>On Sun, 30 May 2004, Andrew Grebneff wrote:
>
>>  Unfortunately US-market cars have soft suspensions, which reduces
>>  primary safety considerably, even to the extent of making cars
>>  downright dangerous
>
>There are reasons for that, though.  In the U.S. we have a phenomenon
>called "frost heave" that probably isn't common in Australia. ;)
>Basically, on many of our freeways every expansion joint is like a little
>speed bump.  If you plan to drive one of these roads at 70 mph, you either
>buy a car with a soft suspension, or your kidneys turn into jelly.  Cars
>with tight sports-car suspensions are extremely tiring to drive on rough
>roads, and their low-profile tires do nothing to protect their soft alloy
>wheels from big potholes.

Hmmm... it IS possible to have a supple suspension which doesn't
allow wallowing or float. Problem-riddled though my 1988 (outgoing
model) Skyline was, it could take speed-bumps at 60kmh which would
have launched any other car I've owned (except of course a VW T1 or
T2) into low earth orbit. That Skyline wasn't a brilliant handler,
but it was quite comnpetenr. Er... competent. Unlike my fingers.

Frost heave I have encountered in Newfoundland. Nasty stuff. When are
they going to develop heated elastic-plastic roadways?
--
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin
New Zealand
<andrew.grebneff@stonebow.otago.ac.nz>
Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut