matter

[Sorry about the repost, the earlier version was supposed to be a draft; got accidently posted]
Before you try to save a bunch of money on a new or used car, make sure you and your family will feel safe enough to trust your life with it when you travel. Check your car’s crash test ratings on Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) before you seal your deal. Make sure your mind fully processes the images of frontal impact and side impact crashes on the website. Weigh your cost benefits against the risk factors before you jump to a decision.

I have deliberately avoided the use of the words “cheap car”. Once you go through the ratings, you will realize that expensive is not necessarily safe and cheap is not necessarily unsafe. You don’t need to spend a ton of money for a safe vehicle; just be well informed and make a reasonable safety conscious decision. ["reasonable" is the key word here; we might as well travel in an armored tank otherwise]

Once you are on the IIHS website, make sure you check out all three crash ratings:
1. Frontal Impact Offset Crash Test
2. Side Impact Crash Test
3. Rear Crash Protection/Head Restraint Ratings

For rollover safety ratings (and more crash ratings), visit NHTSA

Some of the summary features of the IIHS tests are listed below so that you can understand the results better:

- Frontal impact crash tests are conducted at 40 mph and the results are relative to the vehicles size/weights. You cannot compare these crash test results for a small car with a bigger car. You can compare vehicles of about the same weight (for example, compare a midsize sedan with another midsize sedan, a small car with another small car). Common sense suggests that with all other factors considered equal, bigger cars will be safer than smaller cars.

- Side impact crash test are conducted at 31 mph with a standard 3,300 pound moving barrier while the car is stationary. The results of this test can be compared across car sizes/weights. I was surprised to find that some small cars do better than some of the larger models in this test.

- Rear impact crash tests are conducted with a moving barrier that simulates a 20 mph impact by a vehicle of similar weight. Obviously, you cannot compare rear impact crash tests across different car sizes.

- A poor rating generally means a pretty good risk of a serious bodily injury irrespective of the size/weight of the car.

- Cars without side impact airbags have exceptionally poor side crash test results. In my opinion, these are must-haves.

- For those of us who indulge in cell phones and other trivia during highway driving, keep in mind that you car is tested for frontal impact at a measly speed of 40 mph ! A car with a very high frontal crash rating is no match for a 70 mph frontal impact. Infact, if you hit another oncoming vehicle travelling at 70 mph head-on, you are effectively crashing into a wall into a stationary vehicle at 140 mph !! Even divine intervention has little scope here. For some quick calculations on this click here.

So when you see that next car on sale, pull out your safety ratings information before you pull out your checkbook. Try to get a bargain value, but don’t compromise the safety aspects. Don’t get stuck with the cheap (or expensive), but totally not safe kinds.

References and links:
1. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS)
2. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
3. Road and Travel Magazine

Finally gave in and bought a Canon Powershot S2 IS digital camera. Emptied my wallet by a cool $283 and change. After giving a thought to Canon S3 IS, I decided it was not worth the additional $73. The only extra stuff in the S3 IS that its black (more professional camera type look), have an additional megapixel resolution and some more shooting modes. Here is how it looks:

And now I can retire my old Kodak CX6230 which has been of great service for the last three years. Here is a picture of the old Kodak:

Also got a 4GB SD card ($90 !) for the S2 IS and now it has enough memory to hold about 4 movies of 8 minutes each!

So this is a pretty lame entry, but I just want to mention this before I forget.

We were cleaning out our workplace and churned out huge piles of stuff that needed to be moved to different sections of our department. In all, we required about a dozen large sized boxes. If we had bought them, it would have been like ..what..$1 a box?

But, we got them for free at Walmart!

This is how you do it.

Go to your local Walmart center at around 11:00pm, when they are just starting to unpack the new stuff. Next, hover around associates who are pretty busy folding up empty boxes into neat piles and dumping them into a cart. Then, ask them politely if you can have some of those boxes for yourself. They will be very happy to offer them to you, saves them the folding and dumping time. In case an associates refuses to give any, go to the next aisle! You can get them in all sizes, shapes and colors!

And now (this is important), when you have collected enough boxes for you and all your moving friends, carry them in your hand and walk past the office supplies aisle. Look at those similar boxes for sale, each worth about a $1 and pat yourself on the back for saving a few bucks.

Btw, this probably works with other retail chain stores like Target, etc.

…don’t buy packing boxes, get them at Walmart or a liquor store or any other retail stores.

Reposted with edits here on 10/05/2006.