Gordon McGrew wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Jun 2007 04:28:04 GMT, "GO Mavs" > wrote:
>
>> "In the latest crash figures available from 2003, provided by the Insurance
>> Institute for Highway Safety, there were 142 fatalities per million
>> registered vehicles for the smallest cars. That figure drops to 108
>> fatalities for the next larger class of cars. For large sedans, that number
>> drops to 61 per million. For small SUVs, the figure was 75 deaths per
>> million as compared with 62 for large SUVs. For pickups, totals increased to
>> 124 per million for small trucks and 102 per million for large."
>
> IIHS really tries to bury the details of Driver Fatalities Statistics.
> If you don't believe me, go to:
>
> http://www.iihs.org/
>
> and try to find them. This is as close as I could get:
>
> http://www.iihs.org/research/fatalit...ants.html#sec3
>
> It is a an aggregate list by vehicle type rather than individual makes
> and models. I have seen these results in the past and the interesting
> thing is how much variability there is. Some small cars have lower
> driver fatality rates than some very large SUVs.
>
> Go here to see lists of vehicles with the highest and lowest driver
> fatality rates:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/2od58m
>
> There are surprises, some of which demonstrate the weakness of real
> world surveys. Are Chevy Astros really that safe, or is flower
> delivery just an inherently low risk occupation? Harder to explain
> away is why the Chevy Blazer death rate is 21 times higher than an
> Infiniti G35.
>
>> Technically Mike is right, but the numbers are still so low that even a half
>> a percent change is not very much.
>>
>> Secondly, there are more small cars on the road than larger cars.
>
> As others have pointed out, this is not really a factor, at least not
> in the manner you imply. But read on.
>
>> Furthermore, how many of those accidents are more deadly because a gas
>> hogging driver, in a large SUV, hits a small car?
>
> Very true, and you also have to consider the opposite. Is the monster
> SUV's fatality rate low because it most often collides with something
> smaller? What if everyone were driving monster SUVs?
>
> The way the data is presented is a distorted view of public safety. It
> looks at the vehicle in the vacuum of "does it protect the occupants"
> rather than "does it pose unnecessary risk to everyone else." Why are
> there no statistics on the likelihood of Model X causing the driver of
> the other vehicle to die? And how about pedestrians? Why do we have
> a side-impact test which determines the ability of a car to resist a
> tall SUV bumper instead of a law requiring all passenger vehicles
> (i.e. SUVs) to have a uniform bumper height? According to the IIHS
> reasoning, a vehicle that killed someone else every time you drive it
> but only killed the driver six times in every million vehicle years
> would be the safest vehicle on the road.
>
> This attitude reflects a popular political/economic argument which
> conveniently justifies greedy, self-centered lifestyles. Some call
> this "the law of the jungle," but the truth is that behavior like this
> will get you kicked out of the ape tribe PDQ.
>
>> So basically what Mike is asking small car owners to do is to accomidate him
>> because he is a pussy. So instead of buiying a 15 thousand dollar gas saver,
>> you should buy a 30 thousand dollar SUV (this difference is what Mike calls
>> "Saving a few bucks vs safety")
>>
>> This way, Mike does not feel so guilty when he crushes a smaller car with
>> his Mormon sized family in his Chevy Tahoe!
>
> If Mike was really concerned with safety, he would be better off with
> a Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna which have lower driver fatality
> rates than any "full size" SUV
Yet, this does not take into account the way the vehicles are used,
e.g., people go faster with big SUVs or who is driving them, like teens
vs. mature adults. These other factors (how, where and by whom the
vehicles are used) may affect the death rates more than the vehicle
themselves.
For example, Ford minivans have a different death rates than similar
Mercury vans, presumably because the average driver of each van has
different characteristics.
Likewise, the death rate for Indy cars and NASCAR cars is higher than
the death rate for production cars, even though the Indy and NASCAR cars
are far safer.
Jeff