A friend of mine is a medical examiner. He informs me that, had I been in my
Mazda 323/pregnant rollerskate, I would have most likely been shaken around like a
terrier shakes a rat. The end result is one I'd rather not think about. Thank
goodness for all that mass of Dak to dissipate the excess energy of the collision.
--John K.
Jason & Norah wrote:
> (It's Jason this time)
>
> >Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 18:00:34 -0500
> >From: Jon Steiger <stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu>
> >Subject: Re: DML: Dakota crash
>
> >At 04:40 PM 10/31/98 +00-06, you wrote:
> >>Check this out from the same site that rates the Dak as poor in
> >>crashworthiness.
> >>
> >>http://www.hwysafety.org/crash/crashgen/ddr8.htm
>
> -----cut---------
>
> > On an unrelated note, from looking at the data, it appears that your
> >chances of surviving a multiple vehicle accident are significantly
> >higher than for a single vehicle accident. I don't know what that
> >says exactly, but I found it interesting.
>
> I think it's because they've scaled it so that the average sits at 100. The
> way I understood it, the Dak doesn't have 77 deaths per so many vehicles,
> but it has 77% of the average.
>
> I'm just looking at the legend on the right side, where is says
>
> Driver Death Rates
> as stated in relative terms -- 100 represents average
>
> And then there's this section:
>
> Average driver death rates per 10,000 registered vehicle years:
> Overall agerage = 1.0 deaths per 10,000 = 100
> Multiple-vehicle average = 0.6 deaths per 10,000 = 100
> Single-vehicle average = 0.5 deaths per 10,000 = 100
>
> (which doesn't add up, BTW) Since this is per registered vehicle years and
> not per crashes, it combines the crash survivability with how often the
> vehicles get into crashes in the first place.
>
> The lower numbers in the multiple vehicle column I think just mean that
> trucks are more likely to survive when crashed into by cars.
>
> This paragraph is somewhat interesting:
>
> Rates are presented in relative terms -- each overall result indicates
> driver deaths per 10,000 registered vehicle years compared with the
> average result for all passenger vechiles.
>
> So not only would this seem to indicate that the Dakota more survivable than
> other compact pickup trucks, but it's more so than the average of *all*
> passenger vehicles. Volvo, eat your heart out :-).
>
> BTW, has anyone looked at who is paying for all of this crash data to be
> collected? The list of the companies doing this research reads like the
> "auto insurance" section of the yellow pages. There's no conflict of
> interest or anything there, oh, no.
>
> Jason
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:10:58 EDT