Artistic license is one thing but if I see another outright lie that new cars are safer compared to old ones I'll get really really nasty.
OKAY FACT new cars are designed to crush at low speeds of 60km or less. At speeds greater than that the occupant has very little chance of surviving without major damage.
At speeds in excess of 120km the occupant is assumed dead on arrival from rescue crews and they will not rush to remove a person since there is no need.
In comparison cars built in the 1960s were built to handle collisions of 120 Miles per hour. I have personally seen cars of this era sheer a good sized oak tree. The occupant then opened the door of the car and walked away, with much bruising and a number of cracked ribs but still very much alive.
The worst accident I know of was two cars racing down a highway in opposite directions. One was doing 120 mph the other 110 mph when they collided head on. In case your wondering thats a 225 mph collision (5mph is taken up by the crush of metal apparently) both motorists actually survived...sorta the internal injures eventually got both of them but they survived the inital hit.
One car was a 1972 ford torino and the other was a 1970 chrysler newyorker. Although the front of the cars were serious wrecks the passenger compartment of both had not experienced damage. Both steering wheels were crushed and folded over, the chrysler was further pushed down into the dash as well(chrsyler design that i wont get into)
A similar hit was between a 2001 intreped and a rx8 both cars in this case were going much slower at 68mph (120 km) and 73 mp (130-140km) both occupants were dead upon collision. The mazda the whole car was buried as the body could not be extracted. The intreped was cut up into pieces just to get the body out. A side note is that although both cars were equipped with air bags neither deployed as the accident was far to fast for it to occur.
Anyways just some information I know your not aware of. Still the information is available on the internet if you look.
Comments
Yeah, why we need to either
return to the sturdy design of the past and/or develop the technology from Knight Rider's K.I.T.T.
May Your Light Forever Shine
There is also the fact not
There is also the fact not talked about much that big vehicles are safer then small ones. It's common sense but you will never hear it said on a commercial. I was in a crash a year ago where I was hit driver side straight on by a large truck going 60mph. My truck flipped over a couple times and landed in the ditch roof down. They had to cut me out of it, but I walked away without even a scratch. The guys who cut open my truck told me if I had been in a little car I would be dead or in critical condition at a hospital.
I understand why people push for smaller, more gas efficient cars, but my life isn't worth the amount of money I would save or how much it would lessen my carbon footprint.
tell me about it
these new cars are lighter and more fuel efficient, but at the cost of safety and cosmetics. Had a 73 Pinto and never had many problems I could not get fixed, and had solid metal bumpers that would take a 5 MPH hit easy, unlike my new car that took 1700 damage from frozen snow... Apparently, the urethane they are molded from becomes brittle at low temperatures (20's?), which when someone's snowplow piled the snow behind my car and froze the bumper and almost shattered the bottom edge, lua have splits and cracks all through it. The Pinto also had no problems getting 30+ on the highway and 23 around town (as a pizza delivery driver, I kept track of such things).
Gonna have to disagree
Erm hate to burst that Tels but Mythbusters DISproved that myth a few years ago, the actually impact speed is likely to be around 115mph.
Having been in a head on crash where both vehicles was doing around 60mph I can confirm the MBs result.
The other thing to take into consideration is does the USA have seat belt laws?? the UK does, when I had my accident the car ended up like this (warning no blood but seriously mangled car) but I survived because I was wearing my Seatbelt!
Huggs
Sammi
P.S. that car used to look like this
Seatbelts
In the 50's and 60's most cars only had lap belts. There were no side belts in the cars. The law required that they be there but no law required you to wear them until the late 70's I believe.
I was in a car wreck with a 57 Chrysler Winsor and rounded a curve at 80 mph, side impacted a tree (oak) with another passenger. We did not have seat belts on but were banged around pretty ruff. We walked away (not that I remember much) and were taken home. I never went to the hospital but I can tell you I don't remember much about the next 2 days.
Would a newer car been an improvement? Not likely but then why would you be going at a high rate of speed in the first place? Yeah I was a young teenage buck and stupid for what I did also. I was lucky that I could walk away.
US do have seat belt laws...
SamanthaK:
The US do have seat belt laws, but it is enforced differently in different states. yes, we might have ads telling us to 'Click it or Ticket' (you might be stopped for not wearing your seat belt), but some states do not enforce it. (The Libertarian state of New Hampshire is one, AND iirc, Vermont doesn't either.)
Myself, and most Americans are into big cars (Like an F-350 pickup) because we do haul things with them. Mine (an Ford F-250) haul my boat, a 21 foot boat.
I can't stand small cars!! If Telsa came out with a pick up that will get 100 miles and I can pull my boat with it, I might buy it. For now, I love my truck.
Sorry about going off on different vehicles. I know I'd love if VW could ever import a SEAT to the USA. I read 'Car' and 'Top Gear' and SEAT is nice.
TGSine --958
Let the figures speak for themselves
It may be different in your country but fatalities in the UK in 1966 were running at 8000 per year. Today they are about 2000 per year. Traffic must have increased ten fold in that timescale.
In the US, fatalities in the 1960s were about 50,000 per year, compared to 25,000 in 2012.
I guess it was my story, Costumes and Cars you were referring to and I stand by my comment - no artistic licence needed.
There is a lot that goes into
There is a lot that goes into lowering fatalities besides if the car itself is built better. The major factor being the incredible increase in seat-belt use, along with better roads that are designed to be safer. (stoplights and signs put in strategic places, getting rid of the 'dead man curves', and and less gravel roads.)
For instance seat-belt use went from 14% in 1983 to 84% in 2011 in the US. You also have the adoption of car seats for young children, and the use of airbags. This has a LARGE impact on how many people die.
Seat belts reduce the risk of death by 45%, and cut the risk of serious injury by 50%.
So are cars safer today? yes. Are they built safer today? not really.
Edit: did a little more research there were 17.9 million car accidents in 1980 compared to 10.2 million in 2008.
you forgot one thing
in 1966 there was no speed limits that came into effect in the 70s and is not enforced in some states today. Also the number of people driving trucks vs cars has changed as well.
There is a lot of factors that have changed the fatality rates in cars. The so called safety features of cars is not one of them.
On a side note I know of people who have legal permission to not wear seatbelts. I can understand their reasons as I don't particularly like shoulder belts and tend to drive cars either without them or with some that lock so they are loose. The seatbelt laws have one loophole. If the car was originally equipped without them people driving them cannot get a ticket for it.
I know for a fact that many accidents were people die in the cars are because of the new cars unsafe design. If you get into an accident in an old car you will survive. The exact same accident in a new car you will be dead.
I buried a relative in a 2001-2003 rx8 not long ago. She, and the 3 month old fetus, were unseperateable from the head on collision. Do you have any idea how hard a funeral is when you bury a crushed car? My cousin later committed suicide because of it. I do not currently know where the 3 year old, now parent less, daughter went as my aunt, uncle and their daughters could not assume responsibility to much of wrecks themselves.
Sorry but this is a very personal subject for me. I know that in the same collision in an older 70's car she would be alive along with my cousin.
Think what you want just don't lie to me.
Tels, I'm sorry
Tels
I'm very sorry that my words brought back memories of a terrible event. It must have been horrific going through such an accident, and I can fully understand how it remains in your subconscious, always ready to be recalled by words such as mine.
But a writer can never guarantee that words we use will not upset someone, somewhere in the world. To try to do so would simply produce bland platitudes.
However, the words I used were not a lie, but were taken from remarks made by a Police Accident Officer, called to the scene of what was expected to be a fatal car crash a few months ago, here in the UK. The car was unbelievably crushed and the occupants did, indeed, walk away from it.
I think it's important to remember that Britain never went through the period of the huge cars you had in the States. My first car was a ten foot long 1964 Mini, which came without seat belts. It was an extremely popular car at the time, with most other cars being small or medium sized. I seem to recall that in the 1960s, it was generally felt that any head-on accident at more than twenty mph was likely to be fatal – rather different from the figures you quote. Fortunately, cars have got considerably safer here in Britain. If that's not the case in the USA, it's unfortunate.
Sorry again that my words upset you
Charlotte
thanks
It was tough. I'm a little stressed out. Dorothy is well aware of how upset I was. I'm better today.