“I could never drive something that small, I wouldn’t feel safe.”
Owners of Mazda Miatas, particularly the first-generation NA model, hear that all the time. I can no longer count myself among their ranks because I crashed my 20-year-old Miata in late December (Merry Christmas!). The “not safe” claims, though, still seem worth addressing. I walked away unharmed, aside from a cussedly stubborn bone bruise in my right hand. I hit a bigger car at 35 to 40 mph without time to even tap the brakes. My 1996 Miata?79,000 miles, mechanically sound but cosmetically worn aside from a seven-week-old new top?was a total loss. But its safety systems and structure did what they were designed to do: protect the occupant.
It happened barely two miles from my home on December 22. Headed for a downtown Detroit meeting, I set out under a low overcast sky at about 9:30 a.m.. The airbag warning lamp flickered, as it had been doing intermittently for over a year. My to-do list for the car included pulling the original steering wheel with its 20-year-old airbag. It was unlikely to work anyway, so I figured the wheel could be replaced with something prettier and sportier. A misty rain had fallen that morning but it had stopped. Out on the main road, spray off wet pavement required that I flip on the wipers. Habit is to turn on the headlights any time the wipers go on, but I was accelerating through the gears, approaching a traffic signal, so I just parked my left hand...