she spun. Dad's racing skills started coming back and he may step up to the high performance track day package.

I took Young Drivers of Canada training when learning to drive. I got a discount on my insurance as a result, although I don't know if that was applied to any driver that took any sort of driver's ed.

One of the things I remember them touting is emergency car control - threshold braking, lane changes, dealing with two wheels on the shoulder, etc. Great in theory and I applaud it. The practice wasn't so good - there wasn't enough time to really learn it properly and the instructor was just going through the motions. Pity, I think it would have been a lot more valuable than the sessions we spent learning how to perform the weird left turn that you only have to do when leaving the driver's test center in Ottawa. Maybe not in the short term - you need to be able to pull that turn off to pass the test - but in the long run I think I'd rather people learn to control their cars and stop properly.

Actually, when I think back, it was a pretty decent course otherwise. Lots of stuff on avoiding accidents and private instruction in the car. I don't know how that stacks up to other driver's ed programs, but I'm still here. So it can't be all bad.

Since my wife began autocrossing and driving on track, she's become a much better driver. Not just in car control, but in attention level. Driving is something she takes seriously now. And she thinks anyone who drives fast on the street is an idiot who's too insecure to take their car to the track

TR3only wrote: I was considering taking my niece to a snow/ice covered parking lot this past winter and letting her experience a few spins....I figured, I have a 17 year old car...so what? It would do kids a world of good to get out in a snowy parking lot and trying some "accident avoidance" maneuvers. She doesn't have her permit, yet.

My mom did that with me when I had my learner's permit. On a snowy evening she took me to an empty parking lot that had not been cleared and had me drive into and out of slides until she was satisfied I understood the basics. She did the same with the rest of my siblings. We did other stupid things as teenagers, but we injured from running into things after hitting slippery pavement.

As much as i loved my Stalker V6, my sub $1K miata is a more pleasurable car to drive in 90 percent of real-life conditions - and it's remarkably quick for a stock 1.6.

I also agree, i really liked young drivers of canada for their emphasas on accidence avoidance. They told us there is no accident you can't avoid through some way or another. I'm sure if you tried you could find a few but if you were really driving that safe there are ways around everything. They did do emergency maneuvers in a parking lot and they said they used to teach spin control but apparently too many kids were just learning how to spin the car and pull e brake turns so it was pulled. I learned because that's what I used to do with my friends, baron parking lot, snow, wet or dry we'd go out, e brake spin, goof around but it taught me a lot about skid control.

Back to the OP, I want a miata.

I learned to drive on full-size pickups, and you can make them quite nimble if you know how to drive.

longhorndude wrote: well i finally got the plates on my miata (first car) yesterday, and now i understand why they are loved so much probably the most nimble thing ive driven.. wow trying to keep the goofy smile off my face all day today

Well, I just realized that this was completely thread-jacked on the second post. Congratulations on the new ride! We need pics

mtn wrote:

longhorndude wrote: well i finally got the plates on my miata (first car) yesterday, and now i understand why they are loved so much probably the most nimble thing ive driven.. wow trying to keep the goofy smile off my face all day today

Well, I just realized that this was completely thread-jacked on the second post. Congratulations on the new ride! We need pics

Agreed! Welcome to the cult! ...I mean club!

More details and info of what you're planning to use it for and do with it.

yea thanks, been having a (safe) blast with it the past couple days. plan on auto xing this summer. but yea, makes you a little more defensive when ur driving round giant f350s and dogde 2500 and what not. anyone know of any good auto x's in central MA??

I performed my own skid control sessions incessantly when I was a teenager. Hours of parking lot work. I give myself a refresher course whenever possible. You never outgrow sliding around a parking lot. There's something to be said for living in snow country.

If you think the car is fun on the street, just wait until you get it on the autox or road course. It'll flatter you like you won't believe