it has occupant deaths per 100k miles allong with deaths in the car struck. What you see is a curve. Small nimble cars do avoid more accidents, but they are small and the sporty ones are driven more quickly.
Mid sized sedans do best. More mass, still can handle a bit, and don't anethsitize the driver by the feeling of isolation, and height that lead to disconnected driving. Worst are the big ones. If a truck, they don't have to have the safety featurs of cars. The old 150 photo shows that pretty well! And while they do have more mass to protect occupants, they also have more kinetic energy to dissipate, hence the higher fatalities in the cars struck. And poor handling and one and on....

What it comes down to is that the large heavy things aren't the most safe... The small nimble things aren't the most safe. Things like the camry and avalon are.

Also, one nice thing about this way of looking at this is that all the plusses and minuses are aggregated into the summary statistic.

Matt

 

Huh? It says specifically Some think that a smaller, more maneuverable car is able to outrun trouble and avoid crashes. It's a myth,

That is EXACTLY what your talking about. You claim that your MINI is maneuverable so you can swerve out of the way? How can you possibly say that is not what your saying?

Basically, its saying that what your saying about swerving is a myth. The fact that people driving small sports cars tend to drive aggressively just further increases the accident rates.

Eval ... yes statistics can be manipulated. However, since its the insurance companies that you pay money to ... their statistics are the only one that count. Somebodys "feeling" that they can swerve away from an accident is meaningless. Money talks.

Dr. O is correct. The next sentence was ...

"From a statistical standpoint, the safest models tend to be the full-sized family sedan-type cars, he says."

Dr. O hit it right on the money.

If you want to believe that MINIs can walk on water, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and don't care what the insurance industry thinks ... that is what makes America great ... go for it. But in the end, its the insurance industry that sets the rules ... not you or I.

Check out http://moneycentral.msn.com/insure/a...aspx?Make=MINI

MINI does well in terms of liability costs. MINI does poorly in terms of collision/comprehensive costs. Hmm, I wonder why that is? It can't be the comprehensive costs because we all know MINIs are rarely stolen ... what else can it be?

Just some food for thought next time you make your payments. BTW, I would imagine it would be intuitively obvious that being in an intermediate or standard car would be the safest ... the amount of extra "swerving" you get from a nimble car is about meaningless in real-time and it aint going to rollover PLUS it has 2 tons of weight. I know this probably sounds like sacriligeous ... OMG he's saying the MINI isn't the best of everything. Yup, it isn't. Its a fun little car but its aint the end all of everything.

 

I have swerved out of the way many times so it is not a myth. I swerved and missed the truck in the picture in my other post above. The author is saying that swerving for accident avoidance is not supported by the stats but he gives stats for something else, aggressive driving. It is a false conclusion, they are two different things. You are misreading what he is saying. Are you trying to say that Minis can't swerve? Of course there are no stats for missed accidents so it is pointless to argue with you. I made a simple statement in the beginning that Minis can swerve in cases where SUV's can not. You are creating an argument by extending my statement to say something like swerving is better than size. I am not going to argue that, it is a waste of time.

 

Oh, I certainly do not think that Minis walk on water and all that, but I also do not think that what that guy is saying is worthwhile in this context or based on truly useful/relevant info re: the topic of Mini/Trucks for the reasons I stated.

The insurance industry deciding on how they charge people does not invalidate people's real world experiences, which IMHO 'counts' more and is not meaningless unless all you are interested in is how much your rates will be, which I did not think was the point.

 

PS: Statistically, I wonder how many truck driver's don't even file claims with insurance since the parts are cheaper (or they are at fault ) thereby messing with the statistics

 

that's why they're fun! That's also why we tend to drive them harder. These two things tend to counter each other.... But watch the statistics war, things like "Car X is in more crashes" has to be well qualified. What is really relavent is events per mile driven (this gets rid of the number of one type of car skewing the results) and if the numbers aren't well qualified, the conclusions aren't either.

But back on topic. It's human nature to confuse ignorance with knowledge! I really never understand why people take the time to come over to a stranger and basically say "Stupid purchase" with more words. People really suck, overall. Too bad we have no other options!

Combine that with the average lack of understanding of things like basic physics, and you have, ta da! The Average American!

Matt

 

I agree with this. If you dont care about your insurance rates, it don't matter. There is a direct correlation between MINI's high collision rates vice other cars.

McLeonard ... your missing the fact that the extra sentence about speeding was just that ... an extra sentence. He could of left it out.

The article was about insurance rates... maybe its non-sequitor but as far as they are concern, its a myth. Thats not my opinion ... its the authors. Since it is about insurance and money ... it would seem that might be important but thats OK ...maybe its not. I do concede that MINIs can outswerve SUVs but it looks its its better to be in a Camry!

 

Of course there is the chance that the Mini's higher rates are due to there being more younger inexperienced drivers in them vs trucks, perhaps they are rearended or t-boned more, cost more to fix, and maybe report the accidents more, as I said. So many things skew the outcome that I cannot make driving conclusions from insurance numbers, only insurance decisions. So yeah, I guess it was a non-sequitor

 

That extra sentence about being driven faster is support for the second part of his first sentance. He is clearly talking about sports cars that, as he says tend, to be driven faster, in the second part. Not all small cars, that he refers to in the first part, that are maneuverable, are sports cars. So giving stats for sports cars does not address the question of smaller cars being maneuverable and able to avoid accidents. But since there are no stats for accidents that did not happen it is not something we can use stats to argue anyway. Just read what he wrote, smaller car, sports car, to different things.

Some think that a smaller, more maneuverable car is able to outrun trouble and avoid crashes. It's a myth, Rader says. "When you look at the statistics and insurance claims, small sports cars tend to be in more crashes,"

 

Cost to repair is a factor. However, its a low end car selling for less than the average car sold in the US so that shouldnt be a factor. From that article, collision costs can be higher due to the damage you might do to other vehicles ... hence SUVs tends to have higher collision costs NOT because of the damage to the SUV but because of the damage it can do to other cars.

Theft rates count a lot but MINIs are rarely stolen

The younger, inexperienced drivers are a factor but that tends to drive up individual owners costs, not the entire class of cars. In other words, if your a teenager your rates are more likely to be higher than some middle aged person simply because teenagers have more accidents.

They key is probably that "added" sentence. People in small, sports cars tend to drive faster and we all know that speed kills ... and up go the collision costs.

Interesting though, look at the lower coast for liability. What does that tell you? Could be two things: increased safety for occupants mean less liability suits from occupants; and lighter car causes less fatalities, serious injuries in other cars (F=MA and back to the laws of physics).

 

Really, the proper stat for this would be like a fielding percentage in baseball. How many accidents per accident opportunity. That would imply something about ability to avoid accidents. Geeze, I haven't seen any stanly steemers in accidents lately. I guess they're safer than the camery! Anyway, the quoted sentance is one reason why I dispare for our national understanding of math.....

Also, these numbers can happily co-exist. The point of the New Yorker article was about deaths per mile, not accident volume. It's possible to have something that is in lots of accidents, with very little death. Maybe not easy, but possible.

Matt

 

That is a great article. I keep a few copies in my glovebox (along with the MINI-F150 crash test) and just give it to people making comments regarding the safety of my car.
The look on their face is priceless...they ask me a question and I give them homework .
I tell them "it's too long to explain, but read this and you'll have your answer....have a good day!"

 

I don't think that anyone would dispute that both statement can co-exist. If you got a 3 ton vehicle in an accident, its going to do a lot more damage than say a 1 ton Elise. Wouldn't it be just obvious there would be more deaths?

That in no way reflects on the fact that the insurance industry stats think that sports cars have more accidents and hence the cost of insuring them is more. Its been like that since .... well the dawn of Bugattis?

 

Mid sized sedans are the safest (in terms of deaths per mile travelled). Not only are they of a decent weight/size, people who drive them are also really boring and responsible usually, and those people tend to drive safely. The problem is that, different types of vehicles attracts different types of drivers, thus the statistics will reflect that as well and make certain cars seem more unsafe than others, while in reality their design isn't what is at fault.

 

Since about a zillion things go into what leads to deaths per mile driven, it seems a fruitless endevor to try to figure out the effect of just one of them.
But there is some chicken and egg stuff. Did they buy the camry because they don't like performace driving or do people settle down because the car CANT drive like a porsche?

Matt

 

Actually, I'm going with door C.

How about we NOT drive our small cars like @$$holes, unless we're on the track (where, of course, it isn't @$$holey at all). Then we get all of the perks (nimble, active safety) with none of the downside (driving too agressively for the street).

Statistics are fantastic generalizations. So Mr. Insuranceman can say; "small cars get into accidents" and he can even infer that the cause of those accidents is inability/lack of proclivity to swerve and avoid the accident. But in practice, that generalization has very little to do with me, or you, or you, you, you, you, or you because we may drive our cars differently than do the people generating the oft-quoted stats.

The best predictor of my future behavior is MY past behavior. It is not the past behavior of those in a similar demographic.

All that said; my entire agrument is theoretical because stats are not meant to tell me what is likely to happen to me, personally. They are meant to generalize and render formulaic basic activities such as driving.

PS. I <3 Malcolm Gladwell.

 

Accident survivability, probably the heavier SUV is a better choice. Accident avoidance, probably the MINI is a better choice. I dont think it has anything to do with insurance rates or statistics, or even drivers, if you are comparing vehicles to vehicles. It has to do with physics. If two masses of different sizes are traveling at the same speed, the larger of the two will have greater kinetic energy, and greater momentum. More energy to dissipate and more resistance to change direction or acceleration. Personaly, I dont drive with the thought of being in an accident uppermost in my mind. I watch all the other pinheads out there as if they dont know what they are doing (most of them dont) or as if they intend to hit me, and drive accordingly. This attitude has served me well for 41 years(no accidents) and I dont plan to change it.
To answer your question, yes, I have had people make similar comments, and like you I just changed the subject. I just dont understand the mindset where the first thought is " Can I survive an accident in that thing?" instead I think "How well does it handle, accelerate and stop?"

 

I drive both a truck and a MINI, and I feel much safer in my MINI. The truck that I drive for work is a F250 with a ultility back, an iron ladder rack, and bins full of parts. It tips the scale at 8600lbs. That's approximately 3.4 times the mass of my MINI. The extra mass makes me feel no safer. Why? Because the truck handles like friggin' crap! The truck kinda "floats" on the road, offering no feedback to me. The steering is slow, I turn the wheel and wait for the response. The braking is not srong enough. With all of the extra weight, the Triton V8 is basically useless, making it very hard to merge into traffic or to speed up to get out of the way of anything. The only emergency handling that the POS is capable of is to: A) run off the road to the right and roll into a ditch, or B) run off the road to the left, take out the oncoming vehicle and then roll into a ditch. I've been driving the truck for 6 years and I'm still not comfortable with it, nor do I feel confident driving it. It scares me. I hate it.

My MINI's pros are the opposite of my truck's cons. I feel safe and confident while driving it, as I also did with my previous car of seven years, a Miata. Both have razor shop handling, good braking, quick, precise steering (even more so in the Miata), and the ability to accelerate quickly to get out of the way (even more so in the MINI).

Well, that's all I've got to say about for now.

 

My bet is that

• When your a teenager, you KNOW your going to live forever
• In your Twenties, you realize you will die but not for so many years you cant count
• In your Thirties you know you are not immortal but still have some life in ya
• By 50, your just happy your still moving and KNOW you will die
• By 60 ... you live everyday like its your last and mellow out and buy a Camry!!!

Toastie ... in fact the insurance company DOES take into effect your past history ... your tickets, your accidents, and it does weigh into the rates.

 

Check out this thread: Minis at Fernley. All three Minis at the track are owned by drivers over 50. No Camrey for us. I always thought that "speed thrills" and "stupid kills."

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=77543

 

Thats great. I give due props to Siddhartha ... (if its the same one from CA?). Seen him at carnuts garage. An instructor? Knows his stuff.

Didn't he just add a JCW wing?

 

So stupid speeders have a thrilling death! It all checks out!

Matt

 

Here's what I say to these "dumb" comments and I get them all the time. 1. Its four-star rated in crash tests. 2. I'd rather avoid an accident than try and "win" it. Seems to work, but I don't think one side or the other is going to be doing much convincing in these sort exchanges.

 

And the suburban has relatively low occupant deaths per 100k miles driven (buy it spreads death like a drunk hitting a line of people waiting for a bus), the Camry, Maxima and Accord have similar or lower occupant deaths per mile driven than the explorer, expidition, grand cheroke, tahoe or jimmy. And the problem is that drivers of large cars rarely drive slower. Since you're in the insurance industry, do you have any insight how stats like this are used? Seems to me, bigger isn't better, and that a safe cage with a well engineered energy absorbing design is safer than pretty much any body on frame design.

But one can use the real numbers, and doing so would show to many that what they think is safe isn't really. Not that they'd like to hear that, and I'm sure Ford isn't going to start a campaign that says "Get an explorer! You have about twice the chance of dying, or 3 times the chance of killing someone in another car, than if you drive an Avalon!"
Matt

 

You can quote stats til you're blue in the face...what matters is the way YOU drive your car, be it a Mini or SUV. And even then, you're not safe from the other drivers who love talking on their cell phones while driving or just not paying attention to their driving at all. I like the way my Mini handles. It's quick to respond and unlike my SUV, it doesn't have the 'floating' feel I get from the larger vehicle while going around curves. Get real...it's always a cr*p shoot while driving anywhere, town or hwy.