By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Airbags are an important safety development that have saved millions of lives, blah blah blah. And sure, the technology has come a long way since the jaw-busting jiffy pops of the 90′s. But you know what? I still don’t trust the darn things. And this video doesn’t help. But that last slow-mo is pretty cool, yeah? Via ThatWillBuffOut.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

The NTHSA almost never investigates an automaker for a single incident of component failure, but they decided this one was serious enough to look into: the steering shaft of a brand-new, low-miles Kia Soul literally fell apart in the driver’s hands, uncoupling at the steering wheel and resulting in a complete loss of steering ability. The shaft also slumped down in such a way as to partially block access to the brake pedal, compounding an already awkward driving situation. The Kia was 2 months old and had only 4300 miles on the clock, and it sounds like what happened is someone forgot to tighten something down at the factory. But damn.

What do you think: just another example of cheap newfangled junk predictably falling to pieces? Or a freak occurrence that could happen to anything?

Via Carscoop.

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

This clip really doesn’t need much of an introduction. A reporter asks Tony Stewart if NASCAR is too safe, and he responds with all the candor fans have come to expect from him. Bravo, Tony.

By Ted Berner

GTwildfire

I have been on a Fiero kick lately, wanted one since the early ’80s. I had to get it out of my system eventually so I grabbed a 2M4 that needed help for next to nothing, to kick around in, use for commutes and the occasional countryside cruise with the sunroof popped out. My wife’s reaction was that I had bought a deathtrap.

Before jumping in I researched the hell out of Fieros. I remembered the fires and recalls long ago, so I wanted to know all I could before buying one. A LOT of interesting info was uncovered while Googling Fieros, but most importantly Pontiac made the cabin’s structural integrity a priority. They employed a space frame cabin design that offered unprecedented protection for a car of its size. According to Consumer Reports, the only car rated safer was the Volvo DL.

I have also read and watched accounts of the protection Fieros have given when all went wrong. Of course, no car can keep you safe in every scenario and Fieros are small and still vulnerable depending on the circumstances, but this video I found is impressive when you think of how such a small car could have kept its occupant on this side of the soil.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Check out this cute demo that Volvo is running for its “City Safety” active braking system. It lets you run up your XC60 up against the bumper of the car in front of you, then tests your braking time and compares it against where City Safety would’ve stopped you if you failed to brake. It’s going to come standard on the XC60, and it’s a great feature, especially for the spacey, Volvo-driving, cell-phone-yakking commuters who are likely to rear-end your ride. But I’m a little wary of technology that lulls people into thinking that they’re free to pay even less attention to their driving than they already do. How wise is it to encourage drivers to be unjustifiably confident that their car can’t possibly hit anything? Sure, City Safety can be turned off, which makes sense–sometimes, you just have to ram something, like some guy did to keep another car from falling through the gap on the Fremont drawbridge. But how can your average consumer be expected to remember, in an emergency situation, how to turn their brake nanny off so they can get out of danger? Like a lot of the new electronic nannies that are rapidly becoming standard, they’re a great thing and they work exactly as they’re supposed to–until a sensor malfunctions, a driver miscalculates, the car brakes when you don’t want it to, or the system accidentally gets switched off. Boom!

Continue reading "What's Next: Cars That Brake For You" »

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Just when you thought today’s cars couldn’t be any more stuffed with airbags, Toyota will be pioneering the first standard backseat jiffypops in one of its smallest vehicles. The JDM version of the iQ will have a central air bag between the rear passengers in what would normally be the middle seat–preventing the kids from knocking into each other during a side collision.  It seems safety’s come a long way since the good old days when my dad strapped my little sister and I into a single seatbelt because his GTO had no rear seat! More at Autopia.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration just published a new study on backover deaths and other “non-traffic” deaths and injuries related to automobiles. In addition to the 221 people killed by backing-up vehicles in 2007 , the study also cites the fact that 168 people were killed from 2003 to 2004 when they were trapped or pinned under vehicles, usually while working on cars that fell from the supports. So be careful guys and make sure you’re up to speed on your jack safety! Via MSNBC

Dale Earnhardt once said that if bumpers weren’t made for bumping, they wouldn’t've called them that. I’m definitely of the opinion that any car should be able to withstand a low-speed front or rear bump without incurring thousands of dollars worth of damage. Check out this NHTSA low-speed crash test video on a 1981 Ford Escort. Isn’t it amazing that cars were once made this way? I’ve been rear-ended more than once in my own ’82 Escort with zero damage to my car (and in one instance, significant damage to the car doing the rear-ending), so I’m not all that surprised. Of course, the government requirement that all bumpers be built to take a 5 mph hit was lifted for the ’83 model year—it’s now 2.5 mph for passenger cars, and 0 for trucks and SUVs, and there are no regs limiting the degree of cosmetic damage that a bumper can sustain under even the lightest impacts. That’s a good thing for the bodywork industry, which has become something of a racket. Today’s bumper substitutes—integrated body-color plastic fascias, stuffed with sensors and pressurized gel packs a lot of other nonsense—are designed to make money for the dealerships and the bodyshops, not to protect your vehicle from damage. Just check out the dollar values of the crash damage on the Escort in the video, versus comparable repair costs for a bunch of current-generation economy cars.

Thanks to Harrison for the tip!

Despite recent anecdotal evidence to the contrary, traffic deaths are actually going down. So far down, in fact, that they’re on track to hit their lowest levels since 1961. It’s probably the one silver lining associated with sky-high gas prices—as drivers slow down, clock fewer miles, and cut unnecessary trips, the number of deaths declines sharply. The insurance companies have been quietly enjoying the decline in claims resulting from the 12 billion fewer miles American motorists drove in June as compared to the same month of the previous year. But the associated dearth of deaths stems from more complicated factors, including differences in how people drive and when people drive when fuel prices hit the roof. Drivers may forgo aimless nighttime cruising, for example, which is statistically less safe than slower, more well-lit daytime commuting. Statistically riskier driver groups, like teens and the elderly, might also be hit hardest by higher gas prices and staying off the roads at a higher rate than the rest of us. These are just a couple of examples of how fuel prices are influencing driver demographics and behavior—read more at msnbc, and check out the full University of Michigan study here.

When a dry-rotted rear tire threw its tread while I was driving in my Eagle, I did exactly the wrong thing: I braked and hauled the car over to the shoulder in a hurry. I’d always been taught to get the car off the road asap if such a crisis occurred, and when I heard that shotgun-blast of the tire letting go, my emergency autopilot took over. I didn’t wreck, but it turns out the brake-and-swerve technique is the single fastest way to lose control of your vehicle during a tire blowout or tread separation. Hitting the brake when you have a flat or rapidly deflating tire unbalances the vehicle violently and can easily throw you into a spin. According to police trainers, what you’re actually supposed to do is momentarily squeeze the gas pedal slightly, keep a firm hold on the wheel, and steer straight in your lane. This stabilizes your ride (the drag from the damaged tire will keep you from speeding up) and allows you to then coast (not brake) down to below 30 mph, at which point you can then very lightly apply the brakes and gradually pull off the road. Check out full road-emergency-survival details at Edmunds—the demo video they’re running, in which trainers simulate front and rear blowouts using explosive charges, is pretty wild!—and get more insight into blowout dynamics in this article from The Car Connection.