Car and Driver (from caranddriver.com): 2007 Chevrolet Suburban 1500 LTZ 4WD, 70mph-0mph braking distance: 190 feet.
2007 Chevrolet Aveo LT, 70mph-0mph braking distance: 209 feet.

I guess the Aveo has 19 more feet in which to “break” in an accident, which it most assuredly will.

If you’re a little old lady going 10 mph on a small backroad, then adjust down. For everyone else, something in between.

All regulations beget bigger government, which begets higher taxes and perhaps prevents “Larry the cable guy” to buy a safer car on his own accords (or perhaps it’s high cost of beer and cigarettes that stops him).

To everyone else, side airbags are fine if they save lives. I agree with Piablo, though, that the money may be well spent trying to enforce safer driving practices.

You want to see fewer accidents? Start by putting blackboxes in cars. Then watch the accident rate plummet to unprecedented lows. That, and ban cellphones in cars without a bluetooth headset.

Dear god we’ll save 1000 people a year, out of 300,000,000 people! Such a win! Consider this while you campaign for the next useless safety feature… When your vehicle is involved in a crash and your 30 airbags go off choking you inside your car, you’ll be $2000 closer to totaling your vehicle. Sure an airbag only costs maybe $100 to install, but the repair is anywhere from $500 to $2000. Add 4 of those to your car and you better hope you have gap insurance.

Anyway, will make cars heavier and slightly more expense but what the hell..it saves lives.

Safer cars are a bad thing?? Yeah, ok.

If weight is your main beef with safety systems, there are much better alternatives to removing them. Make compact cars compact again and remove most of the sound deadening. Combine that with modern manufacturing techniques like hydroforming and tada, the car is lighter still very safe. How many people do you think are going to like that though?

SUVs and large trucks are another problem. There are always going to be large trucks and SUVS, albeit they don’t have to be as heavy. What if we could downsize these vehicles too? That would make all cars safer.

Does that mean we should elliminate safety precautions in cars? No, I’m just saying we should reduce the overall weight of them.

The true comparison, and the point I’m making, is in comparing an Aveo with all available safety features (including the ones the government makes Chevy install) and an Aveo without the features. Now, the question is, which Aveo do you want? Will the dynamic gains to be had with the reduced weight of the stripped out version make it a more safe car because its more maneuverable or brakes quicker than a slightly heavier car with the safety features? My point is that stripped out Aveo would not be safer. I just don’t see those weight gains outweighing the benefits of having those safety features. I don’t care how many feet you can scrub off your 60-0 braking distance, because–in comparing the two Aveos and not an Aveo with a Suburban– the benefit would be negligible. Now, if your solution is to eliminate all Suburbans from the road to make us all safer, because we don’t need those tanks possibly crashing into our Aveos, well that’s an entirely different discussion.

Secondly, do not make the assumption that I favor passive or technological safety over driver responsibility. I’ve never made that argument. My only point has been that the two are completely independent considerations, because Piablo suggested that adding safety features makes drivers more irresponsible. I don’t buy that at all.

In fact, if you ask me, I think driver responsibility would more than compensate for any loss of vehicle dynamics had by having safety features added to the car. For example, a good driver, regardless of what car he’s driving or how much it weighs, appreciates the distance it takes to bring his car to a stop safely, and he should brake according. It doesn’t matter if a similar, lighter car could do it in less distance. A good driver should simply drive his car responsibly.

But, and now I’ve come full circle, my point here is that we all know that all drivers don’t all drive responsibly all the time. Accidents will happen, and acknowledging that fact isn’t a collective white flag waving in the air for driver responsibility. It is simply the world we live in, and when it happens, I’m all for having a side airbag in my car, and I don’t think the government’s out of line for making the company that built my car put it there.

Simply put, the heavier the car, the more damage it will inflict into cars that aren’t as heavy, such as compacts, etc..

If we were to reduce the overall weight of these vehicles, it would make our roads safer, period. Not only that, but the lighter the car, the better the manuverability and the economy.

But it still won’t stop accidents. That falls on the responsibility of the person behind the wheel. Remember, the large majority of the time it’s not the car that creates the accident!

And, again, nothing you’ve said convinces me that endorsing safety breeds irresponsible drivers.

And no one’s really addressed the issue that the MARKET has largely beat the government to the punch. Side air bags are nothing new in cars. Side air bags and side curtain air bags are very commonplace, even in entry-level models and trims.

Is there anyone here who chose not to buy a car because it had safety equipment you didn’t want?

You can accept Newton’s Laws of Physics or not accept them, up to you. However, if you think a 50lb medicine ball is as easy to stop as a 4oz baseball, I suggest you go ahead and test your new theories. By the way, before you do, I suggest you saddle up all of the safety equipment you can find. Afterwards, while you are lying in a hosptial bed, I suggest you read up on Car and Driver, or MotorTrend, or any car mag and contrast the breaking differences between a Chevy Suburban and a Chevy Aveo. Once you have learned that lighter vehicles are easier to stop, think back to how you could have been more responsible in school and could have hit the books a bit harder in physics class the day Newton was discussed. Cuz, had you been more responsible and learned then, you wouldn’t have been bowled over by a 50lb speeding medicine ball. My “theory” in a nutshell.

I also don’t buy your momentum argument. Take your favorite safety-laden car, take out ABS, AWD, passive safety, high tensile strength steel, limited slips, traction control, brake force distribution, and any safety goodies you want. Say you’ve saved yourself 1000 pounds or 1500 pounds, and then drive yourself into an accident. The momentum of your light-weight vehicle, or the light-weight vehicle that hits you, will still send you to the hospital. You’re no safer because your car is lighter. The lightest car is still pretty damn dangerous.

The good news is, if you take your new safety-less, lightweight car and take out all the seat belts, you’ll be able to sell it to Bryce.

This whole argument of making vehicles safer is never ending. You can mandate every safety feature invented and it will still NEVER be safe when traveling over 30. And quite frankly, people aren’t frickin dieing in 30mph crashes. If you were a man of physics, you would understand that weight adds to momentum. The momentum carries those 3000 mandated pounds of metal through your vehicle. If car companies were able to design lightweight vehicles we wouldn’t have half of these problems.

Imagine how many mpg a honda civic would have if it had today’s engine and the old cvcc’s safety equipment

Safety regulations make things better for everyone.

Want to complain about weight? Build a race car, you can cut all the weight out you want. Problem solved.

It’s the person who makes the car unsafe, not the car itself.

I’m not trying to gain fuel efficiency… my current car only gets about 18mpg and after I put this new engine in, it will be more like 12mpg. I’m trying to increase acceleration, decrease braking distance, and improve handling. I could care less about airbags!

How about heavier fines and punishment for those who cause crashes instead of mandating ‘safety’ equipment that gives a false sense of security? I swear, archeologists one day will be speaking of a long lost virtue unseen in civilization since the 2nd millenium, Responsibility.

Manufacturers are not responsible for making their vehicles safer. But, since there are these regulations, automakers have every right to profit from the additions. Ultimately, the government shouldn’t be mandating safety features. If a van full of children isn’t equipped with side-impact airbags and another driver runs a red light and t-bars the van, who’s at fault for the deaths? The automaker for not equipping the van with side-impact airbags? Or the other driver for running into the van? The automaker didn’t cause the accident.