When you drive your car down the road do you ever think about what might happen if somebody collided with you? Does your car have the necessary safety features to keep you alive? Most studies you see about car safety tests demonstrate what might happen in a head on collision, but according to an article I read on Dateline NBC, “The risk of dying or being seriously injured, if you're struck in the side right where you're sitting is much higher than the typical frontal crash.”
The article reports on an IIHS side impact crash test results study. This study smashed different mid-sized sedans with a simulated SUV force on the driver's side of the car. Most of the cars tested didn't receive very good marks, implying that today's cars are not safe enough. Studies like this can really hurt the image that a car company may be trying to portay. The only way the company can keep its image is to spend more money trying to make its car more safe. Should we really have these types of programs that show us how unsafe our cars are? In my opinion we shouldn't.
The entire notion of trying to make cars safer reminds me about the "seat belts cause more accidents" scenario. If we make our cars more and more safer, we will begin to drive more and more unsafely. Where does it all stop? Before you know it the only way to get to work safely will be to drive a tank there.
2 comments:
Car manufacturers are continually trying to improve on safety issues. It is not a bad thing if they make them safer. That safety factor could save many lives. I'm not a big proponent of the notion that people drive any differently if they are in a safer vehicle. Even if they did, wouldn't it be better to be in a safer car if your the one hit by them. They are many sides to this issue. Anyway's, car manufactures are not just thinking of you and I when they make them safer, what they are thinking about are their sales. An unsafe car will never be touched in the marketplace.
I like where this discussion is going. We do need to make a distinction between safety improvements that make you feel safer versus those that just make you safer.
Seatbelts cause hazardous driving because they make you feel safer. I don't think that airbags or structural improvements affect your behavior as much, because you can't feel them in an obvious way.
But clearly, automakers have figured out that people will pay for safety advances.
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