Jim Sower <canarder@frontiernet.net> wrote:
> It was the government (and the Japanese) who brought us seat belts and
> shoulder harnesses, air bags, emission standards and a whole bunch of
> other beneficial developments.  

   I suppose it's a minor nit, but the above statement is
only a half-truth.  Long before seatbelts were mandatory
in cars, the high-end domestic cars had them (my Dad's
'52 Cadillac had them), and Ford was offering them as
early as 1956.  My first car, a nearly worn-out '50 Ford,
didn't have seatbelts, something that was quickly cured
by at visit to the government. ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
local performance parts shop.  

> ... If Detroit had been left to it's own
> devices, we'd still be driving 6000 lb cars getting 9 mpg with nothing
> at all to prevent you from being impaled on the steering column in an
> accident, brake lights and turn signals as tiny and invisible as style
> desired, etc. etc.

   Again, the first attempts to protect the driver from
the steering column weren't government mandates; the 1956
Ford featured a recessed steering wheel designed to not
only place the end of the column nearly six inches further
from the driver, but to dissipate a portion of the energy
of a body striking it.  This was a selling point, not a
government mandate.  As was usually the case, after one
company proved something was practical, _then_ the gummint
would come along and mandate it for all manufacturers.
 
> I don't think it was the government screwed up general aviation.  I
> think it was a combination of liability issues and the unwillingness of
> the industry to invest in research and development.  I'm not at all
> certain which, if any, of these was most important.

   I'd disagree with the first sentence of this paragraph,
too, Jim.  The government took away much of the incentive
for the industry to invest in innovation long before the
litigousness of our current aga kicked in?  They basically
froze Continental and Lycoming and the "only game in town".

Regards,
Dale R.