Now it’s the turn of the ignorant newspaper columnist. Here’s one is from today’s Chicago Tribune:
>Before you rush out to buy a mini car to save a few dollars on your weekly gas bill, check out how those little machines fare in crash tests. The money you save on gas might have to be spent on getting the crinkles out of the body panels, according to results released this week of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s first crash tests on subcompacts.
>”The laws of physics dictate that people traveling in small, light cars are at a disadvantage,” said Adrian Lund, Insurance Institute president.
>The study, of course, is more than a bit self-serving. The institute represents the nation’s major auto insurance companies, and the safer the car, the lower the claim coming out of its members’ pockets.
While the title of the column is incredibly misleading, at least he gets the self-serving aspect of the study. But beyond that you’d think he’s remember all those various studies showing how dangerous SUVs and trucks are due to roll-over accidents and how high a percentage of those type of accidents result in death. How quickly we forget.
You can read the entire article below. Take special note of the author’s email address at the bottom of the article. Feel free to let him know how ridiculously misleading his column’s title is.
[ Size matters: Mini cars pose big safety risks ] Chicago Tribune
<blockquote>
But you can’t dispute its conclusion that “driver death rates in mini cars are higher than in any other vehicle category; more than double the death rates in midsize and large cars.”
</blockquote>
Here is what I want to know. If I wear my seat belt and don’t drive drunk how many miles do I have to drive to die in any car? 10 million, 50 million? So in any car I’m more likely to die from natural causes than a crash, right? I like to take reasonable precautions to be safe but I really don’t understand why people put so much weight on one car over another. Isn’t buying a safer car really just like buying 2 lottery tickets instead of one?
It’s unfortunate as there are far too many people out there that read a newspaper article or hear a news report and take it as gospel. They do not form their own opinion or analyze for what it really says. What is often not discussed is how often people with large vehicles, SUV or otherwise, will be more cavelier in their driving habits because they are in a large vehicle and think nothing bad can happen to them because they are in such a big vehicle. It always annoys me when I see SUV’s driving twice as fast as everyone else during heavy snow or rain. They are the ones who will lose control and take 6 other cars/drivers with them.
I’ve never not felt safe in my MINI de to its size. NEVER. I actually feel safer in my MINI often times than in my wife’s TSX which is quite a bit larger – mostly because the handling with my MINI is so precise that I feel far more in control.
Mateja is a hack at the best of times. If you’re familiar with his “reporting” you know he’s a schill for the Big 2.5.
I think it’s also worth noting that most crash tests are done at 40-45 mph. So if like me or db you spend a ton of time on the highway doing 60-80 mph, the playing field is a lot more even up at those speeds. If you run into something at 80 mph, you’re toast whether you’re driving a MINI or a Carolla or a Hummer. But back to yesterday’s point, something like the MINI is much more likely to avoid that impact in the first place. It’s also worth noting what the IIHS person said about smaller cars having less crash energy. If you hit something that isn’t another vehicle, wouldn’t that make the smaller car safer?
I find it comforting that there’s still a job market for third-rate journalism in the printed news world. As newspapers decline and finally expire, guys like this will have to ply their bilge on some remote corner of the internet, no longer enjoying their complimentary 1-year lease on a Chevy Tahoe.
Another quick point…I don’t ‘spend money getting the crinkles out of body panels’ that might offset the cheaper gas bills…my INSURANCE company spends money on the crinkly panels.
What a jackass. I mean, it’s just a flawed argument from nearly every possible angle. It’s not the size that counts, it’s the ENGINEERING. My parents had a fairly minor accident in their Caddy that sent them both to the hospital…I had a 65mph spinning wreck in my ’99 Audi A4 (a car my mom thought was too small) bouncing between a truck and a guardrail and I didn’t even get a scratch (no airbags deployed, either).
I felt safer in my Mini, in spite of the loose seat, than I do in my TSX…but that is more because you WEAR a Mini, you drive anything else. I took far more what many would consider to be ‘chances’ in my Cooper S than I ever will in anything else, even my Corvette (don’t get excited, it’s an ’85).
But how a car ‘feels’ is not empiracal, I understand that. But then look at the occupant injury ratings of a Mini and compare them to those larger ‘safer’ cars, like the Cadillac STS…
Hey, I just thought of something else…most bigger cars cost MORE to repair than small cars, so where’s the ‘savings’ there?
Hmmm… What about the 4-star crashing rating the MINI got from the US Government??? Or from the European crash tests.
Boycott this Jackass called Jim Manteja
This guy is an embarrassment.
I stopped reading his out of date perspective on cars after his written comments on, blonde, women drivers. No kidding. I was shocked that he is able to keep his job long. But, he must have a life time membership to the old boys club. Also known as the Fat Old men that can’t get it…well you know what I mean.
This guy, as was pointed out above, should be taken with a grain of salt or less because he is a biased and out of touch,Gas Bag!
The most fun cars to drive tend to be relative death traps because they are lightweight. The MINI is no exception. I’m ok with that (as was Colin Chapman). If you’re not, there are <em>much</em> safer cars out there.
If the MINI is such an “unsafe” car, where does that leave the Lotus Elise:
<a href="http://forums.evolutionm.net/showthread.php?t=147572" rel="nofollow ugc">http://forums.evolutionm.net/showthread.php?t=147572</a>
His Red Elise had $18,000 worth of damage after a 10MPH Fender bender against a Jeep Cherokee SUV.
After seeing the thread above I conclude:
1) The Lotus Elise is a damn fine car
2) The Elise/Exige are truly death traps
3) A fender bender can cost you the entire car and possibly your life
4) I feel much safer in my steel stamped MINI, thank you very much
Geez, these articles give me a headache. OK, a few of my own comments.
The problem is with all of these articles (and admittedly even my own safety “tips” from time to time) is that they fail to thoroughly discuss the nuisances of crash safety. I’m not going to be able to do it now, I really want to go on vacation, but I’ll see what I can answer quickly.
<blockquote>how many miles do I have to drive to die in any car?</blockquote>
If it were:
1966: 18,195,000 miles,
1980: 29,888,000 miles,
1990: 48,073,000 miles,
2004: 68,557,000 miles
We drive (in the US) just about 3 TRILLION miles per year (seriously)… [2923 Billion miles in 2004, according to NHTSA]. But not to forget, we still lose 40,000 people per year in car accidents, almost everyone has had a friend or family member killed in a car accident.
Yes, wearing your seatbelt and not drinking and driving enormously decreases your fatality risk. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but it obviously makes sense and of course the numbers agree with common sense, if only I remembered them.
<blockquote>the handling with my MINI is so precise that I feel far more in control</blockquote>
Just to be on the same page with everyone here, I couldn’t agree more. Safety is first and foremost, the ability to stay out of an accident and second, how well you are protected in an accident. Admittedly, as I admittedly am prone to do as well, when someone asks me what the “safest car is” I think “in a crash.” I think most people are afraid of getting smashed, but I usually say it’s safest to not get in one. Avoiding one obviously comes first and foremost — and to put my $$ where my mouth is, I drive small light cars (more because they are fun, but let’s go with “in the name of safety” for today’s discussion).
<blockquote>It’s also worth noting what the IIHS person said about smaller cars having less crash energy. If you hit something that isn’t another vehicle, wouldn’t that make the smaller car safer?</blockquote>
Just for the record, I don’t work for or with IIHS at all. I am a mechanical and biomedical engineer, I do auto safety research at Virginia Tech. To the point, however, energy is mass multiplied by your velocity squared. So, performing crash tests by crashing cars into a barrier at the same speed, small and large cars have different amounts of energy. But they also have different amounts of structure to absorb that energy with, so you can’t assume one way or another is safer in a single vehicle accident. It’s all about the engineering.
<blockquote>My parents had a fairly minor accident in their Caddy that sent them both to the hospital. I had a 65mph spinning wreck in my ‘99 Audi A4 bouncing between a truck and a guardrail and I didn’t even get a scratch</blockquote>
Obviously engineering (as I said before) plays a huge role in this. But I hear similar stories all the time. One thing to keep in mind, from the description above, the spinning and the multiple hits between the truck and the guardrail, this sounds more like a lot of little accidents rather than potentially the one hit that perhaps your parents had. Just for the sake of discussion, getting hit and spinning off on the highway from 55 mph and hitting multiple objects along the way, you may slow down 5 mph here and 8 mph there, 9 mph, etc. This can turn out to be a far less serious accident compared to one hit where you suddenly stop from even 20 mph. This is also why many Formula/Indy/NASCAR drivers can walk away from wrecks that start at 200 mph, watch how many impacts they have as they flip down the track (and superior restraints don’t hurt either).
Other points while I’m at it. Just to say it again. The MINI has done remarkably well in crash tests such as the side impact tests and I hope the R56 takes it to a new level. Small cars aren’t inherently unsafe, they’re just more unsafe when you’re getting hit by a 5500 super-size SUV, mostly due to physics. The problem isn’t the people that buy the small cars, the larger cars are just more of a threat. The MINI’s (as well as some other sub-compact’s) side impact performance equals that of a multitude of larger cars. Personally I believe it will hold it’s own in frontal crashes as well, given its engineering pedigree, and already good frontal crash score, but I also understand the laws of physics that I’m up against. In a head on crash, by virtue of conservation of momentum, a lighter vehicle will see a “more severe” crash than the heavier vehicle (as measured by the amount of velocity change that each car experiences). So it cannot be said is that the sub-compact will “protect it’s occupants just as well” in a crash as some larger cars (don’t read ALL larger cars). It is a formula that is impossible to completely solve.
Due to its accident avoidance technology and its strong crash test record, I think the MINI is an outstanding small car. But there will be people that just don’t feel safe in them, for one reason or another. If that is the case, the MINI is not for them, there are definitely cars out there with better crash test performance, again, by nature of physics and engineering, they are larger, for lack of a better word “less extreme” choices (they don’t need to be SUVs – in fact as has been mentioned, SUVs have their own other problems i.e. rollover). I think very few people have actually much reason to own a super-size vehicle. If only we would stop this build-up of our arsenals, perhaps we would not the same fears that lead to “news” stories like this or the ABC one.
I just emailed this response to the bozo that
wrote the article:
I think it’s irresponsible to advise the gullible public to keep buying ever bigger cars. trucks. and SUVs
in the interest of safety.
Putting more large heavy cars that don’t handle or stop as well as smaller well built cars, and are more
prone to rollover just increases the total carnage factor on the roads.
You also mentioned that the MINI Cooper got marginal ratings in side impact (in fact it rated average in
that test, and good in frontal impact). (I own a MINI Cooper, by the way, and it’s a surprisingly sturdy
car for it’s physical size).
If you compare the crash test results recently published, you’ll also notice that a much higher percentage
of the mini sized cars did well than the small sized cars, and there were plenty of larger cars/trucks/suvs
that did poorly overall.
Big vehicle for personal safety at the expense of others – selfish.
Heavy, tippy, poor handling vehicle because you won’t acknowledge reality – foolish.
<a href="http://bridger.us/2002/12/16/crashtestingminicoopervsfordf150/" rel="nofollow ugc">http://bridger.us/2002/12/16/crashtestingminicoopervsfordf150/</a>
I sent the above link to the writer.
This was his reply.
<blockquote>wow, good thing a mini would never run head on into an F150 truck, or any other vehicle would ever run head on into a MINI or a MINI would ever run head on into another vehicle, which of course would never happen because MINI owners are the best dog gone motorists in the world, and if you don’t believe that, just ask a MINI owner.</blockquote>
Sedan Vs Motorcycle (Guess who losses):
<a href="http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16290791.htm" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16290791.htm</a>
What a stupid reply.
My reply to the post above. This guy is so weak!
Your reply was weak and reflects why I don’t bother reading your column (it was posted on another site) but here are some thoughts.
If you just talking collision. I am safe in my car it has DSC, Anti Lock Brakes and multiple air bags.
So, do have a better chance to avoid a collision? Yes.
I have also participated in driving courses in the past two years that allow me to know my limits as well as the limits of my car.
I’ll go out on a limb and speak for MINI owners, I’ve meet a few across the country so I’ll take that chance.
Ok, so the MINI is a driver’s car and I admit we like to drive. I have meet some that drive to fast for conditions maybe because of the MINI’s capabilities but, they are not the majority.
How many driving classes have you taken since getting your license? Many MINI drivers have taken courses at tracks offered by BMW or independently. Does it make them better drivers? I think so.
How many American car companies are offering classes on handling there product period.
I wonder why you’re so interested in promoting over size vehicles that are wasteful and seldom used to carry more than one adult on a daily basis.
Are they really safer when they lead to more severe damage to what ever object they plow into?
Your article is slanted and not the whole story on safety. It seems to support the point of view of the American SUV makers.
A smaller car in most situations will take a shorter distance to stop then the larger SUV/truck vehicles. Yet the drivers of SUV’s are at times aggressive and bullies on the road because of there false sense of invincibility.
By the way some MINI owners wonder which car company provides you with your complementary SUV?
Ken.
I own one of each. I have a Buick as well as a MINI. Both have all the safety bells and whistles…airbags, ABS, Traction Control etc etc. I’ve also been a victim of an accident in a Pontiac Fiero (small car) where I got rearended by an SUV driver who was “momentarily distracted” while approaching a red light and nailed me at about 30mph from behind. I got a bruise from the seatbelt and had trouble finding parts to fix the back end of the Fiero. The SUV driver barely dented his bumper. Having said all that, I am probably just as likely or unlikely to die in a collision no matter what size the car is. However, in the event of a collision, the damage to a small car would probably be a lot more noticeable than to a large car. Hence the insurance institute would most likely tell its clients to stick with the bigger cars.
As for the writer of said article, to infer that a small car getting an acceptable or better rating is a deathtrap compared to a bigger car with an acceptable or WORSE rating is just poor journalism.
As if we need any incentive for the “I’m the only one that matters” mentality which seems to dominate our roads today. The average American needs no additional motive to opt for a large SUV without regard to impact on anything beyond their wallet (and many seem to be unconcerned with this as well). Imagine an article reporting the same information, but with the more provoking idea that people buying increasingly larger SUVs is leading to increased fatalities of their fellow citizens who drive practical sized cars.
That’s not the only ignorant newspaper columnist to come up with a ‘bigger is better’ story from the IIHS report. We had to suffer one in the Boston Globe too…
<a href="http://www.boston.com/cars/news/articles/2006/12/19/big_risks_seen_in_small_cars/" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.boston.com/cars/news/articles/2006/12/19/big_risks_seen_in_small_cars/</a>
Royal Ford (apparently his real name) includes his email address too if you want to contact him. I did and he even replied, although it read like a txt msg. I posted his emails to me over on Ian’s blog.
What have we learned from this..? Basically that journalists are lazy. I really like the way they all use quotes from the IIHS guy like they personally interviewed him. Most of them didn’t even bother to read the whole IIHS press release by the look of it, let alone think about the figures and try to offer any analysis.
And they wonder why printed newspapers are declining in popularity…
<a href="mailto:jmateja@tribune.com">jmateja@tribune.com</a> replied to my email
“town writing from?”
I told him back(York, PA), so I’m probably in his
recycle bin now.
Just dropped Jim a note:
<blockquote>
Jim:
Really enjoyed this piece and thought you might want to consider a related story idea:
<strong>Some Like it Hot: Heated beverages pose big safety risks</strong>
I think you could do a great job with this one.
It’s good to know we have intelligent, thoughtful people like you watching out for our safety. Keep up the good work.</blockquote>
I got T-boned in my MINI on the driver’s side by a Dodge Dakota. The body shop guy guessed the impact was about 50-60 mph. I walked away with a cut on my finger, sore muscles and some abrasions from the deployment of the air bags.
Trust me, the MINI is very strong in collisions.
I’ll vouch for the MINI’s safety. I was hit by a Chevy 2500 crew cab pick-up truck and all I got was a burn on my nose from the airbag. My MINI was totaled, but I was so impressed with how safe it kept me that I bought another.
Ultimately, the larger vehicle will do better in a multi-vehicle collision, but no matter how big your SUV is, there will always be 18-wheelers on the road.
sry haven’t been able to post lately was trying to figure out the prob. Was my firewall : ) Carry on.
FrankInMiami: You are uninformed about the Lotus Elise/Exige safety. $18,000 worth of damage after a 10MPH is not an indication of car’s safety at all. It only proves that it’s expensive to repair.
I feel no less safe in my Elise than I did in my MINI. In the Elise you are sitting in an Aluminum tub with 6in thick siderails , a rollbar, and a carbon fiber crashbox on the front of the chassis. Lotus drove one head on into a concrete barrier at 30mph. The front clam and composite crashbox absorbed the entire impact with no deformation of the chassis at all. They also crashed 24 of them to get them approved in the US.
It’s lighter that any car on the road meaning less energy to absorb in a crash.
That said, it’ll also turn and stop quicker than anything on the road so active safety plays a big part requiring 100% concentration from the driver. Cell phones and drinking coffee is out of the question when driving one.
On SUV rollovers… Since many, if not the majority, of SUVs rarely leave the city and since most cities are pretty flat (and following a grid layout), I figure the rollover issue is less of an issue for most SUV owners than the clearly horrendous statistics would indicate.
However, that means that the rollover issue is a far, far greater safety issue for the remaining population of SUV owners – say those that commute to work on a winding country road. To those owners SUVs should maybe be protrayed as “death traps”. Maybe those drivers should get minis.