4th Apr 2011, 14:46
I completely and totally agree. A Malibu and Fusion has NOTHING to do with a Yaris. They only reason they post is to dump on small cars because it makes them feel superior. Safety wise, they may have a point, but to claim a small car is not a real car, or it's a flimsy puddle jumper, is just throwing out insults with no fact behind it.
4th Apr 2011, 12:06
" The US has some of the strictest safety standards in the world. Thus it's totally inaccurate to say that a small econo car is by default- "flimsy". They're built exactly the same way as your Fusion: A rigid unibody construction with all the required safety features."
Not really. No small car can have the safety of a larger, heavier car. The laws of physics can't be broken, even by rigid safety requirements. That is the primary reason so many Americans prefer larger vehicles. No small car can provide the safety of a large SUV or pickup truck. Although I know we need to save gas, I feel much safer with my family in a large, truck-based SUV. My wife has been involved in two crashes over the past decade. Neither were her fault (she is an excellent driver). In each case her large SUV received virtually no damage while the other, smaller vehicles were totalled. We have lost several friends who were killed in small Japanese compacts in collisions with larger domestic vehicles. That is the reason most all of our friends insist that their children only drive truck-based SUV's or full-sized trucks. Of course this wastes millions of gallons of gas daily, but until our government takes the wise course of outlawing larger vehicles (which I totally believe it should), then most drivers will feel safer in more substantial vehicles.