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Auto Safety Features
The area of automobile safety covers a big one: it covers a lot of ground. But the "low hanging fruit" as they say: as already been gathered. By that I mean: the easy gains have been made, all cars these days have front crumple zones, they've got airbags and seatbelts, most of them have ABS. I want to show you some of the details that car manufactures go through to make your ride even safer. I have a Subaru Forester so I'll use it as an example. On the bottom of the windshield there is an orange strip, that's an electric heater that keeps the wiper blade from freezing to the windshield. Has that ever happened to you? Do you live in Canada?
This car also has a ridge running along the side of the windshield so washer fluid doesn't spill over the side of the car and get in the way of your visibility on the side window, instead the water runs up along the ridge and over the top of the car.
Subaru has gone even further in that area. There is a little indentation right along the mirror housing and another little tab underneath. These are designed to create a air turbulence in this area which helps to wipe the water off the mirror and the side window so you can see what's going on behind you. And by the way, don't forget to adjust those mirrors properly like we've shown you. They are just little details, but really nice ones.
Now, in the back seat; every car has to have their rear seat headrests; but think about it: how often do you need rear headrests? First of all you need to be in a crash where the rear headrest can do you any good and second of all there has to be someone sitting back there and that combination doesn't happen very often. But yet 100% of the time you have a driver who is trying to see what's going on behind them. At least Subaru has this all-adjustable headset so you can get them out of the way.
In a similar vein you have a three point seatbelt for the middle rider: which is a good idea but it's not very often that anyone is back there and this thing gets in your way. Subaru designed it so that you can take your ignition key, stick in a little hole and release the buckle and then it slides up into the roof where it's out of the way. Very nice idea, I'm a big fan of visibility.
Coming to the back of the car, the tailgate also has an electric heater so that the wiper doesn't stick to the glass. There is also a complete absence of a spare tire. Most SUV's have the spare tire on the back where it gets dirty, stolen or in the way. Subaru as put in inside the car where it belongs, and it's not a Mickey Mouse tire either, it's a real spare. They also have tie-down hooks so that your groceries don't go flying in the event of a crash. My favourite little detail in this car: is the place to store your umbrella. I tell you these car engineers are thinking of everything.
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