RE: SUVs - Dangers Revealed
Tuesday 22nd July 2003
SUVs - Dangers Revealed
More likely to roll over - no surprise there then
Discussion
PistonHeads said:Err... so you're more likely to die if you're driving a car in collision with an SUV, while the SUV occupants get away with whiplash and a good story? This is hardly going to discourage people from buying SUVs, is it? Surely it's going to have the opposite effect.
Head on collisions ... were also responsible for many deaths of car occupants (three times more than occupants of the larger vehicles).
PistonHeads said:Well, you can see why!
Cars are safer than they've ever been - yet buyers are deserting them in droves.
derestrictor said:
And other 'official reports and studies' show how effective scameras are in reducing serious RTAs too.
Tenuous pretext for outlawing Hummers et al, methinks.
Let's look at the people behind the wheel before breaking up the machines, whaddya reckon?
I totally agree. I have had 5 Suzuki SUV's so far and never rolled one as I know what speed I can go round corners at.
Get the idiots out from behind the wheel of the SUV's and I bet they will still be able to roll a gokart....
I don't see why just because some people can't drive I should have my choice of vehicle taken away from me.
Claire
How do you intend to gauge who's stupid though?
You can't say 'keep the idiots out' without some means of deciding who's an idiot.
Some of these SUVs are insane. They're huge, unwieldy, have longer braking distances than cars and carry a lot more punch when they hit you.
I'm all for choice, but how can a 5 tonne truck have LESS stringent regulations applied to it than a SMART???
You can't say 'keep the idiots out' without some means of deciding who's an idiot.
Some of these SUVs are insane. They're huge, unwieldy, have longer braking distances than cars and carry a lot more punch when they hit you.
I'm all for choice, but how can a 5 tonne truck have LESS stringent regulations applied to it than a SMART???
Ok, lets ban all sports cars as well because they can go under other vehicles in an accident and kill people.
We've done this to death before, it's not the SUV it's the idiot driver that's the problem whether they're in a car or van or bus or SUV or 4x4.
As Claire says - just drive with consideration for the vehicle you're in.
I can't see the point in half of these expensive Beemer and Merc softroaders but I'm in favour of freedom of choice.
We've done this to death before, it's not the SUV it's the idiot driver that's the problem whether they're in a car or van or bus or SUV or 4x4.
As Claire says - just drive with consideration for the vehicle you're in.
I can't see the point in half of these expensive Beemer and Merc softroaders but I'm in favour of freedom of choice.
Americans and Rap/HipHop "artists" and SRM's
They are the ones who buy the most rediculas ones. Hummers and those Ford Ecplores/Expititons are ...well words fail me.
I was watching MTV cribs and out of the whole week (about 4 houses per episode) there wre 2 that didnt have an oversided tonka truck - one guy had jacked his up to be Monster Truck style...!!!
My GV2000 is perfectly safe. It has no ABS, no EPS no ABC or 123. It does however have a driver with a brain.
Claire
They are the ones who buy the most rediculas ones. Hummers and those Ford Ecplores/Expititons are ...well words fail me.
I was watching MTV cribs and out of the whole week (about 4 houses per episode) there wre 2 that didnt have an oversided tonka truck - one guy had jacked his up to be Monster Truck style...!!!
My GV2000 is perfectly safe. It has no ABS, no EPS no ABC or 123. It does however have a driver with a brain.
Claire
I always remember a programme I saw a good 20-odd years ago. It sticks in my woolly recesses because of one particular image.
It was a bog standard, everday double decker bus being subjected to what I can only recall being a 'tilt test,' whereby the aforementioned mode of indescribably hateful conveyance was gradually hoisted at an increasingly precarious angle upon a hydraulically motivated steel slab.
Suffice it to say, it went through some impossible angle before the slab was brought back to the horizontal and amazingly, the Clapham 27 remained upright.
I can well understand peoples' contempt for 4x4s, driven as they are by some of the most arrogant, formerly shell suited dweebs in the Kingdome but Newtonian physics aside, I have to defend the right of people who probably should know better (
) to have access to these lumps because they can sometimes be quite a hoot.
It was a bog standard, everday double decker bus being subjected to what I can only recall being a 'tilt test,' whereby the aforementioned mode of indescribably hateful conveyance was gradually hoisted at an increasingly precarious angle upon a hydraulically motivated steel slab.
Suffice it to say, it went through some impossible angle before the slab was brought back to the horizontal and amazingly, the Clapham 27 remained upright.
I can well understand peoples' contempt for 4x4s, driven as they are by some of the most arrogant, formerly shell suited dweebs in the Kingdome but Newtonian physics aside, I have to defend the right of people who probably should know better (
) to have access to these lumps because they can sometimes be quite a hoot. I think its true that some people buy these specifically because they know they are likely to have an accident (because they are not good drivers) and the SUV will reduce their likelehood of serious injury or death.
Typical "I'm alright Jack" behaviour, and no less than you'd expect these days.
I think crash testing needs to assess the damage caused *by* a vehicle in a crash as well as the damage caused to it. More importantly there should be a crash test into a child sized dummy, and a survivable impact speed measured. How many parents could live with themselves if their SUV would kill a child in, say, a 10mph impact as opposed to a 30mph impact?
Typical "I'm alright Jack" behaviour, and no less than you'd expect these days.
I think crash testing needs to assess the damage caused *by* a vehicle in a crash as well as the damage caused to it. More importantly there should be a crash test into a child sized dummy, and a survivable impact speed measured. How many parents could live with themselves if their SUV would kill a child in, say, a 10mph impact as opposed to a 30mph impact?
whatever the pros and cons of SUVs, if I lived in an area with serious traffic calming (bumps, chicanes etc) then my next car would be an SUV.
And of course, with a bullbar and the other aspects of SUV (un)safety I'd be set up for rolling over small children with impunity.
Read my lips, transport nobbers: Speed Bumps beget SUVs beget More Serious Accidents.
And let's not overlook the strong possibility that a lot of SUV drivers are in fact the least competent of motorists. Of course there are some people who drive capably and have a good reason to use an SUV, but a lot of them are bought for by husbands/fathers for wives who can't drive, in order to protect the children from their mother's ineptitude.
Speed Kills, My Arse!
>> Edited by CarZee (moderator) on Tuesday 22 July 16:30
And of course, with a bullbar and the other aspects of SUV (un)safety I'd be set up for rolling over small children with impunity.
Read my lips, transport nobbers: Speed Bumps beget SUVs beget More Serious Accidents.
And let's not overlook the strong possibility that a lot of SUV drivers are in fact the least competent of motorists. Of course there are some people who drive capably and have a good reason to use an SUV, but a lot of them are bought for by husbands/fathers for wives who can't drive, in order to protect the children from their mother's ineptitude.
Speed Kills, My Arse!
>> Edited by CarZee (moderator) on Tuesday 22 July 16:30
SUV's are popular in the US because they are the vehicles the manufactures are pushing to sell. Why... because they make the most money on them. As someone previously stated SUV's don't have to comply to many of the strict safety restrictions placed on cars in the US and therefore are cheaper to manufacture.
The reason for this is they are classed in the 'light truck' category, (pickup trucks, vans etc), which typically didn't carry passengers and were, (stll are), exempt from many of the safety requirements of cars. And with the strong motor lobby in the US this isn't likely to change even though more people are dying as a result.
The reason for this is they are classed in the 'light truck' category, (pickup trucks, vans etc), which typically didn't carry passengers and were, (stll are), exempt from many of the safety requirements of cars. And with the strong motor lobby in the US this isn't likely to change even though more people are dying as a result.
lucky said:
SUV's are popular in the US because they are the vehicles the manufactures are pushing to sell. Why... because they make the most money on them. As someone previously stated SUV's don't have to comply to many of the strict safety restrictions placed on cars in the US and therefore are cheaper to manufacture.
The reason for this is they are classed in the 'light truck' category, (pickup trucks, vans etc), which typically didn't carry passengers and were, (stll are), exempt from many of the safety requirements of cars. And with the strong motor lobby in the US this isn't likely to change even though more people are dying as a result.
This argument suggests that the safety issue is concerned with the occupants rather than the bystanders being impaled left, right and centre.
Yet I had thought the objection arose from the damage caused to others?
Are we by inference, suggesting that white van man is somehow less of a menace than Mumsy McSchoolrun? Now that's a theory I'd have to take issue with!
Simple 
- what about an SUV driving licence?
The things are sufficiently different to regular motors ito the dimensions and weights involved so really, why not?
(Especially when you consider that many [sexist comment alert] 4x4 drivers might, how can I put this, have graduated from more traditional school run automotive fodder - like the humble Fiesta, et al?)
- what about an SUV driving licence? The things are sufficiently different to regular motors ito the dimensions and weights involved so really, why not?
(Especially when you consider that many [sexist comment alert] 4x4 drivers might, how can I put this, have graduated from more traditional school run automotive fodder - like the humble Fiesta, et al?)
derestrictor said:
(Especially when you consider that many [sexist comment alert] 4x4 drivers might, how can I put this, have graduated from more traditional school run automotive fodder - like the humble Fiesta, et al?)
Hey - my first car was a 1.3 Fiesta albeit a TVR special then I went onto a SJ410, SJ413, 2 Vitara Sports and now the GV2000.
Claire
Sorry Claire - there's nowt wrong with the Fiesta in the slightest - I was clumbsily attempting to suggest that climbing out of a 'town car' into something designed to make small work of The Gobi Desert, might be requiring of our common sense police to consider as target material for driver ability assessment...or something!
I shall make for the hat stand.
I shall make for the hat stand.
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