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  Eideard
  

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  04/14/2009 08:30 PM

  Head-on crashes

  Usually, auto studies are meat and potatoes for my blog - and others I write for.  I did a little Googling around insurance company sites and found that head-on crashes represent about 3.3% of reported accidents.
  
  I don't consider that percentage worthy of making any sort of decision about the safety of one size car versus another.
  
  I'll pass this time.

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• 
  tim.schier
  

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  04/15/2009 01:07 AM

  Proportional to Weight

  The detriment of being in a smaller car in a multi-car crash is proportional to the weight difference between the cars. So if cars overall reduce in weight (the difference in weight between average cars narrows) then driving a small car isn't such a disadvantage, provided it stands up well in a concrete-barrier type of crash.
  Then it's just a matter of getting trucks and busses off the same roads.

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  • 
    paulfmeyer
    

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    04/17/2009 11:29 AM

    IIHS Biased toward Insurers

    This study was reported earlier this week on autoweek.com. 
    
    I think IIHS does a good job overall of providing better information on Crash Safety.  Thier efforts have led to enormous improvements in vehicle safety, but let's not forget who they serve - Companies that provide Auto, Medical and Life Insurance.  This report illustrates their concern with rising costs from smaller cars.
    
    Accident claims come in three forms; collision repair, medical care, and Fatality Settlements.  Clearly, cars have evolved to absorb greater damage in order to protect occupants.  This evolution has led to greatly increased costs in collision repair, as smaller vehicles result in a greater proportion of "total write offs" from collisions. 
    
    However, IIHS members would rather pay on repair claims than medical claims.  Why? Well partly for humanitarian reasons, but also because they are cheaper and more predictable.  Two nights in a hospital costs roughly the same as a mid-size sedan.
    
    Medical claims overall have decreased in relation to collision claims as occupants are better protected.  In smaller vehicles, where medical claims occur, they are more costly.   
    
    Last but not least, Fatalities result in payouts on Life Insurance claims.  The data from this report when put into actuarial tables indicate a risk to profitability.
    
    Could IIHS have an economic interest in influencing car buyers away from smaller vehicles?  Thier contributing members surely do.
    
    This sort of financial impact data on small vehicles has long been an influencing factor on vehicle design. (Remember the Pinto?) As other posters have made clear, the smaller car itself is not the risk, it's the larger vehicles they may crash into.
    
    I applaud the report, but acknowledge the reporting agency's bias.

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• 
  Handshake
  

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  04/15/2009 05:02 AM

  NAND Logic

  Why everybody says that in a car crash a big cat is better? Why not saying that Big Cars are more dangerous than a normal one?
  If all of us will start using big cars, what will happen? Extremely big cars will emerge from dark to save us?
  Why not start using small and safe cars to avoid some of future dangers (consuming oil, power, materials)?

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    mbelvadi
    

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    04/15/2009 05:48 AM

    Re: NAND Logic

    What you describe already happened - they're called Hummers. I don't think the solution is to completely re-engineer our road system to segregate small cars. The solution is to completely re-engineer our road system to incorporate speed and distance control systems (eg autopilot systems in cars) to prevent any vehicles from crashing into others (except for the rare brake hardware failure). That's assuming we can't realize the "public transit" dream - doing that requires re-engineering a whole lot more than just our roads.

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    GruenSein
    

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    04/15/2009 06:00 AM

    Re: NAND Logic

    Thank you! I've been saying the same thing over and over. The perceived advantage in safety for bigger cars is a simple reallocation. By driving a big car you take safety from everyone driving a smaller car. There is absolutely no additional safety. According to that logic, we all should start driving tanks and once everyone has one, we would be suprised how terrible things turn out when two of those crash into each other.
    A more interesting test would be to crash two small cars and compare that to a crash between two bigger cars. A little disadvantage in safety (due to hardly any parts of the vehicle which can absorb the energy of the crash.) would probably remain for smaller cars but the difference would be much lesser.

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  • 
    amanire
    

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    04/15/2009 08:57 AM

    Re: NAND Logic

    There's another phrase for that: Tragedy of the Commons.

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    DDM
    

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    05/20/2009 05:47 PM

    Re: NAND Logic

    I agree with Handshake, at least the two last paragraphs of the original test, say all the advantages of small cars, they aren´t the problem, they are part of the solution.

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  StupidPeasant
  

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  04/15/2009 06:48 AM

  boooink

  What if you put 10 feet of foam rubber and springs on the front of the little car?

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  malkmus
  

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  04/15/2009 07:23 AM

  [no subject]

  If, as the study suggests, large cars present a bigger hazard to other road users, why not restrict the speed of all cars to the same damage potential instead of the same speed. As the example in the study shows, a heavy car at 27 mph would pose the same threat to others as a light car at 50 mph. Hence a speed limit of 30mph for the heavy car and 50 mph for the light car should make them about equally dangerous for other road users. Since speed limits are presumably there for the safety of all road users, tying speed limits to vehicle weight seems a sensible system. Incidentally since fuel consumption is related both to vehicle size and speed this would reduce the consumption of fuel more efficiently by slowing down those cars that consume most fuel. Another thought: If heavy cars inflict larger damages to other road users, shouldn't the insurance premium on those cars reflect this. In particular on a crash where the weight of one of the cars was instrumental in causing harm to the occupants of the other vehicle shouldn't the heavier car be partly responsible for the damages, regardless of the cause of the accident itself. This would be a little like other liability cases where buying and using a product that increases the risk to others makes the user partly liable for damages when they occur.

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