Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
Problem #1 is that it only looks at half the equation, looking at lives saved in crashes, but not lives lost because the the heavier car couldn't avoid the collision. And further up the line, lives lost mining the extra materials, extracting the extra oil needed to run the heavier cars, etc.
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another thread where I argued that safety features add weight. I pretty convincingly lost the argument.
A Honda Fit is never going to be a heavy car, and it is never going to win a head-on with a bridge abuttment or a Ford Excursion (do they still make those?). But, in light of test results such as these, its front subframe might just be re-engineered in such a way that fewer legs will be broken and fewer heads will hit fewer dashboards, when accidents do happen. I see no reason why such re-engineering would necessarily add weight.
And, just to be clear, I'm a *huge* proponent of avoiding the accident in the first place. It's a lesson I learned when I was still in my teens, when a 1960's American behemoth of some kind pulled onto the road directly in front of my Austin Mini Cooper; I flicked the wheel, scooted through the space formerly occupied by the behemoth, and continued on my way. Looking back on it I realized that in virtually any other car I would have had no chance of doing that successfully, and would have simply slammed into the side of the other car.
I've been driving responsive, good handling cars ever since. I'm such a proponent of handling that I even put it ahead of fuel efficiency!
