Wall Street Journal: Many small cars perform well in safety tests but appear, intuitively at least, to be at a disadvantage in collision with larger vehicles. Now a series of crash tests indicate the disadvantage is substantial, even when small cars collide with vehicles that don't seem that much larger. (emphasis added)Forbes: ... no amount of airbags, electronic stability control or roll cages can defeat the laws of physics.
Though much safer than they were a few years ago, minicars as a group do a comparatively poor job of protecting people in crashes, simply because they're smaller and lighter. --- Adrian Lund, President, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) (emphasis added)
So all things being equal, if you're concerned about safety, you want a bigger, heavier car. --- David Zuby, senior vice president of vehicle research, IIHS
Scary words.
Cars have been on my mind this week. Fellow blogger Squawkfox and her husband were hit by wheels that came off a truck. Fortunately, they were not seriously hurt. Or worse.
- Daimler: Smart fortwo vs Mercedes C300
- Honda: Fit vs Accord
- Toyota: Yaris vs Camry
The following videos show what happened.
How Safe?
There's a limit to large, though. In a collision with a truck or tractor trailer, even a big gas guzzling, road hogging SUV is at a disadvantage. If you're driving at highway speeds, the odds are against you too.
You can't have it all. If you're after fuel economy then you want a smaller, lighter vehicle. You're compromising with safety, though. If you drive in city gridlock, speeds are low thanks to volume, cyclists and buses. I average 20-25 km/h in "rush hour". That provides additional insurance.
direct download | Internet Archive page
Daimler: Smart ForTwo vs Mercedes C300
Honda: Fit vs Accord
Toyota: Yaris vs Camry
How Much Safer Are Large Vehicles?
The Wall Street Journal reported that for minicars
- in multi-vehicle crashes: "The death rate ... is almost twice as high as that of large cars"
- in single vehicle crashes: "... three times as many deaths as in large cars"
In the case of Squawkfox, the flying truck wheels were like a smaller vehicle.
The Dilemma
In collisions with bigger vehicles, the forces acting on the smaller ones are higher, and there's less distance from the front of a small car to the occupant compartment to 'ride down' the impact. --- Toronto Star
We're buying smaller vehicles to save on fuel and to help the environment. Enviable goals. But we're increasing the chances of injury to ourselves. I've never been on the road in a minicar but did talk to a Smart Car representative. She explained how safe the vehicles were --- much like sitting in the shell of a walnut. How customers in accidents felt the vehicles saved their lives and returned to replace them. Seeing the crash test provides a rather different perspective.
How Safe?
There's a limit to large, though. In a collision with a truck or tractor trailer, even a big gas guzzling, road hogging SUV is at a disadvantage. If you're driving at highway speeds, the odds are against you too.
You can't have it all. If you're after fuel economy then you want a smaller, lighter vehicle. You're compromising with safety, though. If you drive in city gridlock, speeds are low thanks to volume, cyclists and buses. I average 20-25 km/h in "rush hour". That provides additional insurance.
We may have forgotten our high school physics, but those laws still apply.
Links
- Costs of a Car Crash (Squawkfox | April 13, 2009)
- 14 Things to do Before and After a Car Accident (Squawkfox | April 16, 2009)
- Small Cars are Dangerous Cars (Wall Street Journal | April 17, 2009)
- In vehicle crashes, size matters (Toronto Star | April 15, 2009)
- Why Small Cars Won't Keep You Safe (Forbes | April 14, 2009)
- Smaller Cars Get Low Grades (Wall Street Journal | April 14, 2009)
- Crash test video (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
- The influence of size and weight on safety in crashes (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety | April 14, 2009)
- Smart USA responds to IIHS crash test results (autobloggreen.com | April 15, 2009)
Podcast
direct download | Internet Archive page
What has happened to basic journalism and research? If you were to go to the web sites for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (.org) or the US Dept of Transportation, you'd see that the actual highway data demonstrates pickup trucks are actually the most dangerous vehicles on the road. With a death rate of 93 or 12 points above a mini passenger car and 31 points above a midsize car.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.iihs.org/research/fatality_facts_2007/occupants.html
Are SUV's safer? - Current data supports that. However, data from 1978 to 2004 shows that occupant deaths per million registered passenger vehicles 1-3 years old were either worse or equivalent between SUV's and passenger cars. What happens in a lab is one thing, what happens on the road is another. Dealing with sheer volume is incorrect stat handling. We need to compare how relatively new cars perform on the road (3 years or less) and death per those new cars on the road.
If you would like to hire me as a reporter, fact checker, or data analyst don't hesitate to e-mail me.
That's really sobering. I like to think the answer is not to have to choose between Safer Gus Guzzler or Walnet Shell Eco-Friendly, but that *all* cars will get smaller so the little guys don't have to get crunched by the SUVs.
ReplyDelete@juan70ahr There are all kinds of ways to slice & dice stats to answer any given question. In this instance, the question (a good one, given the increasing trend towards smartcars) was: How do smart cars stand up to outdated gas guzzlers, when push comes to shove, so to speak?
Smaller, lighter cars for sale are generally less safe than larger cars. Although there is still a lot you can do to choose the safest small car. Most of the serious accidents are in the other guy hands that are in generally the bigger car still you can't protect yourself against every danger and life is full of trade-offs. If you want to save oil and reduce emissions, but you also want to be safe. What do you do? You choose the safest car you can afford that also provides good gas mileage.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sending me this link! I missed your discussion when posted. I'm very fond of small cars, always have been. But when the wheel few off that semi, I know that owning a mid-sized Subaru is what lessened our physical damage. The front of our car was smushed, leaving our bodies untouched.
ReplyDeleteIt is really a good question that Is small cars safer enough? My answer is no as now a days there are lots of accident taking place all aroud in that situation if small cars collides with big car than there no chance of small car to survive.
ReplyDeleteSmall cars are not at all safe. No matter whose fault is there but if small collides with big than small will suffer more.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we should blame size or type of car for accidents ..you are rite with your stats but they keep on changing each year ..drive safe then size of cars wont matter...
ReplyDeleteYes i think small cars are safer than ever. As there is lot of traffic in which this small cars are very comfortable to drive which will help to drive safe.
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