Automotive Safety 101

So somebody finally wrote an article saying that "Heavier cars aren't safer". Unfortunately, the article goes on to claim that bigger cars are safer because they have larger crumple zones and thus offer more protection in a collision.

The focus on "surviving a collision" is an incorrect way to look at automotive safety to begin with. Can you imagine if planes were designed with the intention of surviving a crash landing instead of avoiding a crash landing altogether? This would make sense if pilots were given as little training as most drivers get today. Let me put it to you this way: If somebody were about to shoot you, would you rather a) move out of the way, or b) prepare for impact by wearing big/heavy clothes?

Here is how it should work:

Primary Focus: A vehicle should have the handling capabilities (steering, traction, braking, etc.) to avoid a collision.

Secondary Focus: In the even that a collision must occur, the vehicle should protect its occupants.

Unfortunately for us all, America has got automotive safety backwards. Their SUVs have become unmaneuverable tanks that are barely able to perform the most basic obstacle avoidance measures. These tanks are on our roads right now, trying desperately to avoid hitting us when we step into the street. Next time you're thinking of buying that Hummer (all fuel efficiency requirements aside), ask yourself how you plan to avoid a two-year-old who chases a ball out into the street from behind a parked car.

Automotive safety experts aren't stupid, they know that the safest way to survive a crash is not to get into one. However, the collective buying power of the American people can't be swayed by such logic. Humans believe very strongly that bigger is safer. Why? because they can see big-ness, whereas they can't see how well a car handles emergency steering situations or how well its brakes perform.

You may wonder why is it that we have crash protection standards but we don't have handling standards? Cars should have to be able to handle certain standardized situations (I'm not talking 0-60 acceleration tests) before being released to the public. And given the rate of increase in automotive technology, those standards should be raised every few years.

Case in point: I once saw a minivan try to run an obstacle avoidance situation at a driver's education course. When the driver hit the brakes to stop before the cone that was to represent a pedestrian stepping into the street, the back brakes of the van locked up and the whole vehicle spun around, literally smacking that pedestrian-cone into the air. Had that cone been a person, that person would likely be dead. Had that minivan been trying to avoid something bigger than itself, such as a train, the driver of the van would likely be dead. "Bigger is safer" indeed.