Crash tests show small car ratings are misleading
 

A coworker emailed me this article this morning. IMO its just publicity stunt article. They have one sentence that basically blows the entire article out of the water. Of course, its buried way at the end.


Yeah, lets test something that accounts for less than 1% of crashes! Good idea. :rolleyes:

Here's the IIHS news release

From Car accident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ratings
 

I believe that official test results use a numerical scale,with thresholds for degree of injury,for instance "Head Impact Criteria" HIC and "Side Impact Criteria" SIC.I don't see any of these terms used in the piece.And was a velocity given? A 20-mph head-on impact with a fixed barrier is lethal for an un-restrained driver or occupant where no safety features in the car exist.Col.Stapp survived a 63-G deceleration,going from 632-mph to zero,over 1.4 seconds,equivalent to a head-on collision into a concrete wall and walked away,no doubt sore and black-eyed.Indycar and F-1 drivers slam the walls at over 200-mph,with face-on velocities over 60-mph and survive,driving cars 400-pounds lighter than MetroMpg's Firefly/Metro.I've got numbers from these same folks from actual collisions showing lower injuries in cars sometimes with 33% of the mass of other cars.Maybe not head-on collisions,but injury collisions.A few studies demonstrate that the important criteria for safety are the driver,where mass is distributed in the car,not mass based on "size" of a car.Ledgerdermain hurts evrybody.It hurt with radium.It hurt with thalidomide.It hurt with Heroin,DES,red dye#2,cyclomates,fen-fen,carbontetrachloride,tobacco,PCBs,HFCs,etc..The petro-Nazis should be careful how they twist the debate over CAFE standards,using scare-tactics(always fear-based marketing) to jade fuel-efficient vehicles in the eye of consumers.Getting out of bed is dangerous.Driving incurs risk-taking.

The Status Report(pdf), Vol. 44, No. 4, April 14, 2009 -
found in the sidebar of the previously cited IIHS News Release provides more detail.

You know, I wish some people could somehow manage to wrap their heads around the idea that there are some of us who just don't care all that much about crash safety, especially if that means we all have to drive 6000 lbs SUVs. I've ridden motorcycles most of my life; most of my cars have been sports cars; I've done a lot of bike commuting & recreational riding. Oh, and I back-country ski, climb mountains, fly small planes, play with kayaks & sailboards... Is there ANYTHING in there that would even remotely suggest that automotive crash safety is high on my list of priorities?

Yup, The solution isn't bigger vehicles, the solution is better drivers.

It is not that we don't care about crash safety, it is that we focus on safety in other areas and hope not to crash. AND we don't rely on expensive, heavy, engineered solutions to save us from our stupidity. Note: I am not calling us stupid.

Another thought...all of this safety gear and design in newer cars (including the perception of weight=safety) doesn't reduce accidents only the survivability of an accident. Imagine what would happen if they spent more time and money to educate drivers (slow down, awareness) and actually reduce the amount of accidents and the severity of these. Address the cause not the symptom.

I basically agree, but suspect the solution is more complicated than a single change. In the case of better drivers, the question is what laws/regulations should be enacted to produce them.

Awareness is the crux of the matter, but may be the most difficult change to implement.

The later half of the report had some similar suggestions regarding speed.
Nobody in this thread has mentioned it thus far, but I also find this portion of the report agreeable.

safety
 

In the last two weeks I've talked with seven governmental bodies about US energy policy,from local municipal health department,Nobel Prize recipient,IIPC panel member,Phd scientist,and Head of Texas Dept. of Transportation' Sustainability program.None,not one of these people factored,or even thought of factoring the safety of the US military overseas,or civilians in Iran,Iraq,or Afganistan with respect to US reliance (about 70% now) on foreign oil,much of which comes from areas known to be hostile towards the US.---------- Pedantic freaks who can't look beyond the page of a book,who conveniently exist in a total vacuum,oblivious to the outer world,and the victims they create from the microcephalytic cognitive processes manifested in their behavior.No one really cares about safety.It's just a means to inflate car prices and give motorists a bit better peace of mind as they drive to their death.The safety issue has been stood on it's head.Any collision with a closing velocity of 80-mph is gonna get nasty.How about pitting two Hummers in a head-on.And since they're obviously so much safer,let's raise the ante to 160 mph.

And why should they? Those things have relevance to oil only insofar as oil finances the current generation of jihadists. Wave a magic wand and move the oil to Australia or somewhere, and the biggest change would be that the rulers would go back to riding camels & living in tents, instead of driving Rolls-Royces & Ferraris, and building their own private islands.

I can't imagine that a politician or person related to a field of politics might ignore the safety of people overseas... :rolleyes:

I want to see single vehicle crash test data.....

Data that actually matters...

How about actual crash data averaged to equalize use. That pretty much tells you an overall chance of getting killed in a given car.

IIHS REPORT: The Risk of Death While Driving Different Vehicles

Also, remember that we're talking about overall death rates here. So even assuming grossly-oversized-SUV-X is safer for the people riding in it, how many people in the vehicle(s) that it hit were killed, who would not have been if hit by say a Geo Metro?

Awareness, I'll admit, is difficult to change but look at something just as big like smoking and tobacco. With time and attention to the right details, and information, and truth to the public they start to get it. Remove the "fashion" element of horsepower and speed. Slowly, over time as not to shock or scare anyone into rebellion. Already, by pushing the eco/green idea things seem to be catching on with the general public. They need to understand that they can truly help just by driving with greater attention, no distractions, less speed and drive smaller cars.

Is their any data on horse and buggy related deaths before automobiles?
Chances are it would be proportionality similar.

The data I listed showed the driver's chance of getting killed, Passengers, and others.

It showed that trucks had a much higher chance of killing other people but also had a high chance of killing the driver and passengers.

I think the corolla and a few other cars were in the least likely to die category and least likely to kill other people as well.

this portion
 

TestDrive,I've got some gleanings that I'll pull together.Speed limits and safety was a real hot-button issue in the late-80s,early 90s.It's been a very politicized issue.Speed limits,traffic fatalities,enforcement,fuel economy,air quality,national debt,global competitiveness,capital formation,savings rate,mandated safety equipment,actual traffic statistics,EPA,NHTSA,DOT,Treasury Dept.,DOD,Federal Reserve,American Automobile Mfgr's Assoc.,International Automobile Mfrgs Assoc.,Police Depts.,it goes on and on and ad infinitum,all players in the screenplay.--- Lots of data.Many special interest groups.Many questionable motives.Many agendas.Egos,ignorance,context.It's all in there.Shakespeare would love it! If you can hang on I'll pull it together.

speed
 

TestDrive,I've worked this last week compiling data from my archive.The task of isolating speed as a single variable with respect to "safety" has been fraught with many challenges.-------------- While speed is a critical factor,it's role is not taken in a universally-referenced datum.There is a lot of room to "cook the books" when using speed or any other variable in discussions of crash safety,and it must be continually considered within a context.------------- You would be interested in "Physics and Automobile Safety Belts," published by U.S.Dept.of Transportation and National Highway Traffic Administration,available from U.S.Govt.Printing Office.Mine is a 1977 printing,$1.90.It's a 73-page pamphlet and has all the Physics used by investigators,both in the lab and field investigations and reconstructions of actual vehicle collisions.------------- The treasure-trove is "International Technical Conference on Experimental Safety Vehicles",Report,published each year by U.S.DOT and NHTSA.I don't have anything more current than 1986 and it runs to 1,218 pages.------------- Inside the 1986 printing is a study which mirrors the piece shared by Doax: "Car Size and Safety:Results From Analyzing U.S.Accident Data",by Leonard Evans,Transportation Research Dept.,General Motors Research Labs.,9-pages.From the Abstract,in a single-car crash,the unbelted driver of a 900 kg car is about 2.6 times more likely to be killed as is the unbelted of an 1,800 kg car.------- For Two-car crashes,the driver of a 900 kg car crashing into another 900 kg car is about 2.0 times as likely to be seriously or fatally injured as is the driver of an 1,800 kg car.When a 900 kg car and a 1,800 kg car crash head-on,the driver of the 900 kg car is about 14 times as likely to be killed as the driver of the 1,800 kg car.The actual number of drivers killed in small-car crashes is "paradoxically",less than for the large-car crashes when normalized for numbers of cars and driver age.------- The data set included all fatal traffic crashes since Jan. 1,1975.---------------- A 1977 study concluded that cars are not unsafe simply because they were small(light).Small cars had no higher frequency of serious or fatal injury.In California,where 40% of cars are "small" traffic fatalities were down 22% in 1974,and 16% in 1975.-------- In 1985,in the 35-mph crash barrier test,the GM Pontiac Fiero scored the highest crash safety score ever achieved.------ At 2,000 pounds,the Fiero was safer than Cadillac Seville,Volvo 760,Mercury Cougar,Ford LTD,Dodge 600,Ford Thunderbird,Mercedes 300SL,Mercury Marquis, Chrysler LeBaron,Oldsmobile 98,Chevy Impala amd Lincoln Continental.---------- Auto design and safety gear continues to evolve.Seatbelt use remains below 100%(my aunt's physician killed herself in a single-car rollover because she couldn't be bothered wearing her 3-point safety belt).Drunk driving,substance abuse,fatigue,glare,cell-phones,GPS,i-phones,car audio,hair care,cosmetics,etc.remain factors.---------- 60% of collisions in N.Y.City are at "controlled" intersections.Traffic light synchronization isn't even mentioned by "safety" engineers,except for oblique comments about "planning."--------- It's a can of worms.-------- Out of respect to MetroMpg I won't even say what I think about it all.---------- Speed limits are a highly politicized issue.Countless special interest groups are involved.Regulators,lobbyists,American Trial Lawyers,oil and car industry-funded "consumer" interest groups,State treasuries,federal treasury,Pentagon,State Dept.,EPA------- it just goes on and on.Easily a masters thesis or doctoral dissertation.

The question is does the bumper still function? Cosmetic repairs are a choice.
I would expect repair costs after a crash but the price does seem quite high on some.