Topic: CR Crash Test Selector

[DockMan]

On a more serious note, if people were truly serious about safety then they would demand 4 or 5-point harnesses and full roll cages instead of the current 3-point seatbelts.  I'd much rather have those than more airbags.

It all comes down to dollars and cents. There is always a trade off. (mumbled while brushing my teeth intentionally with lead based, malemine enhanced toothpaste)

[safristi]

..they are coming along nicely...Dockman ............................................unlike some States where 64% ONLY, WEAR those PESKY SEATBELTS....the air bags will take care of them ..right..........NO worries lads and lassies ALL the new machines will soon have side airbags......then we can all scream fer knee bags and roof bags..and bags of money to pay fer them and their replacement when we hit a tree at 20KPH. and they deploy needlessley or are stolen or become OLDE and non functional...and to subsidise the Lawyers/ambulance chasing ones who will sue everyone in sight 'cos yer KAR didn't HAVE 20 airbags and woz  therefore defective..........NOT everyone can just abandon their present ride(s) to ante UP to this years "STANDARD" of safety...the IIHS is an arm of Insurance IMHO....keeping their costs down..and doesn't give a rats arse about the general public...........what percentage of accidents are accurate T_BONES into the weakest part of a car at 50MPH or whatever?...reductio ad absurDUMB arguements again arise.......the bags are here,,,, BUT use yer seatbelts for 90% of yer SAFETY........

[tpl]

On a more serious note, if people were truly serious about safety then they would demand 4 or 5-point harnesses and full roll cages instead of the current 3-point seatbelts.  I'd much rather have those than more airbags.

I think not.   If people were more serious then:
Roads with dangerous stretches and mismarked junctions and lanes would be fixed immediately... but expressway speed limits might well go up a bit.
The Canada wide minimum driving test would contain hours of classroom instruction, many many hours of driving instruction on a track  for vehicle control, on ice and snow, on expressways as well as "normal" urban suburban driving.
People would have insisted via their politicians to have annual vehicle safety checks, no plea bargaining on DUI offences, etc... but after proper training there might well be less of them.
Construction and use regs would be enforced.... no big foot trucks on the public roads and probably no NO injection either.

Do those things and full cages and 5 point belts are probably not required

[DockMan]

The Canada wide minimum driving test would contain hours of classroom instruction, many many hours of driving instruction on a track  for vehicle control, on ice and snow, on expressways as well as "normal" urban suburban driving.

 

When I live in Europe the American company (Auto Supplier) had a us take a mandatory driving class that was very valuable it included skid pad runs in various vehicles. Very educational and may have saved my young and speed hungry self from an early demise.

[safristi]

NOT GONNA HAPPEN........tooth Fairy told me...............

[Mitlov]

Death happens and inevitably it happens to someone you know, so just suck it up princess.

Wow, what a great theory.  Eventually everyone dies, so it doesn't matter when they die, at what point in their lives they were at when they died, or how they died.  By that reasoning, nothing matters--not car safety, not murder, not genocide, not nuclear war.  If some teenager burns to death when his Ford Pinto is rear-ended, who cares?  Seventy years later he was going to suffer congestive heart failure anyway.

That's fine if that's how you think, but realize that most of the world feels very differently about the value of life, and they're not foolish or inferior because they happen to disagree with you.

Part of manning up is not getting all shaken up just because you know someone who died.  Death happens and inevitably it happens to someone you know, so just suck it up princess.

Part of being a real man (or real adult for that manner; there's no reason this is gender-specific) is living your life how you want to and letting other people live their lives how they want to.  Instead of, you know, calling people "princess" for caring about car safety and calling people "lazy" for driving automatics.

[PJungnitsch]

I'm amazed at how the Mazda 3 just crumbled to bits on front impact.  Wow.

When I was looking over the Mazda 3 I noticed lots of room between the engine and the firewall. Apparently the engine is designed to snap off the mountings and slide under the passenger compartment in a head on collision, helping to keep it from being forced straight back and buckling the passenger compartment.

So it's a good thing, probably something the Volvo engineers helped with.

Noting on these videos the Korean makes all seem to have trouble with side impact strength. Several models with side airbags still rate poorly, the 'hitting vehicle' just makes it too far through.

[dorin]

Part of being a real man (or real adult for that manner; there's no reason this is gender-specific) is living your life how you want to and letting other people live their lives how they want to.  Instead of, you know, calling people "princess" for caring about car safety and calling people "lazy" for driving automatics.

Incidentally I actually agree with you, the problem is that the automatic driving safety-obsessed hordes are skewing the marketplace so my choice of well-engineered manual transmission cars without expensive electronic safety nannies is becoming more and more limited.

Sooooo, from where I stand, those people you talk about are actively impeding me in living my life how I want to.  So, given that I want light-weight, fun to drive cars then my only choices seem to be to a) pay more for an increasingly limited selection or b) speak out against the madness.  Merely going along with the trend means that I am tacitly agreeing to work against my own best interests.  That makes no sense to me...

[Mitlov]

Incidentally I actually agree with you, the problem is that the automatic driving safety-obsessed hordes are skewing the marketplace so my choice of well-engineered manual transmission cars without expensive electronic safety nannies is becoming more and more limited.

Sooooo, from where I stand, those people you talk about are actively impeding me in living my life how I want to.  So, given that I want light-weight, fun to drive cars then my only choices seem to be to a) pay more for an increasingly limited selection or b) speak out against the madness.  Merely going along with the trend means that I am tacitly agreeing to work against my own best interests.  That makes no sense to me...

Do you think that calling people names on CTC (or better yet, calling their spouses names) is going to have any affect whatsoever on what the manufacturers offer?  Last time I checked, I was neither a car designer nor a legislator.

Vote with your dollars, and buy yourself a Lotus, a kit-car, or a motorcycle.  Calling me "princess" and some member's wife "lazy" is not only rude, but it doesn't help you one iota with the concerns you have about the auto industry.

[dorin]

Do you think that calling people names on CTC (or better yet, calling their spouses names) is going to have any affect whatsoever on what the manufacturers offer?  Last time I checked, I was neither a car designer nor a legislator.

Vote with your dollars, and buy yourself a Lotus, a kit-car, or a motorcycle.  Calling me "princess" and some member's wife "lazy" is not only rude, but it doesn't help you one iota with the concerns you have about the auto industry.

I'm sorry that calling you princess hurt your feelings.  I was joking and just playing up the "man up" angle and I thought I was being mock-serious enough to be funny.  Obviously I was wrong and actually hit a nerve.  Sorry about that.

I am standing by my statement that people with no physical limitations who only want to drive automatics are lazy.  It's a mere statement of fact.  I also stated that laziness is an inherent human quality and I am as guilty as anyone else, so I'm not casting moral aspersions by saying it.  If people don't want to admit it to themselves that they're inherently lazy then they've got bigger issues than my purported cyber-rudeness.

edit:  I also said all automatic drivers without physical limitations are lazy - I wasn't singling out anyone's anything in particular.

[dorin]

Vote with your dollars, and buy yourself a Lotus, a kit-car, or a motorcycle.

As for voting with my dollars, that's part of what's pissing me off.  Why should I quietly (happily?) be willing to pay more (a Lotus ain't cheap) for what I want and also subsidize other people making choices that I don't agree with?  Furthermore, the heavier a vehicle other people drive then the more risk I'm at in a possible collision.  So please explain to me again why I should keep quiet about stuff that makes my life more expensive and more dangerous?  What's in it for me to just meekly go along with that?

[onearmed]

I'm all for safety features, I skimped out on side curtain airbags and I regret it.  Next car will have all the airbags, abs and stability control. Companies that don't give these options I have no respect for heheh

[mmret]

As far as I'm concerned, side air bags / curtain airbags / knee airbags are plenty worth it, even if I never want to find out if mine work. Safety may not be an important consideration for some, but it doesn't mean that its not a big deal at all. Some people like AWD, others couldn't care less. Some want a stiffly sprung suspension that doesn't lean, others just want something that effortlessly dispatches potholes. To each their own.

Its not like having stability control on my car severely impedes my ability to enjoy it.

Also agree with tpl, tax dollars should go to mandatory driver training, yearly inspections, get tougher on DUIs, etc. I can't keep count of the number of people who can't keep their damn car inside the lane markers here in Ottawa. Throw on the people who don't bother checking their blind spots, don't signal, weave in and out of dense traffic, drive on bald tires, etc.... *sigh*

[safristi]

THE POOR will always be with us...............POOR Drivers,Cars,Roads,drinkers,dopers,tyres, etc etc  "LIVE wiffit......sheesh the nanny diaries are showing on CD Talk......

[Arctic_White]

I see Mitlov's point, and totally agree with mmret's post.

At the same time, I think the SAB's and all these extra safety features' benefits are played out a bit too much. 

99%+ of all the accidents can be avoided if one is attentive enough (IMHO).

And Dorin, your Mazda3 GS sans the extra airbags weighs just as much as an 8th gen. Civic DX-G with all the extra safety options that makes most folks happy.  Just thought I'd point it out. 

[barrie1]

So healthy folks who drive automatic vehicles are lazy. Thats a pretty sad statement if I have ever heard one. Most models don't come with a standard tranny no-a-days so they must be fools or something in your mind for having a choice of vehicle that they like altho its not a standard trannied vehicle. I have seen more automatic trannied vehicles beat the standard shifting vehicles at the qt mile track for years but they are lazy are they. Can you shift as fast as you can blink as my truck tranny sure can and its a custom built auto which will take the qt mile beating a lot longer then any standard ever would or could.  I may have to change the fluid every 60,000 miles or so but I will never change out a clutch in it like you will or have done for yourself someday. The car with the auto tranny will sell for more used as well when the time comes and be easier to sell also.

[huota]

Anybody drive a Caravelle?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjadCOciuWI

(Sorry to resurrect such an old topic)

[Sir Osis of Liver]

(Sorry to resurrect such an old topic)

Not at all! It was a pretty good one!

Funny how things change in a year. Last year I had the Vibe that had front airbags and that's it. Now, I've got the Outback with lord knows how many airbags and safety thingies. Of course that's not by choice, no "options delete" for safety crap.

Another nasty crash test

[ovr50]

This looks like a really good thread for me to stay the hell out of......

[safristi]

..we all need ta GOsometime........................