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Trucks? Last I researched this the Ford F150 and Dodge Ram -- popular, mainstream pickup trucks -- were by a large margin statistically among the least safe veh

by bcoates 11y ago

Trucks? Last I researched this the Ford F150 and Dodge Ram -- popular, mainstream pickup trucks -- were by a large margin statistically among the least safe vehicles allowed on roads in America, compared across everything, not just in-class.

jessriedel 11y ago
Doesn't really matter to my argument, but for fun: In general, heavier vehicles are vastly safer. If you raise the center-of-gravity off the ground a lot, and don't increase the weight much, it's probably possible to increase the roll-over risk enough to make you worse off. But if you look at the data, you see that the deadliest vehicles are mostly compacts, and the safest ones are mostly SUVs. http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1096667_the-most-deadly-and-least-deadly-cars-in-america http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1096667_the-most-deadly... These differences are huge, like, factor of 100 huge.
- whyaduck 11y ago
  The numbers in that article (fatalities per vehicle model over a year) aren't terribly useful - fatalities per vehicle mile would have more value. In the end, though, there's little doubt that the U.S. roads are the host of a vehicle size arms race - build in as many safety features as you like, a sub-compact car will still lose the inertia battle with a massive SUV (likely carrying a single passenger).
- bcoates 11y ago
  Apparently I'm out of date -- SUVs and Pickups stopped dominating the death rates in the mid-2000s. Still, the fourfold decrease in fatality rates across the ten model-years the IIHS publishes (coinciding with a substantial increase in the share of vehicle-years for 'mini' sized vehicles) completely discredits the "balance of mass" theory of car fatalities. The stats that article links say that the 2011 mini cooper has driver fatality numbers that would have made it among the safest cars on the road in 2002. Eyeball regression says newer and pricier can explain essentially all of the safety differences, and vehicle size is at best a distant third. http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates

by bcoates 11y ago

jessriedel 11y ago

Doesn't really matter to my argument, but for fun: In general, heavier vehicles are vastly safer. If you raise the center-of-gravity off the ground a lot, and don't increase the weight much, it's probably possible to increase the roll-over risk enough to make you worse off. But if you look at the data, you see that the deadliest vehicles are mostly compacts, and the safest ones are mostly SUVs. http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1096667_the-most-deadly-and-least-deadly-cars-in-america http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1096667_the-most-deadly... These differences are huge, like, factor of 100 huge.

whyaduck 11y ago
The numbers in that article (fatalities per vehicle model over a year) aren't terribly useful - fatalities per vehicle mile would have more value. In the end, though, there's little doubt that the U.S. roads are the host of a vehicle size arms race - build in as many safety features as you like, a sub-compact car will still lose the inertia battle with a massive SUV (likely carrying a single passenger).
bcoates 11y ago
Apparently I'm out of date -- SUVs and Pickups stopped dominating the death rates in the mid-2000s. Still, the fourfold decrease in fatality rates across the ten model-years the IIHS publishes (coinciding with a substantial increase in the share of vehicle-years for 'mini' sized vehicles) completely discredits the "balance of mass" theory of car fatalities. The stats that article links say that the 2011 mini cooper has driver fatality numbers that would have made it among the safest cars on the road in 2002. Eyeball regression says newer and pricier can explain essentially all of the safety differences, and vehicle size is at best a distant third. http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates