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Comments
Poles are designed to break away.
Most barriers (such as over pass supports) have collapsing barriers around them to absorb energy.
Basically most things you are going to hit will either give way or surrounded by things that will.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
I don't think that's necessarily considered "designed to break away!" :surprise:
Back in 1992 I got run off the road and hit a traffic light pole, sideways, in my '69 Dart. The impact pulled that pole out of the concrete, bolts and all, and vaulted it like a javelin throw. I'm convinced that had I been in a lesser, softer car, that wasn't strong enough to launch that pole, I would've gotten hurt or worse. As it was, the car got smashed in about a foot on the passenger side. I imagine that something like a SMART might just wrap harmlessly around the pole. Harmless for the pole, that is!
As for trees, there were a few in my neighborhood that have since been cut down, but they had blood on their hands. Err, well, on their bark. There was one big old oak tree at kind of a "Y" intersection that had claimed several lives and plenty of cars. Also totaled a dumptruck or two.
However, not all obstacles are created the same, nor are all cars. Something that would be considered a fixed barrier for a Metro might not be for an Excursion. YMMV.
For instance, it may be more rational to think of safety these days as about improving your odds, not about actually being safe.
Safety is also "sold" as a fear factor, compelling us to buy what might in fact not be any safer for us.
For instance, I was reading this great book called "Freakonomics" (highly recommended) and it turns out, that by careful statistical analysis, it can be shown that strapping a child in a child safety seat in the rear of the car is at best, only nominally, marginally helpful.( see page 153) It seems that keeping them in the back seat of the car is what is marginally safer, not the $200 car seat into which they are strapped. The $200 bucks was spent on fear factor, not safety.
So there's an interesting case (if the author is to be believed, and he has collected a lot of awards for economics) of something that probably 95% of people believe, not being true at all.
Here's another one--if you calculate "hours per mile" traveled in either a car or plane (that is, how long you spend in each per mile), which is safer?
It could be in fact (but I don't know) that a modern subcompact is way closer to being as safe as a bigger car than most of us might think...close enough, in fact, as to not matter very much.
Also I think older cars are way more dangerous...I don't care if they weigh 6,000 lbs...there is no "give" to them and they are filled with dangerous interior appointments.
The car seat isn't to protect children in a crash, it's to gain the benefit of a seatbelt, since their bodies wouldn't otherwise fit.
As for trees I did say it depends on the tree. All the trees in my neighborhood are 3-4 years old or less, a kid on a bike would take most of them out.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Yeah, there are those details working against older cars. However, I think the biggest thing that makes them dangerous is the fact that most of them didn't have seatbelts. Or at best, only a lap belt. Lack of a seatbelt is probably the biggest safety concern of my '57 DeSoto, for example. Moreso than its lack of an airbag, non-collapsible steering column, the pointy metal knobs on the dashboard, etc. My '67 Catalina has a lap belt, but no shoulder belts. In an impact it would keep me in the seat, but I'd still be able to hit the steering wheel. By that time, GM was using cheaper, "softer" platic knobs, but a plastic knob fastened to a metal rod (such as a radio control) is still probably a pretty nasty thing to impale yourself on!
As for putting an unbelted infant down in a footwell, I could see the rationale. For one thing, since the kid's already down there, against the footwell, in an impact he wouldn't get thrown into anything, since he'd be already positioned against it. Sure, the sudden decleration can still be brutal, but at least you take being thrown into something out of the equation. And if the car was to roll over or get its roof crushed, down there in the footwell you might have less of a chance of the kid becoming a projectile out the window!
I was a police officer for over twenty six years (mostly highway type patrol) and investigated hundreds of accidents and unless the car hit a dog or cat or squirrel, it sure looked to me that most of the trees, telephone poles, concrete barriers (and there are lots of them) sure as hell won the battle against the car or whatever involved. Yes, the dogs, cats and squirrels lost! I'll give you that much.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
That's what the man says, anyway, and he wears a lot of medals....
OLD CARS: I think the non-collapsing steering column is the killer above anything else, and in combo with no seat belt, even worse.
This is where the air bag comes in, filling the deficiencies of a lap belt.
Interestingly, an air bag WITHOUT a seat belt performs much more poorly.
My uncle hit a deer with his 2003 Corolla a few years back, and he "lost" that one. The deer hopped off into the woods, seemingly unfazed. The Corolla had to be towed, and he had to get out on the passenger side because the driver's side door was wedged shut.
A deer can do a lot of damage, though. Years ago, one of my neighbors hit a deer with, ironically, an Impala. A 1965 Impala. While that hit killed the deer and the Impala was driveable, it sure did a good number on it. Mangled the driver's side fender and damaged the front door. Also bent the bumper and the part of the grille on the driver's side.
As for those yellow barrels, I do see them, sometimes. Often I see them where they've been hit, used up, but never "reset", so the next person who careens out of control will end up whacking whatever those barrels were put in place to avoid.
And those concrete Joisey barriers have the unique habit of sending cars airborne in all sorts of neat little trajectories. I imagine the lighter, smaller ones will bounce higher?
My stepdad rear-ended someone years ago with a 1999 Altima. It was enough to deploy the airbag, but the airbag didn't even touch him, because the seatbelt kept him in place.
Often in a harder impact, even when the airbag deploys, the steering column and dashboard still end up in your face.
The deal with the Jersey barriers (or K-rails) is they are designed to catch a rear-wheel drive car at some pretty intense angles, redirect it with the flow of traffic, and then hang on to it. Apparently the driving dynamics of a FWD car are very different and my "climb" the wall and flip themselves over. Modern k-rails are designed to prevent this (the curve of the barrier is different).
The yellow barrels are garbage cans with sand in them. The things that are really cool are those 8*8 boxes that hang off the back of a road construction truck. That is designed to stop a car going liek 30 or 35 before it gets to the truck, and without damaging the truck. And its only slighty more unsightly then the 70s MBZ bumpers.
Define "older car". If you are talking cars of the 1960's, I am with you completely.
However, I dont see much reason to repace my 1996 model with a 2006 model safety wise.
due to headroom issues, i can't fit in the back of a focus or civic.
I can't think of anything else.
Bicycle.
But to be honest what he mentioned is a very broad range. What is it that he is looking for in the car. Low price? Good Mileage? What?
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
there are some decals in the left side rear window of the bimmer. one says 'turner'. a couple of the others look like the layout of lrp and watkins glen.
works from home, so no commute.
one of the last of the RSXs?
or in a lower range, the new Accent SE?
I suppose a Beetle is out of the question? :confuse:
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
RSX is, technically, a hatch. Even though it has a coupe shape, there is no trunk - the cargo door is open to the rear seats.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I once rented a Ford Focus hatch,, those are pretty inexpensive, and I seemed to like it. Many people who have the Elantra hatchback seem to like it. I checked out the Nissan Versa and that seems real nice, but it seems to be lacking in cargo space. You might want to check out the Yaris and the fit. I would stay away from VW though.
If he is open to it he might want to look at wagons. Subaru has some nice wagons with AWD which would help in winter driving.
Personally I would stay away from luxury or near luxury like the Audi. Why buy an expensive car for the purpose of keeping another expensive car off the winter roads?
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Not only is the new GTI a great looking and fun little driver, but your friend can configure with Helga on the VW website, a rare treat indeed :P
I think I'd put a cutoff at around 1968 for when cars really started to get safer. By that time they all had collapsible steering columns and I think after January 1 1968 they started putting shoulder straps on them. In 1968 they really started padding up the interiors, as well. My '68 Dart probably has more dash padding than any modern car! Not only are the upper and lower parts of the dash padded, but it also has a padding strip running under the a/c ducts.
Now I think with smaller cars, they've improved by leaps and bounds when it comes to safety. And I'd feel much safer riding in a Yaris or xA than I would in whatever would have been an equivalent weight in, say, 1968.
But if you take a modern car that weighs about the same as my '68 Dart, I'd say the differences aren't quite as vast. Still enough to be significant...I'm not saying that a 3000 pound 2006 model isn't any safer than a 3000 pound 1968 Dart. But it's just that, as cars get smaller and lighter, engineering, safety features, etc, are more important because you don't have weight to protect you.
If you look at accident statistics from back in the late 60's and 70's, sure the figures are much higher than today. But also consider that even though the cars had seatbelts back then, nobody wore them. If you had the same seatbelt usage percentages back in the 60's and 70's as you do today, you'd find that the death rates back then would've been much lower, and people probably wouldn't be touting how much safer the roads are today than they were 35 or so years ago.
Interestingly, statistically, even when an automaker does something that gets viewed as a major safety hazard, such as the exploding Pintos, Falcons, and 60's Mustangs, or the GM trucks with their saddle tanks, in the overall scheme of things it doesn't raise death rates enough to be significant. Oh sure, it's horrible for the people who died a fiery death in those particular cars, and I'm not advocating that automakers cut corners and potentially sacrifice lives for the sake of saving a few cents per car. However, the Pinto, pariah that it is, actually had an overall death rate comparable to or slightly lower than other similarly-sized cars of the time. Same with the '73-87 GM saddle-bag trucks.
Also, I'm sure that those saddle tanks are still safer than where they used to put the gas tanks before...INSIDE THE CAB!! :surprise:
FWIW, cars like the Crown Vic and the 1978-88 GM RWD intermediates were also implicated as being too prone to blowing up. However, the Crown Vics, as police cars, regularly get rear-ended at speeds of 70+ mph when they're stopped along the highway. And the incident that started the crusade against GM's RWD intermediates involved a 1980 Malibu 4-door that had stalled out along the road. It had a lady driver and her sleeping children in the back seat. They got rear-ended by a medium-duty truck, hard enough to throw the car into the air and cause it to spin 180 degrees. The resulting impact jammed the rear doors shut, ruptured the gas tank, and caught the car on fire. The mother survived, but the kids died. And the truck driver kept on going.
There was another incident where a 1983 Cutlass Cruiser wagon was stopped at a toll booth and got rear-ended at high speed, and blew up. These were all pretty extreme examples, though, and a far cry from the Pintos where you could supposedly rear-end them at 11 mph and get them to blow up.
I thought it was a bit interesting that the car really didn't stick out as being overly small. But then, I was riding with a buddy in a 1997 Saturn S-series, so maybe it's all relative. A Yaris isn't THAT much smaller than one of those (actually sits up higher), so maybe that's why it didn't seem so dainty. If I was in something like my pickup though, it would probably look like a toy.
Yes they are extreme, any car under the right conditions and hit the right way will explode. I mean you are carrying around several gallons of a combustible liquid. Its just that some are more likely than others to give you the fireworks.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
I have a real hard time calling the Yaris sedan a "sub-compact", when based off the hard numbers, it's really a compact. The liftback, however, is a different story.
Discontinued in 07
The thing that really blew my mind about the two cars occurred when I was watching a commercial touting the fuel economy of Toyotas. It showed the car and then it's peak MPG estimate in the upper corner of the screen. Yaris' peak as 40 MPG, and then the Corolla came up with 41 MPG.
I think Yaris sales might slow down very quickly when people get over the hype and realize that they can get a much nicer (in my, but often agreed with, opinion) and equally fuel efficient Corolla for only slightly more money.
In terms of your Elantra, I wouldn't want to stick my two tall kids in the back.
Buy what you want, you don't need to trash what is a workable solution for some.
Not around here. You can get a stripped Corolla for less than a stripped Yaris, and you can get a loaded Corolla for roughly the same $ as a loaded Yaris with minimal haggling in Mass. I imagine it will stay this way more or less until the redesigned Corolla hits the lots....which it sounds like won't be for another 12-18 months.
Aside from the novelty factor, I can't think of a single objective reason for purchasing a Yaris sedan right now over a Corolla.
Elantra...I sat in one at the auto show. Surprisingly roomy inside. The EPA actually classifies them as a midsize. I can fit comfortably up front and, even with the seat all the way back, can still fit in the back seat fairly comfortably.
I like to call subcompacts great "200-milers".
It's all relative. There probably isn't a car built, today or ever, that I'd be comfortable driving 200 miles non-stop, let alone 300+!
I consider my uncle's '03 Corolla a "ten-minute car" As in, that's about the longest I'd want to drive it. Now it's not so bad in the passenger seat, but that driver's seat is awful. And the car bounces you around and is pretty jittery, which can be tiring.
I might actually be able to put up with a Yaris for fifteen minutes or even longer, since its driving position is a bit less "ape-like"
A vegetarian, I appreciate the Germans foresight in making loaded vehicles where cloth seats are still an option.
No one else seems to get that right.
I agree with you. In my younger days, I would only stop for gas and that would be 350 miles at a time. Today, if i can drive 150 without a stop, I consider it pretty good. On the other hand, the trips that I USED to drive when I was living in Virginia are now made in a Southwest Airlines jet!
When I first drove a Corolla last summer, I really had no objection to the drive comfort. My objection was that I had to enter the car "granny style" butt first and swing the legs.
When I rented one two weeks ago so that my mechanic could have my car for the weekend, I finally figured how to slide into the vehicle and had no problems after a little practice.
If someone forced me to buy a new car right now, it would be between the Vibe/Matrix and the Corolla. The Yaris/Fit would not be a consideration at this point.
Tomorrow is the "BIG" microcar show and probably my first ride in a Smart Car (while it is moving). 140 small vehicles in Crystal Lake. Should be kind of interesting. Last night, I saw a couple Smarts, a NSU Prinz, and a small 3-wheel one-seater.
And because they're redesigning it, and because it's Suzuki, he can probably get at 2006 model for less than the cost of his annual maintainence costs of his BMW. Or not, but it's definitely an inexpensive car.
Alternately, Subaru has a large line of 4WD Hatchback vehicles. They just start at a base of 50-100% higher than the Aerio...
Unless I'm just peculiar, I can drive 200 miles easy in an xA---I don't even think about it until mile 199, when I want to stretch and you-know-what.
I have these nice breathable hi-tech slip covers that work GREAT, a good satellite radio, the tilt wheel, good AC, optional armrest, little mini-cooler for cold water or a peach....you know, it's really easy to do this 200 miles.
Now 300 miles would start to get annoying....
It is about a 500 mile one way trip now granted I was doing it at 90 mph but still it was not that bad.
If I have to drive more than 300 miles, I prefer to let my pilot do the driving. Anymore, the cost of driving begins to exceed the cost of flying, especially if you are travelling alone. Besides the 4-5 hours I'll spend in the airport allows me to get caught up on work and reading (and keeps me away from the internet).
And you don't have to put up with the idiots driving 90 mph tailgating and weaving ...