I checked the safety ratings on the two cars and they are pretty close. Both have 5 star side impact, both have 4 star driver safety, the C has 4 star passenger safety and the Smart has 3 star passenger safety. The driver head injury criterion shows a slight advantage for the Smart car. Is it all true? Who knows, I would certainly feel safer in the C class but that would just be a feeling, not reality.
I checked the safety ratings on the two cars and they are pretty close. Both have 5 star side impact, both have 4 star driver safety, the C has 4 star passenger safety and the Smart has 3 star passenger safety. The driver head injury criterion shows a slight advantage for the Smart car. Is it all true? Who knows, I would certainly feel safer in the C class but that would just be a feeling, not reality.
Hmmmm - it's a shame Topgear didn't do a "blows over in a stiff breeze" test. :-) Seriously, though, I can tell you from experience it does not feel as safe from the inside of a Smart Car - and that was only at 55 - again, perception vs reality...
Maybe it's safer by the virtue that you perceive it's not safe, so you may drive it in a more prudent manner for fear of death and then be pleasantly surprised when you are not dead after an accident.
I see smart cars driving around Manhattan and let me tell you something. I would not feel safe in that car with the way Manhattan traffic is. Those cars are tiny, too small ... I feel like i'd be driving a go cart, no offense.
I see smart cars driving around Manhattan and let me tell you something. I would not feel safe in that car with the way Manhattan traffic is. Those cars are tiny, too small ... I feel like i'd be driving a go cart, no offense.
werd, theres a lot of smarts in manhattan now.
btw, have you guys ever seen the video of a W220 and a smart fortwo head to head collision?
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Manahattan and any overcrowded major metro area would be the only places I would want a Smart car. Think about it, you pay $500/mo for parking and you can fit 2 Smarts in one parking spot. What's the average speed in the city, 5mph, what can happen? It's out here where it's dangerous as we have sections of the 5 FWY through north San Diego county where going under 80mph is considered dangerous. I don't consider the Smart car dangerous because of it's size, I consider it dangerous because it's underpowered. Of course power can be mitigated on the Smart using the motor out of a Hyabusa motorcycle.
The car doesn't have much of a crumple zone, so it uses the crumple zone of the other vehicle. That said, if the other car's crumple zone is undersized, there is a chance that you can suffer injuries slightly more than in an other vehicle. I have driven the smart a couple of years ago, and I felt very safe. It would more than likely be a matter of perception. For me, once inside, because of the fairly roomy interior, the external size of the car slips the mind. For others, there is a chance that even going for a drive, they still think that they are in a dinky car. I have seen several crash test videos, and the Tridion safety cell - the silver or black steel frame around the car - hardly deforms in an impact at test speeds. In every case, unlike many other cars on the road, you can still open the doors. I think it's testament of engineering at it's (almost) best!
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Crash testing is just dumb. Crashes are too variable and capricious to really be able to test. I suppose the idea of having a baseline to work from should have some value, but I just don't see it in the real world. It's seldom that two crashed vehicles are matched enough for the regulations to work.
I'd grab a city car in an instant, but years of first bicycling and then motorcycling might have inured me to focusing on "might be" and more on just "be aware". And it's still not always enough. Nothing else we do comes anywhere near being so dangerous as driving is.
Funny someone should mention Topgear.
Either them, or 5th gear did a test on a Smart, crashed it.
They're opinion was that while the vehicle structure survived, the people inside wouldn't have as the force of the impact couldn't be absorbed by the vehicle (lack of crumple zones as someone pointed out) and as such would be passed to the occupants,
and ultimately that force would likely result in internal injuries and death at speeds other cars might allow you to walk away from.
"while the structure of the car may have survived, the occupants would not have"
That being said, the crash tests that determine ratings are perhaps at lower speeds. We all know of people who have survived horrific crashes
in C Classes. The implication seems to be that at higher speeds and force of impact your chances of survival would be better in a C Class vs. a Smart.
and then there's the handling, which IMHO is as important if not more than crash tests, in avoiding an accident in the 1st place. The Stig couldn't keep the fourtwo on the track. YouTube - Prius-Kenari-Smart
Carl, Please don't tell me you're thinking of buying a smart....
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