[HN Gopher] How do cars fare in crash tests they're not specific...
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How do cars fare in crash tests they're not specifically optimized
for? (2020)
Author : ndr
Score : 91 points
Date : 2021-11-11 15:22 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (danluu.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (danluu.com)
| Dunedan wrote:
| A month ago Tesla published a video showing their Crash Lab:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KR2N_Q8ep8
|
| What they claim to do there is to use their real world data to
| try to optimize for real crashs and not for crash tests.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I heard from my wife that cars are designed for men-- that is,
| the crash test dummies are all designed to represent "the average
| male". I was really surprised by this.
|
| https://kjonnsforskning.no/en/2019/06/cars-are-still-designe...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| What country is that? Definitely not the US. You can read about
| the different types here: https://www.nhtsa.gov/nhtsas-crash-
| test-dummies
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| That only changed relatively recently. I think in the last
| decade? Volvo was the only company testing on female dummies
| for much longer. They are the only company doing testing with
| models of pregnant women.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevetengler/2021/02/16/volvo-c.
| ..
| syrrim wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they use two crash test dummies, one
| representing the 95% man, and another for the 5% woman. This
| was mentioned when I did a course on product design a few years
| ago. The article you linked seems terribly biased, and I
| wouldn't treat it as particularly reliable.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The latter being true doesn't really make the former true. If
| you have one dummy that represents the average male, you're not
| doing a good job designing for men either.
| MaxBareiss wrote:
| Not all crash test dummies are 50th percentile males[1]. In the
| United States:
|
| Regulatory Frontal: 50th male in front-left and front-right, or
| 5th female in front-left and front-right
|
| Regulatory Side, struck by SUV: 50th male
|
| Regulatory Side, struck by pole: 50th male
|
| NCAP Frontal: 50th male in front-left, 5th female in front-
| right
|
| NCAP Side, struck by SUV: 50th male in front-left, 5th female
| in rear-left
|
| NCAP Side, struck by pole: 50th male
|
| As you can see, most tests are done with male dummies, and
| almost no females dummies are drivers. Fortunately, there's
| money that's just been allocated by Congress for doing more
| female dummy testing.
|
| [1] Also important to note that, at least in the United States,
| the percentiles were determined in the 80s and Americans have
| gotten fatter.
| danielvf wrote:
| As a kid in the 1990's, I got to go to the biggest crash test
| facility in the US, the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety.
| There were crash dummies of different sizes all the way down to
| kids and infants.
|
| Here's a list of current US dummies, including average males,
| extra small females, kids, etc:
|
| https://www.nhtsa.gov/nhtsas-crash-test-dummies
| kube-system wrote:
| The IIHS is always ahead of the curve. They're sponsored by
| insurance companies, so they have a huge incentive to reduce
| injuries. (It's amazing what can be done when billionaires
| have their incentives align with a greater good)
|
| But, they have no power to regulate. Vehicles that do poorly
| under IIHS testing are completely legal, they simply get
| named-and-shamed. Sometimes I wonder how lax NHTSA testing
| would be if it weren't for the comparison point which is the
| IIHS.
| brigade wrote:
| On the other hand, because they're sponsored by car
| insurance companies, they only care about injuries from
| impacts.
|
| Like how them changing their whiplash tests _caused_ neck
| pain and injuries for anyone significantly outside their
| test dummies. But because they 're not caused by an impact,
| but rather because they fail cars that allow the user to
| adjust head restraints to be less effective for the median
| posture, they don't care.
| PeterisP wrote:
| I think it's appropriate to consider that this particular test
| ("driver-side small overlap") is not a random situation to which
| the car simply isn't specifically optimized for, but rather a de
| facto adversarial example - the particular model of accident was
| chosen because people observed that this type of accident seems
| to cause a lot of injuries, i.e. that this test intentionally
| targeted a specific known weakness of the current cars; so it's
| no wonder that the initial test results confirmed that.
|
| If the average car would already (pre-modifications) do well in
| driver-side small overlap situations, then this type of crash
| would simply not get chosen for extra testing.
| ericpauley wrote:
| > All of those models scored Good on the driver side small
| overlap test, indicating that when Honda increased the safety on
| the driver's side to score Good on the driver's side test, they
| didn't apply the same changes to the passenger side.
|
| This is an especially concerning observation for Honda. I'm
| curious if there's any more detail on this or if there's a
| plausible reason aside from gaming the benchmarks (e.g., the
| positioning of firewall-forward components might naturally favor
| small-overlap protection on the driver's side, or a steering-
| wheel mounted airbag would naturally perform better than dash-
| mounted).
| ben7799 wrote:
| The article is just flat wrong about Honda.
|
| The small overlap tests started in 2013, most of the Hondas
| already scored "Good" in the small overlap tests by 2013.
|
| The Author awards BMW and M-B excellent status for correcting
| their problems by 2017, but most of their cars were
| Poor/Marginal for 4 years.
|
| Somehow Honda is worse for having most of their models "Good"
| in 2013 with only a few models having issues.
|
| The Civic and the Accord for example have never been tested as
| anything but "Good" in these tests, whereas comparing them to
| the BMW 3-series and M-B C Class those cars tested out as
| "Poor" or "Marginal" for 4-5 years before they were corrected.
| The Pilot by comparison did have problems.
|
| How this equates to BMW/M-B being great and Honda being
| problematic is terrible.
|
| Note the author in his notes doesn't denote which
| cars/trucks/SUVs in which model years he's actually talking
| about, making it impossible to figure out how he's judging the
| brands. Most of doing well on these tests tended to have to do
| with where in the redesign cycle a manufacturer was with a
| particular car/truck/SUV.
| mattlondon wrote:
| I agree this seems especially odd since Honda are Japanese and
| in Japan the driver sits on the right (as they do in the UK,
| Australia, NZ and some others). I doesn't make sense for them
| to skimp on driver-side protection in these markets.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Honda domestic models are actually not as ubiquitous as you
| might think in Japan. They're typically larger than your
| average kei car; the roads are narrower, the speed limit is
| lower, and the crash safety standards just aren't the same as
| other countries.
| kube-system wrote:
| The current generation Accord went on sale in the US more
| than 2 years before it went on sale in Japan. There aren't
| any factories even producing the Accord in Japan. Any of
| them that exist there are imported. It's primarily a car
| designed for the US (and other) markets.
|
| The most popular Honda and Toyota models are just as
| American (or more so) than anything the Big 3 produces.
| Some of them are even designed in Detroit.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It seems like, even if intentional, that it's a sensible
| optimization. Among multi-car collisions, drivers' side small
| offset collisions I'd expect to be vastly more common than
| passenger side small offset collisions.
|
| In both single and multi car collisions, we will assume there's
| a driver in all cars, but less than 100% chance for there to be
| a front-seat passenger in all cars.
| flyingfences wrote:
| The question then arises whether they apply those
| optimizations to the same or to opposite sides in left-hand-
| drive vs. right-hand-drive markets.
| mywittyname wrote:
| It's very likely. The difference between RHD and LHD models
| are much more extreme than is obvious. Vehicles have to be
| designed with chirality in mind, but not everything can
| just be moved to the other side of the vehicle, for
| example, a FWD car usually has the engine orientation fixed
| regardless of market, which is going to cause asymmetries.
| dotancohen wrote:
| You'll sometimes see a real tight engine compartment,
| with a huge gap where the master cylinder and brake
| booster will go in the RHD models. I think that the
| 1990's Camaros and Firebirds had this peculiarity.
|
| It also meant that changing the right hand side
| sparkplugs was a breeze, but the left side required
| either dropping the engine or drilling the firewall.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Despite having owned two f-bodies, I never knew they were
| available in RHD.
| mywittyname wrote:
| The small overlap test is designed for situations where cars
| hit one-another, head on, on a narrow two lane road. So making
| changes only to the driver's side makes some sense here,
| because it's always the driver's sides that impact in this
| test. It's less "optimizing for the test" and more "optimizing
| for results", as these accidents used to be the most deadly
| type of accidents.
|
| Additionally, this is a really, really difficult test to pass,
| which is why everyone failed it. Even the revisions didn't help
| too much because there's not much that can be done to an
| existing chassis other than add a deflection bar or something.
| True success here requires ground up engineering.
| MaxBareiss wrote:
| My understanding is that these companies were gaming the
| benchmarks, but one possible justification is that many
| vehicles have only one occupant: the driver. Adding weight and
| reinforcements for a seating position that's typically
| unoccupied may seem at least partially unjustifiable.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > Unfortunately, if we get into a car accident, we don't get to
| ask the driver of the vehicle we're colliding with to change
| their location, angle of impact, and speed, in order for the
| collision to comply with an IIHS, NHTSA, or *NCAP, test protocol.
|
| I'm smitten with the stupid idea of teaching your self-driving
| car that when a crash can't be avoided it should attempt to make
| the crash as close as possible to the nearest crash test protocol
| of the jurisdiction it's operating in.
| MaxBareiss wrote:
| Modern vehicles have seatbelt pre-tensioners to get drivers as
| close to the tested crash position as quickly as possible. Some
| vehicles also move the seat position before a crash to get you
| closer to the test position as well.
| eunoia wrote:
| My 2019 Volvo XC40 pre-tensions the seatbelts and moves the
| seats like this.
|
| I didn't know it was a feature until I nearly got rear ended
| waiting on a left turn and the car went into rear impact
| protection mode. (Other driver veered off at the last
| second). It was quite impressive tbh.
|
| Edit: For the curious:
|
| https://www.volvocars.com/lb/support/manuals/xc90/2018w46/dr.
| ..
|
| https://www.volvocars.com/en-
| th/support/manuals/v60/2017w17/...
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Some cars actually do change their geometry prior to a crash!
| Things like raise the suspension on the side about to be
| impacted so the car is higher!
| turtlebits wrote:
| Mercedes interestingly has a system to protect your ears by
| playing a sound pre-crash as well.
|
| https://www.mercedesbenzofnatick.com/new-features-
| mercedes-b...
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I lilke the concept, but suspect it won't ever happen because
| the increased liability is too high.
|
| If the self-driving tries, and it worsens the impact somehow,
| bigger lawsuit. If the self-driving fails to do so, bigger
| lawsuit.
|
| And it might sound "insane" that a best attempt could result in
| worse liability than no attempt, but unfortunately there is a
| lot of legal precedent to back up the idea.
|
| PS - Although legislation could make self-driving manufacturers
| immune from increased liability for these "best effort"
| systems.
| jhgb wrote:
| > when a crash can't be avoided it should attempt to make the
| crash as close as possible to the nearest crash test protocol
| of the jurisdiction it's operating in
|
| Like quickly put a dummy in your seat and throw you out?
| ketralnis wrote:
| My motorcycle safety course said that in a car accident the
| safest place for you is inside the car in the middle of all
| of those airbag deployments, but in a motorcycle accident the
| safest place is to be thrown as far away from all of the
| spinning colliding sliding bending grinding metal as possible
| deckard1 wrote:
| Being away from other cars is one thing, but how you get
| there is another.
|
| There are only two ways to go down on a motorcycle. High-
| side or low-side. Pretty sure most people would prefer low-
| side if they ever had to pick. I had a high-side crash on a
| bicycle once. Luckily it was a grass field with soft dirt.
| Had to go home and change my pants after that one.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| This is half-true.
|
| Getting run over by a car after going down is a bad day.
|
| The real technique, in my opinion (I have been down a few
| times), is to use the brakes to take off as much speed as
| possible while, if you can, bringing both the bike and
| yourself off the roadway and onto a shoulder or median.
|
| And always: legal or not, lane split into stopped traffic
| so that it's an instinct. More than once the car in front
| of me has slammed his brakes on and I've split in next to
| him, only for him to be rear-ended by the car which was
| behind me.
|
| Much better to be next to a car that is rear-ended than to
| be behind one.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| One of my older brothers had that policy -- if at all
| possible he pushed away from the bike as hard as he could
| when it was clear an accident was unavoidable. He actually
| used that strategy twice, believe it or not. Worked
| swimmingly both times, which could just be chance.
| fencepost wrote:
| _Worked swimmingly both times, which could just be
| chance._
|
| Survivor bias. The people that it didn't work for don't
| get to tell you how well it worked.
| mcny wrote:
| My dad used to always tell me the story of someone in our
| extended family who got in an accident while riding his
| bike (he had his helmet on) and rode his bike himself to
| the hospital only to die the same day.
| jeffbee wrote:
| This is one of those feral motorcyclist myths (another
| one is "loud pipes save lives"). It's just a weird meme
| that there's some critical point at which it is optimal
| to throw your bike down and leap clear. That's nonsense.
| It's always optimal to stay on the bike and brake as hard
| as possible up to the moment of impact. Always. The
| energy necessary to get the bike into an intentional low-
| side dismount so you can jump clear is always better
| spent dumping kinetic energy into the brakes, with the
| bike fully upright and the front wheel fully loaded.
|
| Another completely insane motorcyclist meme is if you are
| inevitably going to strike an animal in the road, it's
| better to hit it in a wheelie, that is, with the front
| wheel raised off the ground. Again: insane.
| orangepurple wrote:
| When you jump off the bike you lose kinetic energy over a
| larger distance than in a vehicle impact due to skidding
| over tarmac
| jeffbee wrote:
| You don't personally have the strength to significantly
| change your vector. If you try to jump off the bike you
| are going to end up hitting whatever you were going to
| hit anyway. You may have an instantaneous power of
| perhaps 1-2 horsepower if you are superbly fit and are
| for some reason braced for action. The brakes on your
| motorcycle can decelerate you as much as 1g in dry
| weather. It's better to stay on.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| You have to have proper luck with trajectory (your older
| brother had it to tell you the stories) - you go fast on
| a bike, you keep that speed when jumping off it. Then you
| either hit something hard (probably instant death) or you
| land and start sliding/tumbling.
|
| If you still don't hit anything, you can often even walk
| away, or end up with minor arm/foot injury. Unfortunately
| I've seen videos of contrary, ie couple riding same bike,
| hitting car, flying over it, sliding maybe 50m and still
| hitting curb so hard their bodies jumped quite a bit in
| the air. Both dead on spot.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I don't remember the second accident, but I still recall
| the first one. A small car (VW Bug) pulled out in front
| of him and he t-boned it. He jumped. It was in an
| otherwise open area, so he rolled. Banged up a bit, but
| he figured he ended up better than if he had stayed with
| the bike, which ended up embedded in the car (something
| about VW Bugs having not much in the front wheel area
| that was strong, and that's where the bike hit).
|
| As I said, it could entirely have been chance that this
| worked out for the best. I'm not a rider myself, and my
| brother is not an expert just a rando like me who has had
| a fair amount of interesting experiences in his life (how
| he is still alive today, I'm not quite sure, but luck has
| to be the biggest factor).
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| I mean, points for being right. We should create Star Trek
| teleporters so we can use them to avoid motorcycle
| accidents.
| stavros wrote:
| I don't think the teleporter would absorb the momentum
| though. You'd just fly out of it and smash on the nearest
| wall.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| The insurance company just needs to lease out one of
| those giant trampoline bounce houses to teleport all of
| its policyholders into.
| _carbyau_ wrote:
| What happens when two accidents happen at the "same"
| time?
|
| Whoever is running the teleporter would have to have
| "collision avoidance" strategies I guess. :-)
| sudosysgen wrote:
| We could teleport you into a fluffy bouncy comfy room
| with inflatable walls.
| jhgb wrote:
| Then how does it slow Enterprise's crew from orbital
| velocity when beaming them down to a planet?
| stavros wrote:
| The ship is on a geostationary orbit, obviously.
| jhgb wrote:
| There's around 4 km/s difference between geostationary
| orbital speed and the surface of the Earth. For a zero
| inclination circular orbit, you'd need to be at an
| altitude of ~1855000 km to have linear velocity equal to
| the nadir on Earth's surface.
| [deleted]
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| Could not connect to server... retry?
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| I went "over the bars" twice. Once I was passenger on a
| motorbike and I flew over the car we hit. The other time I
| was driving the motorbike and I did brake until the very
| end, thinking "oh shit, won't do": I stood up on the bike,
| while still braking. And flew over the car again. Waking up
| in the ambulance, temporarily blind, not knowing which year
| it was nor if I had a wife or not, wasn't cool. It took I'd
| say easily 15 minutes before I could see again: I started
| regaining sight in the hospital although I clearly remember
| paramedics talking to me in the ambulance.
|
| I'm very lucky, in both cases, I didn't hit anything but
| the road. Especially not the car.
|
| I still rode MX bike on tracks for a while then eventually
| quite entirely.
|
| Now I've got a mountain bike and it's scary enough already!
| briHass wrote:
| The downside to this is that you also need to stop moving
| slowly. The benefit of airbags/crumple zones is that they
| prevent your squishy body from decelerating too rapidly.
| Great if you can get off the motorcycle and slowly slide to
| a stop in a dirt field, less good if you slide into a
| barrier or telephone pole.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| At the risk of pissing off the people who care about
| automobile safety only as far as it enables them to earn
| internet virtue points...
|
| Which decelerates your face more gently, 14" of air space
| for it to flop around in or 5" of air followed by 9" of
| airbag? Engineering tradeoff are everywhere.
|
| You're absolutely right that slowing down slowly is the
| name of the game. Failing that, evenly spreading the
| force is the next best thing.
| Swizec wrote:
| > it should attempt to make the crash as close as possible to
| the nearest crash test protocol
|
| You jest but this is what humans and animals do instinctively.
| When you fall, you try to fall in a way that minimizes damage.
|
| For example, if you trip over something and your hands are
| occupied so you can't use them to catch yourself, you will
| instinctively try to roll onto your shoulder instead of
| faceplanting into the ground.
|
| You see this in freestyle motorcycle and mountain bike riding,
| and skateboarding etc as well. If you see you aren't going to
| land the trick, you try to throw the bike or skateboard away
| from you and land feet first down the ramp. Plenty of videos of
| pros doing this on youtube.
| kube-system wrote:
| The way pros fall is definitely more than just instinct,
| though. The human instinct to fully extend an arm when
| falling is a much worse way to fall than tuck-and-roll, etc.
| Swizec wrote:
| Fair. I probably spent enough of my youth on mountain bikes
| and rollerblades to develop those instincts.
|
| An AI driver should have those instincts too imo. I'd
| expect my car to crash in the safest possible way if it
| can't not crash.
| mywittyname wrote:
| The title feels pretty disingenuous here because the small
| overlap test is substantially more difficult than the full
| frontal, or half overlap tests that were tested previously. As
| was discovered when looking at real world crash data, the
| improvement in outcomes from the 50% overlap tests fell off
| dramatically in 10% overlap situations. Hence, why a new test
| specifically for that was introduced.
|
| I think a better way to look at how cars fair in crash tests that
| they are not "specifically optimized" for is to look at results
| from real world crash data. Like, among various vehicles which
| received top marks in <crash test>, how did buyers of those
| vehicles fair in real world accidents that the crash tests are
| designed to simulate.
| hangonhn wrote:
| Is this the sort of statistics you're looking for?
| https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-...
| ak217 wrote:
| This article doesn't have a date, which is unfortunate. But on
| this topic, IIHS recently published this:
| https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/small-suvs-struggle-in-new-...
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| >Another issue is crash test dummy overfitting. For a long time,
| adult NHSTA and IIHS tests used a 1970s 50%-ile male dummy, which
| is 5'9" and 171lbs. Regulators called for a female dummy in 1980
| but due to budget cutbacks during the Reagan era, initial plans
| were shelved and the NHSTA didn't put one in a car until 2003.
| The female dummy is a scaled down version of the male dummy,
| scaled down to 5%-ile 1970s height and weight (4'11", 108lbs;
| another model is 4'11", 97lbs). In frontal crash tests, when a
| female dummy is used, it's always a passenger (a 5%-ile woman is
| in the driver's seat in one NHSTA side crash test and the IIHS
| side crash test). For reference, in 2019, the average weight of a
| U.S. adult male was 198 lbs and the average weight of a U.S.
| adult female was 171 lbs.
|
| Women are neglected in testing of every standard. Essentially
| they're benchmarks of computer performance in human form, with
| the most hopeful data being used.
|
| It's much harder to account for women who have more variation
| such as hips, breasts, pregnancy status, corporate would rather
| rather tell you the best results with the cheapest and the best
| case results. The weight of the dummies, the height, and the lack
| of variation is both cost cutting, testing the most healthy
| models, and way to bypass the regulations with clever tricks that
| most people trust because there aren't more data sources and it's
| a lot of effort to learn more.
|
| Most things that are tested are, especially pharmaceutical drugs.
| They use men's dosages and at most change bu weight but ignore
| important factors that are women's issues since it's easier to
| neglect it lazily, then blame the patient's biology rather than
| the doctor's incompetence and lack of research, but the lack of
| information that drug companies give.
|
| Paid drug trials are often signed up for by more risk taking
| males, and hormone cycles of women make drugs have more variation
| they'd rather sweep under the rug, you also see the difference in
| showdogs winners where a female dog's hormone cycle like her
| period can destroy performance.
|
| Another cost cutting example is the lack of long term effects,
| they use mice models rather than dogs because it's cheaper and
| shows less long term effects, win/win for hiding these results
| until it's discovered by real world usage.
|
| Something encouraging though are computer physics simulations.
| Volvo has been at the forefront of safety, they're the top rated,
| tested on women before regulations forced others to, making the
| safety belt and not patenting it, encouraging its usage due to
| their focus and morality. The results don't surprise me.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| >Car manufacturers, if so inclined, could optimize their cars for
| crash test scores instead of actual safety.
|
| I think it's fair to say that cars are incredibly safe compared
| to 40 years ago. But crash safety compromises new cars in so many
| ways, it's a bit of a pity.
| throwaway946513 wrote:
| Are you referring to the 'crumple-zone' and energy absorbing
| structures of the vehicles?
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I've made my peace with body design but I really don't like
| the huge pillars they are putting in cars these days. I test
| drove a Mazda 3 recently and visibility in all directions was
| really poor compared to my current 09 Fit. The sensor suite
| is cool but it's not like airplanes where operators can be
| expected to pick up an instrument rating.
| kube-system wrote:
| Pillars don't have to obscure visibility. Yes, we have
| curtain airbags now, but you've got airbags inside the
| pillars of your Fit. The difference between the pillars on
| your 09 Fit and the Mazda 3 are mostly design decisions.
| The Fit interior is just an insanely good design.
|
| The angle and positioning of the pillar in relation to the
| driver are huge factors.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| What's the formula for KE? What's the dominant term in that
| equation? What's the exponent on that term?
|
| Anyone telling you that energy absorbing structures are of
| significant value except at a very narrow range of speeds and
| impact type is peddling falsehood.
|
| The bulk of the improvement since the 90s (well into the era
| of crumple zones, remember they are a prerequisite for
| airbags) has been from better airbags, side curtain airbags,
| pre-tensioners and better modeling software that allows those
| things as well as seats and seatbelts to be engineered to
| levels that were unheard of even a decade ago. Whether you
| hit hard objects in a crash has a lot less to do with luck
| these days. Stronger cabins are a plus (especially for non-
| frontal crashes) too.
| bongoman37 wrote:
| This is Goodhart's law in action. If the score doesn't actually
| reflect how safe the car is then the the parameters of the score
| ought to be modified. Maybe a single score doesn't capture
| everything and you may give a different score to someone looking
| for a car for individual driving vs couples vs a family with
| young kids.
| intrasight wrote:
| I'm still driving my 2004 Volvo XC70. It crossed 100K miles this
| summer. My thinking is to replace it next year with a newer XC70.
| I love the shape and form factor. Wish they were still made.
| While I feel safe in the case, I know that I'm missing out on new
| active safety features.
| muro wrote:
| The XC70 is no longer manufactured - are you going to get an
| older one?
| lost-found wrote:
| As expected, Volvo is the king. I've always taken the "Teslas are
| the safest" with a huge grain of salt.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Anything Tesla is tough because of the mobilized army of fans.
|
| Electric cars are really amazing in some scenarios though - I
| was a passenger in a Tesla in a winter accident that would have
| been a rollover event in many cars... we ended up in a flat
| spin and in a ditch instead.
|
| Volvo has always made safety a key value. I remember picking up
| my dad from a police station after he had been in a 50 car
| pileup in the 90s. His Volvo was unrecognizable, but he walked
| away, only needed help from a policeman to cut the seatbelt off
| as the buckle release wasn't accessible.
| brianwawok wrote:
| So you take a one page HTML post + Volvo marketing as "proof"
| of your decision?
| lost-found wrote:
| Nope, I take IIHS's tests as proof. Nice try though!
| ben7799 wrote:
| This article seems to be ultra out of date and it doesn't cite
| the specific crash data showing why they grouped cars the way
| they did.
|
| For example he's grouping BMW and Mercedes right below Volvo.. at
| least in the case of the Frontal Small Overlap test that doesn't
| seem right at all. The Small Overlap Frontal test was introduced
| in 2012.
|
| The Honda Accord in 2013 was acing that test, BMW and Mercedes
| were failing it miserably for a few more years. The 2013 Accord
| IIRC should have been rated at least as high as the Volvos.
|
| I have a 2013 Subaru, it got 5 stars in the frontal small overlap
| test as well, years ahead of the BMWs and Mercedes.
|
| Something is just off about the whole thing if you remember back
| to when these tests were introduced and you were looking at
| buying a car.
|
| Tesla pretty much never got anything but 5 stars in these 2 tests
| IIRC, not sure where that came from.
|
| The article would have been much better if it linked to the
| specific crash data to support the claims. IIHS has all that data
| publicly available IIRC. It is good stuff to look at when buying
| a car.
|
| BMW, Mercedes, and Toyota/Lexus were the real outliers who had
| appeared to try to "game" the old benchmarks and then failed
| these new tests the most spectacularly.
| lost-found wrote:
| > Tesla pretty much never got anything but 5 stars in these 2
| tests IIRC, not sure where that came from
|
| You're not recalling correctly. The Model S got an "acceptable"
| rating on the small frontal offset test in 2017:
| https://www.slashgear.com/tesla-model-s-again-fails-to-earn-...
| ben7799 wrote:
| Right but he's equating "Acceptable" to worse than "Poor" as
| the German cars were achieving in the same time frame. The
| Tesla was "Acceptable" for years where the German cars were
| "Poor". Which is worse?
|
| Also he's attributing poor passenger side tests to malice
| when the real reason might be that the engineering
| requirements are very different because the steering column
| doesn't exist on the passenger side.
| lost-found wrote:
| Sure, there probably should be a category between 3 and 4
| for Tesla: mediocre before and after. I'd prefer a car that
| is now safer over one that has always been mediocre, but
| that's just me.
| ben7799 wrote:
| Right but he's punishing Tesla for scoring "Acceptable"
| for years on the test when they scored "Excellent" on the
| other tests.
|
| And he's somehow rewarding M-B and BMW when they scored
| "Unacceptable" or "Poor" on the same tests for years when
| scoring "Excellent" on the other tests. Scoring
| Unacceptable/Marginal/Poor on a test when scoring
| Excellent on others is much more evidential that the car
| was specifically designed only to game the test standard.
|
| It took Tesla longer to upgrade the car from "Acceptable"
| to "Excellent" on the new tests than it took BMW/Mercedes
| to upgrade their cars from "Poor" to "Excellent" on the
| tests, but that still means M-B and BMW put hundreds of
| thousands of cars with Poor crash performance on the road
| for years while Tesla was putting cars on the road with
| "Acceptable" performance in the same test. Somehow that
| makes Tesla worse in his rating system.
| zip1234 wrote:
| Other categories not tested for--how do people outside the
| vehicle fare? How do occupants of another vehicle fare?
| avhon1 wrote:
| Vehicles _are_ tested for pedestrian crashworthiness. Modern
| cars are even tested on their ability to detect pedestrians and
| avoid hitting them.
|
| https://www.euroncap.com/en/vehicle-safety/the-ratings-expla...
| zip1234 wrote:
| Seems like that is only European cars:
| https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/04/28/vehicle-safety-
| standa...
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| What Tesla did IIHS test in 2012, the Roadster?
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _How well do cars do in crash tests they 're not optimized for?_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23689538 - June 2020 (343
| comments)
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