My Death Trap

[Frank Lee]

Detailed safety information for this generation Mercury Topaz include detailed crash test scores from the NHTSA.
NHTSA Crash-Test Results
Test 1994 Topaz
Front Impact, Driver 4
Front Impact, Passenger 4

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) tests a vehicle's worthiness in front- and side-impact collisions and rates its resistance to rollovers. Front-impact crash-test numbers indicate the chance of serious injury: 5 = 10% or less; 4 = 10-20%; 3 = 20-35%; 2 = 35-45%; 1 = More than 45%.

Automated safety belts and air bags available two years before mandated:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...0034-0113.pdf\

U.S. statistics show that in 2005, head-on crashes were only 2.0% of all crashes, yet accounted for 10.1% of US fatal crashes.

In the U.S. in 2009 there were 1.13 fatalities per 100,000,000 vehicle miles travelled, or 1 fatality per 88,500,000 miles. I usually put on far less than 10,000 miles/year, but let's use 14,000 miles/year as what the average U.S. motorist racks up- he/she will have to drive 6,300 years before they get fatally whacked. What about the bad old days? Let's just pick a time when there were TWICE as many fatalities/100M miles. That would be 3,150 years of driving before the axe falls.

OOoooooooo, scary.

[MetroMPG]

I can see Frank referring people to this thread often in the future.

For some reason the relative safety of vehicles (particularly small and/or light ones) is guaranteed flame-bait on this forum.

(Hmmm... just now briefly entertained the thought of prohibiting the use of the phrase "death trap" as a vehicle description... except for ironic use, of course.)

[Old Tele man]

...ironically used, of course!

[MetroMPG]

Maybe I should have said "sarcastically" used. Irony, sarcasm... where's my dictionary?

[Old Tele man]

...sardonically used?

[rbrowning]

I thought that Frank was referring to the UNlikelyness of an average driver getting into a fatal accident. Based on the numbers he used an average driver will never be in a fatal accident in 100 life times of driving. But, by government mandate, we are forced to pay for air bags and automated seat belts that will never deploy. How many cars will the average driver wear out in those 6000 years? How about us drivers that actually watch what is going on ahead of the car in front of us?

A lot of money spent in those 6000 years, just a possibility that there might be better uses for that money. But maybe not.

[Old Mechanic]

Two points to consider.

Significant reductions in traffic fatalities, and possibly serious injuries.

The problem with making cars idiot proof and the consequence of making more idiots as you make cars more idiot proof.

Obviously a careful driver with good situational awareness will be safer in a modern crash worthy car with airbags and other required safety equipment.

The Tempo Frank is referring to also has much better bumpers, as far as surviving minor collisions without major damage. The older cars that were designed for 5 MPH impacts have much stronger bumpers. In fact in the earlier designs the bumpers were so strong that you could actually have frame damage without significant bumper damage. I have seen that first hand with some of the early 70s Chrysler products with their massive bumpers.

The problem was when you made the bumpers that strong it tended to make the structural damage between the bumper and passenger compartment worse as well as the deformation of the passenger compartment.

On the other hand when the bumper collapses easily then you are faced with high repair costs for minor collisions. We experienced that with the wife's Rogue with a collision that Franks Tempo would probably have survived with minimal to no damage while the Rogue had $3000 worth of damage.

Like Frank I tend to agree that it may have gone to far in the direction of design without the consideration of cost effectiveness of the repairs necessary. I am NOT saying to sacrifice occupant safety for cost consideration.

How much do you spend per vehicle for the lowest probability protection. Consider the cost of individual health care, and how much the total cost would be if you were to spend $250,000 per person on 312 million citizens.

We can't afford that kind of total expense.

regards
Mech

[rkcarguy]

Interesting...
We are forced to pay not only for all this safety equipmnent that likely won't be used, but also pay the penalty for the poor fuel consumption and performance the added 400-600#'s of safety stuff added to a small car.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

In the U.S. in 2009 there were 1.13 fatalities per 100,000,000 vehicle miles travelled, or 1 fatality per 88,500,000 miles.

That would be 3,150 years of driving before the axe falls.

The problems with statistics is you always need people to become statistics.

A community of 3150 Frank Lees would see a fatal accident every year.
That sounds a lot less remote, doesn't it ?


Those safety improvements don't just reduce the number of fatal accidents, they also reduce the severity of all accidents, preventing accidents from becoming fatal ones.
And that's why Frank can nowadays claim his 3150 or 6300 years before the axe falls for him.

[Clev]

Originally Posted by rkcarguy

Interesting...
We are forced to pay not only for all this safety equipmnent that likely won't be used, but also pay the penalty for the poor fuel consumption and performance the added 400-600#'s of safety stuff added to a small car.

Yeah, I pretty much debunked that "400-600 pounds" thing:

Ever stopped at a dealer to confim how great your current car is?