Safest, Most Fuel Efficient Cars

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Greyhound busses have to be at or near the top.

Only when 10 or more are riding though.

You get that full 82 passenger capacity and you are really humming on a thimbleful of fuel.

[Ryland]

One thing that I noticed on that chart is the Toyota Corolla and the Chevy Prizm have different ratings even tho they are the same car with different brand names on them.

[Frank Lee]

Same with Chevy/GMC C/Ks, and the Bonneville/Le Sabres are practically the same too.

[niky]

Its based on actual deaths. It's more likely that more conservative (meaning... safer) drivers will buy the Corolla over the Prizm.

People willing to take a risk on "domestics" may just be more likely to take risks on the road.

Or that's how I read it.

Minivans, on the other hand, are driven by distracted moms... who never reach speeds that threaten their own safety, but sure as hell don't have any compassion for any bikers they run over.

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Weight means little for crash safety. What matters is crash structure. And you're always best off with a midsized car with a four-banger or a front-wheel drive minivan. Least weight for the most crash structure. And that chart shows it.

[AaronMartinSole]

"Smart Car Crash Test Might Surprise You!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGtWc4m8Z2E

[Ryland]

So just by comparing the number of driver deaths on that chart on the vehicles that are pretty much the same vehicle only with different brand names on them you can see that the type of drivers/owners can play a huge roll in how likely you are to be killed, just like with motorcycle deaths, most people are killed while driving drunk, while speeding, at night, in bad weather or any other number of preventable situations.

[darcane]

This just popped up on NYTimes a couple days ago:
Driving Safety, in Fits and Starts - Graphic - NYTimes.com

Embedding the image doesn't help much, so you gotta go to the link. It graphs auto deaths ber 100,000 people vs number of miles driven. Since the 70's, this figure has been plummeting!