Before I rip you-know-who a new you-know-what, let me just say that if you haven’t sampled Alex Nunez live blog diary (oxymoronic but there you go) of the new Knight Rider TV show, it really is worth the jump. I don’t know if Alex is gay, but it’s the cattiest thing in the history of the world, ever. Pulitzer-prize poetry, I kid you not. (e.g. “Now we get to the part where Mike curries favor with Cooperman. KITT’s got Mike’s six. Mike punches Cooperman’s girlfriend in the face, because she talked more trash to him, and he wasn’t tied to a chair with a firehose blasting him in his grille. We go to commercial.”) OK, now to the intra-blog attack… “Green car advocate proves first hand how small cars aren’t deathtraps” is a completely irresponsible post. While we’re happy that gas2.0.org’s Nick Chambers walked away from a bad smash in a Toyota Yaris (three-star front and rear side safety ratings), his anecdotal experience proves precisely nothing about small car safety. As our post on small car insurance indicates, statistically, there’s another, more credible POV on this. We’d expect Autoblog to be more responsible in its reporting. Or, in fact, not. And as long as they’re not, TTAC will be there.
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When are you guys going to kiss and make up? How about a merger?
Just for clarification –
Alex: Not gay.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. :)
Yaris hasn’t been tested for rollovers, but did fine in these crash tests:
Euro NCAP: 5/5 stars for adult
IIHS: Good for frontal and side impact
I think the article is reprehensible, just for the flurry of rednecks clamoring over one another in the comments section to shout “THAT WAS DIRT, WHAT IF IT GOT HIT BY [GENERIC LARGE VEHICLE] AT [HIGH RATE OF SPEED]? YOU GREENIE COMMIE PINKO QUEERS WOULDN’T BE SO HAPPY THEN!”
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, I’ve heard it. Me and my 31 MPG will be over here, if you come up with something new or credible. Enjoy your perceieved safety advantage while you can still put gas in it.
Back on the article…
It’s ludicrous to draw ANY conclusions about a category that includes both the Honda Fit and the Aveo. The category runs the gamut from 5-star everything to “might kill you without actually having an accident when the engine explodes.”
Just because one columnist rolled his Yaris and walked away does not mean you can jump a canyon in your Suzuki Reno and expect to survive.
A more responsible headline would be “Gas 2.0 Contributor Rolls Yaris, Walks Away Unscathed.”
Euro NCAP: 5/5 stars for adult
The Euro car comes with side, curtain and knee bags. I don’t know about the American car, but the Canadian hatch comes with front bags only.
I think the article is reprehensible, just for the flurry of rednecks clamoring over one another in the comments section to shout “THAT WAS DIRT, WHAT IF IT GOT HIT BY [GENERIC LARGE VEHICLE] AT [HIGH RATE OF SPEED]? YOU GREENIE COMMIE PINKO QUEERS WOULDN’T BE SO HAPPY THEN!”
Hence the reason I rarely post Autoblog any more. You can only refute that sort of thing so many times before you just give up. Yes, if you were hit by a semi, you’d die. You’d also die if your Tahoe was hit by a semi. If you drove a semi, you’d probably die if it was hit by a tank.
It’s right up there with car interior spy shots. You can predict how those stories are going to go: if it’s a non-GM car, the interior will automatically garner a ‘threw up in my mouth” comment; if it’s a GM car, well, it’ll be the best thing since sliced bread.
I like Autoblog in general, but the commentary just wore me down.
If he hadn’t mentioned his family before, I would wonder if Robert was gay. “cattiest”!? Did you write this post during a commercial break from Sex and the City?
:) All in good fun…
@psarhjinian: Yars side airbags became standard in the States for ’09.
I read a study somewhere that contrasted the psychology of the way small vehicle owners and large vehicle owners think about safety. The results essentially turned out to be that small vehicle owners think that they are more likely to be able to avoid an accident with their smaller an presumably more nimble car, while large vehicle owners tended to have the view that accidents are unavoidable so they want to have the largest car and “win”(take less damage than the other vehicle) in the unavoidable collision. It was pretty interesting and I wish I could find it to share it with you guys.
Nick Chambers was in a single car accident. In addition displaying a deep misunderstanding of physics “Imagine how many times I would have flipped in the Suburban and the force of impact that would have come along with crashing a 6,447 pound car?”, whenever I read about a single car accident, I always have to wonder why. Why did he hit a “six foot dirt embankment at highway speeds”? Did one suddenly appear in the middle of I-5?
Great point, Detroit-Iron,
Maybe the headline should have read:
“Green car guy can’t drive”
MattVA: on the Internet, it’s possible to have a make believe family.
But I have met Robert’s family, and can attest that they exist. Not only that, but the wife’s much better looking than RF.
Or maybe I only think that because I’m not gay?