An interesting few days

[JDNSW]

I have had an interesting few days. On Sunday morning I took a friend who has been with me for a few days down to the village to get his car (New Hyundai), left at my niece's because the road into my place was likely to be impassable to two wheel drives due to the rain.

Having seen him off for Melbourne at 0800, I was still having a cup of tea there when I got a phone call from someone on his phone to tell me that he had been in an accident just outside of Dubbo. So I drove in to the location.

It seems he came over a crest and there was a car and horse float turning right. He did not realise it was stopped in time, and estimates he was doing about ninety when he hit. However, the Hyundai is supposed to be the safest small car on the market, and lived up to this. When I arrived the car and horse float had gone off to the vet to get the horse checked, and police and ambulance were there. He was being treated in the ambulance, with the only symptom being back pain, and was taken to Dubbo Base for X-rays and assessment. With the permission of the police, I took all his stuff out of the car. By this time the fire brigade (not much need - diesel) and tow truck had arrived. I followed the ambulance to the hospital, where he was discharged about lunchtime, still with severe back pain, but nothing on X-rays. He was planning to fly back to Melbourne this morning, but has decided he is not fit to fly. He was due to fly to Vanuatu on Wednesday.

Yesterday I had to go back in to the towing company's holding yard - I had missed two pairs of glasses; one in a compartment above the mirror I did not know about, the others, the ones he had been wearing I found under the back of the driver's seat. Also I had missed the mount for his Tomtom, and his phone charger, and all the keys except the car key.

Looks like I have a guest for days if not weeks.

John

[87County]

Sorry to hear that happened to your mate JD, at least he's OK and he had somebody he knew who give practical support

....guests can be OK (for a while)

.........could have been worse

[weeds]

lets hope he is back on his feet soon.....bugger about the holiday to Vanuatu

[Captain_Rightfoot]

Sorry to hear for your friend John.

However, the Hyundai is supposed to be the safest small car on the market.

This did give me a chuckle. Almost certainly this is the only truth ever spoken in a hyundai dealer. Most of their cars have only just received their 4 star rating.

Anyway, undoubtably it is far far safer than the small cars that preceded it. This is my point that no one seems to be able to comprehend on this site. Modern crash safety is advancing incredibly quickly which is enabling crash outcomes that are far better than would have been expected in the past. Old thinking that big(heavy) and solid is always best definitely was true, but now it is far less clear cut than that. The very latest safest cars are getting outcomes for occupants that would defy belief ten (let alone 20) years ago.

[Scouse]

Bad luck about your mate but make sure you send us a postcard from Vanuatu .





Well, it would be a shame to waste a holiday .

[Treads]

Glad to hear your friend is okay

I've been to quite a few prangs these holidays, and they haven't all been so nice.

By this time the fire brigade (not much need - diesel)

If it was called in as a 'persons trapped', or there were liquids on the road, the fire brigade will always turn up

[BigJon]

Anyway, undoubtably it is far far safer than the small cars that preceded it. This is my point that no one seems to be able to comprehend on this site.

I comprehend it and I am sure many others do too. New cars are safer in crashes than old cars. Bit of a no brainer really...

[JDNSW]

Sorry to hear for your friend John.



This did give me a chuckle. Almost certainly this is the only truth ever spoken in a hyundai dealer. Most of their cars have only just received their 4 star rating.

Anyway, undoubtably it is far far safer than the small cars that preceded it. This is my point that no one seems to be able to comprehend on this site. Modern crash safety is advancing incredibly quickly which is enabling crash outcomes that are far better than would have been expected in the past. Old thinking that big(heavy) and solid is always best definitely was true, but now it is far less clear cut than that. The very latest safest cars are getting outcomes for occupants that would defy belief ten (let alone 20) years ago.

This is certainly the case, but the facts remains that firstly, everything else being equal, in a two car crash the heavier vehicle will always come of best. In fact, if the difference is large, even an uncrashworthy heavier vehicle will often be more survivable than a much lighter very crashworthy vehicle - for example, there are many cases of extremely uncrashworthy heavy transport vehicles suffering little or no injury to the driver in a headon collision with very crashworthy passenger cars where all occupants have been killed or severely injured.

The second point is that crashworthiness is, according to Monash University research, only slightly if at all related to overall deaths and injuries for vehicles - certainly it is closely related if you only look at the vehicles involved in accidents, but if you look at the entire vehicle population, the probability of having an accident (which is quite vehicle dependent) is a much bigger factor than the crashworthiness. And this appears to be unpredictable from a design viewpoint, probably being mainly a reflection of the type of driver the vehicle design appeals to.

In this case, as a pure guess, the vehicle characteristics which may have influenced the event could include effortless, quiet cruising, giving the impression of speed being lower and margin of control being larger than they really are. (The owner thinks my County seems to be going faster at the same speed, interestingly a different impression than the one I get - I think he is more influenced by the wind, where to me the County seems slower than most cars at the same speed because you are further from the road.

John

[Captain_Rightfoot]

This is certainly the case, but the facts remains that firstly, everything else being equal, in a two car crash the heavier vehicle will always come of best. In fact, if the difference is large, even an uncrashworthy heavier vehicle will often be more survivable than a much lighter very crashworthy vehicle - for example, there are many cases of extremely uncrashworthy heavy transport vehicles suffering little or no injury to the driver in a headon collision with very crashworthy passenger cars where all occupants have been killed or severely injured.

The second point is that crashworthiness is, according to Monash University research, only slightly if at all related to overall deaths and injuries for vehicles - certainly it is closely related if you only look at the vehicles involved in accidents, but if you look at the entire vehicle population, the probability of having an accident (which is quite vehicle dependent) is a much bigger factor than the crashworthiness. And this appears to be unpredictable from a design viewpoint, probably being mainly a reflection of the type of driver the vehicle design appeals to.

In this case, as a pure guess, the vehicle characteristics which may have influenced the event could include effortless, quiet cruising, giving the impression of speed being lower and margin of control being larger than they really are. (The owner thinks my County seems to be going faster at the same speed, interestingly a different impression than the one I get - I think he is more influenced by the wind, where to me the County seems slower than most cars at the same speed because you are further from the road.

John

I really do understand what you're saying but everyone seems to be missing my point. These studies like the MUARC one you referenced have too great a lag to pick up the trends I'm talking about. Read section 1.4 of the above report, and the last look at increasing crashworthiness found little correlation to safety increasing but the newest vehicle included in the research was 2000 and this section hasn't been re-evaluated.

However the main stats have been updated recently. Have a look through the report (page 29 and on) and you'll see that the newer vehicles, and particularly the europeans are making big jumps. The newest vehicles included seem to be about 07, and generally they are bettering the benchmark. So cars that crash well in consumer crash tests are also doing well in the real world.

You should note that the newest Hyundai Accent in the survey is 06, and it is performing worse than the benchmark by 3 increments. The Volkswagen golf from the same time is performing well ahead of the benchmark and on the limit of what is shown in the study. You get what you pay for.

It's my belief that good european designs with what I'll call 5 star safety have only really been available since about 2000, and the proportion of these vehicles in the Aus vehicle population is miniscule. 5 star crash safety has generally only been available in mainstream vehicles since about the middle of the naughties and is still not universally available.

Given the vehicle population of 15 million in Australia it's going to take time for this to be reflected in official stats. Also, should there be any improvements in road statistics state authorities will always claim it's their new draconian policies before handing the kudos to car manufacturers.

I am well aware that vehicles that are more than 200kg different in weight are not regarded as compatible. If you had a choice of crashing in two similarly crashworthy vehicles you'd always take the heavier one.

[JDNSW]

I really do understand what you're saying but everyone seems to be missing my point. These studies like the MUARC one you referenced have too great a lag to pick up the trends I'm talking about. Read section 1.4 of the above report, and the last look at increasing crashworthiness found little correlation to safety increasing but the newest vehicle included in the research was 2000 and this section hasn't been re-evaluated.

However the main stats have been updated recently. Have a look through the report (page 29 and on) and you'll see that the newer vehicles, and particularly the europeans are making big jumps. The newest vehicles included seem to be about 07, and generally they are bettering the benchmark. So cars that crash well in consumer crash tests are also doing well in the real world.

You should note that the newest Hyundai Accent in the survey is 06, and it is performing worse than the benchmark by 3 increments. The Volkswagen golf from the same time is performing well ahead of the benchmark and on the limit of what is shown in the study. You get what you pay for.

It's my belief that good european designs with what I'll call 5 star safety have only really been available since about 2000, and the proportion of these vehicles in the Aus vehicle population is miniscule. 5 star crash safety has generally only been available in mainstream vehicles since about the middle of the naughties and is still not universally available.

Given the vehicle population of 15 million in Australia it's going to take time for this to be reflected in official stats. Also, should there be any improvements in road statistics state authorities will always claim it's their new draconian policies before handing the kudos to car manufacturers.

I am well aware that vehicles that are more than 200kg different in weight are not regarded as compatible. If you had a choice of crashing in two similarly crashworthy vehicles you'd always take the heavier one.

I am not sure you do understand my point - I certainly get yours (and it was not a Hyundai Accent - it was a CSI or a name something like that - completely new design small, very economical diesel along European lines). There is no doubt that if you are going to have a crash, a crashworthy vehicle is better than a heavy vehicle within limits. But my point is that far more important than how crashworthy your vehicle is, is how likely it is to be in a crash in the first place. And this is almost impossible to determine in advance. It can be determined looking back, based on actual experience. But as you point out, given continuing development of cars, the currently available ones have almost no representation in statistics.

The road toll has been declining on a per kilometre basis, give or take random annual variations, almost ever since statistics started to be collected. The only events that look as if they made a major impression were the introduction of seat belts and the introduction of random breath testing. Looking at this overall trend, what I see is not the introduction of crashwoprthy cars, but steady improvements in road conditions. Many of these are small details, but their cumulative effect is significant. Just to point out some local ones - in the immediate area of the accident this thread is about, there are three similat tee junctions - following fatal accidents, the other two have had right turn lanes provided. The same sort of changes are being made all the time, all over the country.

As an example of random variations, NSW in 2008 had the lowest road toll ever - in 2009 it was up substantially, despite more stringent police action, reduced speed limits, road improvements, a larger proportion of more crashworthy vehicles. The only factor I can think of for 2009 is the great financial crisis, which may well have resulted in factors such as more people neglecting maintenance, particularly tyres, more people driving carelessly because their mind was not on theior driving, or even more suicides by motor vehicle (not unlikely - the suicide rate is already well above the road death rate, and an unknown number of road deaths really should be classified as suicide).

But in my view, it is more likely that the increase simply reflects random variation, that becomes a larger factor as the underlying level gets very low.

John