Study: Compact Cars Have High Death Rates

[IGBT]

Text


Compacts had a fatality rate of 17.76 per 100,000 vehicles in 2004, followed by compact pickup trucks with 16.87 and subcompact vehicles with 16.85, according to a report Monday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Large vans had the lowest rate, 9.34, while pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles had rates of about 15 deaths.

 

[Strk]

I wonder what would happen if you broke it down by vehicle rather than vehicle type.

 

[MX2]

Now there's a news flash

 

[Rumpltzer]

Originally posted by: Strk
I wonder what would happen if you broke it down by vehicle rather than vehicle type.

I was wondering the same thing...

 

[NFS4]

In other news, Ellen Degeneres is a lesbian

 

[shimsham]

uh..no sh!t?

 

[ahurtt]

Thank you, Captain Obvious! You have saved us once again with your superhuman ability for stating common knowledge as if it were the discovery of the millenium! The world is in your debt, for without your confirmation of what we already know to be fact we would all be doomed to go through life never having the opportunity to say "Well duuuhh!"

 

[spidey07]

This is utterly mind blowing and fascinating news!

Who would have ever thought of such an incredible hypothesis?

Also it's good to know that SUVs are safer.

 

[acemcmac]

it would be far more insteresting to have this broken down by collission type. Compact vs Tree and SUV vs Tree would have similar rates I would think

 

[notfred]

Coincidentally young peple have high fatality rates. In unrelated news, young people are more likely to drive compact cars.

Oh, and have you heard about these people that like to streetrace in "sport compact" cars?

 

[Kelvrick]

Originally posted by: notfred
Coincidentally young peple have high fatality rates. In unrelated news, young people are more likely to drive compact cars.

Oh, and have you heard about these people that like to streetrace in "sport compact" cars?

Agreed. Plus, whats with the trucks all the way up there?

 

[Analog]

The problem with this is - who's driving these.. For instance, full size vans have the lowest - that's great, but who the hell drives those things anymore? Probably older people, or trades personnel - I'll bet not too many 18 - 28 year olds do. So the death rate is artificially low because of the demographics. Compacts are high? It would seem that SUB-compacts would be higher, but they're not. I still think the study should cut across demographics, instead of just a cut on per 100,000. My 2¢..

 

[spidey07]

I'm sure this could be cross referenced with demographic information such as "number of serious accidents via age group"

but it doesn't take anything more than a 4th grade education to figure out "less protection = more severe injury"

 

[davestar]

the stats i'd like to see are fatalities caused by each car type. in other words, what was the death rate for parties on the receiving end of an accident with SUV's, vans, pickups, compacts, etc.

 

[imported_nautique]

ellen is gay?!?!? Where the heck have I been?

 

[AMDZen]

Originally posted by: ahurtt
Thank you, Captain Obvious!

QFT

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Also it's good to know that SUVs are safer.

And the inability to read strikes again. From the article:

sport utility vehicles had rates of about 15 deaths
...
Death rates in all passenger cars dropped ... to 14.2

Conclusion: deaths rates for the average SUV are WORSE than the average vehicle. Yet you still claim SUVs are safer. :roll: What will it take for this stupid thought that MASS = safety to end? Proper location of mass = safety. Not just sheer mass itself.

My personal thought from this article is that all are about the same. 14, 15, 16, 17, or whatever, the rates are pretty close. Just a small percentage difference from type to type (unless you include large vans, but even then it isn't a terribly dramatic difference). Driver abilty thus probably has a bigger impact than vehicle type.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: spidey07
This is utterly mind blowing and fascinating news!

Who would have ever thought of such an incredible hypothesis?

Also it's good to know that SUVs are safer.

Um not by much. 16.87 vs 15 is not much of a difference.

 

[mugs]

Gee, an extra ~2 fatalities per 100k vehicles vs. SUVs, I better run out and buy an SUV or I'm irresponsibly endangering my family.

 

[AbAbber2k]

I'd like to see how many of those fatalities were from getting hit by an asshole in an SUV.

 

[conehead433]

Wonder how much freakin' money the government wasted on this study.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: conehead433
Wonder how much freakin' money the government wasted on this study.

Well, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a budget of $68 million for all forms of research (including crash testing, crash avoidance research, crash causation determination, etc). That gives an upper limit of $68 million for this study. Clearly, it won't be anywhere near that limit and most likely it was a very small fraction of that $68 million.

The total federal budget is ~$2.13 trillion. So, this study was a maximum of 0.0003% of the budget. And it was probably closer to 0.000001% of the federal budget.

If we assume you paid $10,000 in federal taxes, and if we pretend this study cost the full $68 million, then you paid 3 cents for the study. In reality, someone with a $10,000 federal tax bill probably paid closer to ~0.01 cents.