Main Forums > The Roundtable

Safest cars on the road?

<< < (2/4) > >>

mfree:
I'm actually surprised to see the Lincoln LS on there, and that opens up a whole slew of options, since the LS shares platforms with the new Tbird and *gasp* the new mustang, and perhaps some other newer cars.

AFAIK the 500 is on a Volvo-designed frame. And the latest and *only* the latest F150's did very well.

Safety's also pretty wide ranging, it's like saying "what gun shoots well". Case in point, I had a 2001 Daewoo Leganza. Got nastygram style scores on all the government tests everywhere. Then I decided to actually *look* at the detail on those tests, particularly since I'd already gotten the car and was a bit nervous now.

Apparently it earned some nastygram scoring because on the automatics and *only* the automatics, it'll twist/break your left ankle in a 35mph barrier offset. head/chest G scores were better than just about everything else, 80'th percentile upwards. Strange.

Oddly enough I got a chance to find out later anyways when I was spun out on a rainy highway one sunday morning and bounced my happy arse off the center divider of I-40 and then did a little extreme offroading. As you can see I'm *twitch* just fine

brimic:
Any Buick, Chrysler or Oldsmobile from the late 60s to early 70s, some of these cars had some serious mass which works in your favor most of the time in a collision. I hit a deer once with my '76 oldsmobile going roughly 80 mph, I would have hit him at 105, but I saw him in time to start putting hard pressure on the brakes. The car suffered almost no damage other than a broken grille and a crack in the front clip. I'd put that sort of crashworthiness up against a volvo any day.

roo_ster:
Think of it this way:  All new cars/trucks are designed to crumple.  Old cars/trucks are not.  So, if you own an older car/truck, the drive is getting safer every day as the rolling kinetic-energy-sinks become more common.  They crumple, you don't.

mfree:
unfortunately it's not so simple. Take two examples here, both cars are almost identically sized, 4000 pounds, and are headed towards each other at 45mph. They're going to hit head-on. Let's even make the dashboards identical.

Car A has crumple zones and an airbag.
Car B has a frame all the way to the bumper and is rigid as a tree, and has no airbags.

The two hit.

Car A is a total loss. Nose is smashed past the wheelwells, car's a good 2' shorter. Doors are stuck shut, airbags are out. Occupant's hurting but basically uninjured. the car soaked up almost all the energy and left a slow deceleration.

Cab B looks decent. Nose is bent up a little from impact. Looks almost repairable. Occupant is in a world of hurt... deceleration force was so brutal that the belts stretched and he hammered his noggin on the steering wheel and went knees into the dashboard. The car took none of the energy and left occupant high and dry.

Cars crumple for a really, really good reason.

K Frame:
I'm surprised at you, mfree.

Don't you know that the magic of old cars extends to their ability to throw a protective "deceleration trauma prevention" forcefield around the occupants that will allow them to escape with no injury?

The worst accident I've ever seen was very similar to the one you describe.

A massive old Buick station wagon hit headon by a midsize Ford Taurus. At least I THINK it was a Taurus. I never could identify exactly what it was, other than some sort of Ford. It was far too torn up. Closing speed was estimated to be in the vicinity of 95 to 100 mph.

The driver of the Ford survived with substantial, but ultimately recoverable, injuries.

The family of 4 in the Buick?

The father's neck was broken, and his brains leaking out of his ears. The steering column shoved into his chest didn't help matters, nor did the engine that pulverized his body from the hips down.

The mother was ejected from the vehicle through the windshield. She left a good part of her skull behind on the top of the window frame, and a good deal of her skin behind on the glass enroute to a touchdown approximately 80 feet from the site of impact. Obviously she wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

The oldest daughter, probably about 5 or 6, had multiple broken bones. COD was internal bleeding resulting in multiple organ punctures from where her seatbelt pushed her ribs through her liver, spleen, lungs, and heart.

The only surviver was an infant in the child safety seat.

That accident haunts me to this day.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page