The Tow Hook - Seemed Like a good idea at the time.
My trusty Toyota Yaris has been replaced, by a slightly newer and hopefully just as trusty Yaris. It is like she never left, except of course, she has. I hope I fall as in love with this little car as my last one, but I doubt that will occur as I don't plan on driving her to Alaska Twice.
Something that a lot of people asked me about was the tow hook on the front right side of the yaris that I used to secure my bow line. I got the idea of using it from a friend who works for NOLS. It seemed brilliant, and I did for literally 100,000 miles.
Then someone ran a red light, I hit them in the middle of an intersection, and the first point of contact was that tow hook. The impact was sudden, jarring and scary, but what didn't happen was an airbag deploy. I was going somewhere between 20 and 30 miles an hour, more than fast enough to trigger a discharge.
The fire department was concerned about it, and mentioned several times that they were surprised they didn't deploy, they were disconnecting the battery (normal procedure is to cut the battery cables, as a courtesy they took the time to simply disconnect them, I think because I identified myself as a former medic) and they told me not to drive the car. Not that I could.
I commented to many people that I was surprised that the airbags didn't deploy - most resulting in funny comments like "oh on the yaris, you have too blow up the airbags yourself." I even went as far to mention it here on the blog.
Then I got this comment from a reader named Kiradale:
Something that a lot of people asked me about was the tow hook on the front right side of the yaris that I used to secure my bow line. I got the idea of using it from a friend who works for NOLS. It seemed brilliant, and I did for literally 100,000 miles.
Then someone ran a red light, I hit them in the middle of an intersection, and the first point of contact was that tow hook. The impact was sudden, jarring and scary, but what didn't happen was an airbag deploy. I was going somewhere between 20 and 30 miles an hour, more than fast enough to trigger a discharge.
The fire department was concerned about it, and mentioned several times that they were surprised they didn't deploy, they were disconnecting the battery (normal procedure is to cut the battery cables, as a courtesy they took the time to simply disconnect them, I think because I identified myself as a former medic) and they told me not to drive the car. Not that I could.
I commented to many people that I was surprised that the airbags didn't deploy - most resulting in funny comments like "oh on the yaris, you have too blow up the airbags yourself." I even went as far to mention it here on the blog.
Then I got this comment from a reader named Kiradale:
The Seattle Sports quick loops is one of those things I wish I had invented. Put the rubber tube part under your hood, and let the loop part stick out. Tie off to that, and you are good to go. At least I hope you are good to go, I haven't used them yet. Ill keep you posted.
And do me a favor. Drive carefully!