Are Tiny, Gas-Saving Cars Unsafe? Today Mine Saved My Life
I rolled my Toyota Yaris three times this morning after hitting a six-foot-high dirt embankment at highway speed. I crawled out with no more than a bump on my head, seat belt burn, and a massively stiff neck. So, for all you small car safety-doubters out there, I’ve now got personal experience to say otherwise.
Inevitably, whenever we post about small electric cars, funky three-wheelers, or any other small fuel-efficient vehicle here at Gas 2.0, we get typical responses along the lines of “It may get 60 mpg, but that thing’s a death trap,” or “It’s nice to drive electric, but would you trust that car to your family?”
After this morning’s shenanigans, I can unequivocally say “Yes. Yes I would trust my family to a small fuel-efficient car, and I’m miraculously alive and mostly uninjured… so no, it’s not a death trap.”
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My Yaris got 40 mpg and weighed less than half (35%) of a Chevy Suburban. From the outside it may not have looked very substantial, but it sure saved me on fuel costs. And, until today, I would have grudgingly agreed that it may not be as safe as driving a behemoth like the Suburban.
But now that my life has stopped flashing before my eyes, and I’ve had a chance to think, it is simply amazing that I walked away from that crash barely bleeding. I mean, just look at the remnants of my car.
In fact, after today, I think I fared better in my Yaris than I would have in a Suburban land yacht. Imagine how many times I would have flipped in the Suburban and the force of impact that would have come along with crashing a 6,447 pound car?
So, for everybody out there that’s using safety as an excuse to not go green, I must ask you to please take a look at that picture of my car and the wonder of how I walked away well enough to write this post the same day. Then try turning around and telling me that these upcoming small alternative cars aren’t safe simply because they’re small.
It’s more a matter of engineering, and, at least in Toyota’s case, those engineers are miracle-workers.
Editor’s note: This post was updated on October 22, at 8:00 am PST, to correct the curb weight of the Chevy Suburban from 8,600 lbs to 6,447 lbs. 8,600 lbs was the gross vehicle weight rating. 6,447 lbs is the weight of the heaviest Suburban — the 3/4 ton model with four wheel drive. My thanks to Ben Wojdyla, Associate Editor at Jalopnik.com, and the commenters on this post who pointed out that discrepancy.
I think the point that most people are missing is this. Most small cars are aimed at the European market where there are tight safety measures. Have a look at the EuroNCAP rating:
http://www.euroncap.com/Content-Web-Start/c7dad01d-a23c-4ae6-bc4c-2676e24a78c2/home.aspx
The main safety feature all these cars have is a very strong and sturdy passenger compartment which does not crumple, fold or in any way deform. The rest of the card, boot/trunk and engine compartment are all expendable and so deform a great deal. this can clearly be seen in the photo. That is the reason why Nick walked away essentially unharmed. The engine compartment disintegrated instead of the passenger compartment. He wasn’t lucky. It was by design.
Have a look at this video of a Smart car head-on crash with a barrier to get a better understanding of the concept.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/60538/smart_car_crash/
you were lucky, until big cars are not on the streets, they will remain very unsafe
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/10/14/1014pgabooked.html
Palm Beach Gardens police say Zegeye was under the influence Sept. 13 and driving about 79 miles per hour in a 45 mile-per-hour zone when he smashed his 6,700-pound Porsche Cayenne into the rear of Krommendyk’s 2,300-pound Toyota Yaris. Zegeye did not hit the brakes. Krommendyk was waiting for a red light at Prosperity Farms Road and PGA Boulevard on his way to deliver a pizza at about 11 p.m. on a Saturday night, police said.
So no one comments that if you hit that 6 foot embankment with a SUV, it would be destroyed, not your car?
come on people!
Great article. When people call small cars unsafe they usually site research that indicates “incompatibilities” between cars on the road. This means that the aforementioned Suburban’s bumper collides with your head, not your bumper. You have posted strong evidence that in a single car collision the Yaris fairs well but I don’t think you would have been so lucky in a collision with a Suburban. I think we can make driving even safer by restricting highways to cars (like your Yaris) and segregating trucks (like the suburban) to low speed roads where they can’t do as much damage.
Great, you save gas and all that Jazz. In my experience most people who drive these cars, claim to be enviormentaly friendly and that’s great. It’s important to care about the earth, the prob. is none of you seem to be able to drive. A point which I don’t think you can argue since you wrecked your car, going highway speeds running into a big hill of dirt. Sir I am happy you are ok, really. Good news is we all new these cars were safe or nobody would buy them, and you claiming they are “so safe” does not mean anything in your fuel economy fight because manufactures do these tests. So why don’t you leave the crashing to the pros and keep it between the lines.
@Nick,
I didn’t include the how, why or opinion about fault in my post for a reason, so I certainly won’t do it now. That’s something for my close friends, family and lawyer. For you to assume that I’m a bad driver because I crashed is, excuse me, asinine. Are you bad at brushing your teeth because you get one cavity? You could be the best driver on the planet and all it takes is one other bad driver to change your silly perspective.
Suffice it to say that just because only one car gets banged up in a wreck, it doesn’t mean that another car wasn’t involved. I also want to say that I believe in karma, and think that what goes around comes around.
Hmm, now can we see what happens when a Yaris is broadsided by a mid sized SUV at 30 mph? I can practically guarantee that you would not fair as well.
Good thing you hit a dirt embankment intead of my F150 4X4.
hitting a six-foot-high dirt embankment at highway speed?
uh, that aint the general lee…
Ok now, come on. Let’s inject some real physics into the argument.
The real source of injury in accidents is delta V, change in velocity. Because you aren’t solidly attached to the car, a big delta V is what gets you bouncing off the interior, organs bouncing off bones, closed head injuries, etc.
A big exterior delta V is what leads to overdeformation, crush injuries, and so on.
Your rollover had a small delta V… your car had the chance to bleed off velocity over distance.
A car hitting an immovable object has a direct delta V only influenced by the impact velocity and any engineering to the chassis that allows velocity change over time, reducing delta V.
Where the problem is is with large vehicles and small vehicles. A small vehicle hitting a large one head-on has a much larger delta V than it would have had just hitting an immovable object. The kinetic energy of the car goes to zero and then starts assuming some of the remaining energy of the larger vehicle.
In fact, let’s make a test case… a SMART versus a Hummer H1 fully loaded with it’s max cargo rating. Both are going 25mph. Hit them directly head-on to each other and you’ll likely see that the SMART ends up being propelled backwards at 5-10mph.
This is why impacts with trains are so horrendous, there’s nearly zero assumed kinetic energy change by the locomotive, a 30mph strike from a train is nearly absolute. Hit a 30mph train with a car going 30mph head-on and you get the same delta V you’d have hitting a brick wall at 60mph.