Has anyone ever seen the YouTube video of the Smart car vs. S-Class. If the smart car can handle an impact like that, I don't see any reason why a larger Japanese vehicle is unable to stand up the same or better?
Has anyone ever seen the YouTube video of the Smart car vs. S-Class. If the smart car can handle an impact like that, I don't see any reason why a larger Japanese vehicle is unable to stand up the same or better?
However, if you notice. They don't test things like double impact crumple zones (able to hand more that one inpact - a.k.a. pileup), pre-safe systems (BAS, ADS, SBC/ABR ect.), ETR (seat belt retractors), high impact offset crash, ability to exit vehicle quickly and safely, roll overs, ability to not also anielate the opposing vehicle, and many many others. They look at two main things - frontal (off-set) and side impacts at 40MPH. There is a company in Britain that does REALISTIC testing. They took a 2007 Subaru Forester and did a typical 55MPH rear end collision and then another vehicle rear ended it at the same speed. Bad things happened. And that is a very realistic accident. Crash test ratings are not all they are cracked up to be!
The IIHS crash tests are as close to real crashes as any test that must use repeatable and standardized test procedures can get. The test does not address the additional safety features built into some cars unless those additional features affect the results of the frontal offset and side impact tests. Although every car builder that tests poorly in these tests are quick to point out that their cars meet the more relaxed Federal NCAP tests and claim the IIHS test have no relation to the real world, you need to remember a few points. The Federal NCAP tests were designed by the US car builders to show their cars were safer than asian imports at the time the test was qualified. Since that time most cars have been designed to pass the more strict IIHS and ENCAP tests so you would expect all new cars tested to pass the Federal tests with five stars. The IIHS test and the European ENCAP tests that are very similar are designed to give some measurable result that can predict to some degree what your risk of injury actually is from a frontal offset or side impact accident. That crash test data is used to determine what risk the insurance companies assume when they insure a particular model of car, so there is a real world impact for a car that does badly in the IIHS/ENCAP test because a car that has poor test results has a higher risk of allowing you to be injured or killed and that higher risk is going to affect the cost to insure the car. While no test is going to be right 100% of the time the crash tests are a starting point. In the real world my W211 cost less to insure than my Honda even though its worth double what the Honda is worth because it is much less likely to get into an accident and more likely to protect me from serious injury, if it is involved in an accident.
Most new cars that did poorly in this latest round of testing did poorly because the new IIHS test for side impacts uses a test rig modified to resemble a typical SUV which means cars designed to pass the older test now have their protective reinforcements located below the typical SUV bumper mounting height. This is also one of the reasons so many new car designs have shorter windows and higher door structures. The other reason is the more detailed testing of rear head restraints and how well they protect against whiplash type injuries that are new to the IIHS test procedures. Until more cars are redesigned, the older designs will generally do poorly compaired to the newer designs that came into being after the newer standards were first published.
BTW: The SMART does not use crush zones to protect from impacts because there is no space for crush zones. The Smart uses an extremly strong safety cell design like a race car uses that dissipates crash energy by deflecting it as the video shows. If you drive a Smart you better make sure the seat belts are tight and not be over 50 years old or over weight because the acceleration forces in a severe crash that make the Smart act like a pool ball could rip your internal organs loose and cause other traumatic internal injuries.
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Last edited by n5160u : 11-25-2007 at 05:41 AM.
Reason: Can't spell
If you drive a Smart you better make sure the seat belts are tight and not be over 50 years old or over weight because the acceleration forces in a severe crash that make the Smart act like a pool ball could rip your internal organs loose and cause other traumatic internal injuries.
The smart's seat belts have pyrotechnic pretensioners and force limiters; the seats themselves are designed to dissipate collision energy by deforming in a programmed fashion in a sudden deceleration, and the interior layout is such that there is more than the usual amount of deceleration room between occupants and the dual stage airbags.
Having written that, I would rather be in my B Class than my smart in a severe collision...
Vehicle: Current: 2006 S350 and 2008 GL 450. Previous Benz's: 2001 CLK 320 and 2006 E350
Location: Southern California
Posts: 20
when i watched that video of the s class vs the smart car...
it would be hard for me to imagine that the smart car occupants would not suffer some form of injury from extremely high g forces due to the impact itself and the abrupt change of force application.
if you notice the smart car driver upon impact...his head is whipped around in multiple directions and most disturbingly it flings out the side window. the temporal bone, being as thin as it is...would more than likely have been fractured causing (possibly) irreversible head injury along with (possible) severe neck trauma.
the s class passengers heads continued with a smooth forward motion into the airbags.
is this a fair comparison? no, absolutely not. i believe that when it is easy, it is easy. there is no need to 'think' about easy. it is for enjoyment. i think about the difficult because this is where things can make life tough for a very long time.
i believe the test is not fair. they should have used some of the more common cars i see on the roads and freeways here. these include denali's, suburban's, escalades along with lexus ls', benz s and e classes, bmw 5 and 7 series, ford navigators and f150's, honda accords and toyota camry's. these are the most common cars in my area.
i can see the most damage to the smart car occupants with my first listed because they appear the most on the road. most are driven by harried mothers transporting their kids to some form of practice and to be in time for everything else.
call it unfair to match a huge vehicle to a smart car...but that is reality. this is america. we have BIG cars...and a lot of them. i think that the smart car is great for europe where there is little to no huge vehicles like those found in the united states. to me, this makes sense. but when you mix a tough golf cart vs a 6000+ pound vehicle...inertia itself already wins.
american lifestyle requires large vehicles. what? yep! i constantly see people hauling their motorcycles, seedoo's, boats, campers etc around. these 'toys' require big vehicles to pull this junk around. we all know a smart car, a honda civic, toyota tercel can not transport the junk we seem to require to 'enjoy' life.
big vehicles wont go away overnight and little vehicles appear to be making a strong entry over the past few years...let's hope we can all get along on the same roads...of course, with the overly aggressive, stressful and fatigued driving population of america!!!
american lifestyle requires large vehicles. what? yep! i constantly see people hauling their motorcycles, seedoo's, boats, campers etc around. these 'toys' require big vehicles to pull this junk around. we all know a smart car, a honda civic, toyota tercel can not transport the junk we seem to require to 'enjoy' life.
I agree with most of your post except this. It's quite common outside the US for people to pull trailers with small cars. My Impreza is rated to pull 2000 lbs and that's conservative; in the UK the Forester is rated to pull over 4000!
I agree with most of your post except this. It's quite common outside the US for people to pull trailers with small cars. My Impreza is rated to pull 2000 lbs and that's conservative; in the UK the Forester is rated to pull over 4000!
Yeah it's no surprise that high gas prices impact the type of cars people buy.
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Vehicle: Current: 2006 S350 and 2008 GL 450. Previous Benz's: 2001 CLK 320 and 2006 E350
Location: Southern California
Posts: 20
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Wevrick
I agree with most of your post except this. It's quite common outside the US for people to pull trailers with small cars. My Impreza is rated to pull 2000 lbs and that's conservative; in the UK the Forester is rated to pull over 4000!
it is great that your impreza can pull 2000 pounds and the forester can pull over 4000...but here in the area of the united states (not great britain) where i live, i have never seen a subaru pull anything...even if it were possible.
for some unexplainable reason, the people living around me have enormous boats that they love to pull with every long weekend holiday. have you ever seen the size of the campers that so many of my neighbors pull? they are enormous! 4000 pound pull capacity is not even remotely enough for my neighbor that lives across the street from me. his weekends consists of a rotating use of a 20 foot trailer he stuffs with motorcycles, jet ski's, camping equipment and who knows what else for his wife and seven kids. of course, this is when he isnt hauling his 40 foot boat around as well and have his wife follow in another vehicle with whatever junk they are bringing. personally, it seems like so much work to get everything ready, loaded, unloaded and then put away...i have no idea how this is 'restful'...but to each his own.
perhaps i live in an unusually heavy area where people just have to haul crap around...and not just a little of it but a lot of it. from my personal circle of friends, i am actually out of the norm where i dont have massive amounts of crap to haul around. the overwhelming majority of my friends or acquaintances have a large boat, have horses, have large pieces of recreational equipment. when i ask them why they feel a need to move all this stuff back and forth, their answer is that their parents did this and feel that this is 'normal'. is this 'average' american life? most likely not. does it exist in the america that i live in? yes, and with increasing frequency despite continuing climbing gas prices.
^^That kind of stuff is really nuts; I rarely see it here in New England. FWIW when I was younger my dad had a 16-ft cabin cruiser sailboat that must have weighted at least 2000 lbs. He pulled it with a Corolla which in those days had a 1.6 liter engine ...
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