Another young driver crash,sad story, Hamble, Hampshire

[M4cruiser]

Sadly another young person has died on our roads (last Thursday, 5th December 2019).

She was 18 years old, and a passenger in a Toyota Aygo. The article doesn't say (yet) the age of the driver and other passengers, but local knowledge is saying they were all young people in the car.

Again I'm wondering the sense in our insurance rules which effectively put young and inexperienced people in small cars with no crumple zones. The Aygo maybe ok for a small car (3 to 4 stars) but these 4 people would surely have been safer in a Mondeo-sized car? There has to be a case for a low bhp larger car, for new drivers.

Some may have a view also on having 4 people in an Aygo at 9pm at night. This may resurrect the "curfew" style arrangements.

I know several young drivers round here who like the Group 1 insurance, and the low tax (CO2) and good fuel economy, but safety seems to come last in the list.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-50...

Our thoughts are with her friends and family. A difficult time for them.

[M4cruiser]

Supercilious Sid said:

M4cruiser said:

Sadly another young person has died on our roads (last Thursday, 5th December 2019).

She was 18 years old, and a passenger in a Toyota Aygo. The article doesn't say (yet) the age of the driver and other passengers, but local knowledge is saying they were all young people in the car.

.....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-50...

Our thoughts are with her friends and family. A difficult time for them.

When immature lads get behind the wheel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-34...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-26...

Both these earlier cases you have added are with powerful cars and with drink/drugs playing a part.

My original point about the cars is that low-power / low insurance cars tend to be the ones with nothing to absorb the g-forces, like the Up/Citigo/Mii/108/C1/Aygo.

A souped-up Civic or an RX8 (in those other cases) is not a low-power car, and the extra speed will offset the extra crumple zone.

Something like a 70bhp Mondeo or Focus should be on offer for young people. At the moment the bigger crumple zones come with more power, i.e. 120bhp in the Fords. We all know that such a poor 0-60 would get slated by the journalists, just as the 1.3 Cortinas and Sierras used to be. But it would be for a specific market, and if you want a faster one you can buy the 120bhp version (or more).

The Modus v Volvo wasn't quite the right test due to the age difference in the designs. A modern design will usually beat an older one.

[M4cruiser]

M4cruiser said:

Sadly another young person has died on our roads (last Thursday, 5th December 2019).

She was 18 years old, and a passenger in a Toyota Aygo. The article doesn't say (yet) the age of the driver and other passengers, but local knowledge is saying they were all young people in the car.
....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-50...

A small amount of further information has been released:

"Hampshire police is investigating the crash on School Lane, which happened shortly before 21:00 GMT.

The driver of the car, a woman aged 18, and two other passengers, both 17-year-old girls, were taken to hospital.

Police did not have details on their injuries."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-50...

https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2019-12-10/tribu...

[M4cruiser]

DoubleD said:

Whos going to buy a brand new Mondeo with 70bhp?!

..^^ the parents who currently buy brand new Aygos / 108s / Citigos / Ka's etc for their children.

[M4cruiser]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Very easy to figure out. When he has a big smash in his VRS, with 4 mates in the car, there's a good chance they will walk away from it. In the 1990 Mini, even in a slower accident, there's a good chance a couple will be seriously injured, with the massive injury claim that follows.

If I were an insurer, I'd wouldn't be covering young drivers in old cars, at any price.

^^ and this is my point, the bigger car protects better, if it's crashed at the same speed as the smaller one.

TwigtheWonderkid said:

A Winner Is You said:

Without doubt modern cars are safer, but I do wonder if they install a false sense of security by being so insulated and lacking feedback.

I hear this said, but personally I don't buy it. Young drivers don't drive like tts because they think their cars are safe and they won't be hurt if they smash it up. They drive like tts because they don't think they will crash, it won't happen to them, and they are immortal.

Just to be clear, in the Hamble case no one is officially saying (yet) what the Aygo's speed was, or what/who caused the crash. I'm just appalled that we still allow 4 young people to be out at night in such a small car; the oldest person in the car being only 18 means some lack of driving experience, no matter what else was going on.

[M4cruiser]

Robertj21a said:

M4cruiser said:

Just to be clear, in the Hamble case no one is officially saying (yet) what the Aygo's speed was, or what/who caused the crash. I'm just appalled that we still allow 4 young people to be out at night in such a small car; the oldest person in the car being only 18 means some lack of driving experience, no matter what else was going on.

Why should we stop 4 young people going out in a car together ? - we have no idea of the skills of the driver, or the drunken/drugged state - or not - of his friends. Although it's General Election day today I don't think that any manifesto suggested taking away our freedoms...........

There are already a lot of rules surrounding driving, and so there should be, because it's a serious business with potentially serious consequences. We already "stop" 16 year olds driving. We already "stop" learners going out on their own. It would be just an extension of those rules that currently allow people to be "introduced" to driving to encourage/mandate some progressive way of gaining experience. Pass-plus is all we've had so far, and although very limited and voluntary, it was a first step. Has it worked? Maybe it's time to extend it a bit.

[M4cruiser]

hyphen said:

M4cruiser said:

Again I'm wondering the sense in our insurance rules which effectively put young and inexperienced people in small cars with no crumple zones. The Aygo maybe ok for a small car (3 to 4 stars) but these 4 people would surely have been safer in a Mondeo-sized car? There has to be a case for a low bhp larger car, for new drivers.

They hit a tree.

A mondeo hitting a tree can also result in deaths. https://planetradio.co.uk/clyde/local/news/driver-...

Here a Range Rover "split into two" after hitting a tree. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/driv...

So if you hit a tree hard enough, it doesn't matter what you are in.

Yes, of course people do die in other types of cars. How fast was the Mondeo going in the first example? How fast was the Range Rover going in the second example?
It's still true that for the same speed the Mondeo would be safer than the Aygo if either of them hit a tree, assuming the two cars were the same build-year as well (a very old Mondeo may be worse than a very new Aygo). My point is that the larger cars currently get driven faster, because they can go faster, hence part of the reason for the larger insurance premium.
Hence my suggestion that a Mondeo sized car with the same performance as an Aygo would be a better bet for young drivers.

[M4cruiser]

rxe said:

If you’re hitting an immovable object like a tree, the only thing that matters is the g force on your chest. Pretty much any modern car can maintain the passenger cell up to 60 mph. The problem is that at 50G, your heart separates from its plumbing and it’s all over. A really big car with lots of crumple capacity will help a bit, but not enough.
...

A larger car with twice the crumple zone length will halve the g-forces compared to the small car.

[M4cruiser]

rxe said:

It does, to an extent. But the bigger car has more energy to dissipate in the first place. Even in a big car, you’re going to go from 60 to 0 in a metre, which kills you. Generally trees are very unforgiving of either large or small cars. Large cars definitely win out over small cars when trees are avoided, because you’re then going from 60 - 0 in about 5 meters. The occupants of the smaller car will go from 60 to zero in their crumple zone, and then start going backwards.

Yes, I agree so much with that last point, which is why the Fifth Gear's Modus vs Volvo is quite interesting (and similar exmaples, e.g. Smart ForTwo vs C-Class) where the small car goes backwards first, and twists more than twice as much as the large car.

As for the first bit, I don't think anyone is suggesting a high chance of survival in a 60 mph crash, but there is a speed against a tree where the small car's g-forces exceed a certain threshhold, whilst the big car at that speed doesn't. With a tree it may be 20mph, I don't know.

Regarding the Hamble incident, the police still haven't released any more information as far as I know, but no one is suggesting it happened at 60mph, just that it was on a 60mph road.

[M4cruiser]

M4cruiser said:

Regarding the Hamble incident, the police still haven't released any more information as far as I know, but no one is suggesting it happened at 60mph, just that it was on a 60mph road.

Inquest now opened, but it could be the end of May 2020 before we know more about what happened:-
https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18105884.inquest-...

[M4cruiser]

I see now that the locals are calling for a speed limit reduction on that road in Hamble.

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18118547.calls-re...