Posted on 02/11/2015 10:37:02 AM PST by jjotto
The chances of dying in a crash in a late-model vehicle have fallen by more than a third in three years, the latest IIHS calculations of driver death rates show. Among 2011 models, a record nine vehicles have driver death rates of zero. However, the gap between the safest and riskiest models remains wide, and three cars have death rates exceeding 100 per million registered vehicle years...
...The list of models with the lowest death rates illustrates just how much vehicles have improved. Eight years ago, there were no models with driver death rates of zero (see Status Report special issue: driver death rates, April 19, 2007). Now there are nine. These vehicles — which include several luxury models but also some less expensive ones such as the Kia Sorento midsize SUV and the Subaru Legacy sedan — had no driver deaths during the calendar years studied...
...One striking thing about the group of zero-death vehicles — aside from the sheer number — is that two-thirds of them are SUVs...
Among the surprising least safe: Chevy Silverado 1500 Crew 4WD
Who stacked the deck?
IIHS.
This caught my attention because the usual angle is to get people into smaller cars. This charts fatalities per million miles and clearly shows larger vehicles are generally much safer and that small cheap cars are death traps. And it also shows what must be some design defects in what otherwise should be very safe vehicles.
One thing that is even more surprising to me is:
The Ford Crown Vic is one of the safest rated vehicles while the Mercury Grand Marquis is among the worst rated.
They are basically identical cars.
Also most likely to have an accident preceded by the words "hold my beer"?
That might indicate that this is simply accumulated data, and could be skewed by a few particularly bad accidents. Without knowing the particulars, it might also be that the Mercury version has some feature (traction, breaking, etc.) that doesn’t function as intended.
hehe
That’s what I thought when I first saw it on the list. Also most likely to have the body returned to its home country.
It would have to be the former. If the latter, NTSA would be over Ford Motor Company like a bedbug filled blanket.
Not a single “US” manufacturer on the list.
I stopped looking those reports years ago. The main reason was their inherent bias against US manfacturers, and the other reason is that the number spread between them safety wise are so small, that the numbers are basically the same. An example would be 12 fatalities per a million Audis vs. 13 fatalities per million Chevy pickups. And did they factor in the number of each models that are currently on the road?
The top of that list represents a small number of vehicles actually on the highway.
Yes. The deck was stacked against larger, safer cars and trucks.
A minimum of 100,000 registered vehicles seems like an acceptable sample size to me.
lol - what I was thinking too. There’s many factors, other than the vehicle, that will impact these numbers. I’m sure SUV vs small car will have a common outcome, the same as Semi vs. SUV. So while an SUV is technically safer than a small car the death rates in small cars would be less if we didn’t have SUV’s (not advocating that!).
Different vehicles attract different types of drivers. The type of driver that buys a BMW M3 is often driving differently than somebody owning a minivan.
It would be interesting to see deaths broken down by gender, at fault, DWI, angle of impact, price point, etc..
...there’s certainly some stereotypes that come to mind!
As the owner of a 2015 one, I would argue that statement. I always stop when I ask someone to hold my beer.
Dynamic Stability Control is supposedly helping avoid many crashes.
The funny part is i live on a steep hill and during Monday’s snowstorm i couldn’t get up the hill that i live on.
I would floor the gas and the RPM wouldn’t get above 2000 and the car would get stuck. i was wondering what was going on then i noticed the traction control light blinking.
I shut off both the TC and DSC and the car revved right up, wheels spun like crazy but i got up the hill.
Learned a lesson that day.
I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those anyway.
Don't know if it is still true, but an insurance underwriter told me that red vehicles got into higher accident rates for their number than any other color and rates were quoted accordingly.
It is not that red is an unsafe color. It is actually safer due to higher visibility. But drivers who liked red also took more chances.
Another interesting thing he told me was that a lime florescent green was actually the most visible color. School bus yellow rated a distant second.
It still pays to read the manual.
I suspect the age demographics of the respective drivers' samples are somehow related to this discrepancy. Grand Marquis drivers tend to be older, which probably factors into crash survival rates.
Yes.
And I think a lot of Crown Vics are used somewhat commercially with experienced drivers used to any quirks.
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