Quote:
Originally Posted by gascort
I disagree with your #4. Greater inertia yes, more difficult to accelerate yes. What about proportionately more frictional force between the ground and tires? This cancels out any effect of greater inertia in the end. You can double a car's mass and expect it to stop in the same distance if all else is held constant (especially center of gravity).
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While I agree about absolute braking distances, having driven some big cars that can hang you off the seatbelts under full braking, I have to say: If you double a car's mass, it's not very easy to keep everything else constant.
You can make a very heavy car turn and stop very well, but as Nissan has shown with their R35 GT-R, it takes some really good brake balancing, some really gooey rubber and a really, really stiff suspension to do it. And even then, once the tires give out and physics take ahold of the car, say sayonara... there are some pretty entertaining videos of GT-R drivers running out of talent (or brains) and sliding the car straight into the outside railing.
There was an accident here about two years ago. Local TV celebrity understeered his GT-R off a cliff and killed his publicist, who was sitting in the back seat. Was quite familiar with that road, as I'd driven it just as hard myself a number of times. Wouldn't go so far as to say he wouldn't have gotten into that accident with a lighter car, but I often wonder if he'd have smashed up as hard in something like an EVO, or maybe an Aveo... but given the horrid frontal crash structure of the Aveo,...
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I prefer cars small. Compacts nowadays are bang on the safety ratings of midsized cars, with a smaller fuel economy penalty. Of course, they're starting to get piggishly heavy, but there are those who try to stay closer to the compact norm (Civic, Corolla, Elantra) and are pretty light.
I can swing subcompacts, and I've even driven superminis like the Spark and Hyundai i10 on the highway between semis without fear. At least, not with anymore fear than I would have in the family CR-V.
Except for the fact that tiny cars almost invariably have horrible brakes.