The first time I was in it at a mine, the driver started to drive away and actually ran into the back of a service truck. It seems we mashed it down to the ground. I saw someone yelling, but we didn't feel a thing.
A blow-out can damage vehicles close-by because the tyre is holding so much air and just the force of that... Drivers have actually been killed by tyre explosions, but not on our trucks, thank goodness.
I wonder how long until the technology makes it to the domestic market. Already, in the US, there is a trend towards SUVs one can use the word "palatial" to describe: womb-like cocoons with all the comforts of home for people who spend an increasingly large part of their lives in their cars (partly due to ever-lengthening commutes due to more cars on the road). Surely the ultimate extension would be to make the family home into a super-SUV.
Yeeeahh...
http://www.bridger.us/2002/12/16/CrashTestingMINICooperVsFordF150
(OK, it's a Ford F150, but you get my drift...
Wow.
>Like a mangled insect.
>Yes.
They also make wine cabinets.
http://www.liebherr.com/english/52186.asp
Yum!
I fail to understand the attraction towards massive vehicles. I sometimes have to drive the department's Landcruiser when I do field trips out to the bush. It is a pig to drive, a pig to park - it's really no fun at all. I can only assume owners of "Toorak Tractors" (or as we say, "Burnside Busses") enjoy the knowledge that if they ever hit something, they won't feel it.