Car Safety

[YSSMAN]

@ Wolfe

That has shades of my thinking as well. It seems like American cars tend to do well across the board, not exactly a mirror of the up/down nature of the Japanese or the Koreans. That, however, is not say that we (American car folks) aren't without tiny deathtraps...

 

[Philly]

I've heard nightmares about the cars sold within the country. Those silly mid engined van things especially.

Your dreams come in radio form? It's the 21st century. We have TVs.

Cars built for their domestic market are something that'll always throw this off. On GTP, we have the US market very well covered and the European market covered, but not quite as well. Cars built in other parts of the world designed to be sold in other parts of the world will make it hard to determine "safest car" because we just don't know much about them.

 

[Jondot]

I would bet my money that the smart is a safer car.

And I wouldn't bet against you because I suspect you'd pluck some random information out of the air and claim you'd won.

Seriously, aside from the fact that you're totally disregarding the industry standard crash test for no apparent reason, you just can't compare the results like that.

Regardless of whether the Q7 behaves like a saloon in a crash or not (which, until proven otherwise, we shall assume isn't the case), you can't compare car vs car crash tests like that because they're not like for like. Saying a Vectra would hit a car in an identical way to a Mondeo would be a silly assumption to make. Saying a saloon designed in 1999 will behave identically to an SUV designed 7 years later is nothing short of ridiculous.

 

[homeforsummer]

I've heard nightmares about the cars sold within the country. Those silly mid engined van things especially.

A coroner in the UK recently proclaimed the Mitsubishi Delica, I think it was (tall, narrow, mid-engined 4x4 jacked-up MPV thing) dangerous, as they have a nasty habit of rolling and killing all their passengers in an accident...

Wrong. The Q7 is designed to crash like a saloon/sedan, purely on the basis of not obliterating any car it crashes into. Therefore taking into account that that the weight difference between the 500 and q7 is roughly the same as the difference between the smart and the s-class I would bet my money that the smart is a safer car.

Don't feed me that tripe. The Q7 is a big, tall, heavy 4x4 that weighs roughly 2300kg at a minimum and 2600kg maximum for the V12 diesel version. The most any S-class weighs is around 2100kg, a full 200kg less than the lightest Q7. That's a hell of a lot of extra weight to ram into something and in the Q7 that weight is much higher up, the sort of height that ploughs straight through the "empty" bit of most regular cars' bonnets between the bonnet itself and the engine, as opposed to sending the energy around the car through the doors like most vehicles do.

Without comparing both cars in a crash with the same type of vehicle it's impossible to say whether one or the other is "safer", and it's just ignorant trying to use it as an example of a manufacturer cheating the system.

If you think the Fiat is so unsafe it probably wasn't a wise choice to recommend your girlfriend got one...

 

[gator of kana]

Don't feed me that tripe. The Q7 is a big, tall, heavy 4x4 that weighs roughly 2300kg at a minimum and 2600kg maximum for the V12 diesel version. The most any S-class weighs is around 2100kg, a full 200kg less than the lightest Q7. That's a hell of a lot of extra weight to ram into something and in the Q7 that weight is much higher up, the sort of height that ploughs straight through the "empty" bit of most regular cars' bonnets between the bonnet itself and the engine, as opposed to sending the energy around the car through the doors like most vehicles do.

Not to mention the inertial force from all that weight from the Q7, while the 500 and Q7 are going at the same speed the Q7 is doing more damage since that inertial force is greater than the 500 ending with the Q7 still charging at the 500 after the impact, althought the S-class might still be a bit smaller and shorter than the Q7 but that inertial force is still very powerful

 

[Jim Prower]

Layman's terms...

The Q7 is more liable to run over the vehicle it hits (like any high-ride-height vehicle with large-diameter wheels) and do more damage that way.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

RE the Q7 vs 500 v. Smart vs S-class:

The Smart had an advantage there due to its low weight as odd as this sounds... It was light enough, and the S-class' impact point low enough that it basically bounced off the Benz. The 500 had no such luck, with the Q7 sort of trapping it with the high ride height.

 

[buttsneeze]

Check out this video. ADAC 50 mph offset crash with a Renault, one that got 5 stars in the 40 mph crash, doesn't do so well at 50, whilst many other cars actually do better at 50 than the Renault. Perhaps the Renault was just designed to do well in the 40 mph crash, then?

 

[Rotary Junkie]

That did rather well if you ask me... >_>

 

[buttsneeze]

That did rather well if you ask me... >_>

the passenger compartment deformed a lot, the door couldn't be opened. That's pretty bad compared to this, which is a 75 mph speed difference.

 

[nd 4 holden spd]

This is at 40mph.

http://www.dailymotion.com/related/...ge-caliber-side-impact-crash-tes_fun?from=rss

So you're seriously arguing that those side impact bags make no difference. Show me your pictures.

Look at the car though, it was barely deformed, the doors were still intact for Pete's sake. That's a lowsy example of any possible advantage of airbags. Here's some real crashes, tell me if any of these would have had their lives saved by curtain airbags:

In a real accident, if you have curtain airbags they might find your head, too bad about the rest of your body though, which is now part of the intake manifold/20m up the street.

Well I know you still won't listen, you don't have that ability, so don't bother replying because I won't read it.

 

[Smallhorses]

Come on nd 4 holden spd, that's a lousy argument to say the least.
Casio posts a video of a 40mph collision in which a modern car with curtain airbags claims to have a good side protection rating.

You post a series of photos of cars which were never fitted with curtain airbags, at indeterminate speeds and collision areas, and try to call a comparison?
Not to mention the fact that you've stated that you're not going to bother listening to any standpoint contrary to your own?

How can you refuse to listen to logic when it's neatly prepared and laid out on a plate for you?

It's like you're childishly sticking your fingers in your ears and going:

La la la I can't hear you proving me wrong 'cos I'm not listening La la la

 

[homeforsummer]

Layman's terms...

The Q7 is more liable to run over the vehicle it hits (like any high-ride-height vehicle with large-diameter wheels) and do more damage that way.

Bascially, yes, that's what I was getting at 👍

RE the Q7 vs 500 v. Smart vs S-class:

The Smart had an advantage there due to its low weight as odd as this sounds... It was light enough, and the S-class' impact point low enough that it basically bounced off the Benz. The 500 had no such luck, with the Q7 sort of trapping it with the high ride height.

Also a good point which I'd forgotten. The smart does tend to "bounce" in an accident, which does indeed contribute to it's good result.

However, there are certain types of accidents that if I were unlucky enough to be in one, I don't think I'd want to be "bounced" across a carrigeway into more traffic, or trees, etc.

Check out this video. ADAC 50 mph offset crash with a Renault, one that got 5 stars in the 40 mph crash, doesn't do so well at 50, whilst many other cars actually do better at 50 than the Renault. Perhaps the Renault was just designed to do well in the 40 mph crash, then?

Given that I can't find any evidence that ADAC tested any other car in that test, it's a little unfair to criticise the Laguna on it's own for not being as safe as the competition.

Having done a little more research on the test, I discovered that in just a 10mph increase in speed there is 50% more energy that needs to be dissipated in an accident, which is a big ask of any car.

If anything, it's more an advertisement for driving more carefully and not speeding than it is to buy any particular car. The fact that many cars do now score 5* in the EuroNCAP tests is something to celebrate, though what the test also shows is that all manufacturers and EuroNCAP themselves should attempt to work towards even more advanced crash structures. Which is massive task and will probably require strong advances in technology to prevent cars becoming even heavier than they are already.

 

[nd 4 holden spd]

Come on nd 4 holden spd, that's a lousy argument to say the least.
Casio posts a video of a 40mph collision in which a modern car with curtain airbags claims to have a good side protection rating.

You post a series of photos of cars which were never fitted with curtain airbags, at indeterminate speeds and collision areas, and try to call a comparison?
Not to mention the fact that you've stated that you're not going to bother listening to any standpoint contrary to your own?

How can you refuse to listen to logic when it's neatly prepared and laid out on a plate for you?

It's like you're childishly sticking your fingers in your ears and going:

La la la I can't hear you proving me wrong 'cos I'm not listening La la la

Guess what, real accidents on the road aren't all perfectly simulated perfectly side on crashes. Also, it doesn't matter that they didn't have side airbags, the point is to look at how crushed a car becomes in a real accident, what possible advantage could side airbags have when your entire car has caved in on you? You're still dead, hence again I feel no need for side airbags and various other safety features.

Edit: Maybe I should also point out that safest cars to crash in the world a race cars, no airbags here.

 

[MagpieRacer]

How can you bring race cars into it? The drivers wear crash helmets, have extremely strong roll cages, racing harness' and a lot less to stuff inside the car that could kill them, not to mention barrier that are designed to be safe in an accident.

 

[nd 4 holden spd]

How can you bring race cars into it? The drivers wear crash helmets, have extremely strong roll cages, racing harness' and a lot less to stuff inside the car that could kill them, not to mention barrier that are designed to be safe in an accident.

Exactly, smart design, which brings me back to my original statement, that safety should be achieved through smart design, not a bajillion airbags.

 

[daan]

Exactly, smart design, which brings me back to my original statement, that safety should be achieved through smart design, not a bajillion airbags.

So every road car should have a full safety cage? Every time you drive it you must wear a fire proof suit, hans device and helmet? And every road should be designed with one way traffic, run off areas and crash barriers?

 

[Smallhorses]

Not all accidents are perfectly simulated head-on, offset or rear-end collisions either.
Not all accidents happen at as high speeds as the cars you've depicted in your photographs. Some people die in 20 mph collisions.
Sure you're less likely to survive a 120mph shunt than a 20 mph impact, but it's possible, and given the choice wouldn't you rather have the possible protection of an airbag, than not? 💡


This crash, as awful as it appeared was non-fatal. The driver walked away, got in the spare car and joined the restart of the race.

I'm not going to post a video of Ayrton Senna's fatal crash here, but the videos are out there. Look how innocuous it seems in relation to the crash above, but the consequences were far worse. Was it because of poor safety equipment or because of sheer bad luck? 4 or 5cm to the other side and few extra degrees of rotation on the rebounding wheel Senna gets a big black tyre mark on his helmet, a serious concussion but lives to tell the tale. As we well know that's not what happened, but that's not the fault of the safety equipment on his car.

By the same token, take a look at this thread and the lucky bugger that got out of that wreck alive and unharmed, and then consider how many folks haven't survived nearly as serious an accident in the same car.

I can only assume from your response that you consider safety features such as safety belts a silly "option" too?
A colleague of mine, whose wedding I'm attending next weekend is going to be minus one guest there. His Father was killed last year as a result of refusing to take advantage of the safety equipment provided by his vehicle and was fatally ejected from the car during the accident, purely because he refused to buckle-up while driving.

 

[nd 4 holden spd]

So every road car should have a full safety cage? Every time you drive it you must wear a fire proof suit, hans device and helmet? And every road should be designed with one way traffic, run off areas and crash barriers?

How about a strong roof and pillars, which could be just as strong as a roll cage? How about you don't drive on the wrong side of the road? Last I checked roads do have crash barriers.

Do people feel so insecure that they need all this safety? People have been driving without them for a century, and road tolls are still rising now we have them. People are becoming even more dangerous on the road perhaps because they feel this added safety will protect them?

What ever, you keep your grossly overwight vehicles with all your saftey crap, I'll keep driving cars without them and still live longer and have less accidents.

 

[nd 4 holden spd]

Not all accidents are perfectly simulated head-on, offset or rear-end collisions either.
Not all accidents happen at as high speeds as the cars you've depicted in your photographs. Some people die in 20 mph collisions.
Sure you're less likely to survive a 120mph shunt than a 20 mph impact, but it's possible, and given the choice wouldn't you rather have the possible protection of an airbag, than not? 💡


This crash, as awful as it appeared was non-fatal. The driver walked away, got in the spare car and joined the restart of the race.

I'm not going to post a video of Ayrton Senna's fatal crash here, but the videos are out there. Look how innocuous it seems in relation to the crash above, but the consequences were far worse. Was it because of poor safety equipment or because of sheer bad luck? 4 or 5cm to the other side and few extra degrees of rotation on the rebounding wheel Senna gets a big black tyre mark on his helmet, a serious concussion but lives to tell the tale. As we well know that's not what happened, but that's not the fault of the safety equipment on his car.

By the same token, take a look at this thread and the lucky bugger that got out of that wreck alive and unharmed, and then consider how many folks haven't survived nearly as serious an accident in the same car.

I can only assume from your response that you consider safety features such as safety belts a silly "option" too?
A colleague of mine, whose wedding I'm attending next weekend is going to be minus one guest there. His Father was killed last year as a result of refusing to take advantage of the safety equipment provided by his vehicle and was fatally ejected from the car during the accident, purely because he refused to buckle-up while driving.

How about you read my previous posts before posting arguments I already agree with? Safety is necessary, excess safety is pointless.

Plus a decent 70% of my daily drive is mostly highway high speed driving. I should also mention that there are many many semi-trailers around where I live, every 2nd vehicle I come across is a truck. A crash with them even at 30km/hr could easily mean death in any car.

I'm happy for safety through smart design as opposed to the metal death traps of the '60s and '70s. But adding ump-tillion airbags, computers and all these other things adding weight is just silly and pointless.

Another reason I don't feel a need for safety, I have no intentions of crashing and generally feel I'm a very safe driver, far safer than most others.

I better put in though, some safety is necessary. Eg. Some idiot might pull out in front of me and I'll run up his rear, therefore a steering wheel airbag might be good. Unless I make a mistake though, what other airbags could I possibly need? Unless I make a mistake what computer controls (Eg. Stability control) could I possibly need, unless I make a mistake what use does ABS have other than killing me if a Kangaroo jumps out on a dirt road in front of me. (Yeah, I drive on dirt roads, it's actually quickest to stop by locking your wheels, and on a dirt road where the speed limit is 50+km/hr, I'll need to stop as fast as possible).
Obviously structural integrity is good, for handling and safety, doesn't add weight much, fine. Headrests on seats provide support for when your head whips back, that way you don't snap your neck on the seat, fine.

 

[daan]

How about a strong roof and pillars, which could be just as strong as a roll cage?

That would add weight which you don't want.

How about you don't drive on the wrong side of the road?

I don't. With other road users, there is always a chance of a head on collision on the road. There is no chance of a head on collision on a race track.

Last I checked roads do have crash barriers.

Yes, some of them do, but not the smae level of coverage and they are not to the same spec as race barriers, which usually have extra protection in front of them in the form of tyres.

What ever, you keep your grossly overwight vehicles with all your saftey crap, I'll keep driving cars without them and still live longer and have less accidents.

Can you control other road users and deflect their cars with the power of your mind?

 

[Scaff]

Another reason I don't feel a need for safety, I have no intentions of crashing and generally feel I'm a very safe driver, far safer than most others.

I have never had any intention of crashing in any of the accidents I have been involved in either.

Problem is that unless you happen to be able to predict the future you will never be able to avoid all accidents. To even suggest you can is naive and quite frankly dangerous.

You claim to be far safer than most, yet as someone who has been taught and has taught advanced driving techniques I can tell you that the very attitude you are carrying ('I don't get into accidents because I'm safer than everyone else") is arrogant to the point of being dangerous.

In two decades and getting on for 350,000 miles of driving (on road, on track and on proving grounds) I have been involved in a number of accidents, two of them in which no amount of careful planning would have avoided.

The worst of which involved a dirt bank that had collapsed in a rain storm covering a road in mud and standing water. The bank had collapsed quite literally a few minutes before I rounded a corner, I was travelling well below the speed limit on the road. However on hitting a nice combination of mud and water the option of car control wnet out the window and the now default choice of hitting the remains of the bank was now in place.

The front end of the car was destroyed in the initial impact and as the collision was at an offset angle the car now spun in the road, completing an almost perfect 180 degree spin before smacking the drivers side of the car into a fence pole. The main and curtain airbags went off in this instance and I can quite categorically tell you that had the side-bag not been fitted I would not have been too happy with the impact my head would have made on the B pillar, nor the damage my neck would have suffered from uncontrolled lateral movement (side bags cut down on neck injuries quite significantly).

You entire attitude smack of 'I'm too good to have an accident', well I will tell you from a lot of experience (both personal and from years in the motor industry), no one is that good.

Simple fact, all other factors being equal, I would rather be in an accident and have 'bags' fitted to the car than not. Personal experience lets me know they make a difference.


Scaff

 

[Famine]

You entire attitude smack of 'I'm too good to have an accident', well I will tell you from a lot of experience (both personal and from years in the motor industry), no one is that good.

Word.

Michael Schumacher recently drove a FIAT van into a gatepost.

 

[nd 4 holden spd]

I don't need to waste my worthy time on this any longer, I don't want added safety features such as curtain airbags and Stability control because I don't want them, good-bye.

 

[Smallhorses]

To your mind excess safety is pointless.
Unfortunately you're still in that unpredictable late-teen indestructible mindset that believes it's not possible for you to make a mistake.
Let's just hope that as, and when you do it's not something fatal and driving related, either for you, or someone else, be it a passenger of yours or someone else's driver or passenger.
Times have changed.
In days of old it was generally accepted that you took your life in your hands on the roads, and everyone else's too.
Today, more than ever you're responsible for your actions not just because you'll feel awful & guilty if you have a bad accident and kill somebody, but because in this day and age you're likely to have the livelyhood *substitute suitable AUP Violating synonym here* sued out of you for the rest of your days (assuming you're not spending that behind bars anyway!)
You're better off if you hit someone who walks away from an accident with your relatively unsafe vehicle, in their well protected one, than if you kill someone through your own recklessness.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not suggesting you're a reckless driver, nor that I mollycoddle myself in a car that has all of the latest safety features. My favourite drive, at 27 years old has precisely zero "safety-airbags" and I love it.
It still firmly believes an airbag is black, has as Dunlop/Michelin/Pirelli logo on the side, and fits around a 16-inch rim.

 

[gator of kana]

nd 4 holden spd even the safest driver in the world can have an accident, accidents can be prevented but is not avoidable. I also like to point out that this is one of the reasons why I hope people will now start respecting all this new technology that is saving your lives from bad car crashes

 

[V1P3R]

Man this is entertaining... lol

BTW, When do you get you're license nd 4 holden spd?

 

[slidesquad#1]

I don't need to waste my worthy time on this any longer, I don't want added safety features such as curtain airbags and Stability control because I don't want them, good-bye.

No one's forcing you to. If you're that set on it, stick with a Holden ute, or something else without added safety.

But to claim excess safety is unnecessary is a bit far fetched.
You say you won't ever crash, but what happens when the drunken idiot in the LandCruiser t-bones you? What happens when your left rear tyre explodes mid-corner because you picked up a nail? What happens if you're a passenger in a head on because the guy on the other side crossed the centre line?


A couple of years ago, I was invincible too. Then, trying to avoid a retard running a red, this happened. You can bet your ass I wasn't planning on it.
I'm sure I could have done things differently and avoided it, but **** happens.

 

[Scaff]

BTW, When do you get you're license nd 4 holden spd?

Good question, and having just had a quick look at the Queensland driving regulations (god I love the internet) it would be interetsing to know what type of licence it is.

I now know that Queensland take the accident rate for young drivers very seriously, having brought in a lot of changes in the middle of last year.

To start you have to get a learners permit and as well as passing a test, you also have to log a set number of hours behind the wheel (both day and night), that then can lead to a provisional licence (called a P1 if you are below 25) which places very strict limits on the driver, in addition you must display Red P plates on the car. After a set period of time you can then move to the P2 provisional licence (green P plate must be shown on the car) and then you can move to an Open Licence.

A driver aged 18 moving from a learner licence would need to hold a P1 licence for a minimum of one year and then a P2 licence for a minimum of two years (three years total on a provisional licence of one sort or another).

Quite different from the UK, so sorry for the 'off-topic' moment but I found it very interesting.


Regards

Scaff

 

[Smallhorses]

To be honest it's actually nice to see that the Aussie test is somewhat similar to the UK, in that if you learn in an Auto, pass your test in an Auto, you can only drive Auto.

Here in the US it's technically possibly to go from learning & passing test in an Automatic:

to:

without any prior teaching or knowledge of what a clutch pedal is for.
(Obviously this assumes either, you, or your parents are stupidly wealthy, (let me know if you are!) but even going from a Daewoo Automatic to a Manual Daewoo without any prior training, or requirement to display "Learner Driver" tags or pass another test is a concept that's alien to a lot of countries, the UK & Australia being prime examples, based on Scaff's & my own experience, and the links to the Aussie driving laws that Scaff posted.)