In a head on collision a smart car would get crushed by a big pick up or suburban.

Bat, meet ball.

OK,

Found this little video on-line. Smart meets larger Mercedes and Smart meets solid concrete barrier at 50 mph. The results seem consistent with what you'd expect from the EuroNCAP data (40 mph into offset deformable barrier) posted earlier in this thread:

"The passenger cell remained stable during the impact. Structures in the dashboard presented a risk of injury to the knees and femurs of the driver and passenger."

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Pretty amazing engineering - I'd hate to see what happened if I drove my old 911 into a brick wall at 50 mph. Not sure the outcome the doors would open and close afterwards.

Another photo of a Smart hitting an E-class: it looks like the ball deformed the bat a bit.

http://www.whnet.com/4x4/pix3/Crashtest_Smart_W210.jpg

/ Johan

Good point.

Good point, but if the larger object was not designed to crumple as well as the E-class, then there could be more trouble for the smart.

I went to college with a guy who drove one of the old Mini's and his claim to fame was that he once managed to write-off a city bus with it.

That is quite an achievement. My hats off to him.

I was in a city bus rear ended by a Pinto. The bumper was so high on the bus that the Pinto grille went back to the middle of the hood missing the top of the engine.

Who had 2 broken legs again? Oh thats right the guy in the Suburban the guy in the MINI, or ball as you put it, walked away.

As gas prices rise you are going to see less and less monstrosities on the road and more and more smaller cars. I have already noticed a big change on the interstate driving between NC and Fla. I noticed a remarkable amount of Ford Focus', Honda Fits, and Toyota Yaris' on the road.

Out of interest I looked up some 2006 crash statistics to see exactly how many fatal accidents are head-on collisions and I was very suprised. In the database I pulled up there were records of 57,943 vehicle accidents involving 98,040 people of which 38,588 were fatalities. Only 8,153 (14%) of these vehicle accidents were head-on collisions but the included 12,446 (12.7%) of the people and only 3,825 (9.9%) of the fatalities. By far the most common type of accident was one which didn't involve another vehicle. These single vehicle accidents accounted for 24,643 (42.6%) of the vehicles, 45,490 (46%) of people, and 23,264 (60%) of the fatalities.

source: http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/QueryTool/QuerySection/SelectYear.aspx

So, although you say that you are safer in a head on collision in a big SUV or truck than in a small car, you are far more likely to be involved in a single vehicle accident than a head on collision.

I would even say that you have a better chance of avoiding an accident in the smaller car as opposed to the truck/SUV due to the better manouverability and shorter braking distances of the smaller, lighter vehicle.

Of course, if you wanted to be really safe you could drive around in an M-1 Abrams battle tank but they're a b*tch to fit in the garage and the fuel economy sucks!



I agree with you Jim. Even here where gas prices aren't that ridiculous (still under $4.00 for regular) there are a suprising number of big SUV's and full size trucks sitting on driveways and the such with "For Sale" notices on them. I see this as only the start of the USA slowly switching to more European sized vehicles.

Errrrrr, no. It's your crumple zones that protect you. Matters less if the other object has no crumple zones to them, than it does to you. While the energy transfer might be different slightly (in that the peak deceleration numbers will be higher), the amount of energy dissipated will not be different. Crumple zones are designed to maintain a "capsule" or safe zone around the driver. So the lack of crumple zone in the SUV will just result in that driver/occupants' injury.