Safety of Small Cars

[Bamaro]

Originally Posted By: BuickGN
Originally Posted By: 1sttruck
"Its not the small cars that create the problem, its the large vehicles."

Then tell small car drivers to keep from cutting in the bit of extra space that I keep in front when I drive the pickup, especially the ones that then hit their brakes. Tell the small car owners to avoid doing the same to medium duty delivery trucks and the large semis, and to also avoid hitting the really big bridges, buldings, and the planet earth.

I drove motorcyclces for 20 years, and don't have much sympathy for people whining about being in a small car. The worst vehicles that I see on the road are the 'cockroach cars', which are the Civics with the spoliers, [censored] can mufflers, etc., zipping lane to lane like some sort of bug. Next for some reason are BMW drivers.


I couldn't agree more. When I used to drive a delivery truck I always tried to maintain a safe following distance with the car in front of me. Unfortunately this was impossible because everytime there was a 6' gap some riced out Civic would squeeze in there to save .00001 second to his destination. The one time when things got ugly and I couldn't stop, instead of switching lanes and possibly hitting an innocent car next to me, I let the truck plow into the car that cut me off. I had to try hard to wipe the smile off of my face before talking to the guy.

You are talking about drivers. I was referring to the vehicles. Its the mass of the large vehicles that reduces the overall safety of the fleet.

 

[lewk]

It's the error(s) in judgement that causes the accident.Then the size of the vehicle and speed is a factor. Sometimes huge(death)!

 

[Tosh]

"That Ross-Wenzel data show that drivers of the safest small cars are only 13% to 15% more likely to die in crashes than drivers of midsize and full-size cars are. But the chart also shows that the least-safe small cars are at least 90% more dangerous than midsize and full-size cars, meaning the driver is almost twice as likely to be killed."

In other words, buried in the story someone points out that the category of "least-safe small cars" is the real problem, not ALL small cars. When a journalist misses the real point in his own story, he's a hack. But then it is USA Today.

 

[oilyriser]

Originally Posted By: Jethro
Death rate stats don't include a breakdown of average driver age, seatbelt usage, and location per death, therefore they should be taken with a grain of salt.


Yes, true.

 

[Jethro]

Originally Posted By: oilyriser
Originally Posted By: Jethro
Death rate stats don't include a breakdown of average driver age, seatbelt usage, and location per death, therefore they should be taken with a grain of salt.


Yes, true.


Whoah, groovy!

 

[Shannow]

They've got them in the next western town from here.

9" tall and $160.

 

[oilyriser]

Excellent profit margin for that substance.

 

[Vilan]

Quote:
A negative ion is an electronically charged molecule made up of oxygen. A positive ion in the air is produced by cars, factories, heavy machinery, smoke, dust, soot and other pollutants and has lost its electrons.

Where to begin?

Negative ions don't need to contain oxygen. In fact any negative ions coming off this thing must be chloride ions from the salt. Ain't no oxygen in chloride ions. And positive ones aren't exclusively pollution products. Way to pump up consumer fear.

Oh, and look! We're selling lamps to produce "good" ions and get rid of "bad" ions! How convenient! Uh... even if it was true, since salt is sodium chloride, when you ionize it you must be making sodium (positive) ions and chloride (negative) ions, but they only talk about the negative ones. Where do all the positive ones go? Don't worry folks, they magically disappear!

Sigh. Every time I see a scientific principle twisted into some kind of feel-good holistic silliness, I just go all

.

They sure do look neat though.

 

[Black Bart]

From what some poster have said they think that a vehicle with a 5 star rating is going to protect them in a crash.
The crash test where they drive a 2500 lb. car into a concrete barrier will only generate as much force as that little 2500lb. car can make.
That is not a real world scenario.

Try this park your little 5 star econobox and hit it in the driver door at 55 mph with a F250 4x4 and then come back and tell me how well that little piece of tin in the door that is call a side impact bar held up.

When a heavy vehicle hits a light one it produces a result kinda like a 200lb man kicking a football.

While the heavy machine will loose some speed the lighter one will have it's speed reversed and send it flying off in another direction.

Those who are posting that weight don't give an advantage try this take your little car and hit a 80,000lb Kenworth head on and see how you make out.

 

[Titan]

You are correct, of course, the small car will be demolished. Don't forget the high center of gravity 4x4 will have a greater chance of rolling over, which increases the tendency for injury/death to the occupants in the 4x4. THAT scenario is a problem for occupants in BOTH vehicles.

 

[oilyriser]

Originally Posted By: Black Bart
While the heavy machine will loose some speed the lighter one will have it's speed reversed and send it flying off in another direction.


This is the main reason I chose a 3300 lb Subaru over a 2710 lb Ford.

 

[BuickGN]

Originally Posted By: Bamaro
Originally Posted By: BuickGN
Originally Posted By: 1sttruck
"Its not the small cars that create the problem, its the large vehicles."

Then tell small car drivers to keep from cutting in the bit of extra space that I keep in front when I drive the pickup, especially the ones that then hit their brakes. Tell the small car owners to avoid doing the same to medium duty delivery trucks and the large semis, and to also avoid hitting the really big bridges, buldings, and the planet earth.

I drove motorcyclces for 20 years, and don't have much sympathy for people whining about being in a small car. The worst vehicles that I see on the road are the 'cockroach cars', which are the Civics with the spoliers, [censored] can mufflers, etc., zipping lane to lane like some sort of bug. Next for some reason are BMW drivers.


I couldn't agree more. When I used to drive a delivery truck I always tried to maintain a safe following distance with the car in front of me. Unfortunately this was impossible because everytime there was a 6' gap some riced out Civic would squeeze in there to save .00001 second to his destination. The one time when things got ugly and I couldn't stop, instead of switching lanes and possibly hitting an innocent car next to me, I let the truck plow into the car that cut me off. I had to try hard to wipe the smile off of my face before talking to the guy.

You are talking about drivers. I was referring to the vehicles. Its the mass of the large vehicles that reduces the overall safety of the fleet.


I was talking about the stereotypical small car driver. They are they're own worst enemy. It's weird how I had a 12 second car when I was 17, that 12 second car is now a 10 second car at the age of 30 and I've never had a wreck in it. When the fast and furious crowd started showing up they were wrecking 17 second FWD Civics left and right. How exactly do you lose control of a 90hp FWD car at the races? I would bet if you tested the IQ of the ricer community it would be signifigantly lower than the rest of the world.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: Black Bart
From what some poster have said they think that a vehicle with a 5 star rating is going to protect them in a crash.
The crash test where they drive a 2500 lb. car into a concrete barrier will only generate as much force as that little 2500lb. car can make.
That is not a real world scenario.

Yes and no. It entirely depends upon the type of real world scenario you're examining. Cars strike stationary objects with sad regularity, and of course, moving ones too. These tests are useful, so long as one keeps the results in proper perspective.

Originally Posted By: Black Bart
Try this park your little 5 star econobox and hit it in the driver door at 55 mph with a F250 4x4 and then come back and tell me how well that little piece of tin in the door that is call a side impact bar held up.

Relative size is but one of many important factors in determining the outcome of any given collision between two vehicles. You overlook the fact that ALL vehicles are at a tremendous disadvantage in protecting their occupants when they are struck on the side. Incidentally, I survived a bad T-Boning in my late 2002 Camry. I was struck by a Chevy Tahoe that was, by its driver's admission, doing 40 mph. The side of my car was a mess, and the side curtains deployed (oddly enough, the seat-mounted side bag did not), probably preventing any head injury on my part. There was no intrusion/deformation of the interior space (other than it being suddenly filled with airbag...). So yes, that side-impact door beam functioned very, very well. But most importantly, I'm still here.

Originally Posted By: Black Bart
When a heavy vehicle hits a light one it produces a result kinda like a 200lb man kicking a football.

Poor analogy, but one that, upon examination, does help reveal that collisions are very complex events that are not susceptible to simple, pat conclusions or characterizations about what will or will not happen. Anyway, the football is a very elastic object that's specifically meant to be propelled distances when kicked. Most importantly, it's not made of metal that crushes and deforms when struck. Neither is the man who's kicking it. The mass disparity between the man and the football is way different from the comparative difference in a typical MV collision. And so on.

Originally Posted By: Black Bart
While the heavy machine will loose some speed the lighter one will have it's speed reversed and send it flying off in another direction.
I've investigated and/or litigated hundreds of automobile collision situations. That's not a typical result at all. More usually, the vehicles will deform around one another in proportions very very roughly reflecting their relative mass, type and quality of construction, etc.

Originally Posted By: Black Bart
Those who are posting that weight don't give an advantage try this take your little car and hit a 80,000lb Kenworth head on and see how you make out.

Bart, I'm sorry, but I don't care what car you're in, large or small, or even what light-duty pickup or SUV you're driving. If you go toe-to-toe with one of these versus an 80k tractor-trailer combo, you're toast, period. Maybe in an Impala, you die a few milliseconds later than the guy in a Civic, but you still die. So will the guy in an F-150 another millisecond after the guy in the Impala.

EDIT/ADDED TEXT: I handled just such a case about ten years ago. A Lincoln Town Car had a head-on with a heavy tractor-trailer half-way through a botched attempt to pass a slower car on a secondary highway. The TC was utterly demolished, as were its unfortunate occupants. The driver's head, still nominally attached to his torso, got extruded/smeared all the way back to what was left of the trunk. Never seen anything like it, and alas, I'll never be able to forget it...

Notably, though, the TC was still fully engaged against the front of tractor cab which was also nearly demolished itself.

A good brain and well-used pair of eyeballs are by far and without question the most effective safety tools any of us will ever have at our disposal.

 

[DrinkDuff77]

Which vehicle would you rather be in?

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7vPH_EqIws&NR=1

Size does not equal safety.

 

[Black Bart]

Well I'm retired now but I spent 42 years as a long distance trucker.
I'm very proud of the fact Thai during all those millions of miles I never had an accident not even a slide off.

However I have seen a lot of them and ever time I have witnessed them hit the smaller one has always been knocked out of the path of the larger one.

I had a good friend who also owned his own 18 wheeler and he had a drunk make a left turn in front of him while on a 2 lane road.

He was driving a 1960 H-model Mack and was loaded at the time.
He also had his wife and 2 year old son with him.
His son was asleep in the sleeper and after the collision he had to put on the brakes and stop and his son was still asleep laying on his back in the sleeper .
It had not even rolled him over on the mattress.

At that intersection the road was elevated and the car was found over 100 feet from the road out in a corn field.
This like my analogy of the man kicking the football illustrates what happens when two objects of vastly different weight collide.
The Indy race cars are designed to tear apart and absorb the energy gradually slowing the car down.
Well with a heavy vehicle hitting a light one you have the same effect the heavy vehicle will continue on for a while and it is the slower stopping that makes a big difference.

My idea of a safe daily driver is to bobtail around in an old conventional Autocar it weighs 16000lbs in it's stocking feet.

I sometimes wonder if these idiots who drive the highly rated cars think it is going to protect them because they drive like fools cutting people off jumping lanes all to get home pop the top on a beer and get their feet up in front of the TV a minute sooner.
It seems to be getting worse I'm glad that I'm retired and no longer have to deal with it.

 

[lars11]

1. of course the smaller car will react heavier to an impact than a larger car.
2. In any car, it is imperative to have lots of deformation zones to make the material of the car absorb more of the impact energy, ie. slow the car down over a slightly longer time period.
THIS goes for a large truck too. Not because the truck needs it but because it will reduce stress on the smaller party in the crash.

 

[lars11]

Another thing about "who's to blame in traffic". Over here I sometimes stumble upon the idea that Heavy trucks and equpiment is dangerous "for the rest of us" and should thus be reduced...
Well, from a utility standpoint it's the opposite. Basically, the fully loaded 18 wheeler is so much more important to us than you are, driving to get a coke.
Safetywise, trucks cause almost no accidents, per truck or mile or mile-tonnes driven. But when they do, they are serious.
Compared to personal driving, the trucks are also much more energy efficient.
So, be happy that we have the big rigs on the road. They make life possible for us "freedom drivers" too.

There are lots of misunderstandings. Like the "dangerous" Autobahn which is actually one of the safest roads in europe per mile travelled. Speed doesn't kill etiher if the road is made for it.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: lars11
THIS goes for a large truck too. Not because the truck needs it but because it will reduce stress on the smaller party in the crash.


Disagree...any crumple zone that would protect a car impacting a semi would make the semi dangerous to the semi driver (and unable to tow a load). Unless it was a 10 foot jumping castle tied to the front of the semi.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: lars11
Like the "dangerous" Autobahn which is actually one of the safest roads in europe per mile travelled.


I saw fewer accidents in 2200 miles of driving on the Autobahn than I did one day driving 15 miles to work. People around here drive like complete morons, like it would kill them to engage their two remaining brain cells and actually THINK for once.

 

[Vilan]

One time when I was riding the bus, at one stop I felt a little push forward like something bumped the bus. Looking out the back, some sedan didn't notice the bus had stopped and rammed it. Everyone got out of the bus to see what was up. The engine compartment of the sedan was pretty solidly crumpled up, though the driver was OK. The bus didn't even have a dent in the fender.