Time for an anecdote.
When Holden were designing the HQ, there was a design paradigm called “Passive Safety”.
The reasoning was that if the driver did not feel safe driving at speed, they would drive more slowly, and therefore be safer.
That is why the HQ had narrow A-Pillars that were unfortunately in the wrong position to observe cross traffic and a suspension geometry that caused terminal
understeer.
As terrible as this paradigm was (they reworked the geometry for the HZ) it was vindicated in the 1990s when inexperienced and unskilled Subaru WRX drivers felt so confident in their handling that they would push beyond the capabilities of their vehicles.
I still believe that deliberately engineered flaws are a terrible idea, but I can tell you that I am ultra careful and ultra aware of the traffic in my tiny little Jimny with bad driver crash ratings and live axles front and rear.
Time for an anecdote. When Holden were designing the HQ, there was a design paradigm called “Passive Safety”.
The reasoning was that if the driver did not feel safe driving at speed, they would drive more slowly, and therefore be safer.
That is why the HQ had narrow A-Pillars that were unfortunately in the wrong position to observe cross traffic and a suspension geometry that caused terminal understeer.
As terrible as this paradigm was (they reworked the geometry for the HZ) it was vindicated in the 1990s when inexperienced and unskilled Subaru WRX drivers felt so confident in their handling that they would push beyond the capabilities of their vehicles.
I still believe that deliberately engineered flaws are a terrible idea, but I can tell you that I am ultra careful and ultra aware of the traffic in my tiny little Jimny with bad driver crash ratings and live axles front and rear.