>
> Now you've come to the real root of the problem. Its not safety, its MONEY!!!!
> Cars are already safe, they have mandatory 5mph bumpers, side impact
> bolstering regulations, crumple zones, airbags etc. Most of which SUV's and
> especially trucks haven't usually had. The beef is from the insurance
> industry more than anyone. They keep having to pay for the major damage
> done to cars from SUV's, and trucks so they go on the PR offensive and try
> to make said SUV's etc.. look like "bad things" because they weigh more and
> destroy poor little cars. Its no secret, the insurnce industry freely
> admits that they're concerned about the upswing in damage costs on car vs.
> SUV/Truck collisions. It would really be hard to make cars safer
> (rollcage?) so we get screwed by havng to put up with weaker trucks!
>
> Tony J. Mastres
>
You may be right, the insurance companies have a lot of clout and when
anything costs them more moneythey do all they can to change it. As far
as amking the cars safer, yes it can be done, look at the older cars (Say
pre-86 models) when they were involved in a wreck with a truck they
weren't really damaged anymore than the truck was, the problem is they've
gone away from using STEEL in cars, but because of the towing requirements
of trucks/SUV'c they have to keep using steel so when a steel truck hits a
plastic/polymer/fiberglass car, of course the car has more damage, but if
you notice when one hits an older car their is about equal damage, so if
they went back to using steel in cars and having an actual frame (Which
trucks & SUV's have) instead of the unibody design in the cars there would
be no problem, but their to cheap to do that, so I guess we are stuck.....
Bruce
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:08:16 EDT