Friday, April 17, 2009

Mini/Small Car Buyers Sacrifice Safety?

1. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) was recently testing crash on 3 small or mini cars which were Smart for Two, Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris with a middle car. The purpose of the test crash is to determine whether the mini cars are crashworthy during collision with a bigger-size car or not. What they found as follows.

..All three models tested — the Honda Fit, the Toyota Yaris and the Smart Fortwo— fared poorly in the collisions. By contrast, the midsize models into which they crashed fared well or acceptably. Both the minicars and midsize cars were traveling 40 miles per hour, so the crash occurs at 80 m.p.h.


2. There is an issue or debate on fuel save or safety. The current trend shows many people prefer to buy small-size cars due to economically proved can save lots of gas, which implicitly means our money. However by doing so, you will make a big trade-off by sacrificing your safety. So is it worth?

The argument over weight versus safety is not a new one but took on greater significance when gasoline prices rose sharply last year, making minicars more popular. Consumers also seek out vehicles that burn less fuel so they will contribute less to global warming. Production of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas, is proportional to fuel use, and the Smart claims to be the highest-mileage car powered by gasoline on the American market.

3. It is a matter of fact that during any collision, a lighter car tends to absorb more collision energy. For example, if Perodua Kancil collided with Mitsubishi Pajero, Kancil is more likely to have great deformation due to according to mass ratio theory, the bigger the weight difference, the bigger the severity to the lighter vehicle will have.

4. Bear in mind, the fact that the small car is not safe has been tested on among very safe mini cars in the world. How about Malaysian Perodua Viva or Proton Savvy? Even very safe mini cars failed to compromise our safety. So please think and consider this before you buy any new car.

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