MINI Scores Well in Crash Testing
The IIHS has been crashing cars again. We all know the MINI scores well front and rear, but so not hot for side impact.
>Mini Cooper results: This minicar was redesigned for the 2007 model year, and it earned a good rating for frontal crash protection in a previous test. New side and rear tests were conducted to assess further design changes made for the most recent models. This minicar earns a good rating for rear protection and an acceptable rating for side protection. Measures recorded on the driver dummy indicate that a fractured pelvis would be possible in a side crash of the same severity, but there’s low risk that other significant injuries would occur to the driver. For the rear passenger, rib fractures and/or internal organ injuries would be possible. ESC is newly standard for the 2009 model year.
The IIHS is also saying that Electronic Stability Control (ESC) should be standard on all cars.
>ESC should be standard: Among the small cars in this round of tests, only the Chevrolet HHR and Pontiac Vibe have standard ESC. It isn’t available at all on the PT Cruiser and optional on the rest, including the Vibe’s twin Toyota Matrix. ESC helps reduce rollovers, especially fatal single-vehicle ones. When ESC senses a vehicle is becoming unstable, it automatically engages to help a driver regain control and put the vehicle back in the intended travel direction. ESC lowers fatal rollover crash risk by as much as 70 percent. “Cars aren’t involved in rollovers as often as SUVs and pickups, but when they do roll the consequences can be deadly,” Nolan notes. “The smallest cars that most need this crash avoidance feature often don’t have it.”
Worth reading if you have the time. Especially if you want to laugh at the PT Cruiser. (The MotoringFile police have reprimanded DB for trying sarcasm on a Friday)
>The Chrysler PT Cruiser is the only small car in the recent test series to earn poor marks in both side and rear evaluations.
[ IIHS News Release, 12/17/08 ] IIHS.org
Yeah, let’s have a laugh at people being potentially being injured in PT Cruiser crashes. What a nice thought.
I agree – what a comment: “Especially if you want to laugh at the PT Cruiser.” Yeah let’s make ourselves feel superior by mocking others. Maybe you could add more impact, post some PT Cruiser crash pictures, even get a body or two showing in them. Sorry – just in bad taste. Having had a friend killed in a MINI side impact accident….. not something to make fun of.
Oh noes! You’ll get in trouble if you criticize something posted.
I did expect more from DB though.
According to the IIHS clowns we all should be driving around in tanks.
Take anything coming from this insurance industry founded organization with a huge grain of salt. Anything coming out of this industry is highly suspect in my book.
How about driver education? How about making it difficult to obtain a driver’s license like 99% of the developed world? How about repelling the idiotic laws that allow 16 year olds to get behind the wheel of practically ANY car?
In Germany they got it right. The lobby from the car industry in this country has made driver licensing and driver training a complete and utter joke.
Well the PT cruiser is a pretty old design. Chryslers have never been stellar when it comes to crash ratings.
Still, I don’t like the underlying message from these goons….Buy the biggest, baddest hunk of metal you can buy!
Will you people please get off your soapboxes and leave DB alone? He’s entitled to his opinion as much as you are, besides, you’re reading waaaay to much into it. I too like to make fun of the PT Cruiser every chance I get and this is just one more vindication for how bad a car it really is.
I thought it was OK to be sarcastic on Fridays.
Well, if you think that driver training is all it takes, think again. MBs own studies show that ESC systems reduce fatal single car crashes in Germany. MB was the first to introduce the feature and have the data set going back farthest.
Think what you want, every study on ESC systems show them to be very helpful in reducing vehicle deaths, in every environment and nation where there is enough data to make a meaningfull measurement.
What one has to also remember is that these are safety tests of cars that have acutally crashed. And while mass helps once a crash has happened, it’s not that helpfull in avoiding accidents. Total safety (for the last data I looked at) is somewhere around a Toyota Camery sized vehicle… Small enough to avoid many accidents, and big enough to help should one occure.
Just more to think about….
Matt
Let me get this straight…some people have decided its poor taste to make fun of an inanimate object? db didn’t even direct the mocking of actual people, who may own one. Seriously?…WOW…..just wow.
Just remember, Of course the only 100% effective means of accident prevention is to stay home and not go anyplace.
First off, I just thought the comment was in poor taste. I thought DB was making fun of the PT’s crash tests. If so, my comment still stands — poor taste to laugh at something potentially leading to injury or death. I stand by that.
If it matters, I own a MINI. I don’t feel the need to laugh at others if they drive a PT. Not my style. Call me oldfashioned or a tightwad, whatever. I’m comfortable with myself so I don’t need to mock others based on what they drive. One guy muttered “clown car” when he saw me get out of my MINI. That comment was just as pathetic of making fun of PT drivers.
Look…DB was not making fun of someone being injured… It is ironic that the PT would score poorly in comparison to the MINI…it is its opposite on so many other points
Looks
Feel
Design
Customization
Uniqueness
Culture
Why not add crash tests to the list?
Leave DB alone… he does not wish anyone harm… just pointing out ironic situations…
Imagine the change in accident rates if cell phone usage was banned.
Yeah, “lighten up Francis”!
I was going to stay out of this, and then Shamus had to thrown down with the Stripes Quote.
Well played my friend. Well played!
And no one pointed out that the oft derided SX4 did better in the crash ratings than did the Mini…
Matt
I have a couple of clients that have had rather severe accidents in their MINIs. One was on a track in MI and lost control, sped towards a burm, flipped the car and landed on its top – he walked away with just burns from the airbag — The Second was hit head on by a Nissan Altima at a ‘fair clip’ (rate of speed), the front of her Cooper S was crushed, car deemed a total loss, she & her son walked away with no injuries, the other driver and their occupant did not fair as well.
The first instance I mentioned, the client immediately ordered a brand new Cooper S to replace his beloved 2006 — The second is still in the process, but is thoroughly convinced that the MINI is what has kept her and her son safe. I have not heard any stories like these on the other cars mentioned in the article – but have, in fact, heard of much more tragic outcomes.
RE: PT Cruiser – Just another way to weed out the gene pool. Buyer beware.
If you read the <a href="http://www.iihs.org/ratings/side_test_info.html" rel="nofollow">description</a> of how the side impact test is performed, it makes the score the MINI received even more impressive. Unlike the frontal offset tests, every vehicle tested, from largest to smallest is subjected to the same impact forces.
On this subject as a whole the public, in the U.S., is woefully under educated.
Just recently I was picking up a fleet vehicle from one of our service garages and the owner asked if I was the guy who owned the MINI. When told him I was the first thing out of his mouth was the question, “aren’t you afraid your going to get hurt in that little car?†Fortunately the story that goes with the picture, posted here, had been sent to me and I used to explain just how tough/safe the mini is. He didn’t buy it and probably thinks that big Detroit iron will protect him in a collision.
Ignorance is bliss!
<blockquote>I was going to stay out of this, and then Shamus had to thrown down with the Stripes Quote.
Well played my friend. Well played!</blockquote>
Ahh, a fellow devotee of one of the finer pieces of the celluloid art. Or, as a far better man once said, “that’s the fact, jack!”