You can read the particulars and see some images in my article here...

http://blog.autoshopper.com/articles...-of-A-in-1989/

...but I'm not sure I should be so surprised. That Yukon gave my Custom Cruiser a hard lick dead on its left-front corner, and though you can see the height of the damage on the Yukon seems roughly as tall as the distance from the bumper's left strike-face to the painted header panel/fender peak, where the heck is the damage to my car?

I'm not complaining, of course, but I wanted to see how many of you had fender-benders that didn't bend YOUR fenders. Sure, the sheet metal and bumper on my car easily overpowered the Yukon's plastic, but the headlamp/cornerlamp surround is plastic, too, and it just shrugged off the blow.

I really hope that in the event that she/we are involved in a serious on-road, regular-speed crash that she'll fare just as well. But there's nowhere I can find post-crash stories or images of this having happened.

Everyone always jokes that these cars are built like tanks. Now I know that's more true than most people realize...

 

The one thing that really needs to be done to improve safety is to legislate the height of bumpers like they did in Germany. I don't care how safe a car is ... when you get hit by some jerk in an SUV who's bumper is up at your window ... you lose.

 

I know growing up in NJ, there were laws way back in the 70's pertaining to bumper height. I know here in Texas there are none or they are not enforced.

 

Nice article. I find it a little ironic that with today's plastic and composite vehicles we are touting the sturdy and heavy cars of the 80s. I remember when we were in the 80s we were lamenting on how the cars were flimsy and throw-away compared to the cars of days gone past.


Glad your CC shed off the brunt of the incident. What was the excuse the Yukon's driver gave for not seeing a giant grey square?

 

On weight ... I did the tour of people's car weights here when they started bugging me about my Parisienne. Parisienne's curb weight 3500lbs. One co-worker's 2013 mustang 3600lbs (no spare tire anymore). 2008 Charger Datona 3700. Boss's 2013 Ford Explorer .... 4500lbs. The talking stopped in a hurry.

 

While I agree on much of what you said in the article, I too had been a first responder for many years. There are certain aspects of the auto industry safety campaign that have absolutely benefitted society while others are a detriment. The main aspect was changing from the protect the car attitude to protect the occupants. The engineering of an auto is based on three things now, cost, safety of the occupants, fuel economy. In the past it was cost, building a sturdy foundation, and cosmetics. I had been to many accidents scenes over the years and am amazed at how many people had survived accidents that only years earlier ended in tragedy.


I wish more of todays vehicles would only incorporate some art and style into their products, if anything only to be able to tell them apart. I also yearn for a return to simplicity and not have so many electronic distractions that contribute to the chances of being involved in an accident. Jesus, you practically need a computer science degree to drive your car today let alone work on it.


I'm glad your car suffered minimal damage compared to the Yukon and the biggest repair on your end is your pride.

 

As an aside, you've got to love insurance companies. I drove to the local Progressive center, handed them the keys and police report and 20 mins later I had a check for $460.13. I tried to suss out how they arrived at that particularly-exact figure, and had to laugh at their system and its operation.

Somewhere in their system is the dealer price for each NOS item, but also the fact that you can't actually BUY them that way anymore, so it kicks out a "Part A = $20" message AND a "But you can't find one, so here's "X" amount extra" code. All the removing, refinishing and replacing stuff is a fixed amount (paint costs what it costs), but it seems the rarer the part, the more it's worth.

How it "knows" how rare something is is still a mystery, but I'm calling almost $500 for a paint touch-up job a win (and they waived my $500 deductible, too, as the car was parked at the time). I guess if I really had to find and buy bezels and whatnot on eBay or wherever I might not be so jazzed about it, but that's like 200 miles worth of fuel, free! [Or a carb rebuild so she doesn't waste so much gasoline. Yeah, that sounds like the better option.]

And if my math's right, I'm just one rear-ender from an entire engine rebuild! Hooray for "broad coverage" insurance policies!

 

Modern cars have much less glass area than earlier models too, so they are fitted with blind spot eliminators that don't quite satisfactorily address that issue.
We have just been shown an example of a dismal driving standard. Over time cars became much safer both at avoiding an accident in the first place, and protecting occupants in the event of a collision. Unfortunately as cars get safer they are driven more dangerously. In the UK the number of people killed in car wrecks only significantly dropped when wearing seat belts became compulsory despite cars being progressively safer as time went by. If the driver of the Yukon had been in a full size wagon which in the '50s thru '70s were roughly the equivalent transport, not fitted with all kinds of bells and whistles, perhaps she would have looked properly before her manoeuvre.
It seems modern safety designs are getting ever more complex for less and less reward.


Roger.

 

I believe this is what's referred to as the law of diminishing returns.

 

"Some jerk"? Just because someone has a vehicle that they can use to pull their camper trailer or boat, or even, gawd forbid, allow them to drive on unpaved, rutted forest service or similar primitive, unmaintained roads, makes them a jerk?

 

My car can pull 4500lbs, and the bumpers are down where they belong. And of the dozen or so so called SUVs in my work's parking lot right now, exactly one of them has ever been off road. I asked. But for the record ... the person driving said vehicle isn't necessarily a jerk. The person hitting my car is a jerk. He's a jerk for hitting my car. This particular jerk happens to be a jerk and driving a vehicle that negates every safety feature of my vehicle. That they might one day drive it on a dirt road for half a mile, IMHO, doesn't warrant them driving a vehicle that endangers others needlessly the other 364¾ days of the year.

So, to wrap up. Someone hits my car :Jerk. Someone hits my car driving an SUV: Jerk. Someone doesn't hit my car .... probably still a jerk, but unconfirmed. Someone doesn't hit my car while driving an SUV ... probably still a jerk, but unconfirmed.

 

Correct on all counts.

 

Modern cars are safer than their predecessors. One can assume that an older heavier car is more safe, but they'd be wrong. I work as an engineer for the largest automaker in the world, part of what I do involves crash protection, and I can categorically state that the cars are safer now.

Leaving aside obvious improvements like airbag systems, safety belts that now restrain via over-time restraints, and vehicle stability control, let's talk steel for a second. Bumpers used to be chromed metal, and now people say the bumpers are plastic. This is incorrect. While you can see an old bumper is sheet steel bolted to brackets bolted to the frame, what you can't see on a new vehicle is that that plastic thing is a COVER, not the bumper itself. Underneath the cover is a styro-plastic type foam support, then under that is an extruded piece of either steel or aluminum bolted to your frame or sub frame. That metal piece is the bumper, and it's stronger than the sheet metal chromed ones.

Second item, crumple zones. New cars are designed to collapse in a controlled fashion, dissipating the force of the crash before it gets to you. It's the same idea as driving a car with no suspension, just bolted to the axles. The road will beat the hell out of you. Just like the 60s frame was an improvement over the 50s frame, modern car steel is an improvement in terms of safety.

Now, the argument gets made "My old clunker is stronger and will hold up to something better." Maybe. The odds of being in a wreck that a new car would crumple, fail, and crush you, and an old car would not crumple, and probably break your neck via whiplash, are so small to be not a valid point. Reasoning being, if it's strong enough to overwhelm a modern car, it's probably strong enough to ruin an older tanky car, like a semi-truck running you over.

Is a new car going to "look worse" after a wreck? Sure, and that's because it just died for you. Yes, it will cost more to fix the car, but you can thank your healthy stars that you are not saddled with medical problems like whiplash, and crushed organs, and broken appendages. You can write off a car, but you can't write yourself off.

 

Sure, YOUR car can pull that much weight, but what NEW vehicle can do that?

Here's a few situations I just can't imagine your car doing very well in:







You get the point - not everyone goes camping at the KOA campground, so some folks need more ground clearance than the typical car.

 

If bumper heights were legislated equal, a Corvette bumper would have to be the same height as an SUV?

Ferrari = semi?

I vote no.

 

Fun, I could spend the next week making post after post, but you're not interested in changing your mind, so why bother. You know as well as I do that maybe 1 in 1000 raised vehicles will even see a dirt road, never mind attempting anything like what your pic show. My old '91 S-10 was rated at 6000lbs tow, and it's bumpers were down there too. Even full sized truck bumpers then were low. They were raised, not because everyone suddenly decided to go off-roading ... but because a bunch of designers decided it looked 'tuff', and a whole lot of people tired with the boring look of their minivans agreed.


There have been articles written already on how all the higher bumpers have mandated new cars have higher beltlines. It's been pointed out how those higher beltlines (and thicker pillars) have reduced visibility and actually increased the number of accidents. That's led to the recent flood of factory installed blind spot monitors, back up warning sensors and even back up cameras. Even systems that claim to read what's going on two cars ahead. Car manufacturers aren't developing and installing for the fun of it ... they're doing it in response to a problem.


You want an off road vehicle, be my guest ... but get it the hell off the road.

 

Beyond question, modern vehicles are much safer than they were, although blind spot monitors because of decreased glass area might be compared with adding bigger fans to compensate for a plugged radiator.
Unfortunately as cars have become safer, they are driven more dangerously.
The BBC in the UK commissioned a programme examining this phenomenon, the consensus reached by psychologists, medical consultants, automotive engineers, traffic police and other relevant experts in their fields, was that human nature has a natural tendency to accept a certain level of risk. The levels of what is an acceptable risk varies enormously from person to person, but the outcome is drivers take greater risks in safer cars.
Someone put it this way; "imagine you are driving a very dangerous car, a spike projecting from the steering wheel hub, brakes that barely work, and dismal roadholding and handling, no seat belts or other restraints. You would drive such a car with extreme caution, trying to anticipate every possible hazard that could come your way. Now imagine an extraordinarily safe car, one built in such a way it could be driven into a wall at 100 mph and leave the occupants unscathed. You would be much more tempted to take a chance in this car, knowing that should the worst happen you are very unlikely to get hurt."
What this boils down to is improving car safety always will be negated by their being driven less safely.
Volvo were the first car makers to use safety as a marketing strategy, apart perhaps for the short lived campaign by Ford in the late '50s. It worked very well for Volvo when they were the only one doing so, their cars WERE safer than most contemporary cars at the time, and they found a ready market with middle class safety conscious families. Now almost any car on the market today is much safer than Volvos finest back in the day. But people still get hurt and die in wrecks, the number of fatalities roughly in line with what is acceptable risk in the culture of the country in which they occur.
Arguing that we might as well not bother with improving car safety because we end up chasing out tails won't work, car safety has become an arms race, any car lagging much behind will rapidly gain a reputation for poor safety which will hurt sales.
Niche market cars don't necessarily come into this equation, outstanding performance or off-roading ability may mean they are bought by risk tolerant people. Also in the UK at least big 4x4 vehicle are often perceived as "safe" despite crash test evidence to the contrary.


In a minor fender bender or scrape such as described in the OP the old car came out on top, I don't think that would have happened in a head on 30 mph collision though, as Koda said, the modern car would have died for you.


Roger.

 

But Roger... You guys drive on the wrong side of the road. All kidding aside, most of these electronic gadgets were created for the minority of people who cannot or will not abide by simple safety rules and habits. Why do you need a backup camera, because people can't hike their butts out of the car to see if there's anything behind them or turn around and look out the rear window. Low tire pressure monitors, people can't check their own tire pressure. Advanced braking systems, for people who don't maintain proper following distance. The list goes on... now they want to develop cars that drive themselves. I think if there is a need for that then those folks need to look into mass transit and leave the driving to those of us who can.

 

I do agree that too much is being placed on the automaker, and not enough on the driver. Bad times make good people, the saying goes, but so does hard to use equipment make good operators. I don't normally like any sort of government intervention in anything, but pulling bad drivers over instead of just speeders and drunks would really help.

 

I would rather daily drive an old car any day.

 

That may be so on average (as in across the nation/globe), but where I live many, many of these vehicles are off-road doing that every weekend. The parking lot at work is full of lifted vehicles (probably 20% or more of nearly 1000 employees) that spend a lot of time off the paved roads. One of my co-workers mentioned once that he put more miles on his vehicle off pavement than on.

Now if we start talking about yuppie minivans and not real SUVs, than I agree with you.

 

About 12 years ago my wife was driving to work in our '97 Expedition, a plastic SUV if there ever was one. Traffic on the freeway had come to a stop and a woman in an Isuzu Rodeo wasn't paying attention hit her from behind at about 45mph. The Expy was pushed forward into a Dodge Neon and the Neon then impacted another import of some kind. After all the clean-up was done the Isuzu was dead! Spilled it's life fluids all over the road. The Neon had to be pulled off the front bumper of the Expy and the import was towed away too. Total damage to the Expy, a crooked emblem on the grill and some scratches to the rear bumper! Found out two days later that my wife was pregnant with CJ. She will drive an Expy as long as I can afford it.

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Just remember, a crumple zone in the new car benefits the occupants of both cars. As long as nothing in the old car penetrates the passenger compartment so as to injure an occupant, and as long as I'm hitting something that absorbs energy (ie, a car with a crumple zone), I'd prefer to be in a heavier, more rigid vehicle. Of course, newer cars are so loaded up with crap that quite often they're the heavier car. But I still benefit from their crumple zone.

 

I think that's fairly illogical, but whatever floats your boat.

 

I always felt the big tanks of the 50's 60's and early 70's would just crush todays new light weight cars. BUT, just google 'crash test 1960's chevy impala against 2013 chevy malibu" The test will make you sick. Ever since that video I have repaired my seat belts and drive just a bit more defensive.