Expediting and Road Rage?

[Bob_Sheaves]

Hello all,

Being in the automotive business as a "troubleshooting engineer" for OEM's, I get asked a lot of questions about vehicle design by people and always try to help them out. I hope you will all indulge me in a couple of (maybe) silly questions of my own:

1. Newspapers and TV seem to stress the upturn in "road rage" and "lack of rest stop security" on our nation's highways. Have your travels, while expediting (since you would all be exposed to such behavior), caused you to be apprehensive when traveling?

2. Do you feel your safety, in the new or unknown areas you travel, is at risk from smash and grap type of altercations?

The reason I ask is that, in another old thread I saw while trying to learn about this industry, a poster was, in my opinion, soundly "trounced" for asking about personal security and firearms. While I am making no judgement on, nor offering opinions either way, I find the comments made to be somewhat out of character, for a group of independent people that seem to be self-sure. One poster summerized that "you do what you have to do or get out of the business", which I thought sounded a bit harsh. I would have thought that, given my limited understanding of what the industry is all about, personal security would be taken very seriously indeed. Products like laminated polycarbonates to reinforce windows to prevent unauthorized entry into a vehicle (which are extermely inexpensive, when compared to overkill "bulletproof" windows)and other items would be welcomed by the drivers and owners of these vehicles (sample pic-scroll to the middle of this page http://www.bulldogdirect.com/b_r_glass_auto.shtml ).

What am I missing here???


Best regards to all,

Bob Sheaves

 

[redytrk]

Hello Bob. We weccome any dialog that helps insure our safety,on the road or parked.
By "smash and grab"are you refering to broken windows to gain entry? If so I would welcome any inprovement to glass that would help.We had such a breakin a few years ago.Fortunatly they only grabbed a $10.00 radio.The broken wing cost about $100.00. The inportant thing here is if we had been in the truck our safety would have been in doubt.
As for the previous posters who have had such negitive contributions,what can I say.They have allways been around and allways will be.That should not detract from the overall benifit of these forums.

 

[Bob_Sheaves]

Yes, that was what I was referring to. There are some simple products on the market today that can minimize the loss in such occurrances. There are several that can be installed by the "do-it-yourself"er that provide a minimum of protection (actually a derivative of the plastic laminates used by GM several years ago on their windshields, but without the scratching problems) made by 3M and others, several products that are not user "buildable" but are user replaceable (such as the Bulldog Direct 5/32nds thick "LTA" glass-see the website I listed previously- for a video of a baseball bat trying to break a side glass panel). Either of these products are relatively inexpensive when compared to a fully armored vehicle as the tractor shown on that page. Usually, the job can be done for around $5-7000.00 for all the glass in a passenger car (which is more expensive due to the compound curve glass used).

My purpose was simply to understand the (in real world terms) "threat level" posed to expediting. As I am retiring soon, I am looking for something else to stay occupied with...I have worked on these things for years, from an engineering standpoint, and I think maybe it's time to see the industy from the "seat of the pants", so to speak.

Thanks very much for the reply...

Best regards,

Bob

 

[davekc]

As with sensitive shipments or anything else of that nature, concerns usually occur because of carelessness or lack of common sense. There are exceptions to the rule, but they are few and far between. Better chance of getting struck by lightning.
Davekc