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Originally Posted by Mr. Kite
I've been doing some searches about car safety and fatalities. Just to clarify, I am not trying to prove anything and I have nothing against the Insight. My Civic is also a pretty small car.
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Then why was this a focused discussion on the Insight on an Insight thread? Why wasn't it on a General thread and included pickup truck safety per the 2nd NHSTA graph? Maybe this is a condincince...
If safety was my paramount concern I'd be driving a Volvo. I said that three years ago on a thread at IC on this exact topic. The NHTSA still asserts that large passenger cars are the safest vehicles by a considerable margin.
If you care to look at this thread (
http://www.insightcentral.net/forum/...c8bd1667b85fd0)
it states average vehicle death per 10,000 cars is 1.9. So far not one have been recorded for the Insight (per
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/ About 13,500 Insights were built).
Like with fuel economy, safety is not only determined by what you drive, but who is driving it. In
Racer Critical: Insight Driver He Struck Virtually Unharmed, the driver was ejected from his Thunderbird and may have died (
), but the Insight driver was almost unharmed. This kind of reckless driving is not that uncommon. More common is what most of us see daily of people obviously distracted of otherwise not alert while driving.
I still suspect the rollover risk is being understated. Truck frames are not as safe as car frames. In huge vehicles, there is more chance for things to rattle in a lethal way.
One thing not mentioned is pedastrian death risk. If a 1985 Ford Tarsus hits a pedastrian from head-on, they will probably end up on the windshield and possibly get knee damage. Change that to a 2005 Ford Explorer and the chance of upper body tramua - including the head is much greater - not to mentions a greater chance of going under the vehicle instead.
Personally, If anybody is serously hurt in an accident, I would not be at peace if in the slightest way if I had a part in doing it. Driving something a lot larger than my needs would not give me peace of mind after such an accident, plus the limited visibility and manuverablility factors.
If someone is serious about traffic safety, try these:
- Stricter car inspections and driver's license requirements as Germany does
- Many accidents are caused by drivers without insurance and/or license - track them closer. If someone pays insurance for only a month and let it lapse, the insurance company reports it to the state and they lose their license (or something to that effect)
- Put videocam speed traps like in Scottsdale, Arizona