Re: Foreign cars pass Big 3. but not on a steep grade

Perhaps it is because they have enough sense to not buy a small less safe vehicle Then why are fatality rates higher for pickup trucks and SUVs than they are for passenger cars?

"The traffic safety agency reported that there were 16.42 deaths of S.U.V. occupants in accidents last year for every

100,000 registered S.U.V.'s. The figure for passenger cars was 14.85 deaths for each 100,000 registered; pickups were slightly higher than cars at 15.17 deaths per 100,000, while vans were lowest at 11.2 occupant deaths for every 100,000 registered. " _________________________________________________

Apples to oranges. Mike referred to the safety risk of small cars, and you refer to the safety risk of all cars.

Imagine a 60 MPH head-on collision between a 5000 Lb RoadMaster and a 2000 Lb Gas-Saver. After colliding, the R/M would have been slowed to 45 MPH and the G-S would be shooting backward at 15 MPH. An R/M passenger who didn't buckle his seat belt would hit the dashboard at (60-45) = 15 MPH. A G-S passenger who didn't buckle his seat belt would hit the dashboard at (60+15) = 75 MPH. No collision is perfectly elastic, some energy would be absorbed by car body crushing, but you get the picture.

I believe cars have been commoditized, like refrigerators, and that one is about as good as the other, so there is no reason to be committed to either foreign cars or to domestic cars. This gives a buyer the flexibility and the freedom to choose a vehicle based on his own judgement. It is not necessary to justify one's own choices for value and safety by moralizing about some else's preferences,

Best regards to all alt.autos enthusiasts.

Rodan.

How many American's died and will die because of the traitorous New York Times.

I hope you or your loved ones are NOT the ones to get your heads cut off because of traitors like the New York Times....

And which have more rollover crashes? SUVs or cars?

There are tradeoffs in everything we do. If car crashes with SUVs take so many car passengeror lives, why are there more SUV occupants killed, compared to cars occupants?

Jeff

Toyota deserves its reputation for fuel efficient vehicles, and that reputation is probably why it's clobbering everyone else. Some folks claim in GM's defense that it has N cars that do 30mpg, but that probably demostrates its badge proliferation more than anything else. What happens when we crank the cutoff to 35mpg?

Number of GM vehicles doing 35mpg or better: 0 Number of DaimlerChrysler vehicles doing 35mpg or better: 0 Number of Fords doing 35mpg or better: 1 (Escape Hybrid)

Number of Toyotas doing 35mpg or better: 6 (Yaris, Corolla, Prius, Camry Hybrid, Scion xA, Scion xB)

(I may have missed 1 or 2, but you get the idea)

Chris

Zero. That's 2569 fewer than caused by Fox News.

Oh?

How do you know?

Liberals are all alike.

Not to be trusted with the security of the US or anywhere else for that matter.

"Jeff" wrote in news:sxTyg.6286$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net:

Probably because SUV drivers gain a false confidence by having 4WD, so they drive more carelessly in bad weather, and die more often in wrecks. They think having 4WD means they're automatically safer. But the 4WD only is operational if they actually have it in 4WD, and they may be travelling too fast to have their vehicle in 4WD mode in the first place. Sure when driving slow in the snow, a 4WD is safer than a FWD car, but at the speeds that most people actually drive, you can't have the 4WD engaged, so the FWD car is easier to control than the rear wheel drive SUV, with its high center of gravity, that is going too fast to be in 4WD mode. Also, SUV drivers tend to be aggressive people, so they drive that way, thus raising their risk of dying behind the wheel. Driving to work, I saw a brand new Ford Explorer weave in and out of traffic wrecklessly, NASCAR style. Well, he flipped, and rolled end over end about 3 times. He crawled out of the wreckage, cell phone in hand. He was probably talking on it, as he was executing the NASCAR Jeff Gordon type driving. Asshole. Deserved what he got. Thankfully, the people he hurt by being the dumbass he is weren't hurt too bad.

Then why is it that before we got so many SUVs on the road, the US was #1 in highway safety in the world, but now we're around #7?

All 4WD vehicles these days will cruise at highway speeds in 4High. There is no such thing as too fast for 4WD anymore.

As well, 4WD offers nothing to benefit driving beyond the ability to go. It does not help stop, it does not help turn, and in fact 4WD can often cause control problems when trying to turn on slippery surfaces. Not problems that are any greater or more of a risk than that of what FWD or RWD would offer - only different. The driver has to be prepared and knowledgable in how to control the vehicle. Most often for those who don't really understand the vehicle under their ass, they experience surprise when a 4WD takes off under them on a slippery curve. Shock even.

I would say that most SUV drivers tend to be women these days.

I would agree that the higher center of gravity of a 4WD vehicle makes it less stable but none of them are simply prone to roll overs for most types of driving conditions. It takes quite an extreme turn to upset one. That said, they will roll faster than a car will. I suspect driver issues as well, as the primary cause of accidents with these vehicles. I really do not know what the crash numbers include so it is hard to argue why the SUV statistics look to be so high. It is far too simplistic to simply say that they experience more fatalities per 100,000 miles without really understanding what is behind the numbers.

To each his own Chris, but I can only tell you that mileage is not my number one qualifier in car purchase decisions. It's probably down around my third or fourth. That said - I assume the ability to deliver around 30 on the highway as a baseline. Factors more important to me and which I do not think that some of these Toyotas are capable of delivering (Prius, Yaris, Corolla) is the overall safety of the car. These little runabouts may appeal to short trip, urban street, or grocery getter crowd, but I sure would not bet on the ability of these cars to come out on the better end of a collision in the types of driving conditions outside of your typical 30mph residential speed zones. As well, I don't see them as comfortable at all for any trip longer than your average work commute. To own one of these would require owning a second car just for the purpose of accommodating normal driving requirements. Hardly worth the few extra miles per gallon they deliver.

It's either a troll, or a ultra-conservative, close-minded, self-righteous opinionaited "bush is always right" hate-monger who seems to blame a newspaper for all the ills (while probably listening to Rush (get another hit) Limbaugh on a daily basis.

Either way, I'm thankful for the ability to "killfile" a moron like this who does nothing but disparage others and uses this newsgroup as his own personal soapbox against the NYT... without substantiating anything, we might note.

JP

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Submitted without comment:

How do either of you know? Neither of you have proved your claims.

Both of you are also forgetting that the Times was very pro-Bush on war policy until well after Iraq was invaded, as exemplified by Judith Miller.

With thirty years experience as an automotive design engineer, designing vehicles, and working on crumple zones, you can bet the farm I do. Any fool who does not understand, the large the vehicle in which a properly belted passenger is riding, the safer they are is.......well a fool. One can not defy the laws of physics. Search the Congressional Record, for the facts you seek, WBMA. ;)

mike hunt

DUH, the US has 235,000,000 vehicles on more highways than any four counties in the world.

mike hunt

The anti SUV invironuts have been playing with statistics for years, in an effort to scare buyers from buying the, larger safer, SUVs they prefer to buy. Wheelbase, vis a v height, has a greater effect on a vehicles ability to roll, when maneuvering, than the center of gravity. The center of gravity of the average SUV is less than two inches higher that the average car. No vehicle is prone to rollover, none. Even if lifted to 45 degrees or more, they have a tendency to fall back on the wheels.

Watch all of the SUVs in movie stunts. Stunt drivers spin them in circles, but they do not roll. To make a vehicle roll the stunt people run one side of the vehicle up a four foot high ramp, hidden behind something, to create the roll. Watch the NASCAR truck races. Even at 150 MPH, lots of spins, but few roll unless the hit something. If the center of gravity was what made a vehicle roll over, one should expect to see six wheeled trucks rolled over daily. LOL

mike hunt

In other words, no evidence to back you claim offered, aka, the Mike Hunter usual.

Jeff

How can the US have more highways than any four countries in the world? Are you saying the US has more highways the US, Canada, Mexico and Peurto Rico (one of the US colonies)?

I think the safety numbers would be in terms of deaths per 100,000,000 km driven, otherwise, the Vatican City would win, because the only vehicle there is the Popemobile. The number of highway or highway kilometers would not matter.

Jeff

(...)

They do get to go faster. Just that they stop at the same speed as cars and SUVs without 4WD.

But, I do agree that a lot of people get a false sense of security from driving SUVs and from 4WD.

I have never heard of 4WD systems where the 4WD kicks off after attaining a higher speed.

I think they would drive just as aggressively in a Ford Escort.

But, a Ford Escort would be less likely to turn over.

That's not NASCAR style. NASCAR and its drivers are very concerned about safety and avoiding crashes. While they seem to weave in and out, considering how fast they are going and the G-forces on them, the driver you are talking about is not driving NASCAR style at all.

No, he was not executying Jeff Gording style driving. Maybe Home Simpson style driving.

Neither he nor anyone else deserved what they got.

Jeff

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