Today is Friday so I'm keeping this one short. Reading through the Ask the B&B from earlier, I noticed that the person asking was leaning towards a Subaru Tribeca because it's safe. Yes, but it's also hideous!! For certain, one of the very ugliest cars made during an ugly time. I might opt for a lacerated spleen rather than be seen in one of those. I really might. And it's an SUV, too. As the reader was asking about a vehicle for her two kids, she's probably thinking that SUVs are safer. They aren't, as you're more likely to lose control and fall off a mountain in an SUV than a car. Sure, if you run head-on into a Brink's truck the larger bulk of the SUV will insulate you more than a car. But in a car you can proactively avoid the accident, rather than reactively absorbing the impact energy. And finally, just to kick it up a notch, have safety ratings ever influenced your purchases? Put another way, you like one car better than the other but the former gets four safety stars to the latter's five — what do you do?
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Probably the less safe one if I really like it more, I’ve never really considered the safety part when shopping cars unless it’s a complete deathtrap. Although the car I’m driving now doesn’t even have airbags, I think the best safety is to not drive like an idiot and try and be more aware about what’s going on around you.
I would rather avoid the accident altogether with a small car than have a marginally better chance of surviving with a larger car or suv.
Passive safety is a good thing. But for teens, their biggest risk is not one of getting hit, but of being stupid enough to hurt themselves.
Teens should have the most boring car possible, with minimal horsepower, a crappy radio, no connector for an Ipod, no charger for the phone, and no room to hold a large group of people who can encourage them to act like idiots. A stick shift would be preferable, so that they are forced to use both hands for driving.
They already feel invincible enough as is without giving them a tank to enhance their feelings of immortality. I’d help to pay for the vehicle and cover the cost of routine maintenance, but they should have to pay for the gas, insurance and any accident damage, so that they see the connection their behavior and the expense of owning it.
My dad used to buy Mercedes-Benz cars because their safety was bar-none tops (except for a Volvo). That was a perception that didn’t change for a long time, now it’s a bit different. My 2006 Mazda 3 wagon has more safety features than their current 2002 E430 4matic, granted it’s a smaller car. Volvo and MB are no longer the safety champions they once were, same with engineering.
Many new vehicles are extremely well-built and very safe for most accident scenarios. There will always be freak accidents where no seatbelt, no airbag, no roll-over prevention system will save you. Stars don’t matter at that point. I don’t really know what the difference between a 4-star and 5-star car is…but they’ll both keep me alive in an accident. So will a 3-star car, maybe a few more bruises, but I’m doubtful that any of it will be life-threatening.
If you buy a car purely on safety, then get the biggest damned thing you can get and deal with all the other inconviences that come with that vehicle too. Also, make sure your driveway gate doesn’t slide into the rear quarter-panel. Because that would negate the percieved safety of having your fortress and you excessively large vehicle will be in the body shop while the rental company gives you an equally, but not percieved, safe mid-size vehicle.
It’s truly sad when people think their safety is only viable through such measures, while putting other’s safety in greater jeopardy.
I honestly think accident prevention should be considered in safety ratings. How well the vehicle does to avoid testing the crumple zones, airbags and what-not. Something that a Mercedes car would trump a large SUV in. While having less impact in other manners.
Finally, I wonder which is safer: my 1984 Volvo 760 or my 2006 Mazda 3 wagon.
Safety used to matter little to me. I drove an Olds Cutlass Calais with door mounted seatbelts, a death trap S10, a really fast deathtrap Eclipse Turbo and a Geo Tracker that by nature was less than safe.
Now that I have a family it matters to me. Quite a bit. My wife’s car is a Subaru Tribeca in the “classic” 2007 style. She picked it out, she loves it and thinks it is pretty. I have no concerns with her driving it around and know that her and the kids stand a very good chance of surviving an accident with little injury. I cannot rely on my wife to treat driving the same way I do, so her driving a safe vehicle is the best I can do.
Yes, safety matters. As someone that has been hit more than once by other drivers, it’s a prerequisite before I will consider any car purchase. It’s like mechanical reliability and not rusting in the first five years – if a manufacturer can’t get safety right then I’m not interested in their product.
TEXN3:
Your Mazda is an order of magnitude safer than your Vovlo.
And if you take into account metal fatigue, orders.
Safety matters, but only when it’s bad. This is why Chinese cars will have a hard time in the US before they remedy that. So many cars get “very good” safety ratings now that it’s hardly a selling point anymore (thus the fall of Volvo). It’s become a given to get 4 stars in all categories.
I think safety is important, but people need to reevaluate “Safety” and, perhaps, use their brains a little more when thinking about it.
Examples:
* I’ve seen a fair number of people in two-ton trucks (bought “for safety”) that have children strapped in carseats that have been installed completely improperly.
* 4WD/AWD without winter tires. AWD doesn’t help you stop.
* Driver training. I’m starting to think people should be tested every five years.
* Stability control and side-air bags are important additions for any car. That they’re not available on cheaper ones is one reason why cheaper cars are labelled unsafe.
When I buy a car, safety and economy are paramount. That said, don’t accept “wive’s tales” about what constitutes safety (or economy, or reliability). Do the research, read, think. If more people did that, we wouldn’t have dug ourselves so deeply into the SUV market.
The safest thing I can do is put myself in the driver seat. In “car crashes (2+cars)” I’ve been in 10-12 in my life and only been the driver in 1. At all other times I was the passenger.
My wife is in a 2000 neon (not a safe car at all) has been in one accident (someone hit her by swithcing lanes in an intersection while making a right turn) and the damage was VERY minor. Considering that most of the driving is rush hour….I don’t see safety as being that important. You don’t need a tank to survive being rear ended at 5mph while sitting in traffic.
Safety is one of the last items I look at while shopping. Then again, my last purchase was a motorcycle… :)
If I ever get a kid, I’ll buy it the least-cool, least-fun-to-drive, highest-crash-rating, safest car I can find. Something like a Taurus, or a slightly used Volvo S80 (with the wimpy V6, of course).
God help them find a date.
No matter how much safety you try to develop and implement. You cannot out engineer ‘stupid’.
Physics hurts.
I think the consideration of safety increases with age; the older we get the more we appreciate the value of life; it increases again when you become a parent.
No more Caterham 7s for me!
:(
Safety CANNOT be quantified. It really can’t. Well, maybe it could be, but those pretending to quantify it rarely compare the most important factor – time and money lost to provide the benefit.
If the average person lives to be seventy. And we increase that by one day by lowering the speed limit, do we really gain anything if the average person now spends 72 hours more in their car over their lifetime?
It amazes me that this question NEVER comes up in regard to safety initiatives. NEVER.
Safety is a factor for me, certainly, but as other have pointed out, there’s more to safety than how well the car handles a crash. I also look for a nimble, manoeuvrable vehicle that can avoid the crash in the first place.
For the record, I chose an Audi A3. High crash test ratings for its size, and very nimble.
Landcrusher
do we really gain anything if the average person now spends 72 hours more in their car over their lifetime?
You don’t like spending 72 hours in your car?
@Landcrusher:
Whether or not it you feel it can be, safety is, in fact, quantified by various entities. You can argue that they’re not doing it right, but you should be prepared to back that up against reams of statistical evidence showing otherwise. Science and math are hard — and accurate, if used properly. I would very much appreciate hearing the facts of the matter.
Your second paragraph would make sense if all old people had an accident on the penultimate day of their life if the speed limit is set above a certain level. You’re averaging the lives saved over the population. I assure you that (with the possible exception of organ donation) you cannot actually divide a human life up and give the pieces to other humans to extend their lives.
The question is actually: does lowering the speed limit save lives? Otherwise phrased as: if you save X lives by limiting it to (X)XX MPH, is it worth it? I’m surprised you’ve never heard this question asked before in regards to safety initiatives. The cost/benefit ratio of safety features is a fairly common ideological battle in the United States.
If you don’t actually believe that they can rigorously and accurately prove that lowering the speed limit will save lives, then I would think that should be your argument and you shouldn’t be engaging on the statistical level at all, because you’re just validating the quantification.
Safety is an illusion that people comfort themselves with. An elaborate form of denial.
They buy a “safe” vehicle then drive it with minimal attention and questionable skill, all while drinking coffee, eating lunch, talking on a phone, and letting the vehicle shift gears for them – thereby lowering their margin of safety significantly.
Safety is a marketing methodology, nothing more.
–chuck
Most folks expect a vehicle with a high degree of passive safety features, ABS, ESP, air bags, crush zones.
At the same time since the vehicle has a high degree of passive safety, they can forget about driving.
Jonny,
Safety(crash test results etc.)is my number two concern. First, my budget and what I am willing to spend. I narrowed the class of vehicle I wanted to a compact SUV. I looked at five different models all new 2008’s. Ford Escape (one test drive and I passed), Hyundai Tucson (horrible shift points), Toyota RAV4 (roomiest), Honda CRV (best interior), and I ended up buying a Subaru Forester.
After viewing Government crash test results only the Toyota, Subaru, and Honda were left standing. IMO the CRV is the best looking of the group. Subaru and Toyota being the most mild/bland of the five. In the end I had a hard time finding a CRV built in Japan so I bought my first Subaru.
So far I have put 2,500 miles on it and can say I am impressed. I run very high air pressure in my tires (Max 40 PSI, I run 39 PSI) and I installed a K&N air filter. The majority of my traveling is done at highway speeds and I have been averaging 27.8 mpg.
With all of that said, I most likely would have bought a CRV had I found one. The Forester took some time to accept as a viable alternative. For the record even if the Tribeca was in my scope I would opted for a Highlander twice over! I can get past plain and ordinary but the UGLY Tribeca? That is crazy talk…
chuckgoolsbee –
Safety is marketing methodology, nothing more.
That’s a ridiculous assertion. The Ford Pinto is quantifiably less safe than a Ford Fusion, in every conceivable way. Structurally, dynamically, and technologically the Fusion is light years ahead.
Pretending that there’s an inverse relationship between a car’s built in safety factor and the driver’s instinct for self preservation is an elaborate form of denial. Which would you rather have your son/daughter drive?
It’s a big deal to me… it keeps me off motorcycles.
My ’02 Miata is acceptably safe to me overall, but I do feel nervous at intersections because it would be pretty bad in a side impact (it does fine in frontal crashes). Side impacts are probably the type I have the least control over, so I would not mind paying a bit more for added safety there, next time.
I would not buy a car with two star safety ratings as a daily driver. I’d probably be okay with three if I was in love with the rest of the package.
My prioritization of vehicle characteristics is:
1. Performance
2. Style
3. Reliability
4. Serviceability
5. Practicality
6. Safety
Active safety (handling, road-holding, acceleration and other performance benefits) is wildly exaggerated. We all envision ourselves drifting, counter-steering, rotating and otherwise skillfully accident-avoiding like Schumacher making it through first-lap carnage, but in fact it rarely happens.
It’s nice that a good-handling car is generally speaking safer than some topheavy pig on iron-hard tires, but when the drunk suddenly comes around the corner in our lane, precious few of us will react like Michael. Or even Ralf.
Yes, safety is important, but as has been mentioned, beating your kids in safety-driving submission is much more important than any airbags, starting with paying attention to the road. I have no kids yet, but keep yelling at my 20 year-old sisters-in-law for using their phones in the car, and I don’t quite understand that their dad doesn’t ground them for that.
And beyond the “small cars are more nimble” (valid) argument, SUVs are “safer” only if their mass is an advantage, i.e. vs. small obstacles, such as another small cars or a young tree. Hit a strong brick wall, a large tree or similar obstacle, and the SUV won’t be any safer than a small car of the same generation (i.e. comparable safety features).
Zeit,
No, not at 20 mph.
Faster,
You completely missed my point, and you made lots of mistakes. I won’t argue with your points because you didn’t argue with mine. Furthemore, you made some patently false statements about what can and cannot be measured, and even insulted my intelligence by trying to decide what I do know or understand.
Here is a restatement of my basic principle:
No matter how much math you apply, or statistics you use, if you do not compare the cost of time lost to time saved your work is really useless. If you could save someone’s life by isolating them in a coffin for the rest of their life, would you say you saved anything? NO! The person would choose after a short time to just die instead.
How about this, there is a terminal cancer patient that needs our prayers. If ten thousand of us spend the day praying, the patient will live another day. Shouldn’t we all take turns praying for them? No, at some point, saving them has a cost beyond the benefit. If you don’t EVER measure that cost, your conclusions are just so much worthless hard facts and math.
Or, if we all stop driving, no one will die from car accidents. Let’s ban cars and trucks and watch the average life span PLUMMET along with the quality of life.
Ask the wrong question, you get the WRONG answer. Most safety initiatives involve a much more subtle trade off than my examples, but if you don’t measure the other side of the equation YOU CANNOT KNOW.
I became more interested in how many “stars” a vehicle got in crash tests after I learned what kind of injuries are associated with each star. After getting married and starting a family it became even more important.
Living in Detroit, 70-80% of the other vehicles on the road are SUV’s or pick-ups, so if you drive something smaller and get hit, you will be testing the boundaries of the protection your vehicle can offer. It affects what we buy, most certainly.
AKM: And beyond the “small cars are more nimble” (valid) argument,…
I’ve never seen any proof that “nimble” cars will help anyone avoid an accident. Not to knock good handling – I appreciate it as much anyone else.
As Mr. Wilkinson correctly notes, so many accidents happen so quickly that that drivers just don’t have any time to react. If you are on a two-lane country road with a 50 mph speed limit, and a drunk traveling at 75 mph in the opposite direction crests the hill in your lane, you will not have enough time to react, regardless of whether you are driving a VW GTI or a Ford Explorer. The superior handling of the GTI is basically useless in that situation.
As I said, I like nimble vehicles as much as anyone else, but unless the driver has razor-sharp reflexes, terrific handling isn’t going to “save” him or her from many fatal accidents.
The ironic thing about the whole safety debate is that consumer demand is really driving improved safety, and forcing manufacturers to proactively address the issue. Before, the federal government mandated safety equipment that either required no action on the part of the driver (collapsible steering columns, shatterproof windshields) or could be ignored by the driver (safety belts). With few exceptions – Mercedes, Volvo – manufacturers complied with federal regulations, and that was about it.
In our family, we NEVER wore safety belts until they were mandated via state law.
Now everyone is much more safety conscious…and, as a result, ALL vehicles are really much safer than ever before. I regularly read of people surviving very serious accidents. Those who don’t, with few exceptions, either weren’t wearing safety belts, or were drunk, or both.
For a college research project, I had to research copies of the local paper from the mid-1960s. It was a small town paper, so fatal auto accidents were newsworthy, usually accompanied by a photo of the wrecked vehicle. What struck me about the fatal automobile accidents was how many of them occurred at relatively low speeds. They are the kind of accidents that, today, that would not be fatal. At the most, the person suffers a broken limb.
While I’m sure it matters to some people, I am not one of them. I can’t live my life fearing the worst “what if” scenarios my reptilian brain could come up with.
But attitudes change when your loved ones are in the car.
It really depends on who the car owner will be. If I’m going to be the primary driver, a car has to be absolute death trap before safety starts to influence my buying decision (an early VW Ghia with no seatbelts for instance). For friends and family members it does become a consideration, and if kids are going to be regular passengers in the car, or the regular driver is inept, then it becomes a pretty big consideration.
It does amuse me how many motorcycle riders will be hop in one of my cars and then become nervous and uncomfortable when they realize it has no airbags, fairly hard dash materials, and the seatbelt latches are strange and don’t look very effective – yet I’m pretty sure my cars are way safer than any motorcycle! Driver skill and comfort with the machine are part of safety as well. I regularly commute at high speed in traffic with late 60s Fiats that most people would consider nearly suicidal, but I rarely ride my motorcycle on highways, and when I do I’m very cautious. Why? I know I’m a good automobile driver and I’m comfortable with my ability to handle even the worst car in an emergency. I also know I’m a pretty pedestrian motorcycle rider, and I think it best that I try to avoid tense driving situations when I’m behind the handlebars…
Safety is certainly one of the things I consider when buying a car–although I really didn’t consider safety when I made my first car purchase, a then eight year old ’77 Toyota Corolla total stripper, from a guy who later become one of the Iraq weapons inspectors, but I digress. I would, for example, be much more inclined to get aCivic than a Mazda3, in large part because the side crash test results on the Mazda aren’t good.
But passive safety is generally quite good in the US fleet, and I’m not about to do what one of my friends did in the mid-’80s, after his Rabbit was totaled in a way that should have killed someone but didn’t: he bought a Pontiac Parisienne wagon, a real monster.
As for what kids should drive, I defer to PCH’s comment on the first page of the posts.
Then there was Jared Diamond, the noted author of Guns GErms and Steel, probably the best book I ever read (the subject is the origin and evolution of civilization). 25 years after he graduated from MIT (in the mid-60s I think) he was still driving the Beetle he’d bought while a student there, probably doing the double nickel on the LA freeways. Then, around age 50, he got married, and had two kids. The Beetle was retired, entirely for safety reasons.
All modern cars are safer than they used to be years ago. I may consider it when looking at a minivan for my wife but when it comes to my cars I couldn’t care less about which car is safer. They’re all safe enough.
I’ll go out on a limb here and say that this is one area that having government intervention is a good thing. It tends to level the playing field and takes a factor of value and “tends” to make it a non-issue when buying (“yeah, all cars have that these days”). So when one is in the market looking for a car they WANT, they can ass/u/me there car is as safe as the next one.
Actually, the used car with a breakdown reserve would be a great lesson. Don’t forget to keep a record of the costs over the 4 years in school to compare.
This way, you can get an older, 4 cylinder RAV 4 or CRX, and save money on gas as well.
@ Ralph SS : Uhh, no thanks. I have a brain, I’m happy to use it, you know, to make decisions and stuff.
Safety is a factor, as in, I don’t want a car that fails as badly in a crash test as some of the chinese cars have recently. If I’m buying a minivan, the safer the better. Sportscar, no airbags please. A nice rollcage and good seatbelts and chairs will suffice. Motorcycle, yes they should be legal. You only live once, living in a cocoon of safety is not worth living at all.
Safety ratings certainly are one of my considerations when purchasing a vehicle. It’s something I’d be willing to spend extra for, and something that’s capable of removing vehicles from my list.
# TEXN3 :
June 13th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Finally, I wonder which is safer: my 1984 Volvo 760 or my 2006 Mazda 3 wagon.
Here’s your answer:
There’s one safety feature that I absolutely require in any car I would drive regularly: side curtain airbags. I place top priority in avoiding head injuries. Side impacts are most likely to create head trauma: the temporal bone is by far the weakest part of the skull, and without side airbags there’s little more than a sheet of glass and a door frame separating the side of your head from whatever intrudes into the cabin.
Otherwise, safety is generally one of the top three attributes I use in choosing a car. While I try to do my part to drive with reasonable care, and choose a car that I would be able to handle competently in an emergency, active safety isn’t enough. I want airbags, crumple zones, and anti-whiplash headrests, because the idiocy of some other drivers is practically a guarantee.
Assuming that many if not most cars have got the basics with regard to head on collisions, I still place more emphasis on side protection capability, due to the dreaded Suburban Mother/Father Yakking on Cellphone whose SUV runs a red light and T-bones my car.
Ditto here on cars that have decent seats–i.e., active headrests and which are well anchored in the car. Many times the debilitating injuries come from rear-enders that don’t even total the car–but if you don’t have the anti-whiplash seats, you’re still in trouble.
Chuck:
Safety is an illusion that people comfort themselves with. An elaborate form of denial.
They buy a “safe” vehicle then drive it with minimal attention and questionable skill, all while drinking coffee, eating lunch, talking on a phone, and letting the vehicle shift gears for them – thereby lowering their margin of safety significantly.
Safety is a marketing methodology, nothing more.
At the risk of bringing out the IIHS stormtroopers, the MOST important part of the car, and the one which contributes most to real safety, is the operator. So long as the Insurance industry keeps promulgating the myth that safety is achieved solely through heavier and more feature-laden cars, we will not hit the root of the problem. Chuck’s point is absolutely on the money; if we don’t recognize that the hardware side of safety is still dramatically marginalized by inattentive and skill-less drivers, “safety” is a marketing methodology only.
Safety only has to be important once.
Fear sells.
Auto manufacturers finally figured out that rather than fight safety requirements, they can use them to instill fear in drivers, hopefully getting them to buy new products more often.
That is why even a Civic now weighs over 2,700 lbs, and Hondas typically are some of the slightest built cars around.
@HankScorpio: Yeah, but that Eclipse was a blast to drive. I know I nearly killed myself several times in it.
In the past, having fast nimblish cars has kept me from being in accidents. Several times, some jackass has come on over into my lane as I’m just getting past their back bumper and depending on the situation I’ll floor it to get around them and then scream at them from the comfort of my car.
I must admit, that safety hasn’t factored into any of my vehicle purchases. The only thing I’ve looked at is airbags, and you can’t get a new car w/o airbags now so it’s a non issue for me. I’m a single male nearing 30, ftr.
I say live fast, die young, make sure your insurance policy is up to speed.
No matter what kind of car you drive, make sure the tires, brakes, wipers, windshield washers, seat belts, and any other safety systems are perfect.
And don’t try and drive a big hulking SUV as if it were a little car. Big cars are harder to control, harder to get out of the way in an emergency, and, in most cases, take longer to come to a stop.
Personally, I’ll take every safety feature I can buy: gobs of airbags, dynamic stability control, crush zones, you name it. I would rather pay an extra $1000 for DSTC, better headlights, and blind spot noticiation then for an upgraded stereo or leather seats.
A number of people here seem to equate a manual transmission with automatic prevention of distracted driving and, thus, increased safety.
Given that a large portion of the drivers on the road today learned to drive using a “slushbox,” (myself included) it would be inherently more dangerous for them to suddenly switch to a stick. Rather than looking away from the road because they’re trying to dial a cell phone, they’ll instead focus all of their energy on trying not to stall in an intersection.
If people learn to drive a stick and feel comfortable with a stick, then a valid argument can be made for this increasing safety. But once you’ve started driving, there are few options for learning to drive a manual — unless you have a friend willing to teach and willing to risk the expensive transmission bits of his/her car.
I can teach–and have taught–someone to drive a manual transmission car in half an hour. Got me laid once, in fact.
I have found that 70 percent of the “teaching” actually happens beforehand, ensuring with diagrams or whatever that your student doesn’t think a clutch pedal is “something that you push down and it does something.” Once they understand the principle of two clutchplates slowly coming together and imparting rotation from one to the other, most of the job is done.
Could get you laid too.
Most cars manufactured today are very safe in a collision. Of course there will be differences, but most are minor, unless you are talking about a really cheap and small car. I think that modern passive and active safety systems are invaluable, and I will not buy a car if it does not have Stability Control, but the best safety device is the DRIVER. Drive smart, and you can avoid most problems. Additionally, I’d rather have a car that handled well, then a boat with a million airbags.
I’m willing to pay money for safety features, but I’m not willing to buy a larger vehicle for more safety. That’s a philosophy that just doesn’t jive well with me. Also, I probably wouldn’t turn down a vehicle that I liked a lot because of safety ratings, unless it was really dangerous. A one star difference is a consideration, but not a deal breaker.
I do think that people over exaggerate the need for the safest possible vehicle. The way they talk, you would think that high speed collisions are inevitable for every single person. From what I can tell, the likelihood of a collision where the difference between a Fit and a Suburban saves your life is extremely low. If you walk outside you could be hit by lightning, but we bet on those odds, just like many other things in our lives. I will also say that I have had an instance in my life where had I not been driving an agile car, I would have hit a full grown deer at 65 mph, and another where if I had been driving a vehicle with a high center of gravity, it would have rolled over, turning a situation that was very minor into one that would be very dangerous.
Safety, comfort, driving feel and efficiency are all high priorities for me. Fashion and the whims of style are of secondary concern.
The relative crash worthiness of multiple vehicles is in fact quantifiable. The methods are not perfect and different tests give slightly different results, but in a crash the 15 year old Geo Metro is many times more likely to kill it’s occupants than is a similar aged Volvo 240. The rate at which various vehicles are involved in accidents is also thoroughly documented. It is debatable how much of the data is due to the vehicles and how much it says about the buyers, but the data is there. A new Corvette is much more likely to end up in an accident than is a new minivan.
The naysayers remind me of all the sturm-und-drang debate about seat belts in the 1970s. Countless old school die-hards used the same kind of arguments as to why they refused to wear the darned things that we are seeing here today in a slightly different context. I was just a teen then and had many a frustrating conversation with those of my parents generation about the need to wear seat belts and the wisdom of recycling soda bottles. Moms caught on pretty quick, some dads … not so fast.
At this point of fuel prices and such, safety is on the bottom of my list. Do I want Yugo safety?, no. But as long it remains solid i’m good. My previous car had thin A-pillars and door mounted seatbelts, those kinds of factors forced you to drive responsibly. I could drive something as “unsafe” as a Geo Metro and be fine with it.
You can locate plenty of safety information out there today. Competing similar models often have very different results, it’s a no brainer. Everything being equal, I’ll opt for the 5 star front and side performers. A lot of drivers out there today are, shall we say, “lacking in quality and attention”, that extra star or two might be the difference between walking away from a crash vs you now live in a wheelchair.
If I were to buy a new car now I’d want both 5 stars from NHTSA in every direction and all Good ratings from IIHS. Plus all the usual safety devices like ABS, ESC, every airbag.
I still hate seat belt laws – sometimes I wear mine, sometimes not. I have learned how to program my car to disable the seatbelt warnings.
Ditto on open container laws – the key is to change the container. I’m not paying $6 for a beer at the restaurant when I can drink one on the way there for $1. One beer puts me at about .02 BAC – less affected than all the nimrods yakking on their cell phones.
If I’m a bad person, I can live with that.
Pch101 said, “Teens should have the most boring car possible, with minimal horsepower, a crappy radio, no connector for an Ipod, no charger for the phone, and no room to hold a large group of people who can encourage them to act like idiots. A stick shift would be preferable, so that they are forced to use both hands for driving.”
Well, a Model T Roadster fits the bill. Or an old Japanese pickup. Passive safety? Fugeddaboutit.
I don’t hate the seat belt laws, but despite the fact that I always wear my seatbelt, and have since my parents put them in the ’57 Chevy in 1961, I hate those damn beepers that go off if you don’t.
One thing is for certain:
You only live once.
Oh, you might not drive foolishly, but just look around you — you are in a sea of drivers who apparently never, ever put their cell phones down when they’re in their giant behemoths. If you were “swimming at a crowded beach” instead, all of the other swimmers would be “sharks.”
If that’s not bad enough, now we have kids typing out text messages while they’re driving. I swear to you, if I ever get creamed by some punk typing out “What’s up, dude?”, I will get the baseball bat I carry in my trunk out, and beat him to a bloody pulp.
Anyway. I know a co-worker who lost her father in what could have been “just a normal traffic accident,” just a few blocks from his home. Her mother was driving the family’s brand-new Ford Five Hundred (this was about two years ago or so), and he was sitting in the passenger seat when they got t-boned by a Ford Expedition. Probably around 35-40 MPH. No side air bags of any kind. “They were optional, and we didn’t get them.” They had to cut him out of the car, and he had a laundry list of broken bones — just about every one that you could mention. Plus a bunch of internal injuries, which he finally succumbed to after about six months, most of which was in hospitals.
If that car had had side and side curtain air bags, he would have dusted off some minor injuries, and lived to tell about it. Also, a number of new cars are made with “high strength steel,” which sounds kind of comic-book corny, but it’s a steel alloy that is MUCH stronger than the usual steel cars have been built with — in fact, the usual “jaws of life” tool isn’t strong enough to cut through it. Safer cars now have veritable “roll cages” built all around the passenger compartment with the stuff.
Yes, “learn how to drive.” Gosh, it’s not really all that difficult: Just SLOW DOWN, pay attention to everything around you, and BACK OFF from the car in front of you, and give yourself enough time to safely react to whatever happens. That’s most of the job, right there.
Unfortunately, a lot of the drivers around you just won’t be doing that kind of thing. But you CAN find vehicles that will do a far better job of holding up to impacts than others, and will soften the impact to your body with airbags — and I’m afraid that the smallest, most fuel-efficient models usually won’t do as well as most larger vehicles.
It is veritably the difference between life and death — YOUR life.
If its your time to meet with the good Lord then it doesnt matter you always drive around in a Sherman tank.
The best is avoid any accident. But quite often we cannot be that lucky.
The Bigger the car can gave you afalse sense of safety, but also a presence that Idiots would not want to mess with you.
As opposed to driving a Mini, Smart , Porsche 356 Sportster etc idiots may deliberate miss you on the Radar screen when change lane, got carried away in their heated phone conference call.
A good example 20 some yrs ago was a relative who used to drive a Buick Le Sabre, she did well until she changed to a Civic. Only few wks later she got banged up. And that was the pre-cell phone days. The problem was any whip lash do get lasting results, much longer than u have received any settlement.
Can call me a Luddite, my 126 do gave me a high margin of perceptional safety.
Law of unintended consequences…
Bought an RX-8 a couple of years ago. After a lengthy, happy car search, I chose weird over cool (don’t want to get into the “my car’s better than your car”). But after driving it for some months, I found that SUVs, minivans, trucks, just don’t see me. Merging, cutting me off, etc. So, my lack of concern for safety features was reversed.
Now, I really appreciate the full compliment of airbags. I actually bragged about the RX receiving the highest ever “roll-over” rating. But, in the end, there is no more important safety feature than an observant (paranoid?) driver, and a car that can get you out of trouble…but fast.
thoots: Gosh, it’s not really all that difficult: Just SLOW DOWN, pay attention to everything around you, and BACK OFF from the car in front of you, and give yourself enough time to safely react to whatever happens. That’s most of the job, right there.
Actually, what you list IS pretty difficult, or we wouldn’t kill forty-some-thousand people on the road every year. And if you couple these challenges to actually understanding the difference in braking, handling and emergency avoidance between the various kinds of cars you might drive, there is real skill involved in navigating your way safely through traffic. Somehow we’ve decided that the accident is unavoidable, so it is best to be driving a “safe” vehicle.
German autobahns have a lower death rate per mile despite having dramatically increased speed differentials and some sections where it is not unusual that some traffic is moving along at 100 mph and some is moving at 60 mph or less. Germans are generally far more attentive and skillful drivers who react quickly to changing traffic conditions.
@ guitaral: you can do what I did with my low sports car. get a loud set of mufflers. those suvs can’t see me, but they hear me and I don’t get cut off hardly ever. good choice on car btw. not the most horsepower, but those cars are very, very cool. I especially love the suicide doors.
@ guitaral: you can do what I did with my low sports car. get a loud set of mufflers. those suvs can’t see me, but they hear me and I don’t get cut off hardly ever. good choice on car btw. not the most horsepower, but those cars are very, very cool. I especially love the suicide doors
The only people that ever heard my mufflers were the cops who routinely gave me exhaust noise tickets.
I just want the car to stay together while driving. I once flipped because a pitman arm snapped while driving normaly down a paved road. Otherwise.. if i feel as safe as i do on a motorcycle i’ll be happy
It is my top priority. There is a big difference in the safety of cars and it is one of the biggest risks most people take.
I know someone who was paralyzed from the neck down from an accident he got into while driving a late 80s Ford Escort. I’m fairly positive if he were driving a 2000s era car (with a 4 or 5 star crash rating and all the usual airbags) back then he would be a lot better off.
Well, about this:
edgett:
Actually, what you list IS pretty difficult, or we wouldn’t kill forty-some-thousand people on the road every year. And if you couple these challenges to actually understanding the difference in braking, handling and emergency avoidance between the various kinds of cars you might drive, there is real skill involved in navigating your way safely through traffic. Somehow we’ve decided that the accident is unavoidable, so it is best to be driving a “safe” vehicle.
Well, “no.” Dang it, NO!!
You just said it yourself — I especially despise the “soccer moms” who tailgate me in two-and-a-half-ton SUV’s, while simultaneously sipping on their Starbucks coffees and chatting endlessly on their cell phones. They utterly have no comprehension whatsoever of the physics regarding safe following distances and their ability to stop their vehicles in an emergency.
Yes, of course, obviously, no doubt whatsoever, we’re all in agreement — WE SHOULD DRIVE COMPETENTLY, give ourselves room in order to react to emergencies, and all that. I don’t dispute that for one minute, and I’ve been practicing it for my entire life.
No matter how competent and careful you are, though, YOU ARE NOT UNILATERALLY IN CONTROL OF YOUR DESTINY when you’re mixing it up with all of the other drivers on the road. And, choosing to drive a car built to the state-of-the-art in terms of air bags, high strength steel, crumple zones, and all that IS NOT INCOMPATIBLE with driving competently and safely. It just isn’t a “choose one or the other” situation!
That’s what I’m saying — drive competently and safely, but also consider choosing a vehicle that will protect you better than other vehicles that won’t protect you as well. And that choice isn’t limited to huge SUV’s or anything like that — plenty of normal, everyday cars are built to the state of the art in safety these days. Choose the side and side curtain air bags. Choose Toyota’s new knee air bag. Learn about and choose vehicles built with high-strength steel reinforcement. Pay attention to crash test ratings, and choose your vehicles in accordance to them.
It’s not that we have no driving skills — it’s about all of the other drivers that don’t. You can find vehicles in just about every segment that’ll be safer than others — and choosing the safer one just might save your life some day. Or the life of someone else in your vehicle. It should be a pretty easy choice to make when you purchase or lease a vehicle.
Thoots: Agreed that we are not unilaterally in control of our destiny. So what is a “safe” car? I guess that totally depends on the circumstances. If you’re going to get hit by the soccer mom while she sips her latte, I’d prefer to be driving a dump truck every time, even if it handles and stops like, a dump truck. If there is an emergency in front of me where I can avoid an accident by stopping, a “safe” vehicle is something pretty light with good brakes and someone who knows how to use them.
So if we’re not in control of our destiny, and accident situations vary from the Freightliner bearing down on you (airbags are only going to make it hurt a little less as you are squashed, even in a Suburban) to a Hyundai Excel t-boning you (the Suburban and airbags would help, here), to a multi-car smash up in front of you (Porsche Cayman with the extra-good brakes is the “safe” car).
I think the idea of a safe vehicle has been way overmarketed by the insurance industry, the automobile industry and by the government. The basic assumption is that there is no other means to make accidents less frequent and less severe so we just dumb down the whole endeavor. If 55 is “safer”, why not lower speed limits to 35, which is obviously much safer. At some point, the individual must be assigned responsiblity for knowing how to drive whatever it is that he or she drives. We do this now, but don’t educate people very well in the art of driving automobiles.
Imagine how incensed we would all be if there were a huge fiery crash on the freeway involving a tanker truck, and it was determined that the driver did not hold the necessary license to operate a heavy truck. Yet every day we can read about fatalities involving SUV roll-overs and we act as if it is the manufacturer’s or the vehicle’s fault that the thing went shiny side down.
My point is that the safety of the vehicle is important and relative to the type of accident. The skill of the driver is even more important because unlike the vehicle we have the ability to adapt to a much wider variety of circumstances. So long as we sign on to the idea that vehicle safety is paramount in accident protection, we are solving only half the problem.
The idea of vehicle “safety” is similar to the idiocy which passes for “security” at the airport. If someone decides to take out a bunch of people, it takes little imagination to do so whether or not the rest of us disrobe and pass through a metal detector as we board a commercial aircraft.
It’s just a dangerous world out there, and the pretense of “safety” or “security” is just that.
I worked at a salvage auction for several years. I’ve seen everything from hundreds of ‘biohazard’ vehicles (where the driver did not get out of alive), to SUV’s that were literally sandwiched to half their size thanks to the carelessness of the driver.
There are three things that I took away from this experience.
1) I would not travel 50 feet without a seat belt. Ever.
2) An investment in a well maintained vehicle that has been conservatively driven, is worth it’s weight in gold.
3) Once you get below the 2500 pound threshold in the USA, or drive a sports car with a low center of gravity), you are trading a degree of sportiness and/or frugality in exchange for a lower level of safety.
With that in mind, I still sometimes drive a scooter or an early 90’s subcompact whenever I have the desire. But the former only gets driven on winding one lane roads and the later will typically get very limited exposure to heavily traveled roads. They’re both deathtraps and I use them sparingly due to that fact.
I usually give my wife Volvo wagons to drive (she values luxury and safety over sport), or a Subaru or Saab if I get a really nice one at an auction. The only ‘small car’ I’ve ever put them in was a Honda Fit.
As for teenagers, both of mine will learn on a Volvo wagon and although I’ll teach both of them to drive a stick well before they get a license, I won’t let them have one until they’re 25. What Pch said will be what I will do for my kids when it comes to paying for the vehicle.
Very s how lucky you’re if it s not your time nothng will come close to ht you. f its your time then not a lot that you can do.
Let the good Lord do the his thing.
I have missed a few deadly accident, one I went home to unplug a Notebook power pack. The delay of 15 mins so that I missed a fatal accident 30 miles away. As I lived in Northern BC then, a pick up truck skidded into a logging truck, they say due to Ice patch on the road. Is impossible to see in the dark.
Another time I didnt went fast enough so when arrived a loggin truck flipped on the side.
So for us the have nots praying to the good Lord can be a very effective way.
I’m seriously considering buying a Miata, but the small size is a deterrent. I’m just not sure that having a roadster is worth the sacrifice in safety.
I still disagree, vigorously:
edgett :
It’s just a dangerous world out there, and the pretense of “safety” or “security” is just that.
There is no “pretense” in automobile safety. The biggest issue has to do with the ability and the force thereof of your head hitting a hard surface, which is the main thing that might kill you.
“Seat belts” help avoid that, tremendously. “Front air bags” help a substantial measure more. “Side and side curtain air bags” have added protection against hitting the side windows and pillars. There’s no pretense at all in that these systems make a huge difference in whether you will be killed or survive in an accident.
“High strength steel” reinforcement around the passenger compartment makes it far less likely to crush inward during an accident, as compared to non-reinforced vehicles. “Auxiliary” air bags, such as “knee” air bags, help protect parts of your body that have been comparably more exposed in previous vehicles.
Yes, there is a certain point where the force of an impact might overwhelm these systems, but to proclaim them as a “pretense” is ridiculous. They are saving lives every day that would be lost in vehicles without them. And people are dying every day in vehicles that lack such systems. Again, by doing a little research, you can find and purchase vehicles with substantially better capabilities of protecting you in an impact — and I simply recommend that doing so makes a whole lot of good sense.
I always wondered….has anyone ever done side impact tests with full face helmets on for small car drivers/passengers to see if that would save lifes in a t-bone side collision when side air bags are not available?
I imagine a “free helmet!” promotion would not help small cars, however :)
hoots:
The “pretense” I was citing wasn’t to take away from the amazing strides we have made in enhancing vehicle safety. As much as I like many classic vehicles, I would drive one with the awareness that it doesn’t offer the protection of today’s cars.
The point however is that even with the remarkable safety of today’s vehicles, “safety” is relative and dependent upon the type of impact and the ability to avoid the impact. If I have to make a high speed evasive maneuver, a safe vehicle is one which has the capability to do so, and not a top-heavy SUV. If I’m going to get hit by something, there is no substitute for mass. Barrier tests are made on the assumption that I’m going to hit something, and do represent “safety” under a certain set of circumstances. Yet the vehicle’s and the driver’s ability to avoid the impact in the first place is not part of our “safety” lexicon.
So safety in the real world is related to a wide variety of characteristics which vary based on the type of incident one is trying to avoid. Given equivalent crash standards (which assume that the crash will happen), the increased safety offered by one vehicle over another is largely illusory. The single most important safety component remains the driver, and the auto companies have little to offer in that regard.
I do agree that research can identify vehicles which represent a reasonable compromise of crash survivability and crash avoidance characteristics. The marketing side of this equation has been to avoid such nuances; when do you see mainstream car companies advertising the “safety” of their braking systems? Only years after the introduction of computerized dynamic vehicle controls were they introduced on the vehicles which needed them most, the top heavy trucks and SUV’s.
For the driver who is sufficiently informed to do the research you suggest, safety is not a pretense. For most of those who are not well informed, the assumption that the biggest vehicle on the road is “safer” is just pretense.
My larger point was that if we really gave a damn about reducing fatalities and injuries, we would start to understand how accidents are avoided and quit blaming the vehicles for the accidents. I’ve seen innumerable headlines in the last few years on SUV rollovers, with the accompanying article tut-tutting over the tragedy of the vehicle rolling over. Never mentioned is the responsibility of the driver, unless they are drunk, to know the limits of his vehicle so that they do not try to yank the thing back on the road and thus put it on its lid.
It’s just curious that we have no problem with public funding for crash tests, yet little patience for public funding of driver improvement.