Minicars fall short for small overlap frontal crash protection (IIHS)

[wdb]

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.

I am active in 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!

[PaleMelanesian]

Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian

There was a wreck that very closely resembled this just yesterday outside work. Car 1 was in the left-turn lane, protected from oncoming traffic by a curb/median. Car 2 hopped the curb and hit Car 1 front corner to front corner. Car 1 was dented and scraped almost exactly the same as these tests show.


Attachment 14508

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Was Car #2's structure made from unyielding concrete and steel?

Both cars hit hard enough to buckle the A-pillar. Car 2, the at-fault one, was a 90's Buick. The roof buckled as well. I'd take any of these "unsafe" small cars over that.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

If you want to make drives safe maybe we should make dash cams mandatory and follow up on all the, lets say 'unsafe drivers' out there...

I hate to say it, but if we do dash cameras, the next logical step is driver cameras, then we would have proof when the drivers were texting or whatever.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by wdb

A Honda Fit is never going to be a heavy car...

This depends on one's frame of reference. At ~2500 lbs (700 mor than the Insight!) it sure doesn't qualify as light in my book.

[Cobb]

I dont think there is enough storage on youtube for American driving videos.

A lot of people here are rather intelligent and "know" the driving regulations. They just choose to follow the ones in their favor if an accident would to occur.

The ones that could result in you rear ending the driver are the most common. You got others who look the other direction when they know they are in the wrong,but do so to get an advantage due to time limitations and if an accident occured you are at fault.

Recently Ive seen more red light running as the light just turns red, vs the Russian videos where they run a light thats been red for several minutes.

Originally Posted by RedDevil

If you want to make drives safe maybe we should make dash cams mandatory and follow up on all the, lets say 'unsafe drivers' out there...
If we ban them the roads will not only be much safer but also very quiet.

[gone-ot]

Q: WHY must 100% cars be designed to handle 1-5% occurring events?

[Cobb]

For me its icing on the cake when purchasing a new car and dealing with buyers remorse. You buy a 10-25 year old car or geo metro, you kind of expect it to crush up like a beer can in an accident. Hey, they are rather inexpensive. I paid 100 bucks for mines, but I did go with the 99 year that was equip with air bags.

You shell out 12-25 grand for a new car, you expect it to be able to do everything.

[wdb]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

Q: WHY must 100% cars be designed to handle 1-5% occurring events?

So then you've stopped wearing seatbelts, I take it. The car insurance folks say you'll submit a claim once every 17.9 years. That translates into a 0.02% chance that you'll be in an accident the next time you hop in.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by wdb

So then you've stopped wearing seatbelts, I take it. The car insurance folks say you'll submit a claim once every 17.9 years. That translates into a 0.02% chance that you'll be in an accident the next time you hop in.

No, I am just NOT a fan of NANNY GOBBERMENTS mandating unrealistic protections that *I* must PAY for.

The consumer has NO option when it's mandated into the vehicles production by GOBBERMENT regulators who seeminbgly have essentially ZERO common sense.

[RedDevil]

But this test was not done by the Gobbernment but by the In$urance indu$try...