Kizashi Has a Good Bloodline

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KuroNekko
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Woodie wrote:
I get a huge kick out of the mental gymnastics you go through trying to justify what is, in reality, government oppression. 8-) Only a lawyer could actually write such things with a straight face.
I'm honestly curious how one can see a school bus' seat design as government oppression. I get the Libertarian perspective on some things but in many issues, it gets nonsensical to me. It's almost to the point where one vehemently opposes any government involvement regardless of good or bad. I get it with taxes and overspending but buses and seat belts? I need you to walk me through that one and I'm not being facetious here.
Ronzuki wrote: It saddens me terribly to know marvelous things in detail about that which I deeply desire and can never own. Transfer case mounting is virtually identical to that of the Samurai. If it ain't broken why fix it aye?

Free country? Let's think about that one for a long hard minute. A Jimny apparently is 'safe' for the vast majority of the rest of the world's population to own and enjoy...just not here. The machine, or most any machine, is extremely safe if properly maintained and operated within its design parameters, under the guidance of good old fashioned common sense. The fools that can't understand the requirements and dynamics of operating anything correctly shouldn't be protected by regulation, dictating design, at the great expense of everyone else. Those fools should be left to their own demise.
The Jimny is "safe" in most other countries but not here because the US has much higher standards for crash safety than the rest of the world. In fact, most other countries don't even have government or private crash testing at all. In essence, what is considered "safe" is all relative. In some countries the Jimny is sold in, you're "lucky" if your kid doesn't come across a land mine or doesn't have parasites. Hence, a vehicle's safety is all relative to the standards of living and life expectancy in any one place. I can say this with confidence given the Jimny, according to Suzuki, is sold in over 190 countries.
Also, you're assuming incorrectly that an accident is always caused by the operator of any involved vehicle. If one vehicle hit another, it's often just one of them at fault yet the laws of physics doesn't care who gets injured or killed based on fault. Hence, it's common sense that cars are to be as safe as possible. I rather replace a car than lose a leg... or my kid.

So why is a vehicle like the Jimny considered not suited for American roads? I'm going to guess population density, the number of cars on the road, the mass and weight of the average car, and the speeds we travel at frequently which are considerably higher and for longer than most other countries. I regularly and legally drive down avenues at higher speed here in California than what's allowed on overhead highways in Japan that link cities which are the closest thing they have to freeways in urban areas. These Japanese highways are also tolled unlike most of America's interstate system. When I traveled across the US twice last summer, I only paid one toll and that was on the I-70 at Topeka, KS costing me $2 or $2.50. In other countries, you need to pay a toll just to get from one city to another all while paying easily over twice the cost for fuel. So while the US may impose vehicle regulations that we don't agree with, trust me, it's much better here to own a car and drive than most other countries. Much like safety, "freedom" is all relative and most Americans don't realize how good they have it until they go visit other countries. It seems to me that most other first world nations like to regulate and tax more while others are laxed on vehicle regulations because they don't even have paved roads in many places and the government is more concerned with quelling rebels.

While I do agree that the Jimny would be a desirable vehicle in the US in most situations, it's a reality that it will not keep occupants safe enough, even compared to similarly-sized vehicles with unibodies. While I'm not actually opposed to the Jimny being sold in the US, I think it would need some modifications for it to make it more suitable in the US for daily driving in all conditions. Again, it's my position that Suzuki has largely made vehicles for Asia in mind and then sold them around the world as global models. Suzuki's business model was to largely sell to the US and Canada the models they made for other markets. While this worked for a while, most other companies adapted to the US market, not only making the vehicles larger for America but also building them here. Suzuki did neither and also allowed their products to stagnate which American consumers don't see as competitive. For example, the Honda Civic and the Suzuki Jimny both originate around the same time; around 1970. However, since then, Honda has released ten generations of the Civic. Meanwhile, Suzuki has only four for the Jimny with the latest not even sold yet. Each Jimny generation was literally sold for nearly 20 years before the newer one came along. While there is wisdom in not changing what works, it's also not very competitive in a high consumption market.
Not only that, the Civic for decades has been made in the US while Suzuki never had a North American plant, relying on GM for Canadian manufacturing for badge-swapped models. This made Suzuki more vulnerable to currency exchange rates.
Suzuki was essentially to the US what Ford was like in Japan; just bringing over the cars not even made for that market and selling them at low volume. The cars weren't bad but not exactly suited for the market and didn't resonate with the majority of consumers, especially as the consumer trends changed. Not surprisingly, each withdrew from their respective foreign markets citing poor sales.

Lastly, we can blame the government all we want for the demise of Suzuki but it doesn't go to explain why Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Subaru, and even little ol' Mitsubishi are still around in the US (and these are just Japanese companies like Suzuki). I don't think it's government regulations that do companies like Suzuki in but rather for reasons in which they can only blame themselves. The Kizashi was a valiant effort for North America but it was too little too late and at the worst time.
2011 Suzuki Kizashi Sport GTS 6MT (Black)
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Speed_Racer
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Ronzuki wrote: Free country? Let's think about that one for a long hard minute. A Jimny apparently is 'safe' for the vast majority of the rest of the world's population to own and enjoy...just not here. The machine, or most any machine, is extremely safe if properly maintained and operated within its design parameters, under the guidance of good old fashioned common sense. The fools that can't understand the requirements and dynamics of operating anything correctly shouldn't be protected by regulation, dictating design, at the great expense of everyone else. Those fools should be left to their own demise. I've stated many times, my wife and I owned a dangerous 30mpg stock 1986 hard top Samurai and we both drove it everywhere and anywhere enjoying over 100k miles of reliable, trouble-free, dirt-cheap ownership. In fact it was the only vehicle we owned for over 2 solid years while we saved to buy our first place to own, a condo. Never let us down, never left us stranded. By far the single best, most practical vehicle I/we ever owned. And we've owned many, many vehicles over the decades new and used. Much to the gov's surprise, it never ever came close to rolling over :o , it never needed rear shoulder seat belts, or air bags or any of the now mandatory can't-live-w/o-it BS crap that priced Suzuki clean out of the country. It was never hit, nor did it ever hit anything, on a road that is :oops: . We strapped our first son's infant car seat in the middle of the back seat of the thing and went everywhere. He loved bouncing around back there...that was his sleeping tonic when he was cranky.

This is a very good example of "survivorship bias."

I chose my modern Suzuki in large part due to its excellent safety features and ratings. All the other cars I've owned were older and had minimal safety (no airbags, ABS, and one didn't even have rear shoulder belts ). So I welcomed the safety features in my Kiz in addition to the gov't mandated safety features that have helped reduce US highway fatalities by 50% over the past 40 years.

It's not because I'm a bad driver or don't have the common sense to avoid an accident. I think I'm pretty decent as my accident-free driving record can attest, but not all accidents are caused by me. Sometimes you get caught up in other peoples' messes, and it's nice having the safety features to avoid injury/death due to no fault of your own.

My $.02
'12 Kizashi,'03 SV650,'04 DL1000
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KuroNekko
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Speed_Racer wrote: I chose my modern Suzuki in large part due to its excellent safety features and ratings. All the other cars I've owned were older and had minimal safety (no airbags, ABS, and one didn't even have rear shoulder belts ). So I welcomed the safety features in my Kiz in addition to the gov't mandated safety features that have helped reduce US highway fatalities by 50% over the past 40 years.
I was also impressed by the Kizashi's safety when I researched the vehicle prior to buying it. It seemed to be ahead of its time in terms of structural safety and it also had 8 airbags standard. The Kizashi, with its older design, did better in the newer and more stringent IIHS offset frontal crash tests than newer cars in 2012 and 2013.
https://www.motortrend.com/news/2013-ho ... ts-307199/
https://jalopnik.com/5970672/suzuki-get ... -us-market

I recall when Suzukis were considered "death traps" largely because of the Samurai roll-over stigma and the fact that their small cars didn't fare favorably in crash tests. That seemed to really change with the Kizashi which was among the best in class for safety. When people would critically ask about the safety of my Kizashi in reference to past Suzukis, I'd tell them that the Kizashi is likely safer than the car they currently drive with the data to prove it.
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Woodie
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KuroNekko wrote:
Woodie wrote:
I get a huge kick out of the mental gymnastics you go through trying to justify what is, in reality, government oppression. 8-) Only a lawyer could actually write such things with a straight face.
I'm honestly curious how one can see a school bus' seat design as government oppression. I get the Libertarian perspective on some things but in many issues, it gets nonsensical to me. It's almost to the point where one vehemently opposes any government involvement regardless of good or bad. I get it with taxes and overspending but buses and seat belts? I need you to walk me through that one and I'm not being facetious here.
The ridiculous thing here is the idea that grown adults with freedom of choice and some control over their fate are forced to buy all of these idiotic safety measures like TMPS, backup cameras, so many airbags that a minor fender bender totals the car, but children in a schoolbus don't need seatbelts because they added a layer of vinyl to the seatback in front of them?

To take this sort of thinking on, I could easily claim that given the statistics of SUV's and their tendancy to be involved in a MUCH higher percentage of crashes because of inherent instability, I should be protected from these unguided missles, they should be outlawed. The biggest lesson I learned from the Ford Explorer/Firestone tire fiasco was that there are a lot of morons who have chosen to put their families in a vehicle that will roll over and kill you if you get a flat tire. I find that completely astounding.
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Ronzuki
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Woodie wrote: The ridiculous thing here is the idea that grown adults with freedom of choice and some control over their fate are forced to buy all of these idiotic safety measures like TMPS, backup cameras, so many airbags that a minor fender bender totals the car, but children in a school bus don't need seatbelts because they added a layer of vinyl to the seatback in front of them?
Precisely my point with the exception of having "the freedom of choice". Not any longer, by design. Else, I'd have ditched the Heep for two Jimnys instead of the CX-5.

The excuse cited by experts? that the kiddies have found many other things to do w/ a school bus seat-belt other than to wear it, like they are required to by law to ride down the same roads in any other vehicle, is completely idiotic when it comes to the all important perception of 'safety' as viewed by the masses, and furthermore, another glaring example of the growing societal problems we are experiencing...lack of discipline. As a kid when our bus driver pulled over, slammed on the air brakes, jumped up and told us all to sit down and shut up in a no-so pleasant manor that left you with the distinct impression he meant business, you damn well did it or there'd be hell to pay when you got to school and then again when you got home at the end of the day. Today, a school bus is a rolling free-for-all. Why do you suppose they sign up any one that walks in the door to drive (undesirables, w/ criminal records)? No sane person in their right mind would willingly insert themselves in to a no win environment such as that. Can you imagine the twitter outrage to an episode, as we experienced back then, today!? The outrage! Hell, that would make the World News Tonight.
Woodie wrote: To take this sort of thinking on, I could easily claim that given the statistics of SUV's and their tendency to be involved in a MUCH higher percentage of crashes because of inherent instability, I should be protected from these unguided missiles, they should be outlawed. The biggest lesson I learned from the Ford Explorer/Firestone tire fiasco was that there are a lot of morons who have chosen to put their families in a vehicle that will roll over and kill you if you get a flat tire. I find that completely astounding.
I agree, I don't feel safe...boo-hoo for me, too bad. I've been a proponent of outlawing minivans and/or most of their operators for decades. And they still keep handing out registrations and DLs! Most modern day SUV operators, for the most part, demonstrate the tendencies of the 'old' minivan owner-operators that plagued the roads en-masse. They've simply moved on to the current fad. Only problem is the SUVs don't handle as well as the mini-vans and over time the truck based SUV has morphed into the inflated car-based SUV rendering it pretty much completely useless as a true SUV. That in a nutshell was the single largest common denominator in the Ford Explorer/Firestone travesty.

Hence here we are talking about a marvelously engineered, rugged SUV that I will not ever have the freedom of choice to own because the masses need protecting from themselves... and the gov obliges by enacting further laws removing my freedoms.
Ron

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Ronzuki
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Speed_Racer wrote: This is a very good example of "survivorship bias."

I chose my modern Suzuki in large part due to its excellent safety features and ratings. All the other cars I've owned were older and had minimal safety (no airbags, ABS, and one didn't even have rear shoulder belts ). So I welcomed the safety features in my Kiz in addition to the gov't mandated safety features that have helped reduce US highway fatalities by 50% over the past 40 years.

It's not because I'm a bad driver or don't have the common sense to avoid an accident. I think I'm pretty decent as my accident-free driving record can attest, but not all accidents are caused by me. Sometimes you get caught up in other peoples' messes, and it's nice having the safety features to avoid injury/death due to no fault of your own.

My $.02
You bet I'm biased. I want my freedom of choice, not someone telling me what's good for me. I chose to drive a Jimny in the U.S. and I die because it wasn't "safe enough" to be amongst the maniacs driving like idiots in their 'safe' unguided missiles, then the onus is on me, my choice, not someone else's. Just remember one simple fact, safety is perceived.

MY $0.02.
Ron

2010 Kizashi GTS, CVT, iAWD (3/10 build date)
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LPSISRL
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When I see idiots driving down the road after dark, in heavy fog or rain with their lights off, I wish that auto-sensing lights were mandatory on all vehicles. If your wife and kids were saved from a drunk driver because a bunch of airbags deployed on a low-speed rollover, even if the car was totaled, I'd be happy. No perfect solution.
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Ronzuki wrote:
Just remember one simple fact, safety is perceived.

MY $0.02.
Whether you feel safe is perception. The fact of whether you actually are safe is independent of your perceptions.
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KuroNekko
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Woodie wrote: The ridiculous thing here is the idea that grown adults with freedom of choice and some control over their fate are forced to buy all of these idiotic safety measures like TMPS, backup cameras, so many airbags that a minor fender bender totals the car, but children in a schoolbus don't need seatbelts because they added a layer of vinyl to the seatback in front of them?
If you actually examine the physics of a car crash vs. a bus crash and then also examine costs, it all makes sense. Buses are among the largest yet slowest vehicles on the road, making them rather safe for the occupants. Furthermore, like I already stated, the seats are spaced and designed to keep a child in place and absorb the impact. Meanwhile, in a passenger vehicle, including a large SUV, an occupant without a seat belt is far more likely to be ejected out of the vehicle. Passenger car seats aren't designed to retain the occupants in contrast to school bus seats so only seat belts can serve that purpose in a passenger vehicle.

The other reason is cost. School buses are paid for by tax payers and there is a need to have them be cost-effective. Simply put, the cost of outfitting all school buses in America with seat belts would costs hundreds of millions yet may not actually significantly improve the overall safety of a child occupant. Research by the NTSB and National Academy of Sciences both have concluded that seat belts may not actually significantly improve the safety of a child on a school bus. Therefore, school buses not having seat belts is a cost-effective measure by the government.
So again, there are too many differences in comparing the safety of a private passenger vehicle to a school bus. From the likelihood of passenger vehicle ejection to who's actually paying for it, the differences are vast.

Also, one of the biggest reasons why the government imposes vehicle safety laws is to reduce costs... which is essentially saving the taxpayers from more taxes. When accidents occur and people get injured or killed, it costs the government and publicly-funded entities a lot of money. From emergency first-responders like police and EMTs to nurses and doctors in hospitals with ERs and trauma wards (most hospitals are public), the response to an automobile accident injury or death often involves public servants or facilities funded by the public. In essence, if measures aren't taken to reduce auto accidents, it would cost us all much more and our traffic would be worse and hospitals clogged. From your morning commute to getting that fever checked out, it would be considerably worse. So in essence, by the big bad gubmit telling you to fasten your seat belt, they are actually working to keep your taxes down. This is why every country that has a first-responder and emergency medicine system funded by the government has seat belt laws and vehicle safety standards. It's actually just a matter of common sense for public administration.
Woodie wrote: To take this sort of thinking on, I could easily claim that given the statistics of SUV's and their tendancy to be involved in a MUCH higher percentage of crashes because of inherent instability, I should be protected from these unguided missles, they should be outlawed. The biggest lesson I learned from the Ford Explorer/Firestone tire fiasco was that there are a lot of morons who have chosen to put their families in a vehicle that will roll over and kill you if you get a flat tire. I find that completely astounding.
I am still to this day not sure if it was Firestone tires or Ford Explorers that were at fault. I simply avoided both since. :lol:
However, the fiasco did bring about laws to implement TPMS and later, vehicle stability control systems which have made all cars safer and thus reducing accidents. This then again, saves the government (aka the taxpayer aka you) money and possibly, your life. Again, don't fall into the assumption that you can only be a victim of your own conduct. Wouldn't you be pleased to know a TPMS or VSC system prevented an accident that some mouth-breather would have otherwise caused on his own and consequently injured you? Some people don't trust the government and others don't trust technology. You know what I don't trust far more? The average driver out there. The government and technology have actually made things safer but what has a random other driver on the road done for you or me? Texting or driving drunk?

I know some people fear the government and their control. I get it but it's not vehicle safety laws that bother me. It's borderline-unconstitutional executive orders, the infringements of state's rights, and the desire and intent to overturn rulings by the Supreme Court on constitutional matters. These are the actual threats to the Constitution of the United States and democracy.
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Ronzuki
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LPSISRL wrote:When I see idiots driving down the road after dark, in heavy fog or rain with their lights off, I wish that auto-sensing lights were mandatory on all vehicles.
That would make way too much sense and cost next to nothing. But hey, we have mandatory backup cameras....legislators... :facepalm:
Ron

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