Safe Speed Forums

I have been know to frequent the interwebs ag fora, and have been know to sledge anyone that wants a Range Rover. I recently was trying my best to convince the unconvincable that it is not the size of the vehicle that keeps you safe, it it how it is driven, here is a link http://farmingforum.co.uk/forums/showth ... 160&page=3. You want to be looking at post 56 and beyond. I wanted to call for the cavalry...

Then this goes and happens...http://farmingforum.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=29686. A member of the same forum is killed in an RTA when a RR hits another vehicle and then on to hers.

Big vehicle = OK if you hit something smaller, bad news for what you hit though : : :

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I am reminded of a friend who used to boast about the safety of his big Volvo. Nothing could hurt him in a car like that. Until, one day, he turned up in a courtesy Ka nursing a lot of bruises. A JCB had totalled his Volvo. Moral: there is always something bigger out to get you.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Possibly another driver who said "I can see you -so THEREFORE ,you can see me " - moral "NEVER ASS UME "-only takes a second or two to see what's happening ,or as my old safety adviser said "ensure a clear understanding of the actions of both parties and reach a clear understanding of how both parties will proceed ,and communicate during the actions " .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

It is sad, but true, that in a vehicle-to-vehicle impact, being big, high up & heavy counts for a lot! They have different groups in the EuroNCAP tests for just this reason. Clearly, if you stuffed a Range Rover into a Smart car, you'd probably have to spend a while picking the Smart car out of the Range Rover's tyre treads!

http://www.euroncap.com/Content-Web-Faq ... b99c8f62c4

As you say though, it all changes when you drive into a motorway bridge parapet - even a Range Rover will come to a pretty abrupt halt!

It strikes me that 'Lee' is under-confident and scared. He has had to deal with the trauma and grief of losing friends and he wants to feel safe. I wonder what type of vehicles his friends were in when they died. If he believes that had they been in bigger cars with 'more protection' then he will not see your (excellent) points as then he would have to also admit that the friends would be alive if they had driven better / more knowledge / skill etc - that is tough. If he thought they were good drivers or even better than he is all this will make it very difficult for him to appreciate the wisdom of your words.

I would ask him how many near misses but he already admits to accidents so there is much that he is missing already, not anticipating or observing etc. (AA did a survey showing that the 6th near miss is an accident - usu within a year or thereabouts.) It maybe worth asking and may help you to start to make him realise that you realise that he has near misses and brakes hard is not very hard from time to time.

Whilst I can understand that logic - the more bending metal the less bending body, it is better as you state that no metal gets scratched never mind bent!
Finding out from him how many times he thinks of other topics when driving ... (potential lack of forethought or 'thinking' whilst driving) that leads to inattention etc ....
The balance between preparation to all possibilities and automatic response driving, can seem pointless to some drivers when they fail to comprehend that they an pay attention to their driving enough, that they can engage with it, and that will help prevent even a near miss, because they were thinking about the possibility of an event.
I wonder if an approach to 'farm type' driving needs where he does pay attention as he has to might help to draw parallels ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Thank you for taking the time to read the threads I linked to.

He's clearly a clever bloke, but it is very hard to make him see some sense on this subject. I don't have any problem with him wanting to drive a big car *, what I have a problem with is using it as personal protection.

Claire, you made reference to "ag type driving". He tells us he does the drilling (planting crops), I have no reason to disbelieve this. Drilling is a skilled job, calibrating the machine, getting the depth right, keeping it straight, watching for poles and trees, all take huge concentration. If he is as distracted doing this job as he appears to be while using the road, at best his crops will look a mess.

Next time this subject comes up, which it inevitably will, I'll try your suggestions.

Adam ,on the case of big car ,less risk , you could point him in the direction of Top Gear tests - from memory , they crashed a RR into some small car (with a big NCAP rating ) , and big bully came of worst . Something about chassis /body stiffness ( needed for off road activites) vs flexibility and crush pannelling built into road vehicle .The stiffness of the RR deformed the body in a head on to make it a death trap,against a much smaller car .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

...and yet, we shouldn't loose sight of the fact that as "personal protection", big cars ARE generally better than small ones! Don't get me wrong, the crashworthiness engineers have done a SUPERB job on the Smart car to make it as good as it is, but if you stuffed one into a Range Rover, I know which one I'd rather be in! None of this would stop me driving a small car - even a kit car like a Caterham. They're great fun, but I'm under no illusions about the level of protection I'm likely to be afforded in a smash! I'm also happy to agree that it's best not to have the accident in the first place, but unfortunately, as your man on the forum knows only too painfully well, life's not like that and accidents DO (and will) happen.

I'd be interested to see that! I'm guessing that it was carefully set up to take advantage of a particular combination of circumstances to get the result they were looking for. I guess they could also set up some oddball crash test to show that wearing a seat belt could be more harmful than not, but it wouldn't be representative of the majority of crashes.

Until quite recently, big 4x4s tended to have a separate chassis and were nothing like as torsionally stiff as smaller, monocoque vehicles. I think some of the more modern ones now have monocoques just because it makes them lighter and more refined. Whether torsional stiffness is a good indicator of crashworthiness is another matter. I know that earlier 4x4s with separate chassis tended not to crumple as well as a monocoque, so if you crashed one into something solid, the deceleration you suffered would be very high. Might they have crashed each car into a wall rather than each other? If so, I could believe that the older large 4x4 might perform worse than the smaller modern car.

For all that, I'm not a fan of big 4x4s and they DO have safety drawbacks (not as nimble or stable for a start), but again, I don't think we should blind ourselves to their good points.

As I said on Big Tone's "just witnessed a crash" thread, I place more importance in a low C of G than the buyers of SUVs on safety grounds do.

He's used to driving something high up for his job. I doubt that the car that his friends crashed was a large car. What type of vehicle is in between what he drives, what his friends drove and is reasonably priced and safe?

Just thinking aloud.

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Prepare to be Judged

One of the other tests I remember ( think it was also on Top Gear) was ( what I thout at first would be a forgone conclusion ) testing a Smart car in a crash situation .From memory they had it crash into a concrete block ,with surprisingly little damage to the passenger cell .On the other hand ,few years ago I had a someone rear end my Cavalier with a Fiat . My towbar was slightly damaged ,car was not in slightest impared ,but poor Fiat had major engine damage ,witness lots of oil and water on road .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

ISTR that one.

The "Smart" survived surprisingly well. It was even possible to open the door afterwards.

Unfortunatly (as was pointed out in the program) Nobody could have survived the accident!

Although the "safety cage" was incredably strong, there simply wasnt enough "crumple" zone to allow the occupants to live!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

In my experience (which does include two demolition derbies) ...

When two vehicles of roughly equal weight strike each other, the one with greater crumple space for compacting will provide greater survivability.
How often do vehicles of equal weight strike each other?

When two vehicles of roughly equal size strike each other, the one with greater weight will cause the lighter vehicle to use up more of its crumple space.
How often do vehicles of roughly equal size strike each other?

The above also jointly assume that the two vehicles have both their centers of gravity and their primary collision structures in common.

The heavier and more spacious vehicle whose primary collision structure is highest off the ground will nearly always inflict more damage on the vehicle lacking these same factors.

(Structurally speaking, my car only need fear taller vehicles whose passenger capacity exceeds seven - mostly trucks,SUVs, etc - since it's one of the largest most spacious cars on the road, and weighs 2 metric tonnes.)

I personally believe the thing to do in the future is to make cars lighter WITHOUT making them any smaller. Larger, if possible, in fact, which would give more crush space.
Meanwhile, being lighter provides benefits whenever the vehicle is NOT in a collision situation - less wear and tear, lower fuel consumption, greater ability to evade collisions, etc

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The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

I remember some years ago an incident where a Fiesta pulled out "Right" in front of me when I was driving my old SII landrover.

(It was night time, I think the driver misinterpreted the inboard headlights of the landie as a vehicle further away than I actually was IYSWIM)

A collision was unavoidable though I was able to shed a bit of speed so it was a relativly low speed impact and nobody was hurt.

It was like a sledgehammer hitting a pea! the fiesta was bulldozed along the road for a short distance before sliding up onto the pavement. Fortunatly for the driver the impact was spread along the whole side of the car by my bullbars so there was little intrusion though the car was likly a write off.

I can honostly say I didnt really feel a thing and the only damage My vehicle sustained was a, very slightly, bent bumper!

(Incidentally,The damage to both vehicles would have been more severe, and injuries to the fiesta driver more likly, if I hadnt had the bull-bars)

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

It's a very well known fact that bullbars, pushbumpers, and grilleguards tend to be worthwhile investments in the event of a collision. They often sacrifice themselves first, and then spread the shock of impact along much of its vehicle's framerails (even many vehicles with unibody chassis have subframes to which these reinforcements are attached), dissipating not only the forces of most minor impacts, but often their costs as well.

I totally understand the trend toward bumper fascias that are smoothly integrated with the body, but if they aren't being made of a high-durometer NERF-like material, I'd prefer (though I can't at this time afford) they behave more like bullbars, pushbumpers, and grilleguards. That would increase the likelihood of surviving extremely minor parking lot-type collisions completely unharmed.

(The myriad government mandated increases in design complexities are making vehicles more costly to acquire, own, operate, maintain, and repair, which covers many of the reasons why I drive a sixteen year old car).

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The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

I think it depends greatly how they are mounted. I don't know about the typical construction of US cars, but in Europe, a lot of them have crush structures immediately behind the bumper (between the bumper and the front structure of the car. These are designed to absorb minor crashes without feeding the loads into the "expensive" bits of shell / subframe etc. Unfortunately, it's quite common to see bull bars attached to "strong" parts of the vehicle structure - completely bypassing these bits. All too often, therefore, the result is that what would have been a fairly cheap, minor accident replacement (get another bumper and the "crash cans" behind it) becomes a MUCH more expensive job (or even a write-off!) because the bull bar mountings have transferred the loads into the shell itself. (Although the cheap, sacrificial bits are often well-protected by the bull bars)! The other thing we sometimes see is bull bars bent back into headlights so you have to fork out for a couple of headlights even if you only hit a low wall that would have damaged the car well below headlight level!

There's an EC Directive for them now. "Bull bars" was too emotive a term, so they're called "Frontal Protection Systems" now! The aim is to make them pedestrian-freindly though - not to test how well they protect the car.

Mole? Don't "Frontal Protection Systems" sometime negate the effectiveness of the way the front of vehicle is designed to minimise injury to pedestrians? Not that that would matter if it reduced damage to the vehicle of course

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Mole? Don't after market "Frontal Protection Systems" sometime negate the effectiveness of the way the front of vehicle is designed to minimise injury to pedestrians? Not that that would matter if it reduced damage to the vehicle of course

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

No, they sometimes even enhance it! Now "bull bars" on the other hand...

The whole reason the Directive was introduced was because of aftermarket (and some OE) bull bars. Before it came in, there was a directive for "Pedestrian Protection". This was mandatory for "new types" of vehicles introduced after (I can't remember when but 5 years or so go). Bizarrely, passenger cars over 2500kg when fully loaded (i.e. most larger 4x4s!) were exempt - still are, in fact! There were various tests where you fired bits of dummy at the front of the vehicle and looked at how badly "injured" it got. Obviously, retro-fitting some crappy aftermarket "bull bar" knocked up in a blacksmith's shop (you can probably tell I'm not a big fan of these!) did, indeed invalidate the car's original approal and render the whole exercise rather pointless.

As a result, the Directive on bull bars was introduced, which imposed more or less the same requirements as the pedestrian protection DIrective, but for the vehicle when fitted with the bull bar. If a manufacturer wants to market his bull bar as a "Frontal Protection System", he needs to get it tested on all the vehicles for which he intends to supply it. IF you see something like a Freelander or Discovery with the OE bull bar on it, you'll find it has pretty rounded edges and most of it is covered in polyurethane foam or somesuch - which is often actually better to get hit by than a radiator grille or headlight. (althouth I freely accept that in the great scheme of things, getting run over by a 4x4 is rarely a pleasureable experience in any case)!