Posted on 04/14/2009 5:53:10 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
There’s an old saying -- you can’t repeal the laws of physics. That may be the discussion right now at several small-car manufacturers today.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, known for its slow-motion car crash videos, sent the Honda Fit crashing into a Honda Accord, the Smart ForTwo into a Mercedes C-Class and a Toyota Yaris into a Toyota Camry -- each at 40 miles per hour. The results indicate what safety you may be trading for efficiency when your mode of transportation shrinks.
The tests are called "offset" crashes. The cars crash not quite head on, similar to what would result when a car strays over the center line, and the damage can easily intrude into the passenger compartment. Each of the small cars sustained damage the institute believes would lead to injuries for their occupants.
In a statement, Adrian Lund, president of the Arlington, Va.-based institute, said: “Minicars as a group do a comparatively poor job of protecting people in crashes, simply because they're smaller and lighter. In collisions with bigger vehicles, the forces acting on the smaller ones are higher."
The Smart ForTwo had “extensive” damage...
...into the area where the driver sits. The institute's findings indicate a human would have a high likelihood of sustaining head and leg injuries. The Yaris rated poor in the area of head and leg injuries as well. A driver of the Fit in a similar accident would have hit the steering wheel through the airbag in addition to sustaining leg injuries.
What say the manufacturers? In a statement, Dave Schembri, president of Smart's U.S. operations, called the test an example of a “rare and extreme” accident. “The Smart ForTwo meets or exceeds all U.S. government crash-test standards," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
I guess you could take down the "big car" manufacturers, eliminate all SUV's (American's choice of a family vehicle), build commercial trucking lanes out of the already "expansive muliti-lane" highways, reduce speed limits, raise taxes on gasoline......Ah..Hmmmm...
'Offset' crash tests find higher risk for smaller cars
This is specifically why I drive an F-250 and my wife a 2500 Suburban.
To the libs, the answer will be obvious... Ban all the large cars and trucks, and then the smaller cars will come off better in the collisions.
Haha! You are pancakes if a semi hits!
Sure, it may be a rare event... maybe even as rare as a same type of collision demostrated in the article, but you’ll be hurting just as badly!
That’s why we all need to drive 70-ton Main Battle Tanks.
Gee who would have thought...
This after just having said, "You can't repeal the Laws of Physics" ! The forces in a collision are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.
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