15th Jan 2007, 08:54
100% fallacy and you are simply deluding yourself and putting your family in severe danger.
SUVs have substantially weaker body structures (safety cell, what's that?) since they are made to conform to LESS stringent safety standards thanks to lobbying by the automakers.
Don't believe me? Check out all the statistics on SUV accidents vs. those with cars. SUVs are deathtraps and always have been.
15th Jan 2007, 09:43
More myths. Guess you'll have to explain to us how the SUV is so safe with seatbelts when it rolls over and its roof caves in killing its belted passengers.
As for safety, you'll also to explain why SUV makers DELIBERATELY made their vehicle heavier to avoid the regulations that allowed heavier vehicles to avoid strict safety requirements. FACT.
And only recently did SUVs even being offering airbags and rollover protections.
You'll also have to explain why all SUVs have government warnings about how the vehicle does not drive like a normal car and behaves differently. I mean, if everyone is wearing their seatbelts (as is required in states like Mass. and CA) why have the warning? Oh, that's right, SUVs are UNSAFE to begin with.
Also, I recommend you take a basic physics course. It will help you understand such concepts as high center of gravity, the handling characteristics of wide off road tires, and other factors that make SUVs rolling deathtraps.
15th Jan 2007, 10:10
You guys are the ones vulnerable because you work at the factory that builds these gasoholics.
16th Jan 2007, 08:57
<< Also everyone is so quick to talk about the amount of petrol that SUV's use what about the large executive cars; BMW, Mercedes etc.>>
Sorry, but SUVs represent 60% of the car market and gas guzzling luxury cars (which actually PAY a gas guzzler tax) represent something like 3 - 5% of the market.
If these people can afford to pay for SUVs they can afford to pay their fair share of gas guzzler tax, CO2 emission tax (like in England), higher insurance premiums (to compensate for their inordinate accident claims), and more.
16th Jan 2007, 10:55
Not even Japanese car companies can defy the laws of physics. A larger, more massive vehicle will always come out better in a crash with a smaller, more poorly constructed vehicle.
The cute commercials showing little animals inside the unibody of a Civic are especially ludicrous. The Civic doesn't even HAVE a frame as such.
Truck based SUV's have MASSIVE, boxed rail frames that are NOT going to crumple AT ALL in collisions with little tin cars. A large (or even mid-sized) truck based SUV that hits a small car at highway speed is going to keep right on going. The smaller vehicle will either be crumpled or violently tossed out of the path of the SUV (usually a combination of both).
In either case, the occupants of the car, if not immediately crushed, are subjected to FAR more G-forces than the occupants of the SUV, which continues to move for several seconds after either demolishing or tossing the car aside.
This is simply physics. Do the math or get someone well versed in physics to do it for you, but don't keep endangering the lives of people who might read these comments and be persuaded (falsely) to regard themselves as safe in a smaller vehicle.
Personally, I HATE SUV's, but as long as they are the most prevalent vehicle on the road, my family is going to be in one. It's a matter of self-defense.
16th Jan 2007, 14:39
Sorry, but you are 100% wrong and accident statistics over the past five+ years bear that out.
If your theory held any water, accident deaths would go UP when smaller cars were introduced (1960's on), yet they went DOWN due to safety innovations. They have ONLY gone up recently due to SUVs, not cars, as they were on a constant spiral downward until the deathtraps became popular.
17th Jan 2007, 15:46
I'm STILL waiting for someone to cite all those "facts" that show more people are killed in SUV's. Of course, I don't expect to see them because there are none.
17th Jan 2007, 16:50
So, small cars were introduced in the 1960's, were they? Don't you think the drop in deaths could be due to the mandatory 55 mph speed limit, and the mandatory use of seat belts, rather than precious small Toyota cars being so much "safer" than large cars?
17th Jan 2007, 19:54
G-control protection exceeds governmental regulations and sets its own safety standard. The Civics's impact absorbing structure is based on this technology. So, lets not compare different vehicles with different safety standards.
Honda supplies advanced active safeguards- such as VSA, and ABS with EBD that work in synergy to help avoid driving hazards.
Moreover, Honda surrounds you with advanced passive shielding that offers an occupant survival zone in an unavoidable collision. It does care for your welfare.
Inside the Civic, you're protected by a combination of sophisticated passive safety systems- including dual SRS airbags, front side airbags with Occupant Position Detection System which optimizes airbags deployment, active headrests with neck-shock mitigation, and pretension-equipped seat belts.
I have been in an accident where my BMW 318 somersaulted in the air 3 times before landing a junction away from the site of collision and I survived it.
Lets put all that aside. If your time is up you will die despite all the safety measures a car can provide.
For the price that you are paying for the Civic it guarantees safety and performance. Personally, if I had the cash I will buy myself a new Civic.
17th Jan 2007, 21:31
Now I've seen it ALL!! comment 14:39 says that you CAN defy the laws of physics!!
18th Jan 2007, 08:04
Funny how your time is more up driving an SUV than any other vehicle (except compact pickups).
18th Jan 2007, 20:57
Although I don't drive an SUV, and don't like them because they are wasteful and block the view of other drivers, there is no way I can conceive of how so many people can argue that they are not as safe as small cars.
As an engineer and amateur astronomer, who knows a great deal about physics, it actually scares me to see people who honestly seem to think that small cars without rigid frames are SAFER than large vehicles with heavy, boxed steel frames and TWICE the mass!!
I don't care how many fancy names Honda comes up with for its supposedly "safe" design, I can assure you if you are hit by a Ford Excursion doing 80 in a Civic, you WON'T fare as well as the folks in the Excursion.
I'd love to see ALL large SUV's outlawed so the roads WOULD be safer (and we'd save millions of gallons of gas), but until such time making insane arguments about smaller cars being safer won't change the FACT that big, solid things will squish little, flimsy things.
14th Jan 2007, 20:52
I have to agree that SUV's do pose a serious threat to smaller vehicles, as well as draining our country of much-needed oil reserves. However, until such time as our government sees fit to outlaw them (as I think it should), I will continue to keep my family in one for their own protection.
Even many of our friends are now insisting that their teenage children drive SUV's in order to be safer in the event of an accident. Having seen several SUV/car crashes we've never seen one in which an SUV occupant was even slightly injured. In most cases the cars they hit were almost unrecognizable as cars and in several cases the car drivers and passengers had serious injuries. In one case involving a friend of ours a small import went out of control and crossed a median, hitting our friend's Chevy Tahoe head on. The Tahoe had hardly a dent and our friend was only shaken up, but the driver of the small car nearly died and was in the hospital for a long time in spite of the fact that she had her seat belts on and her car had air bags.
Large vehicles just protect their occupants better. Anyone who argues otherwise has obviously never seen one involved in an accident with a car. Small Japanese cars are especially vulnerable due to the thinner gauge metal and weaker body structures.