OT: But car related, Serious Stuff Options

[Howard]

Many of you around the country don't realize how close knit the SoCal 914club has become. In addition to sharing parts, help and expertise, many of us have become close friends. So I want to share this with you.

Mrs K has a lovely 17 year old daughter, Christina. She got involved in a fender bender the other night, and Lisa read her the riot act. I told her to calm down, that this was just a right of passage, and that things could be far worse.

A few hours later, the call came in. One of Christina's best friends was killed in a car accident. She missed a turn, ran thru a fence, and ended up in a flood control channel. Heavy rains here had turned this into a torrent.

Please read this. If you have kids or grandkids, sit them down and convince them they are not invulnerable, and have them read this. Teach your children well. No cel phones, no cd's in the car. Teach them to drive, really. Set up the pylons early on a Sunday morning and show them what they can and can't do.

After being an insurance broker for 40 years, it still makes me sick.

Water Escape:

In some instances, the vehicle will sink quickly and you won’t have time to roll down the windows. Again, stay calm, unbuckle your seat belt and check on passengers. If you are sinking rapidly, you need to wait for the water pressure inside the vehicle to become equal to the pressure outside.

“This may sound crazy,” says Richards, “but you need to let the vehicle sink further, wait until things settle. Let the vehicle fill up with more water before attempting to open a window or door.”

That’s because water rushing against a vehicle weighs thousands of pounds. Trying to open a door or window with that kind of pressure wastes valuable time and energy. And if you were successful, the onrush of water most likely would push you away, even pin you under the dash.

Richards and other safety-and-rescue experts state that the time to start rolling down the window is when the water is about halfway up the glass — about shoulder level. You may get a rush of water, but not enough to knock you away. Now is when you take a lungfull of air and swim up to safety, exhaling as you go.

Power of the punch
But what if your vehicle has power windows, and the electric system shuts down when you hit the water and the windows are disabled? One solution that circulates is to store one of those heavy emergency tools in the vehicle. Not very useful if it’s in the trunk, or worse, whacking you in the head along with the umbrella that was lying on the rear floorboard.
Richards keeps a small tool called a “spring punch” in the door pocket of his pickup; his wife stows one in the center console of her sedan. Available at most auto parts stores, usually in an emergency kit, this device has a pointed end like a punch, and it’s forceful spring action will shatter automotive glass.

And what if he’s a passenger in someone else’s vehicle? “Hard to believe, but I carry a small piece of a ceramic insulator from a spark plug in my pocket.”

Richards is adamant that the piece of ceramic, held between finger and thumb and without a lot of force, will also shatter auto glass. “You’ll find this, or an entire insulator, in the personal kits carried on the job by many fire, rescue and police personnel. It works.”

More details of the story are here.

This post has been edited by Howard: Jan 4 2006, 01:57 AM