I am looking into buying my first MINI, and I will say that I was skeptical when first looking, but after seeing crash test results I would feel just as safe in it. Alot of "bigger" vehicles aren't as safe, people just have the perception that they are, which is sad. I personally won't buy a car if the crash tests are poor no matter how much I like the car.

What I think would be interesting to see is a break down of auto related deaths by the vehicle they were in. I think that would be a major eye opener for most. Although, it may not be good press for some bigger auto companies.

The other piece of this is that the quality of the car is important in crashes, but your own personal driving habits are the most important on how safe any vehicle is. Granted you can't always know when there is an idiot around you.

 

There's also a "loophole" where if the car can burn ethanol (ie: flex fuel) it can be counted as if it does something like 75 mpg, no matter what it actually does!
Why do you think there's so many flex fuel vehicles from GM - and they weren't even bothering to advertise the feature ...

 

If I remember correctly, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety only tests one vehicle for these studies. Ask any QC or QA person if one sample is large enough to make a determination of all the population of cars. I think not.

That said, the IIHS is supported by insurance companies and others and provides views that tend to enhance the position of their sponsors. Don't most businesses do that? If they had information that was not helpful for their causes, they would not publish it.

The only true way to evaluate the safety of a car or anything else is to establish meaningful acceptance criteria and then see if the product meets those requirements. It either passes or fails. I see no point in saying one is "more safe" than another. I can only be dead, not more dead or less dead.

In the mean time, I'll keep driving my Mini and try to stay out of situations that could cause an accident.

 

I don't care what ABC-News (understatement) or the IIHS says...lumps of coal for them all!! Fact is MINIs have proven their safety prowess over and over in real life collisions of every sort. We've seen he pics and read the accounts. Yes, there may be slight differences in a laboratory test or two, but MINIs are overall very safe, no two ways about it!!!

 

I have thought this ever since the SUV explosion and people started using them as their primary vehicles. I think many of the people driving these large vehicles have probably never driven anything larger than a Honda Accord. I think a special license requirement would weed out a lot of them and keep the roads safer for everyone. My parents used to own a Surburban, before they were "cool", to tow a 27' travel trailer. My mother, who actually drove a '74 Monte Carlo (aka land yacht) for 20 years as her daily driver, was afraid to drive the Suburban because she actually understood the fact that the vehicle had mammoth blind spots. My father, on the other hand, had driven city buses for a living at one point, and had the proper training to know how to handle a large vehicle.

The following article is an unfortunate example of how easy it is to lose control of a large vehicle and subsequently lose your life: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1112046

Unfortunately, my sister lost her best friend this way. Her friend took over driving another friend's large pick-up on a long trip while the other driver rested. While he was resting, she somehow lost control of the truck, probably by overcorrecting, and it flipped. She was used to driving a smaller sedan such as an Accord or Camry. She was killed.

 

I think it's pretty irresponsible to advise the gullible general public to buy
bigger heavier cars that handle and brake more slowly, and are more dangerous
to the other cars on the road, than smaller, well built, great handling cars
like our MINIs.

 

The IIHS is the "defacto" mouthpiece of the insurance industry. Anything that comes from this group is suspect, at best, and should be taken with a big grain of salt.

The US media shapes and controls the opinions of the public and yet this is another prime example as to how the "spin" gets perpetuated in the "mind-less" of most Americans.

Do you think any of the ABC, NBC, CBS, etc news anchors would have had the ***** to come out and say that the real solution to the problems lies in:

1) Overall driver education
2) The the "perceived" safety problem of small cars would be diminished if more people choose to drive more vehicles of reasonable size rather than the other way around: (i.e., the "Nuclear arms race" where everybody has to drive the biggest/heaviest car they can afford to drive in the daily crash derby).

All I can say is this.... This country WILL NEVER learn. The "Bigger is Better" mentallity is so embedded into the fabric of our culture that it would take a major disaster or $10 per gallon gas to change our seemingly bad habits.

According to the IIHS we all should be driving Kenworths, Peter Builts, Macks, Vanhools, because, hey after all this is AmeriKKKa, the land of waste and where "I" and the "Almighty dollar sign" come first before anything or anyone else.

 

Also, after the "clever" IIHS press release yesterday and the babbling from the media, watch our policy premiums skyrocket on our next scheduled renewals.

See the pattern?

 

WOW...The anti-SUV hatred raises it's ugly head again. .....Get off the SUV bashing people it ain't about them!

While I am certainly no fan of the biased media, and the story DID have a bias. The story is factually correct, and only provided selective fact, therefore is entirely misleading .....just like all the daily 30sec bit pieces that are thrown together.

But I also think that some of the things said in this thread are not quite right

1. There is F=ma but there is also impulse and momentum (I will spare the equations) Upon impact, ANY impact....MORE energy IS transfered to the object with less mass....period. The story(and some people) equates energy to safety....WRONG....Safety depends on auto structures that are designed to dessipate energy some do it more effectively than others and the tests show just that. Where the story miserably failed is that many of the SUV are just as safe or un-safe and their tests show the same range of "safety" because the tests measure the potential dammage to the occupant so really there is no safety DIFFRENCE between a good SUV and a good compact. There is a diffrence in how much engineering it takes to get there and account for the fundemental laws of physics

2.manuverability does not equal safety......being aware of your suroundings at all times so that you know where you can and can't swerve is what saves you, and keeps others safe. Just as many point out here about go fast mods, the best mod is the drivers brain. A trained skilled driver can outrun a faster car by skill same is true on the highway. accident avoidance is almost entirely in the drivers hands.

 

Its funny, if the Mini was rated all good, ie. #1, the same posters would be praising the IIHS. Without the IIHS, Consumer Reports, Car Magazines, etc. we would have no way of evaluating automobiles.

 

Actually, maneuverability can make something more or less safe. Your right about being aware with your surrounding and where you can and can't go when and if you need to swerve. Maneuverability in this situation, imo, can be helped by using less weight. As in, you swing your car one direction then try to pull it back. It will be alot easier stop your intended direction and reverse it if you have 1500lbs less of momentum pushing it. Distribute 1500lbs in the MINI and try to do the same maneuvers. It's not going to happen as easily.

I understand that if an 8000lbs vehicle hits me. I'll probably come out the loser in the deal. Depending on the real world situtation. There is no denying that. But to push people to heavier vehicles? Why not push manufacturers to use their knowledge and make the larger cars weigh less? More people are safe on the road and the larger vehicles will get better gas mileage. It's a win win situation.

What it boils down to is this may hurt small cars. That's the intention of the story. They, the news, were all over heavy vehicles this time last year because of gas prices. The values plunged on those vehicles. So now it's time to talk bad about the other half. If the cows listen to their farmer like they did last year. The value of small cars will drop.

 

That's so not true. The news (& I use that term lightly) story that we refer to pushed people to buy larger vehicles by falsely touting them as safer. That is why I think most are mad

My guess is that the story was a fluff piece financed by GM/Ford etc... to try to do something about their sagging SUV sales.

 

While there may be some truth to that I do not entirely agree with such a blanket statement. It is always good to receive praise for your car, but regardless of the source, such assessments by researchers, reviewers, journalists, etc, must be taken with a grain of salt. I don't have an opinion on the IIHS one way or another, however, I am upset that the results were so skewed in the media. The use of the IIHS results have been manipulated to suggest that small cars aren't at all safe to drive. This is simply not the case. There are many other factors involved in assessing vehicle safety than the ones used by the IIHS. It is in no way an exact science, yet the media articles reporting on this story are telling people point blank that they shouldn't buy small cars because they are unsafe.

 

Very interesting take. More people are purchasing smaller vehicles which translates into lower insurance premiums, so run all new tests to justify increasing insurance rates.

It will be interesting to see if that is what happens.

 

Sigh ...
It is ... the American way

Sigh ...

The collective we dont like what JD Powers says so lets ignore them. Now the collective dont like what the IIHS says so lets ignore them too ...

Yes ... you dont like anything said "contrary" to MINI love.

1. True ... and that is why they test the front, side and back. MINI did good in the front, poor in the back

Someone asked how many 7000 pound trucks around. FAR more than you realize. Most of the Expeditions, Excursions and the like are over that. H1/H2 are near 10000.

2. All that "I can avoid the accident because I'm small and quick" is BS when you get rear-ended by an Expedition.

The fact is bigger is safer comparing pound to pound

The fact that the collective dont "like it" doesnt change the laws of phsyics ... depending upon how the energy is dissapated

 

Chows, I wonder how your beloved Porche Cayman (Without the S as cheaper model) would fare on a collision with a 7000 pound behemoth?

Get off your high horse.

By the way, did you see Edmunds comments on the basic Cayman? Nice car but they found it a little lackluster in the performance aspect. Their conclusion was that if you want a Cayman get the "S".

What's not to love?

 

How would it fair? Let see at about 250 pounds more than a MINI ... Squashed. I am an equal opportunity believer in the laws of physics. But I dont bash the II whatever because I don't like what they said nor find a conspiracy in JD powers, consumer reports or whatever.

As to the rest of what you said ... What makes you think I am "S less?" The very few times I have referred to that car I wrote "CS".

Edmunds? Hmm .....

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Edmunds.com, the premier online resource for automotive information, today named its 2007 Edmunds.com Editors’ Most Wanted Vehicle awards ...

Vehicle Category Award History ... First-time winner 2007 Porsche Cayman Coupe under $60,000 ...

The 2007 Porsche Cayman was chosen by Edmunds’ for being “a pure sports car that can hold its own against exotics twice the price” ...

"The Editors' Most Wanted winners provide class-leading performance, quality, style and value," said Karl Brauer, Editor-in-Chief at Edmunds.com. "These are the vehicles that our editorial team would chose to have in our own driveways."



And don't even try to go there trying to bash the croc on performance because you will be buried by virtually every car mag on the planet as "Sport car of the year", etc. etc. etc. There are so many references its pointless to refer to them. I NEVER have because ... its pointless. But since you brought it up ...

OK, NM, if you want to bash the croc ... please go ahead. I find comedy very entertaining.

 

If you actually took the time to read what most of us have said about the a-fore-mentioned publications-through rain and shine-you probably wouldn't have said something so asinine. But you didn't, so you did, and now it's too late.

 

The Cayman is a great little SUV. My wife and sister love them.

 

I'm sure that the Cayman has a bad rap with a lot of performance minded people because it is labeled SUV. I have not driven one...so I won't agree or disagree with anyone on this one...but if you tell someone who doesn't know specs on a vehicle that an SUV will drive and handle like a sports car, most of them will call you a liar. It is a Porsche though!!

When being rear-ended by a 7000 pound truck...if it's going fast, you are screwed...no matter what, your car will be totaled whether it is a Cayman, a Mini, or a UHAUL! The only thing that will help is a lot of weight. The size isn't an issue as far as I'm concerned. So according to this logic, we need to be driving at least 2 ton cars around. This means, if we want performance, we need to have a major gas guzzler...sounds like the traditional american muscle car!!! 5 mpg and at least 6 liters.

There is a better way. Pay attention when you are at a light to what it behind you. If you see a MACK truck flying up behind you, get the F*** out of the way! The mini does make up for its lack of weight with performance and lots of electronic traction goodies that will help you to get out of the way without worrying as much about losing control to avoid an accident. It also has decent brakes and it's weight also allows it to slow down fast and be more maneuverable.

I'm sure all those involved in this ridiculous report received a nice Ford Excursion in exchange for their talking Sh**!

 

SB has a point...

The world is leaning towards "green" cars. Better gas mileage is easily achieved with less weight. Instead of trying to get people to buy heavier cars, make the SUVs lighter. There is absolutely no need for any passenger vehicle to be 7000 lbs. Even if it is huge, it can be MUCH lighter. To increase safety on the roads, limit the weight of cars and SUVs!

 

What bothers me the most about this whole "newsflash" is that now my parents are worried because MINI "didn't get good scores". However, it is still a million times better than the 9 year-old vehicle I was driving before the MINI!! Just goes to show how the media's spin on "facts" can create hysteria in the minds of the masses!!

 

The Porsche "Cayman" is a 2 door sports car. The Porsche SUV is called CAYENNE.

BTW, I think Cayennes are huge, bloated and hideous vehicles. They go against everything what Porsche stands for (Speed, elegance, agility, handling).

 

Just to clarify, the Porsche Cayman is similar to a 911. Where the Cayenne is the 4800lbs SUV. I agree with what was said, I just wanted to make sure we are all on the same boat.

Plus too I am sure some people would take offense to their car being compared to a SUV. But then that said, this IS a MINI enthusiast site, for the public use of MINI enthusiasts, so who cares what the Porsche owners think.

 

Chows, you replied to my comment "See the pattern?" as "MINI LOVE", huh?

I'll give you the benfit of the doubt as you did not read what I posted, but what I was trying to convey is that after the IIHS report, there is a great potential for al linsurance companies to jack up the insurance policies for all cars they deem classify as SMALL, not just the MINI.