Drive a Small Car...and DIE!

I like this Fifth Gear video to show another leap in safety.

A safe for its time Volvo 940 vs. a 20 year newer Renault Modus.

roninsoldier83 said:

As someone who has literally been on the scene of roughly ~1000 auto crashes back in the day, I'm not worried about it. In the overwhelming number of crashes I've seen, visible injuries are fairly rare, much less substantial injuries or death. 
 

Notable exceptions:

 

-Motorcycles. Yeah, most of them don't seem to walk away when hit by cars.

-Roll-overs (more common in taller vehicles) lead to legitimate injuries and I've seen a couple deaths.

-Not wearing a seatbelt, I've seen a couple people ejected through the front windshield, causing death. 
 

Majority of people are fine. Excessive speed can surely be a factor, but most accidents result in nothing but property damage or "complaint of injury" (nothing actually visibly hurt). 
 

Just anecdotal evidence based on my own professional experience. 

Yea but that's not relevant here. How many accident scenes have you been to where manicans were driving? 

I used to be in the small nimble camp. I still like small cars. However, most of the wrecks I see are on the interstate with Jersey barriers and no room to maneuver. Small and nimble doesn't do anything for you if there is no where to go. 

SV reX said:

They probably could have made those 4800 lb luxo-barges safer by attaching a bulldozer blade to the front. 
".

Ever see the '73 and '74 bumpers?  They did that.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

How times have changed.  I just heard this morning on NPR that new vehicle sales are only 20% cars, and 80% SUV/Truck/Van.  We're buying bigger.

Are we though? Or are we simply buying different large vehicles? For example, in '72 total Chevy Impala production ended up at 597,500 units, and other series totals included Caprice, 178,500; Biscayne (in its final year), 20,500; Bel Air, 41,900; and station wagons, 171,700. That's over 1 million of just that large car. Now think about the other brands on that chassis from Buick and Pontiac, and then the large Fords, Mercuries, Dodges, and Chryslers of that size class sold just that year. Modern SUVs and, more importantly, quad cab pickups, ARE the large sedan of today.

In reply to Olemiss540 :

Lol, fair point. 
 

In these tests, I'm assuming for dramatic effect or worst case scenario, they seem to love head-to-head full speed collisions. Which, in my experience, is a seemingly rare phenomenon. Apparently "playing chicken" has fallen out of favor with the kids these days. I think the only time I've ever seen it was once when a drunk driver was driving the wrong way down the Interstate late at night... after the head-on took place, the drunk driver ended up losing his left arm due to his truck rolling onto the left side, trapping his arm (what was left of it) underneath the A-pillar of the truck. I remember when we lifted the truck off of him and pulled him out, his arm (which looked like hamburger meat) was squirting blood 3+ feet into the air before we applied a tourniquet- it looked like a miniature red Bellagio fountain. Amazingly enough, no one else was seriously injured. 
 

I think that's the only time I've ever seen a head-to-head at freeway speeds. To be fair, I worked in an urban area where higher speed freeways and many higher speed roads tend to have concrete barriers (making high speed head-to-heads fairly difficult to achieve on accident). This may be a more common occurrence in rural areas, late at night, on higher speed country roads with no solid medians. 

I rode a motorcycle daily in California for four years, year-round. I still drive everything I own like it's a motorcycle. So far, it's worked out well for me.

Re: Head-on Collisions- A friend's son was involved in one about 6 weeks ago. Rural two-lane road, minding his own business, got hit by a drunk driver doing 50mph. Combined speed was around 90mph. He got away with a broken left foot and a broken right ankle. Car was a write off. I am unsure how the drunk fared (and to be honest, I don't much care).

A couple of weeks ago a friend was driving a 2nd generation Corvair down a single lane rural road at a reasonable rate of speed. He came around a corner and right there was a fire truck going at a similar rate of speed the other direction. The blindness of the corner coupled with the poor traction of the dirt road made for only two choices: Hit the fire truck or drive off the road. My friend opted to drive off the road and earned himself several days in the hospital. The irony of this situation is that had his car been a modern vehicle -  even something as small as an IQ, a Fiat or a Smart car, the best choice would have simply have been to hit the truck dead-on and let the cars safety systems do what they were designed to. He would probably  have walked away with nary a scratch. 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Two vehicles of identical weight and speed hitting perfectly head on will both cancel each other out just the same as if they individually hit an immovable wall.  If one of those vehicles was stopped, the two vehicles would end the collision traveling at half the speed of the moving vehicle, in the direction that one was traveling.

Minus any energy used in crushing the crumple zone(s), if any are involved. Fingers crossed for a significant amount.

 In terms of injury, crumple zones also reduce peak Gs by spreading the deceleration out over more time. Which isn't what was being discussed here, but seems pertinent to the larger topic.

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Yep. Deceleration isn't what kills you. It's the rate. The slower you decelerate, the higher the likelihood of survival.