Only 2 of the 9 SUV's passed the safety crash tests

intheburbs wrote:
An F1 car is so safe because it's light AND built like a tank. It also costs a million plus.

Are you really that clueless? A F1 car is not built like a tank and is designed to shed parts to dissipate energy. The driver is safe in these cars due to the fact they have a 5 point safety belt holding them in place along with a hans devise to protect their neck from lateral movement along with a carbon fiber seat molded to their body to minimize bodily movement.

Since the mass of the occupants is constant regardless of the size of vehicle, the only way to reduce the amount of energy that has to be absorbed is to reduce the mass of the vehicle. If one can do that and still maintain the integrity of the passenger compartment, the lighter vehicle represents less of a danger to other vehicles and the roads become safer.

The whole point of crash crumple zones is to decelerate the body(s) inside
the passenger compartment to the point that they will survive. Above
a certain point in speed/energy...they will die or maimed severely no matter

Seat belts hold the body but there is a sudden impact when the slack is
taken up. The Air bags then decelerate the head further

All the while the sheetmetal is folding up like an accordion. Anyone
ever see the crumpled sheetmetal ? Here is what a typical frame rail
folded up along the designed in stress raisers


Similar for a monocoque/unibody, but no frame per say...just the front
engine stub rails and body sheetmetal will fold up like this (inside
the outer sheetmetal...fender/etc)

Notice that if the other vehicle's bumper is either above or beneath
this ones bumper...that it will potentially slide over/under this
area

Here is a monocoque/unibody and it's crumple zone

Ratsf..link doesn't work, so here is the direct address: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Lotus_Evora_front_crash_test.jpg

Again, notice that the bumper height important for the stress raisers
to do their job

On that, notice in this picture of how they test...that they do NOT
have a bumper to bumper impact, but to a wall.

another rats...here is the link: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/FAE_visualization.jpg


That is how the article's rating is based on...hitting corner of a wall
NOT bumper to bumper. Their side impact is more real world, as they
do have a sled smack (T-Bone) it from the side...but the sled's bumper
height also very important

As for which is better...smaller or bigger...depends on lots of factors

First that the kinetic energy is dependent on both the mass and speed
of each vehicle

As they both crumple...they are consuming kinetic energy. The rates
of consumption dependent on how they are crumpling...or not

Once their crumple distance is consumed to now have the solid portion
of their passenger compartment become involved...the one with more
kinetic energy will impart that onto the event.

That will have the one with less kinetic energy lose ground and move
backwards...meaning the people in the one moving backwards will then
have that kinetic energy imparted on their bodies via: seat belt, air
bag and anything else that strikes them

Much more going on, but that is the basics of it all...

Actually, in single vehicle collisions, the heavier vehicle has to absorb more energy.

So the question is, would safety be better served by more lighter vehicles or more heavier vehicles?

An F1 car is so safe because it's light AND built like a tank. It also costs a million plus.

In the real world, compromises are made between safety features and cost. If cost was no object, we'd all be in race cars and fatalities would be rare.

In single vehicle crashes, weight is much less of a factor. In two-car crashes, the heavier vehicle has the advantage. The lighter vehicle has to absorb more energy. That's physics.

wilber1 wrote:
Everything is relative, it depends what hits you. Lighter doesn't have to mean more dangerous. F1 cars weigh about 1000 lbs empty and there hasn't been a driver fatality since 1994.

Exactly!

Some would like to hit a wall at a 100 mph with a 7,000lb burb because it's "heavy." They will be carted off in a station wagon painted black with curtains on the windows.

Me? I would rather hit the same wall at 150 mph in an F1 or Indy car.

Lets see someone try this in a heavy vehicle. The thing that saved this guy was the safety that was built into the vehicle. It had nothing to do with how light or heavy the car was.

Safety measures always trump weight and mass. That is why new vehicles are so much safer now days. Not because of the weight, but because of the safety measures they have.

Turtle n Peeps wrote:
I was not talking to you. Your lost and I don't have time to give you a map. :)

Thank you for proving my point so succinctly.

Size doesn't have much to do with safety, it's relative size that counts. Something big hits something small, everything else being equal, the small one will lose. The present popularity of pickups has to be a factor in vehicle safety. If we were all driving smaller cars instead of a mixture of small cars and behemoths like trucks and large SUV's, fatality rates would likely be lower.

I have a 66 Chrysler 300 convertible. It is as long as the 2001 Dodge 2500 I used to own and the hood is 2" wider than the bed of my present 2011 3500. It is also unquestionably the least safe car I have owned in the past 25 years.

When it was new I was driving one of those original Mini Coopers. Talk about being a midget in a land of giants.

intheburbs wrote:

Turtle n Peeps wrote:


Now; how can "lighter vehicles" kill thousands of people when vehicles are getting heaver with every single model year after year?

Here is the real truth for those that want to know it. Even with pictures! :B

More truth and more pictures. Even really cool pictures. :B

Boy, you really do have a reading comprehension problem, don't you?

I notice you never even replied to my point about ALL vehicles performing poorly in the test in your OP. Three vehicles got acceptable ratings on that test. Three. Out of how many tested?

And talk about cherry picking - in the article that you link to showing the size changes in the F150, the article even admits. "The ubiquitous Ford pickup shrank considerably after the gas shocks of the 1970s. But after that it ballooned into the masonite-hauling behemoth we have today." So they're admitting that the comparison is manipulative.

And then on to your reading comprehension deficiency - there's this quote from the article: "The major culprit in cars' expanding waistlines is indeed safety specs"

So you're competely contradicting yourself - you start a thread complaining about how SUVs do poorly in a crash test (where ALL vehicles do poorly), then you complain about cars getting larger and post a link to an article that admits cars are getting larger because of safety requirements. Do you realize how silly you're making yourself look?

Lastly - I learned to drive on a 1973 Ford LTD Country Squire (complete with fake wood paneling on the sides). It was a pretty common car in the day, and GM and Chrysler had similarly-sized wagons. The car was 226 inches long. My Suburban is 222 inches long.

I was not talking to you. Your lost and I don't have time to give you a map. :)

Turtle n Peeps wrote:


Now; how can "lighter vehicles" kill thousands of people when vehicles are getting heaver with every single model year after year?

Here is the real truth for those that want to know it. Even with pictures! :B

More truth and more pictures. Even really cool pictures. :B

Boy, you really do have a reading comprehension problem, don't you?

I notice you never even replied to my point about ALL vehicles performing poorly in the test in your OP. Three vehicles got acceptable ratings on that test. Three. Out of how many tested?

And talk about cherry picking - in the article that you link to showing the size changes in the F150, the article even admits. "The ubiquitous Ford pickup shrank considerably after the gas shocks of the 1970s. But after that it ballooned into the masonite-hauling behemoth we have today." So they're admitting that the comparison is manipulative.

And then on to your reading comprehension deficiency - there's this quote from the article: "The major culprit in cars' expanding waistlines is indeed safety specs"

So you're competely contradicting yourself - you start a thread complaining about how SUVs do poorly in a crash test (where ALL vehicles do poorly), then you complain about cars getting larger and post a link to an article that admits cars are getting larger because of safety requirements. Do you realize how silly you're making yourself look?

Lastly - I learned to drive on a 1973 Ford LTD Country Squire (complete with fake wood paneling on the sides). It was a pretty common car in the day, and GM and Chrysler had similarly-sized wagons. The car was 226 inches long. My Suburban is 222 inches long.