Dacia Sandero

[Randomnerd]

That might be a little unfair on the OP, but it's fair to point out only the rich can afford the best passive safety.

Given the poor person's need for a car is just as valid as the rich person's, there's no easy answer.

I certainly wouldn't criticise anyone for buying a Sandero.

Better that than a poorly maintained old banger.

I'm flattered that you almost agree with me. Are you okay?!

Drago is just revisiting the usual refrain that he is better than others because he has a Volvo, or muscles, or statistics or whatever else he reckons will dazzle us. It is boring and repetitive. Forum litter IMHO.

These threads don't construct an argument, other than to establish that the OP knows best. What I find more insidious on an open forum is that there is no debate about this. It has been said by the OP several times that he wont engage.

I just don't get the point.

Shouldn't the point actually be that the whole of India, for example, is driving around in cars with no NCAP ratings, whatever they may be. Bloody dangerous state of affairs. Or that there are loads of cars for sale with a zero rating. What's the point of the ratings if you can buy a crap one?

What about asking "How do poor people stay safe and mobile on the roads?"

Most of the people in my friendship group drive battered but serviceable older cars which they have serviced and tested as per the rules. Many of them would kill a cyclist with their car - not caress a cyclist like a Volvo would as it ploughed into them, gently lifting them on a bed of compressed air and resting them on the verge in a swiftly-planted wreath of scented violets and a lit candle arrangement - should an accident occur. Should these people be forced off the road? Are they more dangerous than the Volvoistas?

One can argue these things ad infinitum. There's a pretty strong case for the stance that says drivers ensconced and cossetted in luxury cars are less likely to understand the impact of their vehicle on other road users. How flexible a bonnet might be seems to be a side argument, when the cyclist is taking his last breath under your front wheel, Swedish or otherwise.

We continue to bow down to the car. We are coming from safety entirely from the wrong direction. The drive should be to reduce massively car numbers and car journeys in urban areas where there are lots of vulnerable people and not to make more and bigger and safer cars.

 

[Drago]

You will have a hard time convincing anyone that going under a vehicle is preferable to being thrown onto the bonnet, and an equally hard time convincing anyone that a flat fronted vehicle is not more likely to send you under.

You misunderstand the mechanisms that cause people to end up under vehicles - its the shape and the ability to deform and absorb energy that dictates that, not an extra 2 or 3 inches of ride height. Indeed, as again aforementioned, my XC90 (I use it as an exampke solely because I hapoen to have one) is specifically designed to reduce the chances of that hapening, using methods and techniques that small cars simply do not have the space or budget for.

Euro NCAP, who have crashed an awful lot of cars in the name of testing over the years, seem to disagree with you. I normally nod sagely at your jottings, but in this case I must follow the observed and repeatable science and not the folklore.

@Randomnerd makes an interesting observation about a drivers hazard perception and their attitude to driving, and whether that may be related to the type of vehicle they drive. There may be something in that, but I have yet to see either any hard data broken down by car type, or observed studies of driver behaviour that support the notion. Without that it remains a speculative proposition, not fact. The car most likely to be involved ina collision (accounting for numbers, etc) is actually the Prius, which would tend to rather undermine the assertion.

 

[Pale Rider]

What happens if you whack a child?

That's not to be emotive, many collisions are with children who have yet to develop road sense.

Their lack of stature must make it more likely for them to go under a mobile brick than a car with a relatively low bonnet.

And traditional cars also have crumple zones.

Or let's ask Peter Sagan.

He managed to cycle onto the roof of a Citroen.

I bet even he couldn't do that with an SUV.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ6s3KW-Ycc

 

[Hacienda71]

The last three years the safest cars for vulnerable road users NCAP ratings have not been SUVs. There is also the added issue of visibility that taller cars cause by blocking site lines for other road users which NCAP doesn't take into account. We could talk about fuel efficiency as well. Unless I was lied to in school science lessons, propelling a larger heavier less aerodynamic objects takes more energy and is therefore less efficient.

I am intrigued though why a Volvo 4x4 makes a good disabled vehicle without a substantial adaption. My father is pretty much wheel chair bound due to advanced Parkinsons and we are currently looking at disbaled car options which can accomodate a self powered wheelchair. The norm seems to be a VW caddy type vehicle with ramp and winch. With a normal wheelchair we can simply put it in the boot of my mum's Ford Fiesta.

 

[BoldonLad]

In my day the test was straightforward. You had to drive between 2 cows without hitting either one. If you messed it up you didn't bother stopping, you just drove straight home. ...............



Except @Pale Rider that is not true. The reverse is the case. See my earlier post with links to NCAP. Its an urban myth, a falshood perpeuiated by people who don't like SUVs (Ive no problem at all with people not liking them, only that they stick to actual facts when trotting put their justifcation for doing so).

Current XC90, rather elderly now, on sale for almost 7 years and about to be replaced with a new model...

https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/volvo/xc90/20976

The new Fiesta, arguably the most advanced and sophistcated small ICE car you can buy...

https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/ford/fiesta/27708

While youre on the NCAP site have a root around, and youll see the Q7s, X5s, all the wildebeest comfortably outperform small cars for pedestrian safety.

Interestingly, in the last year or so NCAP have done away with a pedestrian rating for new models, and its now a "vulnerable road users" rating, presumably including tests for cyclists, horse riders, etc.

I took my car test in 1964, test was somewhat more demanding than you describe, but, not as demanding as now IMHO. I also took Motorcycle test, in 2012. Somewhere along the line, I also did my Cycling Proficiency test, but, cannot remember exactly when, around 1954?

 

[Cycleops]

Talk about not demanding. I took my motorcycle test in 1971. The epxamer told me to ride around the block a few times and then jumped out from behind a parked car for my emergency stop. Three questions and that was it.

 

[BoldonLad]

Talk about not demanding. I took my motorcycle test in 1971. The epxamer told me to ride around the block a few times and then jumped out from behind a parked car for my emergency stop. Three questions and that was it.

In 2012, I was the only 65 year old "waiting in the test centre to be called", everyone else (except the examiners) looked about 12, but, were probably 17 or 18. I was quite pleased with myself when I passed

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Talk about not demanding. I took my motorcycle test in 1971. The epxamer told me to ride around the block a few times and then jumped out from behind a parked car for my emergency stop. Three questions and that was it.

I took my motorcycle test in 1972 and it was about the same as yours.

 

[BoldonLad]

I took my motorcycle test in 1972 and it was about the same as yours.

Makes me wish I had done mine at 16 (1963), they would probably have just sent licence out in post, without even having to turn up!

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Apparently marked down heavily for its basic brake system.

https://www.yesauto.com/uk/news/art...6oIjHtrzMhaheX9wKO1ZnNgqTdhWXA5fmT_VnmmIC9RT4

 

[Cycleops]

Apparently marked down heavily for its basic brake system.

I wonder what they would have made of my old Austin 7 special which had cable operated drums? Because it was so light they were in fact more than adequate.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I wonder what they would have made of my old Austin 7 special which had cable operated drums? Because it was so light they were in fact more than adequate.

Thats a good question, I wondered how its brakes would compare to the older cars that are still on the road, Cars like my 10 year old Suzuki Swift

 

[Profpointy]

Apparently marked down heavily for its basic brake system.

https://www.yesauto.com/uk/news/art...6oIjHtrzMhaheX9wKO1ZnNgqTdhWXA5fmT_VnmmIC9RT4

Are better brakes a safety aid, or a means to drive faster ? Discuss...

I am making a serious point. My 1968 Cortina had very poor, albeit predictable, roadholding. You could easily drive it to its limit and slide it round bends etc as you has loads of time to sort it out, and weren't going fast at all. A car with much better roadholding can get you into a lot more trouble, as I myself discovered (back in the day, I'm sensible now)

 

[tyred]

Whatever happened to driving at a speed where you can stop in the distance you can see to be clear?

It seems to me that people want the car's gadgets to keep them out of trouble rather than actually drive to the road conditions.

 

[fossyant]

I take NCAP with a pinch of salt these days as they count all the added safety features that save the bacon of stupid drivers.