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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
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