Mike Dulberger recently gave us the 411 on Forbes magazine’s “Most Dangerous Vehicles of 2009.” According to the safety campaigner, Forbes spiked his concerns about the [S]mart ForTwo’s safety. During the course of our discussions, I asked Mr. D. to right that wrong: send me the “real” 10 most dangerous new vehicles for sale in the US. And so he did. Those of you of a statistical bent can download Dulberger’s data dump for the dangerous decern here, including all the factors that comprise his SCORE index. And here are the updated stats for ALL 315 new vehicles for which Dulberger’s non-profit, informedforlife.org, has calculations. As you might expect (if you knew the man), Mike’s got something to say on this terrible table. Jump for same, and his list of the ten most potentially deadly vehicles . . .
Mike writes:
I’ve completed my update to the databases using the latest IIHS and NHTSA data. Attached is my summary, comparing the safest 10 vs. the least safe 10 vehicles for 2009. These are culled from the complete line-up of 315 model-year 2009 vehicles (which I’ve also attached).
The risk index SCORE is a measure of relative fatality rates (the lower the better). The SCORE was created in ’05 and the value of 100 was set at that time to represent the driver fatality risk for the average passenger car for model-year 2005.
The worst 10 vehicles have risk index SCOREs between 118 and 137, or almost three times the fatality risk of the safest. They’re comprised of two groups. The first consists of light-weight pickup trucks, with an average weight of approximately 4200 lb. The outstanding difference between these pickups vs. the safest 10 vehicles is in rollover risk. The second group consists of “mini” size cars, with an average weight of approximately 2400 lbs. Not surprisingly, as a group these vehicles suffer from high frontal impact fatality risk due primarily to their very low weight.
10. Mazda B-Series 2-DR Pickup
9. Chevrolet Aveo 4-DR
8. Hyundai Accent 4-DR
7. Kia Rio 4-DR
6. Nissan Frontier Extended Cab Pickup
5. Smart ForTwo 2-Dr
4. Ford Ranger Regular Cab Pickup
3. Ford Ranger Extended Cab Pickup
2. Mazda B-Series Extended Cab Pickup
1. Kia Rio 5-DR
What’s fascinating is that there are really only about four cars on this list:
1) The ancient Ford Ranger — no serious updates since 1995 — and its rebadge.
2) The Frontier, which is kind of a cut-and-shut Titan.
3) The smart.
4) Korean-built tinycars.
4) Korean-built tinycars.
Of which, two are badge-engineered twins and the other was designed in the dark ages… oh… okay, Daewoo… but it’s the same thing.
I’d love to see a top 10 without duplicate or related vehicles on it.
That is pretty amazing…
x2 on the revised list without highly similar platforms on it
Light trucks and miniature cars… no surprises here.
Energy = 1/2Mass x Velocity^2
All things being equal, the smaller car is going to get crushed.
Informed For Life is THE best safety ratings site, period. I used it exclusively when shopping for my last car. Their method of matching statistics with safety ratings is quite ingenius, and this list makes quite intuitive sense.
x3 for differentiated cars on the list, though
How does that explain cars smaller than the pickups?
The pickups are there because of their propensity for rollovers… and because they have the crash-structure of a cardboard box. On the EuroNCAP, light-duty pickups consistently score lower than most other cars… except the Chinese…
News just in: Forbes declares small cars unsafe when hit by a taller, heavier, body-on-rails construction SUV. Forbes urges all car buyers to seriously consider purchasing the heaviest SUV they can afford to survive the open road.
Fast forward three years…
Now for the latest headlines: Forbes reports record oil prices as America’s voracious consumption of imported oil sees no bounds. Car owners heeded pleas to upgrade to safer vehicles (SUVs) for the sake of their children. Now SUV owners are dismayed by the lack of safety as everyone has a 5000lb vehicle, making no one more safe overall. President Obama is urged to pressure Saudi Arabia to pump more oil to power a new generation of larger SUVs.
I’m curious to see the Ranger/B-Series broken down by 2WD vs. 4WD models. I wonder how much of a contributor the higher center of gravity in the 4WD is to rollovers?
First, I am skeptical of these kinds of ranking systems which use a table of attributes, weighting factors and then some algebra to come up with a ranking. “Best cities”, “best colleges” and other such lists almost all use a similar spreadsheet style methodology. Garbage-in, garbage-out is a very big problem with this kind of methodology.
Second, I’m skeptical of any list which doesn’t bother to group four essentially identical vehicles together (the Ranger/B-series lineup). Wasting four spots on one vehicle means that the next three supposedly worst vehicles are left off the list. Also, what is magic about the number 10? Why not the 9 worst or 11 worst vehicles?
Finally, the referenced driver fatality list gives a completely different “worst ten” ranking::
1999-2002 Mitsubishi Mirage
1994-1997 Ford Aspire
1995-1997 Toyota Tacoma
1995-1997 Geo Metro 4dr
1995-1997 Ford Explorer
2001-2004 Chevrolet Blazer
1994-1997 Pontiac Firebird 2
1994-1997 Chevrolet Camaro convertible
1999-2002 Chevrolet Blazer
1994-1997 Chevrolet Camaro
The Ranger quartet doesn’t quite make this arbitrary top-10 ranking.
We is happy that our ` together venture`be bring about fruits. We give Ford our engine, our platform and transmission of many type.Now we see that Ford is kind to give back technology too. We see that our Mazda B series be in some list number 1. We be happy, we don`t know what this list is, but we be number 1> thank You Ford for sharing technologies!
Mazda Executive Board
The Ford Ranger is the “father” of the old Ford Explorer (involved in the handling/tire blowout/rollover problems). The chassis was a major factor in the handling/stability problems. So this report is not surprising. I believe the Mazda pickup on the list is the corporate cousin of the Ford Ranger. An ancient Ford chassis strikes again.
(1) In order to assign the appropriate emphasis for each category of rating (frontal, rollover, side, and rear), the SCORE combines ratings in proportion to their total fatalities (38% frontal: 33% rollover: 26% side: 3% rear).
If I understand correctly, frontal crashes would result in fatality 38% of the time, rollovers 33% of the time….etc.
I’m wondering about the likelihood of being in a rollover accident in the first place – given that I drive a Ranger. Because of the type of driving I do, (98% urban commuting at 40mph and <) I would guess a rollover accident would be very unlikely for me.
Can someone please explain to me why the Lincoln MKS has a worse SCORE rating for 2010 vs 2009? It’s gone from 49 (very safe) to 65 (medium risk). It’s the same car, right? Or did they update it to make it less safe?
Here’s where I got the data from: http://www.informedforlife.org/demos/FCKeditor/UserFiles/File/1MasterSCOREr.pdf
Re. microcars: nice that the statistics confirm what common sense would lead one to conclude!
Big Auto will kill you if the money is right…
re: microcars (dgduris) – check out the honda fit…
I notice that 7 of the ‘vehicles’ are represented by 2 platforms – 4 Ranger variants and 3 Accent/Rio variants. One is the cheapest Pick Up available in the market and the other the cheapest Pass Car.
So the point is ‘Cheaper vehicles are less safe’. Yawn.
To RedStapler:
I believe it’s the number of doors, not the number of driving wheels. Absent B-column’s gona get you in a side impact!
I have a far different list of the “10 Most Dangerous Vehicles” – in no particular order:
1. BMW X5 – driven by the owner’s teenage daughter, while she is texting her friend and applying lipstick.
2. Lincoln Navigator – same qualifier.
3-7. Anything Buick makes, rolling through stop signs, plowing over garbage cans.
8-10. Anything Honda makes, shattering eardrums with 120dB exhausts and shifting at 9000rpm.
@jurisb
“We is happy that our ` together venture`be bring about fruits. We give Ford our engine, our platform and transmission of many type.Now we see that Ford is kind to give back technology too. We see that our Mazda B series be in some list number 1. We be happy, we don`t know what this list is, but we be number 1> thank You Ford for sharing technologies!
Mazda Executive Board”
Is this a real press release?
Holy smokes, you’d think these auto executives would be intelligent enough to speak proper english.
There is definatyl something mildly weird going on, with a pretty big difference between identical vehicles in 10 and 4.
I hope nobody actually got paid to come up with this.
If everyone was tied to the front of their vehicle like Lord Humongous in the Road Warrier we’d all drive a LOT safer and wouldn’t have to worry about such expert advice.
Anything built in the last 10 years is infinitely safer than the cars most of us grew up in.
Well, let’s give the list without duplicates a shot:
rank vehicle SCORE weight (see below)
10.Dodge Dakota X-Cab 114
9. Nissan Titan 4 dr 115
8. Ford E-350 15 pass van 116
7. Toyota Yaris 118
6. Chevy Aveo 119
5. Nissan Frontier 123
4. GMC/Chevy Van 125 (skipped in above list)
3. Smart For2 130
2. Ford Ranger + variants 133
1. Kia Rio 5-dr 137
If we wanted cars only, the list would look like this:
10.Mitsu Lancer Sportback 4dr 102 – 2896 lb
9. Saturn Astra 103 – 2864 lb (!)
9. Honda S2000 103 – 2545 lb
8. Mini Cooper S / convert. 104 – 2491 lb *
8. Kia Spectra 5 door 104 – 2890 lb
7. Scion xD 4 door 108 – 2650 lb
7. Pontiac G3 5 dr Hatch 108 – 2459 lb
6. Nissan Versa 4 door 109 – 2704 lb
5. Ford Focus 2 door 112 – 2662 lb
4. Toyota Yaris 118 – 2317 lb
3. Chevy Aveo 119 – 2544 lb (!)
2. Smart For2 130 – 1800 lb
1. Kia Rio 137 / 119 depending on configuration – 2562 lb
(!) aren’t these pretty small boxes to weigh so much?? check out the Civic, below.
* It’s interesting to note that the hardtop standard Mini gets a rating of 85 (2491 lb).
Meanwhile, the market favorites come in as follows:
Honda Accord 4 dr 53 – 3246 lb
Chevy Malibu 4 dr 54 – 3430 lb
Ford Fusion 4 dr 59 – 3325 lb
Nissan Altima 4 dr 61 – 3198 lb
Volkswagen Passat 61 – 3348 lb
Toyota Camry 4 dr 64 – 3214 lb
Honda Civic 4 dr 67 – 2749 lb
By the way, I’ve been reading Brock Yates’ “The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry” and it’s very instructive. Expands a lot on the ills that GM has had over the years (mentioned regularly on this site but the picture becomes more clear in his book). The weight problem is not new…
John Horner :
April 20th, 2009 at 1:39 am
Finally, the referenced driver fatality list gives a completely different “worst ten” ranking.
Actual fatality results, while interesting, are not the final word in how safe a vehicle is.
For example, 18-25 year old males have the highest accident rates and death rates. If you restricted the Lexus LS430 where it could only be driven by 18-25 year old males, that car would not be Top 10% in driver fatalities per million miles no matter how many safety features it has.
You can’t take the vehicles with the most fatal accidents and apply that to the vehicle most likly to allow you to die. The first list happens to include driving styles you cannot account for in both. The second list is an “all things being equal” list. Most people driving driving those Ford Rangers (at least here in ATL) are doing it for business, which directly effects driving style. I drive one for work and I have no desire to push it when driving it like I do my own vehicles.
@John Horner: Fatalities may tell you more about who rives a vehicle than it does about the vehicle itself. For instance, vans and pick-ups may be built on the same platforms, but pick-ups are more likely to visit a tavern after work.
Yep. Still the driver and his/her judgment and skill. Just before reading this, I retrieved the local paper which had a report on this weekend’s fatal accident. Nissan Pathfinder, driver and front seat passenger, unbelted and ejected, dead and critical condition respectively. Three young children in the back, belted and minor injuries only. Rollover accident on I-75 in Florida, about as benign a road as you can imagine. Per the cops, tread separation, overcorrection, rollover.
No surprises. Mid-size sedans and minivans are the safest, and with small cars, you get what you pay for (except the smart).
Fatality alone strikes me as a very low resolution indicator–it’s binary . . . you die or you don’t.
I’d be interested in the percentage of registered vehicles for a particular model that are involved in accidents. This would help us get to the demographic element involved. From there we can see how many passengers are uninjured, injured, or die.
I imagine insurance companies have this data. The only way I have access to it is to test out possible purchases with an insurance agent. The response I get (a premium quote) includes a lot of noise for things like likelihood of theft, my ZIP Code, what percentage of use the car will get from which family member, etc.
re: Jack Baruth:
Another fascinating thing about the list is that a Korean built car, the Genesis, is found by informedforlife.org to be safer than every American and European built car sold in the US:
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com:8080/2009/04/mostdangerous2009.pdf
According to informedforlife.org , no American or European company makes any car that is safer than a car that Hyundai engineered and builds.
Similar to the other thread, still way to much focus on crash test data vs. active safety and handling characteristics.
For those that have driven a smart for a considerable amount of time (very few of the huge masses that have an opinion about the car), it’s ability to brake and avoid is better than most. I would rather be in my smart doing 110 km/h towards an accident than an Escalade. Not that I’m asking to test that theory any time soon.
If it’s your time, karma will send a loaded dump truck your way if that’s what is needed to finish you off. Enjoy what you drive until then.
All travel carries some risk. Semi tractor trailers top everything
re: mattdaddy:
The top 10 safest vehicles on this list are all mid-size cars with good handling and advanced active safety features:
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com:8080/2009/04/mostdangerous2009.pdf
I would argue that all ten of the ten safest cars on this list handle significantly better than a Smart.
I would also argue that, as relatively poorly as an Escalade handles, a Smart handles worse than one.
The Smart is a notoriously poor handling, top heavy car. The Smart’s accident avoidance capabilities are just as bad, if not worse, than its accident survival capabilities.
Notoriously poor handling on Fifth Gear episodes and other media reviews doing race track exercises. In real world driving, it bobs and weaves better than most other cars, including an Escalade. It understeers like crazy at high speed doing 90 degree turns, but will lane change quicker than you would believe. Not something you’ll read about in any enthusiast magazine / website.
Take strong braking power (EBD assisted) and a low weight and I’ll stand by my brake & avoid opinion.
Then again, that’s only 120,000 km worth of real world experience.
“8-10. Anything Honda makes, shattering eardrums with 120dB exhausts and shifting at 9000rpm.” Well, maybe, except that we’re talking about 20 or 30 mph in first gear….
“I’m curious to see the Ranger/B-Series broken down by 2WD vs. 4WD models. I wonder how much of a contributor the higher center of gravity in the 4WD is to rollovers?” I’d guess not much. The 4wd truck does stand a bit taller, but the added weight of the extra driving parts is pretty close to the ground, so that the center of gravity may not be much higher.
Friend of mine had a late-50’s Dodge suburban-type rig, basically a panel truck with rear side windows. This thing was a 4×4 that he’d seen fit to repower with a 392-cubic-inch hemi out of a 57 New Yorker. It was kind of eerie how well that thing handled – we finally decided that it was because the center of gravity wasn’t all that far off the ground.
It seems like I am always left doing a “in defense of the Ford Explorer.” Stating that the 1995-1997 Ford Explorer is in the worst 10 list is hugely misleading because the 95-97 4-door 4wd Ford Explorer is ranked in the top 40% for fewest fatalities. It is only the two door 2wd model that should be considered ‘dangerous’ and even then it is on par with the noted ‘deathtrap’ Toyota Tacoma.
Source:
http://www.informedforlife.org/demos/FCKeditor/UserFiles/File/DEathRatescombined1994to2004deathorder.pdf
Cougar,
That’s a really interesting point. It would be useful to have stats normed for demographics.
I remember back when you could easily get accident and fatality per mile info from the government, and the Miata was better than average. At the time, this was thought to be a demographic phenomenon rather than engineering magic, but I never saw anyone try to prove it.
the “heavy cars are safer than lighter cars in a collision” thing is a red herring. there are very few highspeed headon collisions, particularly in the US where highspeed highways tend to be divided. collisions between cars tend to be sideswipes on highways where somebody changes lanes abruptly, or rear enders where somebody slows down abruptly and the guy behind him hits him at a relatively small difference in speed; or sideswipes, tbones etc between cars going opposite directions in lower speed accidents.
the majority of fatalities come from single car accidents where the car hits a tree, or lightpole, or abutment, or wall, or building, etc. and physics teaches us that such accidents are the same as running headon into a vehicle of the same weight and speed, so you don’t gain anything from the extra weight.
IIHS death rates are normalized to a certain female age group to try to reduce the demographic effect.
They show the Miata as “not too bad” (not great, either), but keep in mind they can only measure registered vehicle-years, not miles driven. Cars that are likely to be owned as 2nd or 3rd cars will look safer than they really are. I have a Miata too (2002), and for what it’s worth my friend lost his 1999 Miata when a midsized sedan turning left on red hit him head-on. Closing speed was estimated at 30mph (they had time for some braking). My friend and his girlfriend walked out without a problem, and both cars were totaled. The Miata has a big front crumple zone and the engine dropped down out of the way.
Side impacts are probably the only type of accident in which the Miata is worse than average (by a lot, unless you have an ’06+).
This looks like a rap sheet of cars bought by poor, young people with more hormones than brains.
I’m not at all surprised to see small pickups and truck-based sport utilities. In areas where you can get up the speed to really injure yourself eg, not cities), these are the vehicles being driven well past their dynamic limits by kids whose judgement is badly impaired.
I’ve seen three memorable crashes on rural roads (tree, roll, roll) , all of which which were in two-door Blazers driven by teenagers.
Saw the Suzuki SX-4 on the list but not my previously owned Aerio.
I agree with John Horner:
The table also needs snow/rain traction as a determination of Best/Worst. My former Aerio would lock up the tires in snow or rain way too easy and had very little traction in said snow/rain (wheel spin city). Definitely a top 5 worst on my list. My 88 Camaro did better than the Aerio, the back end swung out a foot then it would stop or would start to go.
Aerio – was fine in 2 mild winters but, after this mega snow winter it was gone, gone, gone to someone else once the snow melted in March.
“Actual fatality results, while interesting, are not the final word in how safe a vehicle is.”
True, but there is no final word. A spreadsheet manipulation of various laboratory crash test results also is far from being the last word. Most of the laboratory type crash tests tell you something about the relative merits of vehicles within a size/weight/type class, but don’t tell as much about how various class vehicles are going to fare in real world crashes.
Also, none of the laboratory tests tell you anything about the many factors which effect the probability of getting into an accident in the first place.
“tced2 :
April 20th, 2009 at 2:47 am
The Ford Ranger is the “father” of the old Ford Explorer (involved in the handling/tire blowout/rollover problems). The chassis was a major factor in the handling/stability problems. So this report is not surprising. I believe the Mazda pickup on the list is the corporate cousin of the Ford Ranger. An ancient Ford chassis strikes again.”
Oh, come on. The problem with Explorer rollovers had to do with the vehicles gaining 700-800 pounds since their original design with no corresponding upgrade in tire specification, coupled with some manufacturing problems in a particular Bridgestone-Firestone tire factory and a propensity by many Americans to not check their tire pressure.
The “handling/stability” problems, as you put them, occured after an underinflated tire would overheat and loose its tread (but not necessarily the air in the internal carcass). Surprised and incompetent drivers would then overreact, saw away at the steering wheel, lose control of the vehicle and roll over.
I’m not letting Ford off the hook here, but you’re repeating a common mistake by the mainstream media and public at large: oversimplifying and talking about things you clearly don’t understand.
Now, it is true that most pick-ups don’t offer the same level of rollover protection that most passenger cars do. All brands. And anyone expecting a pick-up to handle like a sports sedan deserves whatever they get. Sorry… life is tough. Get over it.
Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.
People can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.
Homer (Simpson)
For two-vehicle collisions between cars (excluding SUVs and trucks), extensive research has shown the following tends to be true.
Define R as the ratio of fatalities between vehicles of two different weights:
R = N1/N2
Modeling and real-world data show that R can be predicted based on the mass of the vehicles:
R = (m2/m1)^2
So, in a collision between a 2500-lb car and a 4000-lb car, there will be 2.8x more fatalities in the lighter car.
This relationship holds true regardless of the direction the accident comes from, or the age or gender of the driver. Those factors, of course, effect the overall accident rate, but not the fatality ratio between two vehicles when they are held constant.
*** Half of two-car crashes in the United States involve cars differing in weight by 20% or more. For weight differences of 20%, the driver of the lighter car is almost 2x more likely to be killed than the driver of the heavier car. ***
The relationship between mass and fatality rates has been measured so repeatedly and accurately, that even a reduction in death rate due to the increases mass of additional passengers has been observed. (i.e. – the driver is safer if they have 3 passengers in the car, due to the additional 450-600 pounds of mass they bring – and the driver of the other car is proportionally less safe).
Fine, you say, so what if we make ALL cars lighter (say to increase overall fuel economy)? That is a solution of limited utility, because when cars of like mass crash into each other, the fatality rate increases as the combined common mass decreases. This has been measured on a US-wide basis, for several individual US states, and using German crash data. Two 2500-lb cars colliding are about twice as likely to produce a fatality as two 4000-lb cars colliding.
What about single car accidents? The big caveat with data here is that a lot of single car accidents aren’t reported. But, notwithstanding that, the data shows that again heavier cars are safer than light cars. The best models of fatality here tend to be along the lines of:
F = A * exp(B*m)
Where A and B are constants selected to make the equation match the data (B has a negative value), F is the fatality rate, and m is the vehicle mass. This graph is relatively linear in the range of masses found in passenger cars, so we can express a simple fatality rate vs mass relationship as follows:
“For every 100 pound reduction in vehicle weight, there is a 4.6% increase in single-car accident fatality rate”
The conclusion is very simple. Heavier cars are safer. Heavier cars are safer in collisions between cars of unequal weight. Heavier cars are safer in collisions between cars of equal weight. Heavier cars are safer in single-vehicle accidents.
For more information see “Traffic Safety” by Leonard Evans, and also the works of Shinar and Vaa.
@Steve Biro
You forgot to mention that Ford endorsed tire pressures on the Explorer that were too low (26psi?). Firestone was subject to arm twisting to agree to the pressures for a better ride. A very unfortunate engineering decision that put the tire on the limit of its load capability at the endorsed pressure. And as you say, many drivers don’t check their pressure.
Zammy: “The conclusion is very simple. Heavier cars are safer.”
Brilliant! Lets all drive tanks!
Wait…this doesn’t look so safe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZWhQDEMH4Y
mattdaddy: are you saying that driving around in traffic at nowhere near the limits of the vehicle gives a better indication of a car’s at-the-limit performance than a professional driving the car at the limit on a track?
The Smart certainly has decent braking capability (Car and Driver: 167 feet from 70 mph) and the stability control should keep it from spinning, but I’d still prefer to drive a car that can actually take corners.
Actual fatality results, while interesting, are not the final word in how safe a vehicle is.
For example, 18-25 year old males have the highest accident rates and death rates. If you restricted the Lexus LS430 where it could only be driven by 18-25 year old males, that car would not be Top 10% in driver fatalities per million miles no matter how many safety features it has.…
+1 Cougar Red. Some cars, like Volvo 240’s had low fatalities for their time in part because they were attractive to safety conscious drivers. Fill those 240’s with young guys and the fatality rate would soar. Maybe not as high as it would if you put them in a Prelude, but the driver plays a very big part in these scores. Vettes have high death rates, but when you figure half the driver deaths are not the registered owners, it becomes even more obvious that design can only go so far.
What about single car accidents? The big caveat with data here is that a lot of single car accidents aren’t reported. But, notwithstanding that, the data shows that again heavier cars are safer than light cars. The best models of fatality here tend to be along the lines of:
F = A * exp(B*m)
How well does this correlate vs actual crash test results?
In general, larger / more expensive cars have better inherent crash results so those models may very well be coincidental.
“tced2 :
April 20th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
@Steve Biro
You forgot to mention that Ford endorsed tire pressures on the Explorer that were too low (26psi?). Firestone was subject to arm twisting to agree to the pressures for a better ride. A very unfortunate engineering decision that put the tire on the limit of its load capability at the endorsed pressure. And as you say, many drivers don’t check their pressure.”
Oh, I agree completely. That’s what I meant when I said I’m not letting Ford off the hook here. Not only was the endorsed pressure too low – leaving no room for a lack of maintenance – but clearly the tire spec itself should have been upgraded as the Explorer gained 700-800 pounds over its original version.
But too many people accuse automakers of having faulty designs – particularly in the case of pick-up trucks and truck-based SUVs. They’re not faulty, they’re trucks, not cars. But I’m sure you get my point.
The problem here is the “Frontal Impact Fatality Risk” which is determined by the vehicle weight. A three ton car with a eight inch knife coming out of the steering wheel would score higher than a two ton car without such a knife.
Give me lots of airbags, and lots of Styrofoam. Weight is so 1950s.
If you were to go by real world fatality rates alone, you would think that a Mercury Grand Marquis is way safer than a Crown Vic. It’s not the car, it’s the driver.
This is a really great top ten list. I wasn’t surprised to see so many SUVs and American made cars on this list, but I was surprised to see some 4 door sedans like the Hyundai Accent. Well, at least we’ve come a long way from the exploding Ford Pinto. Anyone can post their own list to our site http://www.toptentopten.com/. The coolest feature is you can let other people vote on the rankings of your list.
Not really surprising, as many SUVs have terrible frontal impact scores as well as rollover risk. The Accent itself merely scored 3-stars on the EuroNCAP and was cited as an “additional risk” due to cabin deformation.
Which is better than Chevrolet’s GMDAT products (such as the Aveo), which have had stars struck off their crash ratings because of actual crash-structure collapse.
WOW,, that freaked me out…
I just bought an Accent,. I knew it wasnt going to be a safety king but,,,
Then I remembered, I dont worry that much when I am on my Motorcycle,,,,