June12
With the likelihood of DaimlerChrysler’s Smart ForTwo coming to the United States at an all-time high, there has been an increased interest among Americans about the safety, performance, and practicality of the tiny two-seater. Of course, all these questions were asked when the ForTwo first debuted in Germany years ago. To see how the Smart car would do in a real-world crash, the Germans staged a simple head-on accident with a Mercedes S-Class pitted against the little Smart. The experiment seems to have been the work of an independent team, including Auto Motor und Sport magazine. While the Smart car’s unibody stays together admirably, it sure gets tossed around…
i’m surprised at the amount of damage the benz took to the front clip. but not as surprised as seeing those germans wheel the crash test dummies off in wheelchairs.
I suppose people will try to support the ’safety’ of the smart after seeing this video. I probably shouldnt jump to that conclusion….
This reminded me a little bit of my Callaway Big Bertha driver hitting a little titleist in slow motion. The ball holds together but goes for a hell of a ride. Holding together for impact is one thing but in traffic that little golf cart is going to bounce around like a pinball into oncoming cars and road side objects, or even worse, it might end up in a green side bunker!
Smart car holds up surprisingly well. I hope they do bring this car to the states. I don’t care much about safety. In fact, I wish they made it less safe. People want safer cars and that usually means a heavier car which comes at the expense of fuel economy. But if all cars are heavier, what advantage to you have in terms of safety? It becomes sort of an arms race. Now you got just a heavier car that burns more fuel.
I’d rather see safety addressed by better sensing technology that sense things like lane drift or if there’s a car in your blindspot, better materials. Also, better education and jail time in addition to a monetary fines.
When he crew flips the Smart car upright again, you can see reflections that indicate an intact windshield. That’s simply amazing.
Fifth Gear drove the smart into a concrete wall once and the results were impressive back then too.
If they’re bringing it here to the good ol’ USA they need to redo that crash test against real Amerecian vehicles- Tahoe, Yukon, Suburban, Escalade, TrailBrazer, F150, F250, Ram 1500. I’d like to see the Smart then.
Let’s face it- the Smart works for Europe but nobody in America except for neo-hippies aka “Prius crowd” will buy into. Even the subcompact market here is getting saturated- Mini Cooper, Scion xA, Yaris, … I mean, the Smart is just too European for us. Besides, that thing is gonna cost what? 15-17k here?
… Amerecian = “American”
There was another Smart video where the car smashed into concrete wall at the speed of 60mph or so. The car’s doors could be opened without a problem, and the overall shape was intact. Pretty impressive.
You guys are a bunch of blind retarded morons. The S class completely reversed the direction of travel of the Smart, which would produce violent forces for the Smart passengers and a great potential for a broken neck. Want to be paralyzed like Christopher Reeve for the rest of your life? Then the Smart was tossed like a beercan…if it drivers arm was forced out the window, it would have been crushed and likely severed. That’s not a smart car, by a long shot. If you Americanize the situation and subsitiute the S class with a full size body-on-frame SUV, Then the results would really be devistating.
LOL, funniest thing i ever saw! that poor smart.
Did they state the speed?
I sure wouldn’t want to be T-boned in a Smart!
The bloke says the speed there. I think it was at a speed of about 70 km/h (~ 45 mph) but may be wrong as my German is very poor.
I agree with you #9, but the name calling isn’t really necessary.
I totally agree with #6 and #7. They need to have an SUV crash into it head on at about 40 MPH, to see if it could survive a crash against a real American vehicle, and I would also like to see a side-impact crash test at 40 MPH, (With an SUV) because thoose door panels look as thin as a sheet of paper, they dont look very strong. The way that car bounces around afther the impact really scares me too. It could hit lots of things on the side of the road, and probably would go into the other lane of traffic and get hit another time or two, then the occupants would probably die. Also, if they did bring the Smart to the U.S., not many people could actually fit inside it, due to the severe obesity issue in this country.
Who cares about safety? That’s a choice between the consumer of the car and his insurance company.
People still bought tickets to AirTran, the air fleet that had all used airplanes. Just bring it over. Just think, YOU would be much safer in your SUV if there were more smart cars on the road.
It’s mostly a legal question on the part of importers regardless of government approvals. There will be accidents, people will be seriously hurt or killed in this car (or any other). The last thing MBUSA wants is to have is the average number of serious injuries to drivers of the Smart higher than other vehicles on the road since that’ll lead to the perception that it’s a deathtrap and legally someone may sue based on availability to the market. Sales drop, insurance goes up and the economic value of the Smart to both importers and drivers shrinks to zero if the Smart is a bad fit to the American market.
I love the assumption that the engineers, goverment angencies, and insurance compaines who influence the design of this are all idiots and the Smart is a deathtrap. If it isn’t safe it won’t make it to American roads, the Insurance Institute alone will see to that.
I didn’t know we had so many crash test engineers here at LLN. Please, tell us more about how the Smart would fare against a Suburban. We don’t need any more tests, we have all the answers right here. Tell us more Tom Geddy.
Regarding this video, without a crash test engineering report making any assumptions about the safety of the Smart is just that, an assumption. However, the design is obviously resilient and I’m not suprised one bit.
it’s safe, as long as you dont get into an accident…….
I smell fix! It’s obvious from the opening shots that the “independent team” used dummies that were already paralyzed! (hence the wheelchairs) Just more industry minions trying to smear the reputation of small cars!
Any car that is easily flipped over by 4 skinny Germans shouldn’t be on the road.
if sandman is right, the car tips at 45 mph… how exactly is that safe? imagine that getting hit at highway speeds… by a suv…
Sir/Madame,
I am interested in buying a Smart Car by Mercedes Benz. May I have some information about your Smart Car.
I would also like to know where I could reach a dealer in New Brunswick? Quebec? or Ontario, Canada?
Thank you for this information at your earliest convenience.
Dolores Dinan
319 Sweeney Lane
Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada E1V 3T5
curb weight on a tahoe 5200 lbs.. curb weight on an s class 4800.. that is only 10% it isn’t going to make much differance.
as far as the redirection of travel.. that depends on how much give is in the air bag.. can’t really tell much without the reports from the sensors in the dummies…
as far as no one wanting it.. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? by 2008 when they release in the US the price of gas will be 4.00 the smart gets 61 MPG on the highway .. a Tahoe (since you wanted to compare to that gets 20 MPG.. i currantly get a lot better than that and spend $80 a week on gas… if this thing cuts that in half.. we are looking at 2k a year in savings alone…. I know a LOT of people that will change cars for that much money!
it will all come down to the price break.. no matter what it will do REALLY well with the college kid market.. actually it kind of reminds me of the old Honda CVCC which sold like hotcakes and everyone said wouldn’t sale!
one other point to keep in mind is that was a direct head on collision… one of the rarest kind of collisions.. and one of the most deadly.. be interesting to see how it holds in a t bone or in a rear end fender bender.
The crash test I’d really ilke to see is to have anyone who drives a real American car like a Tahoe, Yukon, Suburban, Escalade, TrailBrazer, F150, F250, or Ram 1500 strapped behind the wheel of their vehicle and then driven over a cliff. You’re the reason why small cars can be unsafe, not small cars themselves.
To be honest, I like it! Being a sailboat owner for years I have come to enjoy the reliability of a small diesel which this car offers, also, I could use the extra space in the garage. A big factor for me would be how easy it is to get in and out of. I would have this for a 2nd car, my wife of coarse, would have the SUV. Looking forward to a test drive, Jack
i dont know about you…but as an e and s class owner…i wouldnt trade either one of them for a smart car…despite them being built by the same company. it is not about the smart car being cheap…it is about the smart car possibly being not safe for american highways with a ton of tired big rig truckers, distracted soccer moms in big suv’s, harried businessmen in their big sedans late for their appointment etc.
the s class crumples the way it does intentionally to absorb the forces generated in a crash. the forces are then dissipated from the passengers.ever see a formula one car crash and it looks like the whole thing explodes? it is for the dissipation of forces away from the pilot.
what i saw in the video was the s class body take a the full impact of the crash with continued forward momentum. the cabin looked intact with little to no molestation of the passengers.
dramatics aside from the smart car crash of the people yanking the dummies out and putting them on wheelchairs…and since i dont speak or understand german. the dummies looked to me to be pretty mangled in the cabin of the smart car.
the smart car looked like a hockey puck when it hit the s class. it is not just about how good the air bags and cabin integrity are to protect the passengers. this would be useless in the g forces generated not only with the abrupt stop of the offset head on collision but the disturbing recoil with the sideways rollover onto its side. in fact, the last 5 seconds or so of the video, you can see the relative calm of the s class passengers lunging forward that is in exact opposite of the violent tossing seen with the smart car passengers. the driver of the smart cars head can even be seen coming out of the window. with the window rolled up and given the relative delicacy of the temporal cranial bone…i am venturing to guess that the driver (from the video) of the smart car would have suffered severe head trauma.
if anyone can find crash test results on the dummies, i would love to read about it…so far, all i have seen are smart car test crashes and the applauding of the intact body structure. yes, an intact cabin is important in life preservation and injury prevention…but i would like to locate the stresses, forces and injuries on the dummies with crash tests on the cars common on american roads.