Today's cars as tall as those in '48

"George Orwell" wrote in

Today's vehicles are vastly superior to 1940s cars, particularly in safety.

Many upscale sports sedans have some form of stability control and there's no safer cars on the road.

Safety has many factors, rollover is only one of them. Minivans have low accident rates, in spite of being tall. Why? The way they are driven.

Count me in. My new car has stability control. It also handles better on curving roads than most others I've had. While the stability control has not kicked in, it may some day make the difference between avoiding another car (such as a rolling over SUV) or ending up in an accident.

Yes, for rmost people SUVs are dumb, but modern technology is good for any model.

Mine does also, but I wonder how safe it is. For example, a child darts out into the street and I swerve hard to avoid hitting it. Will the stability control allow me to swerve, or will it take control and steer on it's own right into the child???

Bob

You must be a journalist .. or practicing to be one...

Since you have a point ot make, and dont bother researching it..

Are you sure about that? I think you ought to try sitting in one befroe you make such statements.

Have you ever DRIVEN one of those old cars? The reason they were safer is that they FELT like they were about to roll over on any sharp curve.

And those sixties cars handled like shit, too

I don't like the new tall cars either. The new G-6 is almost a foot and a half higher than my 92 Grand Am. IMO, they are unstable compared to cars of a few years ago. It would be hard to roll my old G/A but the G-6's I've recently rented felt just the opposite.

Now here's a major misconception... Even with Interactive Vehicle Dynamics, it will still be quite easy to do something stupid enough to kill yourself. These types of systems do not allow the operator to abdicate common sense nor the laws of physics....

While they are quite advanced, these systems cannot "steer" the vehicle.... Through the Active Brake Booster, they can apply the brakes, through the ABS system, they can modulate brake fluid pressure to the individual wheels and they can limit engine torque production..... These actions will only ever "help" the operator retain control of the vehicle.

While one car may have better "survivability" than another, there are no cars currently being built that can stop stupidity.....

Cars don't cause accidents unless they are neglected to the point of being dangerous (and there are more of those out there than most realize).... people cause accidents (and , I suppose in the case of the neglected car, it is people that are the root cause there, as well).

Driving is a privelige, not a "right"... as responsible adults it is important for us to realize the limits of our talents and abilities as well as the limitations of our vehicles.

If you are so discontented, why not just go buy yourself a '62 Lincoln and sit in the garage all day and admire it. Your rants are tiresome.

Raising the center of gravity of a vehicle by and inch or two will not make it 'prone' to rollover. In fact NO vehicle is 'prone' to rollover, but rather is prone to fall back upon it wheels if tipped. Watch what happens in motion pictures when vehicles, cars or SUVs, turn too quickly. They spin our but do not rollover. To make a vehicle roll over the stunt people must run then up a ramp that is at least four feet high. If indeed a higher center of gravity was what cause a vehicle to rollover more easily, one should expect to see six wheelers being rolled along then highways daily. ;)

mike hunt

You are kidding , right? ;)

mike hunt

Did you ever think that the actors are short people?

Comparing todays SUV's to cars of the 40's, is like comparing intelligence to you. No comparision

Then ride a bicycle, don't forget your helmet.

The makers do build safe cars, even for fuckwits like yourself

Let's get this straight, you havent TESTED the feature? When you got your first car with ABS, bet you didnt test it, either.

What about driving in snow... did you ever do do-nuts in some deserted parking lot to see how the tires and car handled?

If the answer to all the above is no... then I wonder if you would be so kind as to post your location, so we can pinpoint at least ONE dumbass to look out for on the road.

Do you have any snow on the roads yet? If so, take your car out to an empty parking lot and start throwing it around....you'll get the stability control to come on. Since I road test cars with stab control pretty much every day, I get a chance to see how they react. Very dummy proof for the most part.

Ian

I'm looking forward to trying it. Serious snow is 4 to 6 weeks away. We have plenty of open space in the parking lot at our warehouse at work.

Minivans also have a much lower center of gravity than do body-on-frame SUVs and are much less prone to roll-over. Rollover propensity is particularly bad when you combine high center of gravity, short wheelbase and big high-aspect ratio tires. See Ford Explorer for an example. Minivans do not have these characteristics and are much more difficult to roll. It isn't just the drivers.

I personally know two people who have rolled their Explorers, and they are both conservative driving mature people. In both cases a small problem became a big problem when the vehicle flipped itself over by pivoting on the front wheel. In one case it was contact with a curb at about 30 MPH in the rain and in the other case a wheel got caught in a ditch in the rain. In neither case would a sedan or a minivan have flipped over. The Chevy Tahoe shares similar dynamics and the little frame type SUVs like Trackers, etc. are even worse.

John

So true, we get a chance to observe this every winter driving to our ski hills. I've never seen a Van rolled, but some of them aren't the greatest at cornering so slide into the ditch. Mostly large SUVs and some pickups often slide to our huge ditches and flip over on the roof. Some like the Bronco swap ends when braking; too short a wheel base.

We just chug by in our mid sized car which is extremely stable in slippery conditions. Seldom is a mid sized or larger car in the ditch and if they do slide there they are still on their wheels sitting on the ditch slope.

It will be interesting to see how the new cross overs fare.

I don't believe what you say completely, but I do believe it is true to a point. It is though, just an underscore of the point that it's more about the driver than the vehicle. Likely you - as a driver who just "chugs along", would have no more problems in any of the vehicles mentioned than you do in your mid-sized car.

Those old cars had some charm, but they were pigs to drive for the most part, didnt last long, and rolled and swayed in the corners. Accidents were much more likely to cause fatalities than just about anything we are likely to drive today.

I am not a fan of SUVs because many tend to be gas guzzlers, and they are in general more prone to rollovers. At least, so the statistics say.....

I drive a full size Dodge conversion van, and I give it a due amount of respect, because I know it doesnt handle like a sports car. It was pretty bad when I first got it, but a set of Bilsteins, good tires, and a rear sway bar helped tame the ride. It gets decent mileage for such a large vehicle (about 18 mpg), but I no longer need a vehicle with the features that the Dodge provided so amply. When gasoline once again surges to over US$3 per gallon, the van with its 30 gallon tank becomes a burden.

My next car will be much more fuel miserly, lower roll center, and able to gobble up highway miles with creature comforts and little or no 'jitter' at turnpike speed. I havent made the choice yet, but am still leaning toward an Avalon or something similar.

I just heard this morning that the Chinese are pulling away from the American market for a few years. Their vehicles are not quite right for this market, either in safety or quality, and they will observe the Korean and Japanese products for a while. They are active in Russia and to some extent in Europe, where small cars are the rule, largely due to gasoline prices.

TEST ABS? Hell I helped in the design of ABS at Ford ;)

mike

Actually the center of gravity is near the centerline of the drive train. The difference is in only inches among all types of cars and light trucks. Six wheelers on the other hand have a centerline six or more inches higher than can cars or light trucks. Why does one not see them rolled over on a daily basis? LOL

mike