Which one of these cars are the safest, and which one should I get?

Who said anything about stationary? Very briefly the sequence went as follows. (For those who might not know, in the UK we drive on the left).

1. I was travelling at 70 in the inside lane;
2. Said 4x4 was travelling in outside lane, at something more than 70;
3. Something happened to 4x4 (I never got to ask what) that made it veer violently left;
4. I was in the way;
5. After side impact from 4x4, the Volvo rolled five times, coming to rest in a field some distance off the carriageway;
6. It hurt, but I lived.

Bill

Maybe now...but not when I lived in Spain (early 70's when Franco was dictator).

Seats were Fiats at the time.

Franco imposed a 100% duty on any foreign car imported into Spain at the time. He allowed us American's to import one car of our choice duty free...if we swore we would not sell it to a Spaniard.

SEAT is one of the leading car makers in Spain. It was founded in the year 1950 as subsidiary of Fiat, with an important share of the Spanish Government. After the withdrawal of Fiat, the Volkswagen Group, through its parent company VAG, became in the year 1986 the major shareholder, and in 1990 owner of a 100% of the company.

The acronym "SEAT" means Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo (Spanish Corporation of Private Cars).

Please, while at wikipedia, learn the fine skill of bottom posting:

Ah, interesting thing to know - were they ever there own company? :-). "Scott in Florida" dictator).

Air bag are only effective when they deploy during a frontal collision.

mike hunt

Bill wrote:

While one is riding in a convertible, they are many times more likely to have a bird $#it on their head than they are of being becoming involved in a rollover. ;)

mike hunt

Bob wrote:

Merely responding to your post that said "My buddy had been hit at 60kmh by a front-end loader that backed into the intersection..."

mike hunt

griff>

Ah. I see. You have a different definition of top-posting than that which is used conventionally. Here's the conventional definition:

[ snipped-for-privacy@mailcity.com] (Wed, 16 Jun 2004 19:55:53 -0400):

Thank you for quoting over 300 lines of text to add two lines.. (And for top-posting).

Side-airbags are also effective when being struck from the side.. ;)

Your welcome!

mike hunt

Sve>

Air bag are only effective when they deploy during a frontal collision.

mike hunt

Bill wrote:

Volvo. I'd

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S80, but

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> > > Could it be true that a Volvo could produce a car that was sounsafe

stars in the

> > >

DIFFERENT

Your newsreader is posting just the same way as mine. It is just the way you write your comment in the very beginning of the text instead after the piece of text that you intend to comment on.

Not everyone is so lucky. My computer does not run the Express news program. I have to use ordinary news. :-) I do not have an expert maintaining the adware safety and viral cleanliness of my home computers, so I only run Linux on the computers that are connected to Internet.

MS Outlook Express is not available on Linux, so I have to use Mozilla. I have grown so used to it that I also use Mozilla on my Windows machines at work. There the Windows machines are professionally maintained by dedicated system administrators, running new patches almost daily.

My friends who are running Windows from home have had their share of adware, spyware and viruses. Some have had spambots without them knowing. Actually, almost most of the junk e-mail is generated by innocent people unknowingly giving spammers a full access to their unpatched Windows computers with ADSL.

You are referring to a concept called threading, not bottom posting.

Perhaps you might want to read the links again.

If I had written all these comments in the beginning of this mail, I would have been top-posting. Instead, I chose to bottom-post, because there is an improved flow of discussion between your text and mine.

I have used Mac, Unix, Linux and Windows-based newsreaders for about

16 years (not all of them for that long, of course!). All have had the capabilities of threading. I believe that most readers default to threading so you just unluckily picked a wrong reader. Try Mozilla or Firebird the next time. Mozilla is a good thing on Windows, too, both in security and usability. Especially middle clicking and tabs are just great.

But back to subject, My vote on car safety goes to Volvo S80/V70, Lexus LS, and the larger Mercedes.

Ouch, was just trying to work out the situation. :)

As I understand it...

Franco struck a deal with Fiat to build Fiat's in Spain by Spaniards and re label them Seats.

So in the time I was in Spain (early 70's)...Seat was a Spanish built Fiat.

Franco was very Pro Spain. If you were going to do business then a Spaniard had to be a partner.

There was 100 percent employment during those times.

...and you could go anywhere in Spain without fear of any kind of bodily harm. Dictators are not always bad...

I won't totally disagree, but hold on a second...

I don't think "overblown" is quite fair. If I'm going to have an horriffic smash (y'know, where an SUV crosses the highway and hits the front corner of my car at 220kmh closing speed, sending me into a spin across 2 lanes of traffic and a rollover into a ditch) , I know what cars I'd like to be in: Volvo, Mercedes, BMW, Saab and at a pinch, Toyota. Minor accidents around town - it probably doesn't matter much. Older Volvos are probably no better than new Toyotas, because other manufacturers tend to follow with near-identical safety systems (Toyota's "Safe-T-Cell" for example) but comparing present model with present model, Volvo wins. But the gap between Volvo and "common" cars is shrinking. The gap between Volvo and the German cars is quite small.

What sold me on Volvo? I know that the Volvo salespeople are going to be biased on safety, but my local dealer often has photos of crashed Volvos to view. These are from people who walked away with grazes, bruises and the odd broken bone, and have come in to replace their smashed car with a new one. These are photos of cars that have been hit at high speed by trucks, have run into cows, and have been in head-on accidents with other cars (where the occupants of the other car all died). It's pretty powerful advertising. I'm sure that some other car dealers could do the same (Mercedes, for example).

But it all depends on the accident you have. Just hope that you never need that kind of protection.

Not my experience. All cars have minor problems from time to time. There are plenty of people driving Volvos that have travelled 400,000 to

500,000km that have spent no money apart from regular servicing.

Yep, that's a weird measurement - half. Sometimes I'm accused of using

150% (-: I agree totally with the importance of avoiding a crash in the first place. It's far better not to ever use features like crumple zones, roll bars, seat belt pretensioners. A heavy, under-powered car with poor steering and bad suspension is more likely to be involved in an accident. Add a poor or nervous driver behind the weel and it's worse. So I'd avoid anything too old (worn suspension) and too underpowered. But if an S80 is on the list of possibilities, I'd say go for it.

One of my irritations with Volvo (and all cars in fact) is that some of those active safety systems designed to get you out of trouble (traction control, variable damped suspension and weight distribution etc etc) aren't standard on lower-end models. It costs more.

Well, don't expect great fuel economy from an S80 (-:

Chris

I drive up and down a stretch of motorway every day. Accidents is an incredible common occurrence. In one particular week I was queuing in the morning AND in the evening every day to get past accidents. On some days I had to find alternative routes, i.e. the motorway became unusable for it's purpose at shifting traffic. Accidents are more survivable these days as cars are much better, in most cases you just get crumbled cars but inevitably large upsets in people's lives. I've seen people standing on the hard shoulder crying! It just makes me wonder how and why it happens, and why so regularly?

Judging the traffic I'm in every morning, I actually wonder the opposite. Seeing all these cars at 120+ km/h with more often than not less than 5m of space between them, makes me wonder why it's doesn't go wrong more often.

If an accident does occur it usualy involves a commercial van (like Peugeot Partners, VW Transporters, Mercedes Sprinters), that underestimate their reaction time and their decelleration rate.

Tailgating is a big pest around here, but despite this the police only focus on people exceeding the speed limit, because that generates much more money. In fact our government has ordered the police to issue more fines.

Mark

[...]

The tailgaters are probably the same who will speed. After all, tailgating suggests that they're not satisfied with the prevailing speed and wants to move faster. They usually get their way since nobody is keen on getting their car shortened. Then there are those who deliberately cuts across lanes millimeters in front of you, usually someone in a souped up car. Then there are also those, when overtaking at very fast differential speed, move as far as possible towards your lane to let you feel the whoosh. Just had one of those today. All this is immature bad driving that ought to be stamped out. BMW drivers usually annoy me the most, but then I stay calm and lets nothing affect my driving. I don't know those people, don't want to know them, hence no reason to impress them or otherwise.

In a driving school here in Florida the instructor suggested a saying to take care of all those dangerous drivers:

FIDO

Fuck It Drive On

I try to use this advice as much as possible. It is rather difficult with some of these guys and gals...but it works every time it is tried...

Just say FIDO and go on...

Scott in Florida