Safest cars on the road?

[natedog]

What are the safest cars on the road today?

-Nate

[Sindawe]

Those that are parked and have the parking brake set.

The five safest cars of all time:

Buick LeSabre (model year 2000)
Honda Civic (model year 2001)
Lincoln LS (model year 2001)
Volkswagen Passat (model years 2000 and 2001)
Volvo S80 (model year 2001)

Source: http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/insure/basics/8121.asp

[TarpleyG]

I wouldn't hesitate to state Volvo--any of them.  I think Ford's latest F150 scored pretty high on the NHTSA's frontal crash...not sure about other tests.

Greg

[Iain]

The big Renault's do very well in the NCAP tests here in Europe.

Of course I don't like Renaults.

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

Greg said "I wouldn't hesitate to state Volvo--any of them."
+1

It's a love it/hate it prospect, but I bought a classic 240 for my 15 yr old daughter's first car.  Not very fast, but VERY safe, and you can pick 'em up these days under 3000.
IMO, it's the perfect 'first car'.  Just make sure you get one with a driver's side airbag.

[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.

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

It sure ain't a '79 Mazda RX7.  You can look at my face and see why.

Regards,
Rabbit.

[Morgan]

Some good responses here.

I'll say that I've seen some impressive high speed crashes, and the late model Camaro/Firebird have been quite impressive.  I've seen several that slammed into freeway barriers at 60-80mph, and the thief or drunken idoit ran off, virtually unscathed.

All things being equal, a heavier/larger vehicle is generally safer.  SUV's, however, tend to flip, which is not good.

[K Frame]

Got some details of an accident that happened here in central PA just the other day. Killed a guy (ahole A), his two 12 year old nieces (or a niece and her friend) and severely injured the 19 year old driver of the other car.

Apparently ahole A was driving at +- 100 mph with a BAC of .246. Something in the front of the car failed and he swerved into the side of the passing car, cutting it in two. Airbags deployed, but it didn't help ahole A or his two passengers, who were DOTS.

Cars were apparently both in the Chevy Cavalier class.

[Brad Johnson]

So, what would happen if you took a 69 Lincoln Continental and strapped a Volvo to each bumper?

Brad

[Harold Tuttle]

i've seen some amazing web pictures of the new beetles bounced off of big things
and the occupants walk away

[mfree]

Oh, and another of my two cents... the enlarged fox platform cars from Ford are going to be pretty decent crashwise too, I had one for many years and studied the chassis in detail. They were.. are, the first cars ever to integrate the roof structure into the frame as a structural member (which is why the A/B/C pillars are so darned thick). They aren't terribly heavy as safe cars go (~3400lbs)  and they have modern crash features (door bars, crumple zones, controlled powertrain movement (i.e. engine/tranny levers downwards on impact instead of getting cozy with the occupants, force absorbing steering column). And by now they're cheap.

If you can find it, there's an episode of cops where a roadblock was set up in front of what I believe was a 1985 Thunderbird with a drunk runner inside. Runner plowed into the side of a mid 90's crown vic, unoccupied, at roughly 60 mph. The crown vic bent into a decent U-shape around the front of the Tbird. They dragged the guy out through the window and later treated his sprained ankle.

Ford seems to get it right about 90% of the time with their mid/fullsize cars. Happens when that's about all you've got to stake your reputation on

Here's another thought: The safest car on the road is the one you can keep out of the accident. Big/heavy thwarts that in a horrible way. My Lincoln Mark V had a measurable lag time between when you yanked the wheel and when the car actually started to move on the road instead of the tire slop getting stretched up, the suspension complying, and the car heeling over on the outer spring to *finally* transfer the weight....

[Iain]

Saw some amazing footage of two Renault Espace's being smashed together. The Espace is a people-carrier or an MPV or whatever you call them, high thing with seating for seven people.

One was brand new and had top marks from the NCAP people, one was 15 years old.

The crash was set up to be each car doing 35 mph, head on but slightly offset so each drivers side would take the main force.

The brand new Espace creamed the old one. Totally smeared it. The new one would not have been a write-off, and the crash test dummy indicated minor injuries to the driver. The driver of the old one would have been killed, there was a total absence of footwell, the engine was now in that space.

Made me think twice about buying some old banger.

The Rx7 is a classic though, but I'll wait around and get an affordable Rx8 I think, but by then I'd imagine the average super mini will be able to vapourise the Rx8.