Small cars fail crash tests against big cars.

Just get a Mk6 Golf, job done. Safest new car you can buy in Europe at the moment.
 
Did Toyota outsource the US Yaris to China or something? Geez, just look at it. Good thing I never liked it.
 
I guess Toyota's are the worst since the rest of the big cars had a good rating and Camry got an "acceptable" rating. So if that Camry crashed with a normal car it would be thoroughly fucked up as well.
 
KaJuN said:
Round 5: G-Wiz vs. 1959 Cadillac Eldorado

Fight!! :evil:
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Please don't waste a nice Caddy... mind you, it would probably come out unscathed.

Why not, G-Wiz VS H1
 
Segway/GM Puma

vs

CSXT_Southbound_Freight_Train_CSXT_8223.jpg



Or, All Smart vehicles

vs

This wall:
antiram_test.jpg
 
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NecroJoe said:
An important thing about the small cars, especially the smart, is that many times the occupant would survive the injuries from damage caused by vehicle deformities...however, because the cars are so light, the deceleration is so incredibly violent that your internal organs would be so damaged that you still wouldn't survive the crash.
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To be honest that's a physical limitation you'll eventually reach in any car, although i'll admit a small car will get there first.

I'd love to know what effect seating position has on G tolerance in a crash.
 
ahpadt said:
Just get a Mk6 Golf, job done. Safest new car you can buy in Europe at the moment.
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Probably why my bug fared so well then. Pretty much the same car only more round.

HatePersonified said:
Yep, gonna get that 80s Vette now, no Cobalt SS kthx.
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I have a feeling the colbalt would be many many times safer than the vette.
 
WillDAQ said:
To be honest that's a physical limitation you'll eventually reach in any car, although i'll admit a small car will get there first.

I'd love to know what effect seating position has on G tolerance in a crash.
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Actually I don't know how much of a problem that would be. I think the highest recorded survival was 125G or something like that it was an F1 driver that hit a wall.
 
You get what you pay for. If you drive an econobox you're trusting your life to essentially the lowest bidder.

Even though my Z has five star crash safety test ratings, the amount of big trucks in TX takes away a lot of confidence in the event of a nasty accident.
 
prizrak said:
Actually I don't know how much of a problem that would be. I think the highest recorded survival was 125G or something like that it was an F1 driver that hit a wall.
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125G... for how much time? 125g for a second means certain death, 125g as a peak for less than half a msec might also be sustainable (I don't know exactly where the limit is).

There is more: a F1 driver has a highly trained body and is already accustomed to high-energy accelerations or decelerations. The body of an untrained person is way less resistant. Age also plays a critical role: aged people are much less resistant than younger one. And there is all the safety in the car, like the neck restraint system and strictly-fastened multiway seatbelts. Injuries are very likely (neck and spine, for example) if the head and body are free to be thrown around, even without actually hitting nothing.

And there is luck (something that we are not able to evaluate (yet)). Everybody is different, and what may fit in the Guinness world of records is unlikely to be the average performance in an average situation. This means the average man is averagely dead in that crash survived by that F1 driver. It's like finding out that a man has survived unscathed a fall from the 10th floor of a building. Great, but I still wouldn't suggest you to try it. It is an exception, not a rule.This is well known by people making crash-tests: they are not saying that a safe car avoids severe injuries or death in crashes under a certain speed, thay say that the result won't be severe injury or death... 98% of the time (for example). That is enough to make a valid assessment.
 
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I have always wondered why more people don't realise this as surely its basic physics??? Mine is very rough but I remember forces must be equal and opposite yeh??

Therefore in a crash test an SUV weighing 3 tonnes hits a stationary wall, that force is exerted back on the SUV, massive damage and a 2 star safety rating. Hatchback weighing 1.2 tonnes hits the wall, much smaller force, much smaller damage people survive.

Now in the real world 3 tonne SUV hits 1.2 tonne hatchback. SO 1.2 tonnes hitting SUV suddenly causes much much less damage. Or reversed 3 tonnes hitting hatchback turns it into mincemeat. I can't remember what all the appropriate scientific terminology is but there are engineers on this forum that I'm sure can give credence to this theory or shoot it down.
 
Scary....I kinda wish my car had come with side impact airbags - even as an option. Still I'd rather be in my Jazz than the Daihatsu Mira my aunt used to have. I swear, the door panels in that thing might as well have been made of plywood.
 
^side impact airbags won't do you any good in a crash like this. They're mostly designed so you don't hit your head against the side windows...which is kinda irrellevant if you're crumpled up in a metal coffin as a messy bloodstain
 
SirEdward said:
125G... for how much time? 125g for a second means certain death, 125g as a peak for less than half a msec might also be sustainable (I don't know exactly where the limit is).

There is more: a F1 driver has a highly trained body and is already accustomed to high-energy accelerations or decelerations. The body of an untrained person is way less resistant. Age also plays a critical role: aged people are much less resistant than younger one. And there is all the safety in the car, like the neck restraint system and strictly-fastened multiway seatbelts. Injuries are very likely (neck and spine, for example) if the head and body are free to be thrown around, even without actually hitting nothing.

And there is luck (something that we are not able to evaluate (yet)). Everybody is different, and what may fit in the Guinness world of records is unlikely to be the average performance in an average situation. This means the average man is averagely dead in that crash survived by that F1 driver. It's like finding out that a man has survived unscathed a fall from the 10th floor of a building. Great, but I still wouldn't suggest you to try it. It is an exception, not a rule.This is well known by people making crash-tests: they are not saying that a safe car avoids severe injuries or death in crashes under a certain speed, thay say that the result won't be severe injury or death... 98% of the time (for example). That is enough to make a valid assessment.
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I didn't say that we can all survive a 125G of deceleration no matter how sustained it is. I was only arguing against the statement that small cars being smaller decelerate at a much faster rate that would inflict [fatal] internal injuries on the occupants no matter the condition of the passenger compartment or restraint system used. In reality deceleration is generally not quite dramatic enough to produce injuries like that not to mention that even small cars do not decelerate instantly when hitting bigger cars. I can tell you that on average with no passenger compartment intrusion and proper restraints a 40mph head on collision is not deadly.
 
NooDle said:
^side impact airbags won't do you any good in a crash like this. They're mostly designed so you don't hit your head against the side windows...which is kinda irrellevant if you're crumpled up in a metal coffin as a messy bloodstain
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That's when airbags for your knees, elbows, shins, toes, pinkiea, eyelids, etc. come in handy.
 
Necx0 said:
Now in the real world 3 tonne SUV hits 1.2 tonne hatchback. SO 1.2 tonnes hitting SUV suddenly causes much much less damage. Or reversed 3 tonnes hitting hatchback turns it into mincemeat. I can't remember what all the appropriate scientific terminology is but there are engineers on this forum that I'm sure can give credence to this theory or shoot it down.
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The fact it's two cars interacting with each other does make the whole thing a lot more complicated.

Up to a speed of say 40mph the main issue is not one of G forces, if the person is in a suitable seat, suitably restrained (seatbelts, airbags, headrest etc.) then it is not the inertia that is going to kill them.

What will kill them is vehicle deformation. In general a smaller car has a weaker frame and smaller crumple zones, in addition the actual interaction between the fronts of the two vehicles often applies loading higher up (relatively speaking) on the front of the smaller car, which is more difficult to resist, as a result the smaller car is more likely to be deformed in an accident with a larger vehicle.

Therefore the person in the smaller car is more likely to be either crushed by the dashboard or speared by the steering column. Hence in that video of the Yaris where the A pillar deforms, that's a clear sign that the actual cabin is deforming potentially crushing the driver.

But now take a look at the smart car videos, that huge sliver stripe down the side of smarts is not styling but the Tridion safety cell. That cell combined with features such as a front crumple box and frangible steering column ensure that the cabin does not deform and the occupant does not suffer crush injuries. That therefore eliminates the major risk of having the smaller car in a collision.

Yes the car gets hurled backwards when it impacts a larger car, but the cabin is still structurally sound and the combination of pretensioners, very well designed seats and airbags should keep the occupant safe.

To give you an idea of how strong the smart is, take a look at this:
[YOUTUBE]Q91UIYquAW8[/YOUTUBE]
In this 70mph crash you are dead, no way around it, the inertia forces are just too great BUT even at those speeds the actual crush damage to the Tridion is still limited.

The problem is of course that while smart were obsessed with crash safety, being the first microcar, vehicles like the iQ don't have the same emphasis on it.
 
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