Driver fatalities of 5 per *billion* miles ? Even if you do 20K miles for 60
years, that's still a 0.6% chance...
an acceptable risk in a chicken **** society. Cancer on the other hand ...
Dave Milne, Scotland
'99 TJ 4.0 Sahara
"Nate Nagel" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
[email protected]...
: Really? I expect that a collision between two SUVs would be more
: dangerous to the vehicles' occupants than a collision between, say, two
: VW Golfs (Golves?) due to the construction of the various vehicles.
:
: nate
:
: Mike Romain wrote:
:
: > You are an idiot bud.
: >
: > If everyone drove heavier vehicles, fatalities would go down just as the
: > numbers below indicate.
: >
: > I do note you don't show any numbers for little econo boxes. Why, are
: > they something like 10 fatalities?
: >
: > Mike
: > 86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00
: > 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's
: >
: > Dianelos Georgoudis wrote:
: >
: >>Recently (October 14, 2003) the National Highway Traffic Safety
: >>Administration (NHTSA) released a study about vehicle safety and
: >>weight. See:
: >>
: >>
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/regrev/evaluate/pdf/809662.pdf
: >>
: >>As expected, the NHTSA study did find that heavier vehicles are safer
: >>for their occupants when they crash with a lighter vehicle. This is
: >>well known, and many people buy SUVs thinking that their weight gives
: >>them a safety advantage. Some publications stress this fact (for
: >>example one by USA Today is titled "Lighter cars mean more deaths" so
: >>many people who drive SUVs may feel reassured).
: >>
: >>In fact, as far as SUVs go, the NHTSA study could not have been more
: >>unfavorable. Using real world statistics about tens of millions of
: >>vehicles over several years they prove that the overall safety of SUVs
: >>is worse than of lighter passenger cars. One of the reasons is that
: >>SUVs have a much higher tendency to roll over. This means that many
: >>people spend more to buy a SUV, spend more on gas, and also endanger
: >>others, without much any advantage for themselves. The relevant
: >>numbers are:
: >>
: >>Vehicle type Average weight Driver fatalities
: >> (pounds) per billion miles
: >>
: >>Mid-size 4-door car 3,061 5.26
: >>Large 4-door cars 3,596 3.30
: >>Small 4-door SUVs 3,147 5.68
: >>Mid-size 4-door SUVs 4,022 6.73
: >>Large 4-door SUVs 5,141 3.79
: >>
: >>So it is more probable that you will be killed in a small or mid-size
: >>SUV than in a mid-size car that weights less. Only large SUVs are
: >>safer for their drivers than mid-size cars, but they are less safe
: >>than large cars, even though large SUVs are 1,500 pounds heavier!
: >>
: >>These are amazing numbers. The prorated figures, which take into
: >>account the fatalities in other vehicles involved, are, as expected,
: >>even worse.
: >>
: >>The study does show that SUVs are safer than small and very small
: >>cars, which have a disadvantage only because there are so many much
: >>heavier vehicles around. Very few people who end up buying a SUV were
: >>thinking of maybe buying a small or very small car, so this advantage
: >>is irrelevant. Pound for pound SUVs are always less safe for their
: >>passengers.
: >>
: >>Even when comparing SUVs only, more weight is not always better.
: >>Significantly, small SUVs are safer for their drivers than mid-size
: >>SUVs, even though the latter weight 900 pounds more. I suppose small
: >>SUVs are more car-like and therefore avoid some of the safety
: >>disadvantages of the SUV design.
: >>
: >>If you care about your personal safety then, clearly, the best
: >>strategy is not to use a SUV but to use a mid-size or large passenger
: >>car.
: >>
: >>Of course, the safest strategy for society would be to put an upper
: >>limit to the weight of passenger cars: then we all would drive safer,
: >>spend less money on cars, spend less on gas, protect others, protect
: >>the environment, and be less dependent on unstable oil-producing
: >>countries. Limiting the weight of vehicles is a
: >>win-win-win-win-win-win proposition. Vehicles that have to be heavy
: >>(such as trucks, heavy duty off-roaders, buses, etc) should have their
: >>top speed electronically limited to low levels as to not endanger
: >>other vehicles on the asphalt.
:
:
: --
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: