Are Light Small Cars Safe? Remember safer gives you cheaper car insurance.
Light Small Cars Safe?
Obviously one of the biggest factor or consideration for parents when buying a car for their teen or young driver is safety. Are light small cars safe? Which is the safets car?
A study¹ done some years ago exposed the fallacy of choosing vehicle safety based only on size or weight.
Crash testing and real world collisions have documented the effects of seat belts and passive restraints such as air bags and proved the benefits of protecting drivers and passengers in the event of a collision with another vehicle or another object.
Better structural engineering and technology have certainly made major improvements in the ability of vehicles to protect occupants from more serious injuries and fatalities.
But what about the ability of a driver to avoid a collision in the first place? Being able to control and maneuver a vehicle well can have a big effect on collision avoidance. Recent advances in using anti-lock brake systems also enable control of a vehicle’s steering to create electronic stability control systems that intervene with the way the driver uses the brakes and power.
By using computer control of braking and throttle a vehicle can be stabilized to avoid skidding, spin-out, and even possible rollover in spite of what the driver is doing.
The above table shows that small cars are also have a higher crash rate as the SUV’s . Although occupants of a large and possibly heavy vehicle may come off better in a collision, drivers of better handling vehicles might avoid being in collisions in the first place.
Ross and Wenzel found that SUVs are no safer for their drivers than cars. Popular midsize cars, minivans and import luxury cars have the safest records, while SUVs are about as risky as the average midsize or large car, and are no safer than many compact and subcompact models.
Other factors are obviously involved, such as driver behavior but the data shows up some interesting results for different-sized and different quality vehicles such as the Volkswagon Jetta, Toyota Avalon, Ford F-Series and Toyota Tacoma.
Measuring the combined risk, most cars are safer than SUVs, while pickup trucks are less safe than all other types of vehicle.
“It turns out that relatively inexpensive light cars do tend to be unsafe, but more expensive light cars are much safer, and are as safe as heavier cars and SUV models. In any event, the argument that lowering the weight of cars to achieve high fuel economy has resulted in excess deaths is unfounded. If designers pay careful attention to safety in vehicle design, smaller cars can be, and indeed have been, made as safe as larger ones,” said the researcher Marc Ross.
Remember safer vehicle gives you cheaper car insurance.
Auto insurance companies consider the safety of the vehicle and also the geographical data of crashes and analysis them to base thier auto insurance rates on them. The more safer a vehicle for a particular geographical location the better or lower the auto insurance rates. You need to consider the road condiitons, weather conditions of the geographical area you live in when your are selecting the vehicle to buy for cheaper car insruanece. Please also consider all the other factors as equally important like the driving skills of your teen and its best to guide them to be responsible. Cheaper car insurnace can be obtained just by getting teen auto insurance qutoe.
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