pete95zhn

So,when F-150 weighs 4800 lbs and crushes like a empty can of Bud,why German-made lux-limo weighing 5000 lbs keeps it's shape in a similar crash...?
I still can't link you to the auto,motor & sport ,they've tested also BMW 7-series and MB S-class,but wisit here:

<a href="http://www.euroncap.com/results.htm" target="_blank">http://www.euroncap.com/results.htm</a>

There you can see equal comparisons between different types of vehicles.Safety doesn't rely on car's weight,it's the design that matters... And furthermore,what happens when a F-150 hits for example Lincoln Navigator or hmmm... Hummer?? <img border="0" alt="[crying]" title="" src="graemlins/crying.gif" />

Pete

Paul T.

You have got to be kidding me? I could "what if" this topic to death. You want to get down to the real bottom line? Pick your vehicle of choice, Mini or F-150? Then get in it, crash yourself into a concrete wall at 40 mph, and see if you walk away or not. The real moment of truth here is this, while you talk about all of this safety crap, you have to stand there and decide which vehicle YOU want to have an accident in. Or better yet, put your wife and kids in it and crash them into that same wall. Folks, you really want to get down to the truth?, the more metal you have around you, hence more weight, the better you will fare in an accident. I put my wife and kids in a big, giant, gas guzzling Yukon XL, and I am more at ease when they travel than I would be if they were in some cheap plastic and aluminum beer can they pass off as a car and claim it has 5 star safety rating, which is BS. That's my two cents worth, it is my opinion. More metal around you is better if you are involved in an accident and I hope that none of us here ever have to face that reality one day.
<img border="0" alt="[icon107]" title="" src="graemlins/icon107.gif" />

Thaddeus

The real value of the crash test is so you can compare vehicles of like weight. I happily put my kids in a 2002 Honda Odyssey. I'd never let them ride in a 2002 Chevy Blazer. It -is- all engineering.

Check them out and you'll see why:
<a href="http://www.hwysafety.org/vehicle_ratings/ratings.htm" target="_blank">http://www.hwysafety.org/vehicle_ratings/ratings.htm</a>

ERAU-944

people worry too much about safety in crashes and not enough on preventing them.

if everyone that had anything to do with cars in the country spent the money on teaching driving skills that were spent on these upgraded safety features, we wouldnt need our families to drive around in giant suvs to ~feel~ safe when the could actually BE safe.

people who drive suv's because they think it makes them safer are "bloody *******", there's not justification for driving a land barge just so you ~feel~ that your family is safe. it would be better that the actually be safe. not to mention its cheaper to learn how to drive good than it is to compensate for sub-standard driving with more metal. <img border="0" alt="[soapbox]" title="" src="graemlins/soapbox.gif" />

thats it and i'm almost outta here! <img border="0" alt="[icon107]" title="" src="graemlins/icon107.gif" />

Paul T.

"Bloody *******"? That's funny! LMAO!!!
<img border="0" alt="[hiha]" title="" src="graemlins/roflmao.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[hiha]" title="" src="graemlins/roflmao.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[hiha]" title="" src="graemlins/roflmao.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[hiha]" title="" src="graemlins/roflmao.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[jumper]" title="" src="graemlins/jumper.gif" />

ERAU-944

i love the british, i think when i get older i'll apply for citizenship! <img border="0" alt="[burnout]" title="" src="graemlins/burnout.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[burnout]" title="" src="graemlins/burnout.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[burnout]" title="" src="graemlins/burnout.gif" />

boostaholic

I wonder how many accidents there would be if we all drove pintos loaded with dynamite?

Paul T.

Huh?

SidViscous

"So,when F-150 weighs 4800 lbs and crushes like a empty can of Bud,why German-made lux-limo weighing 5000 lbs keeps it's shape in a similar crash...?
I still can't link you to the auto,motor & sport ,they've tested also BMW 7-series and MB S-class,but wisit here:"

Because the Mercedes and BMW are heavier AND are designed better. I didn't say good engineering was bad, just that weight is better. Both is the absolute best.

And that crashing against a brick wall gives data, but you have to look at what, exactly, it does give you, and how you can't compare two differing vehicles like that. The link Thad put up even says that it gives good results of "Structural integrity" Structural integrity does not win against a semi.

As others have said. Your best bet is to avoid the accident all together, failing that your best bet is in a vehicle that is both heavy, and structurally rigid (thus expending more energy deforming the other vehicle).

And thankfully for us the 944 has a lot going for it in all of those categories.

I hesitate to bring it up for the images it will bring back for her. But Pat is a good example of this. Her car did an excellent job of sacrificing itself to save her.

On another note. One problem with the F-150 was that it does not have the b-pillar which is why the door frame popped and the cabin deformed so moch more.

I am no defender of the F-150. Just wanted to point out that you cannot compare those two vehicles based on that test and say that the mini is "Safer" in any other circumstance other than running into a brick wall.

Sid "Hit a house in a Fairmont doing 60+ and came out with two scratches, one of which required stiches" Viscous

SidViscous

<a href="http://www.armoury.co.uk/access1/acbigjg50.html" target="_blank">http://www.armoury.co.uk/access1/acbigjg50.html</a>

Was hoping for a real picture but couldn't find one.

The one vehicle that performed the best in the crashing into a brick wall.

When I was in the Gulf we had an M-1 do this with a building by accident. Tank 1 wall 0, and the tank was given a perfect score in the structural rigidity category in head on and angled collisions with brick walls.

iloveporsches

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by pete95zhn:
...but what happens when two behemoths alike collide??
[/QB]</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Good point. And with so many of them on the road these days, it's probably more common than car-SUV crashes.

boostaholic

What I went was passive saftey is most important. If we were all driving pintos full of dynamite how many times would you look before crossing an intersection?

Danno

Uh, some of the points brought up here is based on a lack of understanding of physics. Speaking out of 'common sense' backgrounds is similar to arguing about how many angels fit on the head of a pin or what kind of angry devils causes water to boil.

First concept to illustrate is deceleration rate which is independent of the vehicle's mass altogether. It's based solely upon the vehicle's velocity and distance in coming to a stop. That's why the brick wall is used, it's the worse case scenario of hitting an immovable object. In this case, the most energy has to be absorbed, be it 4500lbs of kinetic energy (mv^2) in the F150, or 2800lbs in the Mini; both has to deal with dissipating its own energy within the crush distance. The shorter the distance, the higher the peak-G forces in deceleration.

Even a head-on crash isn't as severe as a brick wall because whatever you're hitting will yield more than a brick wall, thus extenting the crush distance. This longer crush distance in a head-on means lower deceleration rates than hitting a brick wall. Additionally, one would have to have a zero-angle collision to even call it a head-on because any angular differences would result in rotation and dissipating energy through spinning & throwing off parts rather than straight deceleration.

So one should use the worse-case scenario for testing because there are plenty of immovable objects to hit like building, concrete center-dividers, embankments and ditches. When your vehicle hits one of those things, it has to absorb and dissipate all of its kinetic energy through its structure, because the other object isn't going to yield much.

The second, more important deceleration is of the human occupant's body! It doesn't matter squat if the car stops from 60mph to zero in 2-feet or 4-feet if the passengers aren't coupled to the vehicle's structure. If not, they will decelerate from 60mph to zero in just 6-inches as they impact the steering wheel and dash.

No more tragic example of this than Princess Di's crash where the bodyguard in the front seat survived the crash. Most likely because he was belted in and suffered little internal injuries from deceleration (most injuries were from the roof crushing in on him). However, the back of the car suffered no such blow, yet Princess Di still died because her body came to a sudden stop when it hit the back of the front seat at 80mph.

One quick note I have to bring up: the extensive crush amount in the F150 is INTENTIONAL! Research your crash data on the NHTSA website and you'll see that Ford has tried very hard in the last ten years to make their trucks softer to reduce the G-forces experienced by the occupants in a crash. Before that, the ladder-frame was so stiff that it wouldn't give at all in a crash. The sudden impact deceleration would just cut people in half with the seatbelts with very little apparent damage to the truck itself. This is similar to the high death-rates experience by big U.S. sedans in the '70s as well, like Cadillacs & Lincolns, although a lot of that can be attributed to not using seatbelts as well.

Ok, back to the F150 & Mini comparison. Another distinction should be made in the crush-ability of the vehicle's exterior vs. the passenger compartment itself. Best to have the exterior crush as much as possible to absorb energy and lessen the deceleration rate (long crush zone). However, you want to have the passenger compartment stay fairly rigid so you don't end up crushing the occupants. It's fairly obvious in this example that the F150 driver would have more leg and facial injuries if he was to drive off an on-ramp and fall straight down into a ditch (immoveable object), compared to the Mini driver.

As for rollovers? That's the worse kind of a crash because all of the engineering of crush zones and restraints goes out the door, literally. Now instead of having 4-5 feet of crushable metal, you've got only 6" of space between your head and a wimpy B-pillar and some thin roof to the ground. When you spin/roll, conservation of angular momentum will spin you just about as fast as you were traveling in a straight line. When that roof hits the ground flat, or sideways, it's going to impact at 60mph and there's no way your head is going to decelarate as nicely as with a frontal impact.

Add to this the greater tendency for a SUV/truck to roll compared to a car and the much, much higher death-rates for SUV/truck accidents becomes apparent (for the same number of wrecks).

So who makes the safest car? The car that has the largest numbers of people walking away from accidents alive and uninjured? Mercedes! And that's well before they came out with an SUV....

If look at photos of wrecked Mercedes, you'll see that the car's body has taken extreme damage, yet the passenger compartment stays intact...

K27

Side impact is the one that scares me the most.One reason why I look both ways when the light turns green.

Oh and that picture proves that Fords are chick magnets.