The Miata is a strong little car. It does a great job of protecting the occupants -- even the earliest models. My business partner's wife totalled her 1990 (T-boned a late-70s Mercury Marquis) when she was 8 months pregnant. She bloodied her nose from the airbag deployment, but otherwise mother and baby were fine. When the EMT's arrived, they wanted to know where the body was from the Miata. They ended up taking away the Mercury driver!

I'll bet a lot of us have stories like this. And apparently the insurance underwriters have heard them. Reviewing my insurance discounts this AM, I noticed that the Miata had a discount for "Vehicle Injury Rating." None of my other cars had this discount, not even my wife's 4x4 Expedition.

Thought it was interesting.

Any other stories out there?

 

Been in 4 accidents in miata's, the worst one resulted in a small chemical burn from the airbag on my arm.

 

That's reassuring. I've been a bit tense behind the wheel lately, but that's because I'm surrounded by gigantic trucks and SUV's with negligent drivers.

 

One of those obliviously ran me off the road last Friday.

Stay on your toes.

 

wow. Sorry to hear that. I'm not usually a fan of red cars, but I'm glad mine stands out pretty well. I almost always drive with a thumb over the horn button.

My town looks like this:



"One of these things is not like the others"

 

I know the feeling:


When I had my black NA, I was straight up run off the road twice. Once was a lifted Jeep and the other was an Excursion, both trying to merge into me. I've had several close calls since then, but the experience taught me to be a far more defensive a driver.

 

T-boned by a '04 civic.

******, was creeping into a left turning lane to go the opposite way; on a green light! I'm doing 35-40 and clip his front bumper.

Barely felt the hit but I heard it. Sounded like a coke can under my foot lol

 

I always just assume drivers don't see me, so I installed one of those loud-as----- nautilus horns (haven't had to use it yet, it's been a month), and keep options open for changing lanes. So far nobody has pulled out in front of me, but I'm just waiting. I will not remove the airbags from this car for that reason.

 

It'd be pretty cool to rig up the violently loud horn to one of the horn buttons and the stock one to the other one.

If I can't avoid having someone behind me, then I try to maneuver it so that it's a smaller or better kept car behind me. It's all just probability though. And then there's the rollbar...