"NHTSA also released new front- and side-impact crash test results for 10 sport-utility vehicles and cars.

In those tests, the BMW 3-series and the Mazda6 did worst, earning three stars for injuries caused to the driver in a side-impact crash. Three stars reflects an 11-percent to 20-percent chance of serious injury in a crash.

NHTSA noted that the damage caused to the crash test dummy in the BMW crash indicated a high likelihood of serious pelvic injury in an actual crash."

Oooops.



"A BMW spokesman wasn't immediately available for comment."

Wow... there's a surprise.



"The 2003 Toyota Tacoma pickup with an extended cab received the worst rollover rating of the vehicles tested, earning two stars on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's five-star scale."

***AHEM***

Toyota... trucks....

"A Toyota spokesman wasn't immediately available for comment."

They're probably trying to get him out from under his truck...

 

Wait a second, this can't happen to those perfect Japanese imports .
I like this new trend. The Japanese are creating dangerous vehicles while the Germans are making cars of questionable styling that are turning traditional customers away. Keep it up Europe and Asia!!!

 

Dont forget that the Germans are also slipping in quality too.

 

Japanese and Germans not perfect? That's un-possible!

I had to remind a bunch of idjits this weekend that the VWs they were talking up over "crappy American cars" had much, much worse JD Power long-term reliability ratings than GM. Even showed them the link.

So what'd they do? Started talking up Nissan! I then had to remind them the difference between Nissan's long-term rating and GM was statistically insignificant. To which they replied, "We still want a Morono."

Morons, all right.

 

What I'd like to know is how, say, a 1-star crash rating now compares to a 5-star rating from ten years ago.

I can say that both Honda and Toyota do some really cool stuff to protect their occupants, things that aren't federally-mandated (like collapsable pedal systems). I'm sure that others out there do similar things; I just haven't looked at them closely enough yet (I'm still waiting for my company to buy me an M5 or E55 so that I can properly study this sort of stuff ).

Funny how we haven't brought up the performance of the Alero, Cav, and Sunfire yet Nobody brought up the poor side-impact performance of the Honda Element, either, and that sounded like one of the worst out there.

 

I don't think I've ever once heard somebody say Japanese or European cars are consistantly safer than American cars.... even among these import-biased crowd this isn't anything I can recall having heard before.

All I can say is that, as Eric mentioned, compared to 10 years ago, even the least safe cars today are as safe as the most safe from back then.

Personally I've seen pretty good crash ratings for my car... and with the slew of airbags coming in at every direction in this car, I think even if it wasn't all that safe structurally, I would still be bouncing around like a baloon inside if something bad happened.

Too often I see people comparing the way too cars look after a crash as to which car is safer. Many people assume that if a car looks quite a bit more torn up than the other then it wasn't safe. But that's not always the case. Force spread out over a long time of impact is much less deadly... so the car that crumples more is more likely to let its occupants survive (to an extent of course).

 

Here's a sad fact of sutomobile safety...

As a general rule, the heavier vehicle is the safer vehicle.

The propensity of SUV's to roll over (generally due to driver error), offsets this a bit in their case, but in cars it is a rock-solid statement.

There's a saying in racing concerning hitting another car:

"Be the cue ball."

 

Here is the link to the NHTSA page.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/nhtsa/annou...e=pr31-03.html

So the BMW is a deathtrap because it' lowest impact was three stars.

The Century, Monte Carlo, Regal, And the new Grand Prix also earned three stars in the same test.

Last years GP earned 2 stars.

The Sunfire, Grand Am, Alero and Cavalier have one star.

 

No, because it has the nasty habit of crushing pelvises (sp?).

Lighten up.


Also, the following are the only 2003 cars tested:

"New model year 2003 crash test ratings for side impact are for the BMW 325 4x4 four-door utility, Honda Element 4x4 four-door utility, Kia Sorento 4x4 four-door utility, Mazda 6 four-door, Mercedes C240 four-door, Mitsubishi Outlander 4x4 four-door utility, Nissan Murano 4x4 four-door utility, Saab 9-5 four-door and the Volvo XC90 4x4 four-door utility."

One more thing:

The Impala beat the 3-series across the board.

 

How does the Monte do so bad if the Impala has a 5 star?

 

The Monte actually does not do bad. It has the same as the Impala except for the side impact-front seat rating, which is one notch lower than Impala... (3 star vs 4 star)

I'd imagine this has to do with the 2-door vs. 4-door somehow... though I won't pretend to be an engineer.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/NCAP/Cars/2003MidS.html

 

I'm constantly amazed at the race to have the heaviest vehicle on the road, though. One would think that my Impala would qualify as "heavy", until you realize that a diesel Excursion has about 3500 lbs on it

I was happy to see the head of NHTSA speaking out on driver training and awareness, even though we'll probably see little to no improvement in this area for a long time to come.

 

3 series 4 5 3 5
Impala 5 5 4 4

The Impala beat the 3 series in two tests. Tied it in one and lost in one test.

You concider this beating it across the board?

 

The Impala ratings are 5 5 4 4 4
3-series ratings are 4 5 3 5 4

Let me correct that:

The Impala beat the 3-series in 2 categories, tied in 2 and lost by 1 point in one.

Better?

 

What did F-bodies score?