SPV Seating Vindicated

by **Kambei** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 7:53 am

There has been a new study of child safety seating:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090612/tu ... 23e80.html

As long as they don't let the kids steer the car via a TV monitor!

by **Intensity Angel** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 12:34 pm

yeah i can see the implications...demolition derby anyone?

by **Marion** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 8:41 am

The thing that strikes me about the SPV seating - apart from the fact that the vehicle is generally described as a 'two-seater' and yet on the TV show we see 3 people in one - is the tracks at the back.
One of the annuals has a picture of the SPV climbing a mountain. The whole thing is balanced on the tracks, with no other contact with the ground - which looks highly unsafe - but, in addition, if they did do that, the occupants, who sit backwards, would be dangling from their seats only kept in place by their seatbelts!
It's a man's life in Spectrum, true enough :wink:

by **Intensity Angel** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:07 pm

For sure. Besides, think of all the damage that those catapillar tracks would do. There was a tank at the Classic Motor Show at the NEC in Birmingham a few years ago and that thing made a mess of the floor! And right where my car club's stand was too!!

by **Winged Assassin** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 5:31 pm

Everytime I get on a train I always try to sit in a rear facing seat in case of an accident - clearly watched too much Captain Scarlet as a kid!

As for the picture in the annual I think we can put that down to the artist or writer not having a clue about the tracks real use, as we never saw them in the down position. The only assumption is that the special effect would not work with either the tracks not going around properly (as seen on many Thunderbird episodes) or spinning wildly if hooked up to a motor.

by **hazel** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:10 pm

Name-dropping alert...

Some years ago, I had the pleasure of talking to Mike Trim about the rear treads on the SPV. He confirmed that they were supposed to flip down for extra traction in skiddy driving conditions. He had been astonished, amused and slightly dismayed at the drawing in TV21 of the SPV standing up on the treads to climb a mountain.

Mostly, though, the rear treads were just to look good...

by **Marion** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 8:08 pm

hazel said:

they were supposed to flip down for extra traction in skiddy driving conditions.

That'd make much more sense, and come to think of it when I bought my young daughter an SPV toy in the 1990s - the treads on the back did drop down - in fact they dropped off. I now have 1 plastic SPV (with manniken drivers) and 1 set of treads...

Well, she out grew them, you see... :oops:

by **DartBrat701** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 1:32 am

Initially, the SPVs were able to balance themselves on the tracks....in order to climb steep terrains. (which would've made the passengers most uncomfortable....as they were sitting backwards inside!!) :shock:

Which was then, it was decided to make the tracks retractable. :wink:

by **Intensity Angel** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 3:17 pm

Makes a lot of sense seeing as catapillars leave a lot of damage and can provide an extra nuisance. if you're on the motorway and in a hurry, the last thing you want is to be slowed down or attract even more attention because of the noise of the catapillars on the road.

*hides on another site*

Don't bite my head off for stating the obvious, please!!

by **hazel** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 8:27 pm

I doubt if the rear tracks would be needed on a motorway, unless conditions were really severe. After all, Scarlet didn't use them on the iced-up bridge while he was driving away from the Hot Spot (Noose of Ice). The production team missed an opportunity there, didn't they!

by **Intensity Angel** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 10:05 pm

I've got to say it,

IDIOTS!!

Mind you, considering that Scarlet isn't exactly the most careful of drivers and probably loses his no claimes bonus nearly every other day... would he really bother with safety or security when he is going like a bat out of hell?

I wish I was like Scarlet, my arm might just heal a little bit faster!

by **Clya Brown** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 10:43 am

I remember a TV army recruitment advertisement many years ago in which the pitch was clearly aimed at the less-than-staggeringly-bright raw recruit market; including a soldier's voiceover about what would happen if anybody got in the way of the Chieftain tank you'd be driving ("Well, tough luck for them"). Precisely what your commanding officer would have to say to you after you'd pulverised half a dozen vehicles when driving round the M25 with that attitude wasn't actually touched upon, but I was once told it's notoriously difficult to get an admission of liability out of the armed services if they damage your property - so generally speaking it's probably a good idea to keep out of their way.

A friend of mine was once stopped in Croydon High Street by a guy driving a tank: he was supposed to be part of a convoy, but had somehow managed to get himself lost. The tank pulled up beside him, a little head popped out of the top of it and yelled down "Excuse me - could you tell me where I am, please?". My friend obliged, and the guy gave him a thumbs-up, disappeared back into the interior and the tank did a U-turn, then trundled off in the direction of Caterham. I suspect if Captain Blue had done something like that when driving his SPV to the Car-Vu he'd have been given an impromptu lecture about Americans driving environmentally-unfriendly gas-guzzlers. Oh well, at least with a TV monitor you can presumably actually see where you're going; having said that, you'd need to make sure you were tuned to the right channel before you started, otherwise you'd probably end up in Albert Square.

by **hazel** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:05 am

I live at the end of a long cul-de-sac which terminates in car parks, gardens and a small estate of flats and houses.

One afternoon, we were treated to the amusing sight of an Army convoy which had obviously taken a wrong turning and found themselves in a narrow residential street, lined with cars on both sides and too narrow to turn round in. The leader was much relieved to find our car park, and for the next 15 minutes or so, truck after truck drove in, turned round and drove out again. Very slowly, as they had to avoid all our cars.

I found myself wondering how they'd managed to get it so wrong - don't the Army use sat-navs? :roll:

by **Intensity Angel** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:50 pm

If Spectrum vehicles had sat-navs, I can imagine Scarlet end up destroying them or having them scream at him.

by **Marion** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 7:29 am

Sat-navs don't scream - they just drive you mad repeasting inane instructions in a voice that sounds half asleep if you don't do what they want.
They could well be part of a Mysteron plot to drive the population insane.

Scarlet isn't actually that bad a driver... and as a soldier, I expect he's used to follow stupid orders so he'd probably follow the sat-nav and get lost. :wink: