Smaller Cars Earn Top Marks in Safety Tests

NY Times ^ | May 28, 2009 | James Kanter

[Wicket]

A study of car safety released on Wednesday shows that four of the top-scoring automobiles in tests of five new models were small cars or so-called super-minis — including the Honda Jazz, Hyundai i20, Kia Soul and Peugeot 3008. . .

Seats installed in the Kia Soul, for example, “achieved a good result in the program’s whiplash testing, again revealing that it is not only larger or expensive cars that achieve impressive results in safety.” . . .

It said the Honda Jazz and Hyundai i20 racked up “impressive pedestrian scores”

[Wicket]

Maybe it's me, but I'm kinda more concerned about whether I end up being a car sandwich in a crash.

[ClearCase_guy]

Let’s have a Honda Jazz collide with a Ford F-150 and see which vehicle does better. Then we’ll decide if smaller cars deserve the “Top Marks”.

[theDentist]

I want to know what conditions and qualifications were altered for the tests, because I don’t believe it.

[pgkdan]

propoganda.

[TribalPrincess2U]

Against what, a bicycle?

[Riodacat]

The fifth car to earn top safety marks was the Audi Q5, a compact crossover nearly the size of an S.U.V.

Whoever wrote this article obviously doen't know sheit from shinola when it comes to vehicles (as evidenced by the above quote), so I would totally discount everything else in this article.

[NativeSon]

bull

[Natural Law]

As a degreed mechanical engineer with a better than average knowledge of physics and material science let me be the first to call Bullshit!

[P-Marlowe]

It said the Honda Jazz and Hyundai i20 racked up “impressive pedestrian scores”

Does that mean that if you crash into a pedestrial, you are less likely to injure them?

[ansel12]

Modern America, safety is every thing now.

[Apercu]

As with Climate Change, PC takes precedence over the laws of physics with the left.I’ll keep driving my Tahoe.

[icwhatudo]

Yep. This is just like the poll about oral sex not being sex that just happened to come out during impeachment.

[ReneeLynn]

Pwha-ha-ha!

[pabianice]

[Lou L]

Next they’ll be telling us that the mini-cars have a better ride than a Mercedes, handle better than a Ferrari, and have more acceleration than a Porsche!

[Red in Blue PA]

....and bigger cars get better gas mileage too.

[pabianice]

http://www.eaa.org/video/eaa.html?videoId=24522334001

[Carl LaFong]

The NYT has declared the laws of mass and inertia have been hopey- changed.

[Professional Engineer]

That, and the giant 4,500 gram towing capacity.

[mort56]

Let the propaganda begin!

[Secret Agent Man]

It is propaganda.

I saw a smartcar and a c-class mercedes (the smaller one) hit each other, both going 40 mph (80 mph crash). The smartcar was devastated, it looked like a pinball bouncing off a bumper. So did its crash dummy.

[pallis]

“Maybe it’s me, but I’m kinda more concerned about whether I end up being a car sandwich in a crash.”

Me too. When being tailgated by an SUV, I want to be in a 1 ton truck.

[Red in Blue PA]

LOL!

[Wyatt's Torch]

What a crock of crap. A portion of the test was how a pedestrian hit by the car would fair. Frankly, I don’t give a rip about the pedestrian. I want to protect me and my family. The two that did the best in “pedestrian” scores performed lower in “Adult” and “Child” scores...

[newgeezer]

Maybe it's me, but I'm kinda more concerned about whether I end up being a car sandwich in a crash.

For others, it's all about getting there and enjoying the ride. If I gave more than a rat's keester about crashworthiness, I wouldn't own a motorcycle.

[Dahoser]

Goebbels would be so proud of our media and how they’re getting themselves properly warmed up for the hardcore propaganda they’ll be spewing soon in support of socialized medicine. They don’t want to pull a muscle at the wrong time.

[capydick]

And the propoganda begins.....heck - if it worked getting obama elected - it will work on getting people to buy soda cans for cars. Me? I’ll keep my 2005, four door, F150 running for as long as I can.

[Puppage]

[Secret Agent Man]

“impressive pedestrian scores”

means

if you crash into a person, the smartcar will probably fare better than the person.

Like others here, I would care how the smartcar fares crashing into an oncoming truck or SUV. Or even midsize car.

[This_far]

“bull”

Mind your tongue son, the article is from the NY Times.

[mtg]

Smaller Cars Earn Top Marks in Safety Tests

Yeah, if you get hit by a paper airplane.

[Brookhaven]

“impressive pedestrian scores”

---

Meaning they do less damage to pedestrians. I can see the future insurance reports now: “car totaled due to head on collision with pedestrian.”

[Landru]

"As a degreed mechanical engineer with a better than average knowledge of physics and material science let me be the first to call Bullshit!"

Hey now!
The New York Times need not yield to Newtonian physics if it'll obscure their propaganda.

That's power, baby. :o)

[mosesdapoet]

Seeing as how The NYT has lost so much of its circulation they can use em (mini cars)in their circulation dept and probably get a subsidy doing so. But will the big burgher go tooling around Manhatten in one might be another matter.

[MortMan]

It said the Honda Jazz and Hyundai i20 racked up “impressive pedestrian scores”

In other words - the cars are so small, pedestrians inflicted more damage on the vehicle than vice versa!

[tx_eggman]

Honda Jazz

That looks an awful lot like the thing I found stuck up in the wheel well of my truck the other day ...

[gorilla_warrior]

The propaganda begins . . .

[nonsporting]

It said the Honda Jazz and Hyundai i20 racked up “impressive pedestrian scores”

Does that mean that if you crash into a pedestrial, you are less likely to injure them?

Being smaller with a shorter turning radius makes the nimble Fit and spry i20 great in an antipersonnel role.

[ClearCase_guy]

Frankly, I don’t give a rip about the pedestrian.

I've noticed that a lot of "safety" pronouncements are not about the consumer and the impact of their choices on themselves. For example, if you are in an SUV and have an accident, you have a fair chance of coming out OK. But the media says that SUVs are "not safe". Why is that? Well, the guy who bought that other car, the car that just collided with your SUV ... he didn't fare so well. That means your car is not safe.

It's ass-backwards.

[keepitreal]

Seats installed in the Kia Soul, for example, “achieved a good result in the program’s whiplash testing, again revealing that it is not only larger or expensive cars that achieve impressive results in safety.” . . .

Great news! Small cars have great headrests! Do those protect you when you are t-boned by someone going 40?

[Tarpon]

No matter how many hoax stories are written, f=ma remains as the law of physics. If the car survives, if the driver compartment survives, it means nothing if your brains and guts are turned to mush by the deceleration forces. Modern autos are designed with crumple zones for this very reason, mitigate the forces before they reach the human. And to accomplish that goal, it takes area and distance, over which these forces are dissipated.

I would not be surprised if ignorants did not understand the part about your internal organs not surviving the deceleration. A simple calculation will show the human organs will not survive, but you would need to obtain the actually test readings to prove. And it's unlikely that those g-force numbers will be forth coming.

Even if you spend a million bucks on an Indy racing chassis, and put it on like a glove so your body cannot freely move, it still does not mean you will survive the crash, as many don't.

[EGPWS]

A study of car safety released on Wednesday shows that four of the top-scoring automobiles in tests of five new models were small cars or so-called super-minis — including the Honda Jazz, Hyundai i20, Kia Soul and Peugeot 3008. . .

Put all of them at once against my Hummer head on and have your surviving families buy me a new one and I will prove you wrong.

[HamiltonJay]

Results are RELATIVE.. the safest subcompact is not remotely as safe as the safest large car... you can’t rewrite the rules of physics folks.

[rwfromkansas]

Could be that smaller cars are being made better now to where they aren’t a danger anymore, but I am not sure.

[P-Marlowe]

Being smaller with a shorter turning radius makes the nimble Fit and spry i20 great in an antipersonnel role.

And if it is an electrical hybrid, you can sneak up on 'em.

[mort56]

This is the resume of the "scientist" who will lead us to the green promised land.

James has been a staff correspondent for The International Herald Tribune in Paris and Brussels since 2005, covering European business affairs and the business of green. His previous experience includes four years in Southeast Asia, where he was the editor in chief of The Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh and oversaw coverage of environmental issues like uncontrolled logging. Intrigued by how business could help promote democracy and sustainability, he later studied corporate law and environmental regulation as a Knight Fellow at Yale Law School, where he earned a master's degree. James also has reported on antitrust law and market regulation from Brussels, where he was twice winner of Dow Jones awards for best market-moving story in Europe. Raised in England, California and Massachusetts, James has a history degree from Columbia University in New York and a journalism degree from City University in London.

[P-Marlowe]

I'm sure the truck driver walked away unscathed.

Small cars are much safer for those of us in big cars and trucks.

[dfwgator]

Reminds me of the crash that killed Dale Earnhardt. By most standards the crash didn’t look all that bad, in that you didn’t see the car tear apart. But that was precisely the problem, all of that force went to Earhardt’s body.

[NativeSon]

Mind your tongue son,

Beg pardon mee lowd, we musn't question the "record"...

[M203M4]

It said the Honda Jazz and Hyundai i20 racked up “impressive pedestrian scores”

I dunno, sounds to me like they hit a lot of pedestrians (or at least the faster ones, which are worth more points).