Small can be safe

[SuperTrooper]

Originally Posted by Will

I told myself that I was not going to post on this thread. The recent death of my sister is still too raw. She hit a Yukon head on in her Cavalier. The math is not hard. They walked away.

This whole thing seems to boil down to choices. I chose to sell off my Buick Century and buy a Gen. 1 Geo Metro xfi because the chance to make an environmental difference was worth the personal risk to me. My wife was deeply concerned about that choice, and I understood her concern. We compromised and I got a gen 2 Metro with airbags and better crash data. It's all about choices. NO, generally small cars are not as safe as large cars, but how much is the part you can do for this planet worth to you? Is it worth a little more risk? To me the answer is yes...

By the way, only I ride in my Metro. My wife and 1 year old do not. They only ride in her Buick. This is another choice I have made.

This is not a joke when I say that I hope you have plenty of life insurance.

[RH77]

Originally Posted by Formula413

Lets just say for the sake of argument that larger vehicles are always safer than smaller vehicles, across the board, in every type of crash. Is anyone (on this forum no less) actually advocating their use for that reason?

From a Physics standpoint, the bumper-height of trucks and SUVs place lower-profile vehicles at a disadvantage.

Newer cars have side airbags and whatnot to absorb such impacts in those situations.

But I'm not going to flat-out say to people to buy a larger vehicle for "safety's sake". We're also not factoring accident avoidance -- larger vehicles generally take longer to stop, are easier to roll, easier to lose control, have less redundancy (read tire pressures), and are unfair in a fight.

Why would someone put a big steel brush-guard on their truck/SUV if it NEVER saw even a gravel road. Deadly aesthetics. Vanity.

My family has decided to "take our chances" by driving cars -- for a variety of personal reasons. In the wake of Will's tragedy, his comments echo the sentiment that we have to research crash data and choose accordingly. In his case, he went with a Gen-2 Metro instead of the first. In our case we bought a newer car for my Wife -- with stability control, full compliment of bags, ABS, good crash ratings, etc. It still gets an average of 30 mpg combined.

...and what about Motorcycles?

Although unscientific, I can say from my past years as a Medic, that in a bad enough accident, it wouldn't matter what someone was driving.

Should we all get our CDLs and drive semi-trucks? It's the safest option.

RH77

[Will]

Originally Posted by SuperTrooper

This is not a joke when I say that I hope you have plenty of life insurance.

I do not mean to get out of line, but:

#1. You cannot say that my driving a Metro is an automatic death sentence. That's just plain stupid.

#2. I got the same mileage with my 1993 Buick you do with that bug, and your bug is not much bigger than my Metro. Congratulations.

#3. I spent the prime years of my life defending this nation as a member of the US Army. That has left me with a deep sense of duty to this country. Look at the amount of oil we buy from countries that do not like us, and tell me it is not the duty of every American to do everything they can to effect the situation. When you read this think about 911...

#4. RH77 was right. If the wreck is bad enough it does not matter. The highway patrol told me that if she had been driving a vehicle the size of their Yukon both of them world have died too. The ONLY reason two out of three people survived that head on crash with both vehicle doing about 60 was the fact that she was driving a Cavalier.

Again, sorry if I went over the top, but your statement tweaked me the wrong way I guess.

[jamesqf]

Just a few thoughts to add here:

Physics #1: Assume large, heavy vehicles are indeed safer than small ones. Passenger trains are about the largest, heaviest vehicles you can find. Ergo, there should be few if any deaths or injuries in train wrecks. Even a quick search on "passenger train wrecks" should convince anyone that this is not the case. (Note that the important thing is not the actual train accident rate, which of course is much lower than on highways, but the number of deaths & injuries in those wrecks that do happen.)

Physics #2: Drop a mouse from a cliff. Do the same with an elephant. Which walks away, and which splashes? Time to re-think that "heavier is safer" theory? And to avoid the "but the mouse has a lower terminal velocity due to air resistance" argument, do the experiment in a vacuum :-)

Experience: My neighbors' granddaughter and her boyfriend were killed a few months ago, when their new large 4WD pickup went off the road and rolled. Ironically, she'd just traded in her little yellow compact because people kept telling her it wasn't safe.

[bbjsw10]

Originally Posted by SuperTrooper

This is not a joke when I say that I hope you have plenty of life insurance.

I hope you do as well, the only vehicle on your list that I would consider safe in regards to what everyone is preaching on here is, would be your Odyssey. Beetle=small, light Explorer=rollovers. I also hope NH never has ice on the roads, lightning, guns, cigarettes, choking hazards.

Myself I would drive the Beetle and make sure to chew my food good.

Anyone can die at any moment, we might as well make as small of impact on environment that we can. So our children and grandchildren can enjoy the same risks we do. If we continue to feed foreign nations our money, and pollute with carbon. They may never stand a fighting chance.

[tjts1]

Theres a lot of bull **** floating around here. But theres no getting away from one simple fact. SIZE MATTERS!

YouTube - Mercedes Benz S-class vs. Opel Corsa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02eghIfyHP0

YouTube - Crash Test: Ford Explorer vs. Ford Focus

F250 Vs Focus

YouTube - Ford F-250 vs. Ford Focus crash test, top view (NHTSA)

YouTube - O Airbag é acionado com o veÃ*culo parado?

[greenitup]

if a vehicle is designed properly you should be safe, also everyone in suvs is the same safety as if everyone in compacts in 2 car crashes. It is because some people drive those tanks then it makes it worse off for everyone else.

And when people drive suvs they are causing huge environmental devistation, especially if they dont drive properly.

[RH77]

Originally Posted by SuperTrooper

This is not a joke when I say that I hope you have plenty of life insurance.

Quite the rotten thing to say in light of the current circumstances.

RH77
Moderator

[Tony Raine]

you know, people like to dog on the explorer, and i can tell they never owned one. they are not this "rollover disaster" scapegoat. my butt has put over 400,000 miles in 2 different explorers, and 380,000 miles in a bronco II (many of those miles in the bronco ii were as a child in the back seat). they handle just fine. i have never encountered a turn that was not able to be performed at the posted speed limit. except for bad weather, but that applies to all vehicles. i live out in the country. when it comes to evasive maneuvers, you think another car is bad, try a deer.

plus, since "SUV" is now a 4 letter word, my explorer sport is lumped in with the tahoes, suburbans, and expeditions as far as resale value. i'd get more by e-baying the glass and taking the rest to a scrap yard.

all this, and i get to see the success of the ford ranger. this really shows how ignorant the average consumer is. btw, an explorer is a ranger, same frame, motor, suspension, dash, etc.... it just has a cap on the back. now, none of this applies to the newest explorer. heck, its turned into a fullsize now. my explorer sport has a 10" shorter wheelbase than a regular cab ranger.



its the driver's fault, plain and simple. Mrs. Dr. Richie Rich drives her tahoe like her porsche, and i suffer. i like my explorer. it has served me very well. i use it well beyond what ford intended and it just keeps going.


i really think the driver's education in this country needs a drastic overhaul. for example, the driving test needs to be re-taken at least every 10 years. there needs to be stricter grading systems, and the test must be taken in whatever vehicle you drive the most. can't handle an evasive maneuver in your tahoe? guess what, your license gets pulled. with more educated drivers, all vehicles become safer to drive.


sorry for the rant, but this kind of thing gets me worked up

[Frank Lee]

Good post Tony, especially the driver's ed part.

It occurred to me today that I've had four close encounters on the road in the last couple weeks, none of them my fault! Guess my number just came up??? But anyway, three of those incidents were totally the result of driver ineptitude. The forth was the result of stupid deer.