I think the ultimate safety feature would be to detect a distracted driver and give him a nice big electric shock.

Good idea, since 5-star ratings are pretty much across the board now with new cars. The problem I see is that manufacturers, who are already strapped financially due to the oil crisis, CAFE regulations, etc will now have to fork over more R&D as they try and reach 5-star ratings in the new regulations. This means heavier cars (more safety equipment) and a higher cost for the consumer. Does the public really need a pole crash test?

How can you run into a pole at an angle? If it’s round, any way you hit it, you’re hitting the same surface area at the same pitch.

@iglesias294 -> Good point. If you’re eyes stray from the road for an extended period of time, like 2-3 seconds you get a nice jolt.

I think they are referring to the angle at which the car is moving when it hits the pole. The zero degree point would either be directly into the side, front, or rear of the car and progress the angle from there.

How about the pole-avoidance test? I think that would be fun to watch and would make my little Bimmer and a 911 among the safest cars in the planet (just avoid the damn thing, rather than see if you can survive the collision…brilliant!).

Haha I love how they use a picture of a Smart Car for example… Because that’s the safest car to drive on the road…

Heavier, more expensive cars for cell phone talkers, make up appliers and everybody else on the road that would do anything but pay attention.

I wonder how many cars are driven into polls? There should be a national driving test: if you can’t avoid a poll, you don’t deserve to drive. I am all for car safety improvements, but poll chasing is a bit of a stretch.

I think they will need to use lesbian crash dummies in the pole avoidance test.

^^^^^^^^^^^^ Dude, that is some funny $H!T

You cant just give test engineer nerds a female dummy.

Audi has a system that will vibrate the steering wheel if you start to drift out of your lane…. thats a start

Screw these tests — how about bringing back 5 mph bumpers?

yeah my sister’s infiniti EX she just leased has the vibrating captain’s chair so when she drifts it vibrates her & when she doesn’t use her turn signal, the car won’t change lanes as well.

oh yeah - & making the crash tests harder to pass is great and all but its just gunna urge carmakers to add on more & more weight for more safety equipment so now the cars will get worse gas mileage. does that make sense?

Why don’t they make cars out of Nerf?

If more money was spent on driver education and traffic enforcement we wouldn’t need cars with 50 airbags, backup cameras, blind spot sensors, or adaptive cruise control. Put the highway speedlimit back at 55… and start ticketing people for having burnt out brake lights, not using turn signals, and TALKING ON THE D@MN PHONE. Cars… like guns… are pleny safe as it is. It is the operators that are causing the problems.

sister with a vibrating chair? ooooh i could say something but i wont - how do you tell the difference between a female dummy and the man dummy? what if the male dummy is EXTREMELY feminie, does it work the same? and driving 55 mph on the highway still isn’t going to improve safety, you can still crash at 55 and have a bad accident, if you want SLOW speed then go drastic and lower it to 40, but i speed so i won’t care… giving a shock to someone who looks away? what if there is some hot ass girl and you want to check her ass out for longer than 2 or 3 sec?

RaineMan, I agree that it is the operators and not the cars, good point. I’m not sure about putting the speed limit back to 55 though, that’s a bit ruff….. You know, another problem, there’s too many cars on the road. I really don’t even enjoy driving anymore, everywhere I go there’s traffic. I started driving about 10 years ago, and since then there has been a definite spike in the amount of cars on the road. It truely doesn’t pay to have a fast car because the opportunity to use it really never exsists.

I alwys enjoy reading jumpofit’s posts, and agree 100%, especially on the hot chick remark.

Soon NHTSA will mandate full face helmets, roll cages and NOMEX suits in vehicles, along with ignition cutoff switches and fire suppression systems.

I’m of the mindset that no amount of weight savings by deleting safety equipment will offset the advantages of having the safety equipment. Let’s face it people, deleting knee airbags or keeping sensors off our side mirrors will not cause that spike in our mpg we crave. You want light and sporty, buy an Elise, which is light and sporty, even with airbags. If you want relief at the pump, we need alternative energy, alternative propulsion. That’ll make the biggest difference. But that’s years away, so in the meantime….

From a guy who’s been in serious accidents (though, because of safety features, were not accidents with serious injuries) and who drives his two-and-a-half year old to Grandma’s house once and a while, I say to car companies, feel free to burden my car with whatever safety features you want. The more the merrier.

I agree with the gun analogy (to a point, there are still differences) at least to the extent that operators of cars are the biggest causes of injuries. There rarely is the “unavoidable accident.” More people need to view cars more like guns, knowing that every yank on the wheel or stomp on the gas, like the squeeze of a trigger, has the power to kill, if done carelessly. And no careful driver, not even the most careful, is perfect in scanning every second on the road for every pothole or patch of black ice, or gauging the closing distances of cars in the rear-view while looking for brake lights ahead.

How about this, Scarface: Companies offer all those safety devices as part of safety package(s) so those who are hyper-obsessed with having everything may choose that and the added weight and lower mileage that goes with it, and those who want a lighter vehicle at a lower cost with better mileage may choose that. That way, everyone gets what they want and nobody imposes his/her will upon the entire population.

oh yay now we can see if their tits actually work as airbags

iglesias294, if they did that, both my uncle and my sister would be electrocuted.

Jonmiles, that’s not Audi, that’s the side of the freeway. If your wheel vibrates, you’re off the road.

Joshy, does she tend to drift more often now?

Good idea, Hemi. Nerf cars. Just don’t let your dog get ahold of it.

Jumpoffit, if you look for too long, you’ll get embarrassed when she sees you being shocked by your car. That will be really funny.

I like the idea of having the active safety features included in the test, though. Too often, people focus on passive safety features, like airbags, crumple zones, space cages and so on. But adding electronic stability control and things like that should increase the rating of the car. Finally, it will. I buy cars because of many reasons, but active safety is one of the top reasons for me. And with that, Angelo’s bimmer and 911 would hopefully receive high marks, since the ability to avoid the accident is better than my minivan’s ability. The “bigger is safer” attitude may start to change with these new regulations.

haha, well we’re close & we both make jokes about her vibrating car. but she says it works great on a serious not.

I, too, have been in serious accidents. I was actually t-boned by a grand prix & it flipped my SUV 4 times. No airbags went off and the seatbelt was the only thing that held me in. So I see the points of all the safety equipment, yes. But there’s some equip i see no point in. So with that, i DO agree that the problem here are all the idiots behind the wheel…

I bet the chinese use real women in their crash tests. Yut Ye Sum !

mayer_ray: brilliant observation… if you want lawyers to take over the world more than they already have. Personally, with many vehicles about to offer in-car Internet, I’m more worried about the consequences of running into a pole while stroking mine. Safety aside, that’s not going to look good at the inquest.

Of course, no one really wants to have their life at the mercy of a computer, but I really think the only way cars will truly be safe is if we don’t drive them, if you know what I mean. Just imagine something like Minority Report. Trippy, but I think that’s where we’re headed.

Hopefully not in our lifetime beatusmongous…

Johnny, I’m afraid people like us on this board are a rarity. But I won’t die away without a fight!

Honestly, the concept of the smart car is cool ****, but it should not be registered as a car. Yeah the cras test rating are amazing because if you hit something you won’t do any damage, but if something hits you YOUR DONE.

waste of timeeeeeeeeeee.

Smart Cars are like fat girls, you can hit it all you want, but you dont want to be seen in public with one.

beatusmongous,

I think it’s way off in the future before we stop driving, but this I can see coming on sooner.

Radar-based cruise control can already slow and, and in some cases, apply brakes sufficiently to stop a vehicle. All we have to do is give all cars that technology.

Say, you’re tooling along and the car in front of you stops suddenly because a kid chases a ball that bounced out into the street. Your car’s radar detects the sudden change in the velocity of the car ahead and applies your brakes, maybe even slams them hard to bring you to a stop. The car behind you has the same reaction and then any car in danger further behind you will react similarly, accordion-like.

Instead of braking, let’s say the kid steps out in front of your car so close to you that you have to swerve partially into an adjacent lane. The cars in the adjacent lane could react accordingly, swerving themselves or braking, etc.

Now, this tech. won’t work if there simply is too little time to react or too little distance to permit the laws of physics from working and keeping all cars involved from making contact.

But, how’s this for big brother: the systems could also be programmed to make sure that there is sufficient following distance between cars to guarantee (based on the cars’ relative speeds and braking equipment) that there is time to react to a sudden stop.

The tech could be expanded. What if intesection lights were equipped with transmitters that slowed down cars that approached an intersection where an accident had already occurred? Or, how about police cars with transmitters that would slow cars as they approached the location of a traffic stop (or slow vehicles with criminal suspects in them)? Or, how about construction crews being lawfully allowed to set up a transmitter to slow down cars in a narrow construction zone?

C’mon, any takers?

‘Hemiroid’, your post, #3, shows for the umpteenth time that you are a stupid chimp. Add to that the recent outing of who you really are … there is no longer any rebuttal available … you are a monkey.

Scarface, Chrysler was testing that exact technology back in 1997, only they used radio transmitters between cars. And now with Ford’s Smart Intersections, things are looking bleak for us drivers.