Originally posted by: Ornery
http://www.iihs.org/srpdfs/sr4003.pdfVehicle weight and the risk of death:
- Because vehicle size and weight are so closely related, it shouldn?t be surprising that their effects on driver death rates are similar. In each group (cars, SUVs, pickups) the heavier vehicles, like bigger ones, generally had lower death rates (see table, p. 7). The rate in the lightest SUVs, for example, was more than twice as high as in the heaviest SUVs. ?Pound for pound across the vehicle types, cars almost always have lower death rates than either pickups or SUVs. This generally is because the SUVs and pickups have much higher rates of death in single-vehicle rollover crashes,? Lund explains. In some weight groups, the death rates in cars were dramatically lower. For example, the rate in cars weighing 3,501 to 4,000 pounds was about half of the rates in pickups or SUVs of similar weight. The exception was light pick ups, which had relatively low rates compared with cars or SUVs weighing about the same. ?There?s no ready explanation for this exception,? Lund says. ?It probably has some thing to do with how light pickups are driven and their use patterns compared with larger and heavier pickups.
On topic: In 1974, our fvcktard consumers traded in their nice safe, heavy, V8, RWD, living rooms on wheels, for the econoboxes offered by Europe and Japan. All in the name of saving a few dollars per month in fuel. They weren't NEARLY as crashworthy as the behemoths that were traded in.
GM and Detroit in general, spent the next few decades trying to build econoboxes, and were always lagging behind. If consumers would have kept buying the land barges that was GMs bread & butter, they could have kept concentrating on improving those, and it would have been impossible for Japan to compete. It was another 15 years before Japan released a
V8, RWD sedan and the cost was insane! V8, RWDs were a dime a dozen until our consumers pulled the rug out. Great job! :|
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