pet05

This is a post stemming from the "Diesel The Right Choice". I thought it deserved its own post. The topic is about truck safety. We read a lot about how SUVs and Trucks are NOT really safer than cars. Well, that statement is based on a half-truth. Or in other words, they are not telling you the complete picture. Read on...

2 of 15 midsize cars fail new side-impact test (http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/...ash-test_x.htm)
By David Kiley, USA TODAY

DON'T FORGET! - A lot of backlash is going on due to SUVs and Trucks from the environmental left. They HAVE and continue to twist studies and stats to show that you are just as safer in a CIVIC as you would be in a Ram 2500 truck. That is propaganda They have a hidden AGENDA, that agenda is to get every large SUV and TRUCK off the road and replace them with small efficient hybrids. Unfortunately, someone has to haul their stuff and some of us guys and gals need to make a living working jobs that require having a truck or SUV

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (hwysafety.org) quote:

“Why can't I compare vehicles from different categories? The kinetic energy a vehicle must absorb in a crash test increases with vehicle weight, so offset tests are more demanding of heavier vehicles. But people in heavier vehicles in real-world, 2-vehicle crashes typically fare better than people in lighter vehicles (in many single-vehicle crashes, weight offers no safety advantage). This is why test results shouldn�t be compared among vehicles with large weight differences. “

You may be asking, "But what about my crash test rating? Doesn't my five-star rating equal the five-star rating of a truck?"

The answer is no.

The first place most people go for safety information is the famous government crash test "star" ratings available at www.safercar.gov, or the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, www.iihs.org, which rates crash tests from "Good" to "Poor" based on the driver's ability to survive a crash.

But these ratings are only useful to compare cars within the same size class. A "Good" rating for a small car doesn't mean it will perform as well in a crash as a "Good" large sedan would.

"They are meant to be used to compare crashes with vehicles of similar size," Lund said. "You can't really go between the segments with these ratings."

In 1993 German safety researchers staged an experimental crash between a 2,400-pound VW Golf and a Nissan SUV that was twice as heavy, which produced injuries on the crash dummy in the Golf that were literally off the scale in terms of fatal force.

Check this out: The accident resulted in a decapitation of the drivers head & a fatality with EVERYONE in the mid-sized car. (they are all dummies of course )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_86RuYXoJA&eurl=

trik396

When I was a little kid I remember seeing an accident where a full size pickup rear ended a smaller car. Don't remember the brands of either vehicle. What I do remember is the amount of damage to the smaller car and the lack of damage to the pickup. Later on, in my crazy teenage years, I was the back seat occupant of a 4 door Chevy Caprice. My friend who was driving ran a red light due to his impaired nature. We t-boned a small car. Again, little front end damage to the Caprice, the grill and headlites damaged. But the little car was undrivablely mangled. Thankfully no one was hurt badly. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to make heads or tails of these examples. It has to do with kinetic energy of two moving objects and size definitely matters. Been a pickup truck guy ever since...

SOhappy

Physics

('Nuf said)

rich

saw an 04 2500 4x4 dodge hit a subaru head on little cars fault everyone in the truck was fine not in the other car both had to be cut out driver was doa and passenger later died. hit at about 70 totaled front of truck

Eddy Reyes

Just remember, you can’t teach common sense

For those that believed that sizes does not matter:

Put them on a Honda civic vs. 3500 ram... if they are not convinced then
Put them on the 3500 ram vs. a Freight train, I am sure that will do

displacedtexan

I actually had a guy try to convience me that his small Pontiac was safer than my truck. I asked what vehicle he would rather be in if the two got in a wreck, and he said "You would kill me!" I asked how his car was safer...

You might ask an admin to move this to the Other forum, as it is not really third gen spesific, an I bet a lot of others would like to see it as well...

BEARHUNTER

There is an old rule. the one with the most lug nuts wins. I have seen many accidents where its been car vs truck. In every case the trucks fare better. They just do better!

BigDan

My truck saved my life

99 CTD vs Kenworth Logging Truck

pet05

WOW!

I hope you and your passengers are OK now. It appears to have been a head-on collision. A Kenworth Logging truck is as big as it gets.

If you don't mind sharing, how did this happen?

trik396

BigDan, I followed your progress after you first posted these pics. You are truly lucky, as I feel that most anyone else would have perished in such an accident. Hope you're back to normal now... as normal as you can be...

4x4dually

Growing up in a tow truck and working in my father's body shop there is no 'reasonable' or 'mathematical' comparison between those cars/SUVs and a truck. I have worked too many accidents on I-35 with both little cars and big trucks. Fetalities are more prevalent in the little cars no matter how these tree huggers can twist their facts. They obviously have never towed a car off that someone or a whole family had just died in because it collapesed like a pop can. BigDan's picture above is what I'm talking about. I guy hit a deer in a Ford Festiva one time and died at mile marker 225. Tell me his family would buy another one of those little pieces of crap.

HOV

Fetalities?




Well, the nice thing about driving a diesel is that you can be a treehugger AND a via the miracle of biodiesel, WMO, WVO, or whatever else you fancy putting in your tank. You don't even need to twist any facts.

4x4dually

Opps. No matter how many time I proof read my posts I still miss 'em!

rockcrawler304

A friend of mine got rearended in his 1/2 ton dodge truck by a Honda. He said it was a pretty hard hit and was afraid what his truck looked like when he got out. After seeing his bumper was bent and nothing more, he was very happy!! On the other hand......... the Honda was sooo damaged he said it was probably going to be totaled.

My family will always drive bigger vehicles.

Jeff in TD

I went to a traffic safety training for police supervisors a while back.

Gordon Graham talked about regardless of who had right of way, the person with the most lug nuts on their side will win the collision- so always carry a bag of extra lugnuts in your rig.

There was also a comment that SUVs are more likely to be involved in single vehicle rollover accidents, which kind of offsets their safety advantage in collisions with other (usually lighter) vehicles... so they end up about average.

They also brought up active stability control, which I thought was kind of a gimmick. If I recall they said that statistically, it turns out that active stability control appears to do more to reduce your chances of a fatal single vehicle accident than do air bags. It kind of makes sense that stability control would only help in those situations where someone drifted off the road and overcorrected, or drove into a corner too fast (the kinds of things that result in single vehicle crashes) but doesn’t help with multi-vehicle crashes (like getting t-boned at a traffic light).

Anyway, it seems most safety features appear in cars first, then SUV’s, and finally pickups. When I bought my truck stability control was standard equipment on some cars and SUV’s, but not even optional on pickups…