The IIHS press release nor their study have any links to your premiums. No, there is no pattern.

Your premiums are driven by what is called an "IRG", Insurance Rating Group. That IRG is determined by statistics gathered by all insurers in the country. Basically, the average amount of damage paid out following an accident for that make and model is the determining factor.

 

I drove a caymen recently - utterly rocking car - reminded me of a modernised version of my beloved/departed '77 911sc - when I can afford one I will be trading the MR2 in.

The Cayenne is anything but slow/ponderous.

On a Porsche driving school week last year they had a couple of Cayenne Turbo's out that where matching / bettering the times of the 911's on the track. Loaded up with a driver and three passengers the school used them to show/teach the lines and braking points.

The Cayenne is very, very quick and has unbeleiveable handling - when you consider its size/weight you have to conclude that Porsche have found a way to circumvent physics

I'll agree that they are ugly though - on looks alone I would not even consider one, but ability wise they are off the scale.

 

First, I've gotta say, COME ON PEOPLE!!! This is supposed to be a car enthusiasts website. Now I know it is devoted to MINIs but can we at least make sure we know the difference between a Cayman and a Cayenne? Let's improve our standards of basic car knowledge!

As I've told Chows before, I have major respect for the Cayman. I don't think there has ever been a sportscar under $100k that I have wanted as badly as the Cayman. There is a Porsche dealer right down the street that I drive by everyday so maybe that's why I want one so bad, but still, it is a great car.

Going back to the IIHS tests, again, I would just remind everyone to keep it in perspective. Remember, there are many different ways in which car safety is measured. Furthermore there are many different ways you can get in an accident. No single test is going to be able to account for all of the different variables in real world situations. That's not to say that these tests have NO value, but they aren't definitive. IMO the only outrage is the way the results were spun in the media. Overall, most of the subcompacts tested got fairly decent ratings, including the MINI. Of course a MINI would probably come out worse in a collision with a much larger vehicle, but to tell the public that they should all go out and buy a larger car because its safer is ridiculous. Making a statement like, "bigger cars are safer" is an extreme generalization.

 

don't take the same arrogant stance as the SUV guys. it is arrogence that causes more acsidents than the type of vehicel you drive.

 

Creseida, I think you're taking a very good point people have made on here and have misunderstood it to some degree by thinking it is arrogant. While some accidents are unavoidable, the truth is that many accidents are avoidable. Part of this depends on the driver but part is also dependent on the capabilities of the car. Just like it is a basic law of physics that a large object will create a bigger impact in a collision with a smaller object. It is also just as simple a concept to understand, that a lighter, more agile car will be able to avoid a collision more easily than a large, heavy car/truck/SUV. Maybe we're just perceiving some of the comments on here differently, but I don't think there's an attitude of invincibility that MINI owners think they CAN'T get in an accident because they can just manuever their way out of it. Rather, I think they just feel safer knowing that their car is more capable of avoiding an accident. That isn't arrogance, it's just common sense. So in most cases I think you have to pick your poison, either you pick a car in which you are more likely avoid the accident yet you sacrifice size in the collision, or you pick a bigger, heavier car and you sacrifice handling. I'm not saying that handling and car size is mutually exclusive but there is generally a correllation.

 

If the MINI is such an “unsafe” car, where does that leave the Lotus Elise:

http://forums.evolutionm.net/showthread.php?t=147572

His Red Elise had $18,000 worth of damage after a 10MPH Fender bender against a Jeep Cherokee SUV.

After seeing the thread above I conclude:

1) The Lotus Elise is a damn fine car
2) The Elise/Exige are truly death traps
3) A fender bender can cost you the entire car and possibly your life
4) I feel much safer in my steel stamped MINI, thank you very much

 

I talked with a Lotus owner at a show a while back and he and I reached the same conclusion, the Elise was never meant to be in any real world wrecks. Lotus managed to get it to pass the tests by making it able to hit the walls well enough but the bumpers are too low to do any good against any other vehicle on the road.

I look at it like this, for it's size the MINI does a pretty good job in everyway it can. True I can't prevent every accident but I'm not going to live my life in fear of what I can't avoid, I can't avoid taxes but still collect a paycheck. If I get hit, hopefully everything will work out for the best and I'll move on. I'm not going to drive a tank just because I know there are some really bad drivers and some really bad situations. Also, the element of the crashes I can control (when I cause them or can make attempts to avoid them) I like the knowledge that I have a lot of active safety features at my disposal.

My distrust of almost all forms of media evaluation on vehicles is another topic, basically I look at it as my priorities and preferences don't match everyone elses so no matter what the press says I have to do what fits me best, if it means by a less safe or less reliable car because I prefer to actually have a pulse while motoring and am willing to put the little extra effort into owning a car then so be it. And anywhere that uses consumer surveys completely overlooks that some vehicles are bought by people who use are rougher on them, that's part of the reason why very cheap and somewhat sporty cars (like ours) have more problems. Enthusiast complain about things that my mother would turn the radio up to drown out and just live with.

 

I think this article sheds a lot of light on the issue of "feeling" of safety vs actual safety:

http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html

 

Of course, it all depends how you are hit.

last year I was hit by a Mercedes that was travelling at probably 40-50mph.

I was in the MR2 and 'just moving - maybe 2-3mph.











The Mercedes driver was drunk - very, very drunk - falling down in the road drunk - striking a police office drunk - tried to drive away with broken steering drunk.

Luckily (?) I saw him coming and tried to get out of the way and rather than crashing directly into me, the blow was more of a glancing one.

My car suffered panale damage, destroyed suspension, drive-shaft and gearbox damage.

The Mercedes suffered broken suspension, wheel, steering.

The traffic cops said that because my car was light and I was off the brakes the energy was converted into forward motion rather than aborbed my destroying the car.

Took about nine weeks to get her back to pristine condition

 

C4, As to how it looks at the moment. Agreed. As to the 07s, they redesigned it. Clearly AG Porsche understood that.

As to the They go against everything what Porsche stands for (Speed, elegance, agility, handling)

Base model. Maybe. Turbo S I guess you aint seen the numbers on a Turbo S.

BTW, Porsche is the most profitable car company on Earth. Guess what is a major reason for that?

Maybe I missed that part and if so, I apologize. If you think insurance companies are going to raise rates ... they might. See what Creseida wrote below and what I added to it because I think there is a major misunderstanding about what this all means ... Please.

I left most of this quote in for a reason. That being, I really think there is a lot of misinformation in this thread.

First, I suggest everyone read this http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/saf...8/article.html

The executive summary is this ...

MINI is rated in mid-pack. Some small cars better (and BTW, that is for the 06 only) and some worse. Those ranking are ONLY between the same class of car.

But these ratings are only useful to compare cars within the same size class. A "Good" rating for a small car doesn't mean it will perform as well in a crash as a "Good" large sedan would.

This is NOT a comparison between classes of cars. A GREEN in a large car is MUCH better than a green in the mini class.
WHY. again its physics 101

You can talk all you want about crush zones but they are ONLY comparing cars WITHIN a class. Your MUCH safer in the bigger car ... Sorry Bama ... just a fact

Now for the emperical data ... DEATHS and this is what Creseida is saying. If you all will not believe the IISH, or CR or JD Powers, maybe the hard data on DEATHs will convince yo that bigger IS better on safety.

Driver deaths per million registered passenger vehicles 1-3 years old, 2003

Car — Mini
Car — Small
Car — Midsize Car — Large Car — Very Large SUV — Small SUV — Midsize
SUV — Large
142 deaths for mini cars/million vice 64 for a large car or SUV

Which one would you rather be in to avoid a fatal accident?

So C4, as to insurance rates ... If the insurance companies know the actual facts, what do you think they are going to believe ... any cars marketing (I am not picking on MINI) or actual data?

If anyone want to buyin to the marketing hype of any car maker ... that is your choice. Me ... I would rather be in that large car or small SUV

I know that many, not all, but a vocal group, do not like the data published by IIHS, CR, Powers etc because it doesn't fit their loyality to what they own. This has nothing to do with loyality. It has to do with safety and I quote:

Low crash test ratings simply aren't acceptable to most consumers.

C4, I am sorry if I misread what you wrote and didn't realize you were talking about insurance rates. Sorry.

 

gokart ... with all due respect (and I mean that) ... those are just ancedotal stories. Please read my previous post on the actual death figures for the class of mini cars. If your going to be in a serious accident, I'd rather be in a large car ... the numbers don't lie.

Same here Bama, with all due respect, just read the death numbers. I consider them a bit frightening.

Fair questions

All Lotus are considered "exotics" by most insurance companies. If you read the elise forums you would see that replacing the clams are VERY expensive. Its about the biggest problem, a tiny bump cost big money.

Is it a death trap. HIghly unlikely. Since the car is really meant as a track toy, I am sure Lotus took this into consideration. Do we have emperical data. No, IIHS has no figures on Lotus (or Porsche). Why? I suspect they sell so few cars its not worth there effort. Not sure of the exact numbers but I think only 300 Exige sold in 06 in US. I bet 3000, Elise.

Is it expensive to fix. Absolutely. But then again, you get what you pay for. An Elise is a fine sportscar for its intended purposes ... but you pay for it.

This is no different than say buying a Ferrari (or used one) and wait until that first 15K service comes up and costs you $20K.

You pay the price for having world class cars.

Maybe you should ask the same questions on Elise talk? and see what they say. That would be interesting if you dont pose it as a troll.

BTW, $18K in damage is not going to total an Exige or new Elise. Your talking 45 - 60K cars here.

 

LOL. Remember a few years ago when a doctor (term used loosely) went on several TV news (term used loosely) shows to tell us all that bicycle riding caused impotence? Most real doctors dismissed his findings because they guy was treating a few long-distance road cyclists for the problem and word got around in those circles that if you had symptoms like numbness after long road rides, that he was a specialist. So, the bulk of his patients were long-distance road cyclists who complained of numbness and a significant percentage of that sample had temporary or permanent impotence. Anyone see a problem with saying a 'significant percentage of' after the sample was loaded with higher risk patients?

All the wives of bike commuters (like me) or weekend enthusiasts went nuts (errr, crazy, I mean), because they didn't want their husbands on bike seats. Seat manufacturers made a killing on new seat designs with holes in the middle of them. People who desperately needed exercise to ward off the biggest death risk in the USA....heart disease...stopped biking. I think a significant percentage of them bought SUVs, too

 

Yep - kind of like the people that see a 300-death plane crash in the news and swear off airplane travel, only to replace it with driving a car, where you're statistically MUCH more likely to die, per mile traveled.

 

Good post - where did you get the numbers? Did the source have the statistics broken down any other way? Personally, I'd like to see the statistics for deaths by car class, **per million miles driven**. The numbers you posted might be misleading if certain classes of vehicle are driven more miles in a year than vehicles in other classes.

 

From the URL I posted ...


First, I suggest everyone read this http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/saf...8/article.html

As to misleading, in fact it mentions that and I didnt post the numbers for pickups

"Pickup trucks tend to be driven by young males," said Adrian Lund, chief operating officer of the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety in Arlington, Virginia. "Smaller SUVs tend to be driven by women and that has been found to lower the totals."

Meanwhile, large sedans, which are both heavier and better equipped, show the lowest totals. Still, how you drive is obviously an important factor in the process.

I dont know about driven more ... the average driver drives 12K miles per year so I think that comes out in the wash

I do think they are correct in that number for pickups will be skewed by who buys them

Despite the fact that to many the MINI is an enthusiasts car, most people by the mini cars to get good gas mileage so I wouldn't attribute the high death rates to driving fast for the class.

 

There was an amazing article in Time a week or so ago about how we perceive risk:
LINK
It's very eye-opening.

Well, just take the statistics and add up different groups. Is it safer to drive a mini than a non-mini car? Is it safer to drive a small SUV than a non-small SUV? Remember also that the sample includes only cars built from 2000 to 2002. Were all the deaths the result of collisions? Believe it or not, I'm not trying to antagonize. It's just that I rarely take statistics seriously in any context. When somebody quotes numbers, I get a kick out of messing with the numbers to see what happens.

 

Chows, you make some valid points, but remember depending on how it is analyzed even raw data can be misleading. I found this article that was quite interesting. I'm not an expert on car safety so I can't say whether bigger or smaller cars are safer. But these researchers had some interesting findings.

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/...UV-Safety.html

 

Thats fair. Statistics can be twisted.

The dates are the dates they are hard data one. I suppose they are doing 2003 - 2005 now.

As to how they died ... sorry, dont matter to me... they are ....

Dead

 

Agreed - but my point was that if subcompacts are more likely to be used as daily drivers than very large vehicles, that fact wouldn't show up in a "deaths per million vehicles sold" statistic, but it would be reflected in a "deaths per million miles traveled" chart.

While 12,000 miles per year may be the arithematic average, I don't think it's very close to the median. My wife and I always seem to go over that number by at least 25%, and we both have short commutes (<10 miles), and don't take an inordinate number of road trips in a given year.

 

I agree, mini for gas mileage are daily commuters. However, take a look at any parking lots, I see a sea of SUVs. All driven to work everyday as well.

As to the 12K number, your saying your both driving more like 14K miles each? But then some people, like me, commuting drive about 10K to make up for your being over. No?

Deaths per miles driven would be interesting as well, not denying that.

 

Unfortunately, there's no way to figure out deaths-per-mile from the information given.

Imagine that instead of car classes, they had used specific car manufacturers. Ferrari and Lamborghini might have very low "deaths per cars sold" numbers, but there's no mechanism in that statistic to account for the fact that most of those cars are driven very infrequently (if at all!) during a given year. If the numbers were presented in a "deaths per mile driven" format, the Ferrari/Lamborghini numbers would likely be a LOT higher.

It's the same way with motorcycles - not only are their "deaths per bike sold" numbers high, their "deaths per mile driven" numbers are HUGE. (I still ride, though )

 

I agree that there are people that drive less than 12K per year that make up for people like me that drive 15k or so, but I think that there are far more cars OVER the 12K annual mark than there are cars BELOW the 12K mark. We have five cars and one motorcycle, so the 30k we drive each year between us "averages out" to only 5k miles per vehicle per year, at least on paper. That means that there are a lot of one- and two-car households that are REALLY racking up the miles to bring the average up to 12k.

 

Cayman...Cayanne...so close...but either way, I haven't driven one. Thanks for the clarification. I was in my head trying to figure out how that SUV could weigh less than a MINI...it was a long day yesterday!

I was thinking about this...probably a little too much...and I realized something. While they were very biased in the way they reported this...and obviously added in the Nissan Versa to prove their biased point, I don't think the crash tests were biased, only the way they were reported and compiled into a BS report.

There is obviously a problem with rear impacts in our cars. I had a 10mph accident where a Lexus SUV hit me from behind. It hurt my neck pretty bad because my head was forced backward and gave me whiplash on the front of my neck. It also didn't help that my neck was turned almost 90 degrees to look for oncoming traffic... According to the actual crash test reports, one of the main reasons that the MINI received such low numbers was because of the seats...I can understand this since in all other impacts we are protected by air bags. In such a light car, more energy is transfered to the driver in the form of motion than in a heavier car because the larger car absorbs less energy from the impact. There is an easy answer to this. All of the super light cars did bad in this area because there has likely been no significant leaps in seat design. If a 4000lbs car has the same seats as a 2000lbs car, the lighter car will have worse rear end collision results.

The answer is obviously not to get heavier cars, it is that the seats need to be redesigned! I'm sure an airbag in the head rest is a stupid idea, but there has to be a way to reshape the seats and make them more flexible. When I am sitting upright, there is a good distance between my head and the headrest. If the impact is hard enough, the headrest might as well be made of concrete.

IMO this should have been the ONLY point of these news reports. When there is a problem in design...the answer is not to abandon the whole thing...just fix the problems.

I'd hate to see the crash results on our Austin Heally roadster. There are no headrests on the little bucket seats. It's pretty heavy though....

 

Most cars pre-1971 had no headrests. Interestingly, most of us rode in these "unsafe" vehicles by today's standards in our childhoods and somehow we all made it. I guess our parents were suicidal, fearless or a combination of both.

I just think people in this country are too fear driven, period. These groups know how to exploit the fear they can create through bogus reporting.

We all know motorcycles are extremely dangerous, yet they haven't dissapeared, people still buy them and ride them day in and day out.

The message here should be that every car gives you (or tries to) provide a reasonably amount of protection in the event of a crash. But no car is guaranteed to save your life 100%. You just play the odds and cheat death every time you get behind the wheel the best way you possibly can.

The new Nissan Versa is a new car but it is also larger and heavier than the other vehicles in the comparison test. The Versa is more akin to a Corolla or Civic than it is to a Fit, Aveo or MINI, The Versa doesn't even belong in the group of cars tested due to its heftier dimensions. The answer doesn't lie in engaing in an "arms race" (Like Mr. Adrian Lund, CEO of the IIHS suggested yesterday) but to encourage Americans to drive vehicles that are smaller, more efficient and can help minimize the divide of size/weight that exists today. Unfortunately this message is not what the media wants to send out (After all all the SUV producing car companies pay the bills, right?) and gets lost in the shuffle of fear and total mis-information.

 

C4, you got an interesting point in the first paragraph that has been expounded in several places ... things like ... when we were a kid we would:

• Drive with no seatbelts and no carseats for infants (Like Brittany)
• Eat the lead paint chips on the window sill
• Play all day with no cell phones to call home
• get a knee scrape. cry a bit then go back and play in the street some more. Come home hours later with the blood caking for Mom for a bandaid.

And yet we all lived ... Amazing huh?

As to SUV producing car companies pay the bills I just don't know where you get this stuff from. Virtually every car maker on the planet makes SUVs. More and more are jumping on the bandwagon. Follow the money. I know you hate SUVs and that's you choice and I will defend your "right" to hate them ... but there isn't conspiracies everywhere .... just because you think someone is following you doesn't mean they are not