Do you ever think about how safe your car is?

[robinmasters]

..By the way - people saying "it makes no difference, when it's your time" etc - don't be silly.

That's the only way I can deal with it. Wherever you drive, there's a chance you may not complete the journey alive. People walk away from undoubtedly fatal accidents all the time, and die in minor ones.

 

Yes, you're more likely to die in an accident in an older car. But only if you have an accident.

[Justin Case]

If Autoshite did crash tests:

 

[hairnet]

No

 

I ride a bike - 100 times worse and i dont think about that cos like Heidelberg said you'd never get on it

 

If it happens it happens times short just some is shorter than others

[mk2_craig]

What worries me most about driving old chod is the level of risk-compensation that practically every other road user has now adopted, what with their ABS and airbags in their safety cell-equipped modern toss. That has to be the main reason why theres been such a decline in deaths on the roads over the last thirty years?

[PiperCub]

^^ Was having a similar conversation the other day, on how people are getting so insulated and removed from reality in new cars that their judgement when it comes to risk is being diminished so they think they are either becoming immune from danger or fail to see it in the first place.  

 

So while cars are much safer, people are maybe taking greater risks but not appreciating it, this to me is the reason that deaths on the road have pretty well stayed the same for some time now. 

[Junkman]

Also I have no idea if the C30 is actually any safer than the Fiat.

 

I doubt it is.

 

[Junkman]

A delightful thread for your digestion: http://debates.coches.net/showthread.php?204823-Coscorrones-de-%E9poca

[Junkman]

The winner of today:

 

 

 

Conclusion: Let's build that dismal piece of shit deathttrap for another 15 years without changing a damn thing.

[Junkman]

Way too safe:

 

 

 

 

[cros]

My personal ncap rating is not many stars. 3 of my vehicles have suicide doors, and no seat belts. I've never had anything with antilock brakes and only one has discs and a padded dash.

All this should be very reassuring for the worriers out there as theres a better chance that the next accident will have my name on it than yours. You're welcome.

[mercrocker]

I haven't even read this thread and neither do I care about it.     When your time is up, it's up....Seat belt,airbag or not.   Until then, rock on.

[vulgalour]

If you worry about it don't get in a car.  Hmm... but then most accidents do occur in the home.  Probably best to stay on the street.  Nnyeah but the average life expectancy for someone who lives on the street is quite low.  Then there's the cancer, which you can get from everything, and the terrorists.

 

Probably best not to worry about it really.  Statistically the chances of being in a crash serious enough to cause you harm are incredibly low anyway.  I do wonder if the statistics are higher purely because people are more complacent about how safe their vehicle is so they take more risks.

 

The selfish driver is the problem, really.  A true accident is incredibly rare, sometimes situations really are completely unavoidable.  Shit happens.  Most crashes happen because there's a monkey piloting a metal box powered by explosions.

[Split_Pin]

I agree with the above, accidents are rare,crashes less so.

 

Its not something I try to worry about. My Corsa has no airbags or abs.

 

Where it does come into consideration is when my son is in the car who doesnt know the risks as hes only 4. The Megane still has its 'safest car in its class' sticker on the back window. I appreciate that time will habe taken its toll on the possible, or not, functionality of the airbags and strength of the bodyshell but I do feel a bit more comfortable about it.

 

And indeed, accidents in the home are much more of an issue.

[dollywobbler]

It wasn't my intention to be condescending, I'm just repeating what a few trainers have told me. Despite one of them doing tens of thousands of miles by motorbike he hasn't had an accident in decades. We can learn to avoid a lot more than most people think.

 

I'm far from a trainer, don't claim to be one and don't know about your accident but one method is to leave enough space or an escape route if you're at the back of the queue. In every situation think about where the likely traffic will come from - in a queue like that it's going to come from behind.

 

As I said, I'm far from a trainer so if you're interested, go and find a good one. But it's tough to admit that any of us can learn anything about driving, maybe that's why so few people take further training.

I have found myself increasingly leaving a much larger space in front if I find myself the last car in a queue. I hold the brake lights on too. Have been a couple of times lately that I've been glad of that bit of space. Never nice when you hear the wheels lock up on the car behind...

[SiC]

In 2015:

Road deaths - 1,732

Serious injuries on the road - 22,137

It's that last one I'm worried about becoming a statistic of.

 

Also in 2015:

Heart disease - ~70k

Of which a major proportion are from poor lifestyle choices.

 

Basically you're more likely to die from that Big Mac and chocolate bar than on the roads. I don't care if I die, because game-over and I won't know about it. It's the severely disabled and life long injuries that can happen that I fear.

[Split_Pin]

Good point indeed.

 

Why are the same sort of precautions not applied to junk food and booze that are built into cars and the relevant rraffic laws? Less of a an instant and dramatic consequence I think.

[Dick Longbridge]

Around 25 years back, I looked at a powder blue Moggie thou which I was interested in buying. Turns out it was a snotter underneath and I ended up buying a Trafalgar blue one a couple of months later instead.

Anyway, the reason the chap was selling was because he'd bought both a Beetle and Minor for his 18 year daughter, to see which one she'd prefer driving and owning. Turns out she preferred the Beetle, and she had taken to using it as her daily driver. Unfortunately, she was then in a fatal frontal smack in it.

Would she had survived if she'd driving the Moggie? It has more substance on the front end - there's no denying it.

Would her father be saying to himself, "It's all OK, her time was obviously up..."

You can bet your bottom dollar he wouldn't...

[SiC]

Food industry is as embedded into government as much as, if not more than the automotive industry. We've also been all convinced that its solely our choices that causes these problems, when infact the food industry over many years knows how to advertise to us and hit those pleasure receptors. Only recently are we realising that we are hardwired to wanting high fat, sugary and high calorific content foods. Stuff that the food industry have been targeting for decades.

 

Just look at the amount of food adverts at bus stops, billboards, internet and television that are we are bombarded with. Have a go at counting the number of adverts in a television break and also count the food+drink adverts.

[garethj]

For the food industry it's well worth listening to Andrew Maxwell's Public Enemies on the BBC radio iPlayer.

[Split_Pin]

I may just do that.

 

Btw did anyone see a Police Camera Action type show a few years ago where a fully loaded curtainsider tipped over onto a Moggie at a roundabout? The owner was convinced that the only reason the occupants survived was due to the strenghth of the bulkhead which stayed upright under the weight.

[Magnificent Rustbucket]

I do think about how safe my car is, but I don't obsess over it. Modern cars are for any given type safer than older cars but from my perspective and opinion, my car (Jaguar XJ40) is safe enough for me not to worry about it in daily use.

 

The British Government used to publish a compilation of all injury accident statistics gathered on UK roads over a period of years. This was called Transport Statistics Bulletin - Cars: Make and model: The risk of Driver injury in Great Britain. The last one I saw was published in 2003 and covered the years 1996-2000. Unfortunately they are no longer available on line, but they were published as a largish booklet. They're difficult to find, but I bought a couple of them some years back and posted up scans on Autoshite a while back.

 

I found them interesting reading - the difference in safety between smaller and large cars back then was very considerable, and safety varied greatly between makers of similar sized cars. I'm not sure whether the posts here are still active, but I do remember how well the Peugeot 505 performed, much better than a Volvo of a similar age. Jaguars were also excellent (XJ40 and X300 performing better than the much newer BMW E38 and E39), the Mercedes W126 was also remarkably good, whilst the W124 was disappointing - as were some BMWs, particularly the E32 which had a poor safety record.

 I will see if I can find it.

[Magnificent Rustbucket]

I can imagine that's true, with the safest car of all being the Land Rover.

[dollywobbler]

Around 25 years back, I looked at a powder blue Moggie thou which I was interested in buying. Turns out it was a snotter underneath and I ended up buying a Trafalgar blue one a couple of months later instead.

Anyway, the reason the chap was selling was because he'd bought both a Beetle and Minor for his 18 year daughter, to see which one she'd prefer driving and owning. Turns out she preferred the Beetle, and she had taken to using it as her daily driver. Unfortunately, she was then in a fatal frontal smack in it.

Would she had survived if she'd driving the Moggie? It has more substance on the front end - there's no denying it.

Would her father be saying to himself, "It's all OK, her time was obviously up..."

You can bet your bottom dollar he wouldn't...

 

You can't play 'what ifs' with a scenario like that. The Minor might have fared worse. There's no way of knowing. She might have been killed in a C1. Don't forget, people tend to think tiny cars are best for girls, regardless of the fact that bigger ones are (usually) safer in a smash. My wife crashed a Minor and survived more through pure luck than anything.

[dollywobbler]

I can imagine that's true, with the safest car of all being the Land Rover.

 

O RLY?

 

Ladder chassis Landies are not much cop in a smash. I remember when I was on school work experience at Lode Lane and saw a Range Rover (last of the classics) that had performed the offset crash test. It was shocking, and blew away any thoughts I might have had that Land Rovers were strong and tough.

[Magnificent Rustbucket]

I was following Richard's point that the way a car is used can determine both how likely it is to actually crash and also how it will appear in statistics.

[dollywobbler]

Well, I always felt the statistics were flawed. The Ford Escort always came out really badly in those crashes, but I did wonder how you account for the fact that if there are more examples of a car, it's surely more likely that some of they will crash. The crash stats always just looked like the list of most popular cars to me. 

 

Mind you, I was always shit at maths...

[rantingYoof]

Meanwhile, is Mason's era LS400 actually particularly safe in a crash?

 

 

 

Surprising amount of driver door deformation.

 

But V8. So who cares?

[dollywobbler]

Well, there you are then. I'm sure its sheer heft is part of the problem there!

 

Oh, and Mason is a Mk3, not a Mk4.

[MorrisItalSLX]

I feel totally safe:

 

 

Much safer than an XJ40:

 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Just wear your seatbelt! You have to admire the confidence these test drivers have in them.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GWy0hHHECdM

 

Sorry, hopefully edited to show the video I intended to post, Germans driving into things with no safety features other than a seatbelt and a grimace.