semi-O/T -- Old cars safer than new cars?

Why do some people think old cars are safer than new cars? Even if your rod is upgraded with seat belts, disc brakes, and so on, you still have a straight steering column, steel dash, and no crumple zones. Automobile safety technology has improved a lot in the last 50 years. You have a much better chance of surviving a wreck now than you ever did plus people drive much faster today.
I could understand if you're in a fender-bender how you might want a big chrome bumper to protect you, but at speed I'd much rather be in a new car that's designed to protect the passengers.

 

Yes... I believe a Old Car can be a lot safer.

Because when you are sitting behind a painted Steel Dash, you dont get the false sence of security the drivers of modern cars have.

And the driver of an old Car probably cares a lot more about it than the driver of a new Car does.


Being Alert and Concentrated while Driving might be the best safety feature of them all...

 

Depends...if you get belts and new glass...should be fine.
Disc brakes are a good idea to avoid a crash i suppose.
The steering column...that is an issue, but with a shoulder belt...you should be alright.
The old car will hold up in a wreck a lot better for sure.

Have a friend that got t-boned in his 55 buick by a crx...dude in the crx almost didn't make it when his engine ended up on his passenger seat...the buick has a 4"x4" dent and my buddy Tom cracked his driver-side window with his head...but the crx was toast.

 

I pay a pretty steep price on insurance on my old car and I have no tickets or accidents. My agent said he wasn't worried about me or my car but he was concerned that I could drive it right through another car or entire buildings. I'm still struggling with the safety issue as to whether or not I'd really want my two young daughters riding around in an old car instead of a new one with crumple zones. Not to mention, big old cars really suck gas. The gas hasn't stopped me yet but the safety issues have.

 

True. But the occupants in old cars never held up as well as they would in new cars. There is really no way to make an old car as safe as a newer car.

 

W T F.dead is dead!!......Ive ridden harleys over 30 years and it the same thought process ya got have in a older car...."when ya start the car your invisibile!"......if ya dont drive like it your dead...........then again I could always feel safe like the guy in the new car photo below

 

you should see what a wreck like that in a "todays car" would do... the car would just shatter...

 

Deist harness and roll bar, some kind of headrest feature perhaps.

It is a challenge, and I'm grateful for the airbag that was in the daily driver.

 

I think this about sum's it up as far as i'm concerned as well..
Aside from that, i don't think they are..It's hard to compare when modern vehicle's have shoulder belt's, air bags ( for the driver and pass not the ride hight ) and are, for the most part, designed with occupant's in mind..at least that's what we're told..
Either way, i hope NOT to have to find out myself.

Tony

 

Old car drivers are safer. But, we're safer in new cars too. So I guess it has as much to do with the driver as the car.

 

Saying that old cars are safer is a simpletons view of engineering.

The thought is that because old cars tend to be heavier, using thicker metal and more of it, that they are stronger and thusly safer.

Anyone who understands anything about physics realizes that the energy of a collision has to go somewhere. In a modern design with "crumple zones" and other energy absorbing features, that energy goes into deforming the metal/plastic structures that surround you.

In a old metal box, that energy goes right through the box and into the occupants. It doesn't really matter how un-deformed the car may look - if it's involved in the same accident (same amount of collision energy) then that energy went someplace. Just because the car survived doesn't mean that you did.

 

This is absolutely true... and has nothing to do with the car.

 

If you knew that your children would be in a car that would be involved in a traffic accident this afternoon, would you rather they be in:

A. an older car from the 40's or 50's that have been fitted with seat belts.

B. a new car with lapbelts and shoulder belt, side impact beams in the doors, airbags, crumple zone chassis and ABS brakes.

Thats why I am verrrrrry careful and overly observant when driving my '34.
Driving the '34 is sort of like riding a street bike. You have to always assume that everyone is out to hit you.

 

so I'm stopped in traffic on the freeway. I look in the rear view mirror and the next car is 75 yards behind me. I look again and they are about 30 feet behind me and still doing 65 - 70 MPH. this is a late model chevy suburban

as I brace for the impending impact the car goes around me and stops just before hitting the car in front of them in the next lane over.

some stupid cunt on the fucking phone. without ABS there is no way she would have been able to stop. she would have locked up the brakes and slammed into me.

new cars avoid collisions, and are also safer when one happens

 

Here's how I look at it. If I hit a tree or run off the road at 70 MPH, I want to be in a modern car. However, if I hit another vehicle at significant speeds, you better believe I'm going to take the old car. Crumple zones are great for minor collisions or single vehicle accidents, but they're designed with specific conditions in mind. Heck, car makers usually only test their cars at 40 MPH against a wall. That's the equivalent of two cars hitting head on at 20 MPH each. It's harder to crumple older sheetmetal, but it will crumple with more force, which equates to higher speeds. As for brakes, belts, etc, really, how hard is it to swap that stuff in? People swap in disc brakes all the time(you could even do 4 wheel ABS if you knew what you were doing), collapsible steering columns are easy to come by, and even if you have a roadster you can still get a 3 point seatbelt, as long as you don't mind running a truck seat.

 

As you state, it all depends on the specifics. True - at some energy level, old steel becomes a crumple zone itself.

However, I think you are a little off base on your estimation. At some point, you're just fucked regardless of what you are driving. However, up until that line, you are certainly safer in a newer car. There is a reason they design them that way, after all (at considerable expense to the auto maker)

Generally speaking, of course.

If you hit a freeway overpass support @ 100 mph Pincess Di style, it ain't gonna matter what you are in...

 

Newer cars are designed to absorb as much energy from a crash as possible - rather than the occupants. Sure, there's a trade-off because many new cars are smaller and will still sustain a lot of damage. In older cars, everything is pretty static, from the column, to the sheet metal and so on. The result is the occupant absorbing almost all of the energy from a wreck...not a good thing. Newer cars might look like hell in what should have been a minor crash, but the design intent is to have the core of the car where the occupants are, protected as much as possible. I spent a lot of time working in body structure design and you'd be amazed at how well newer cars perform in a crash...everything tends to get smashed up on the outside, but steering columns also collapse, engines are designed to get thrown down under the cab instead of into the driver, and so on.

Big, older cars do MUCH better in fender benders, but it's not even close in a higher speed crash.

There are ALWAYS exceptions and there is no way to design a 100% safe car. There's no way to design around a stupid driver!

 

My old car will go halfway through a new car, i love crumple zones it obsorbes the shock into their car

 

Anyone have a spouce or GF or thier children if not youres who wont ride in your car because of the lack of modern saftey protection?

 

When crashing into a relatively immovable object, I would agree that a modern car would protect its occupants better than an older car.

But, would a car-to-car crash between a old car and a modern one not be so bad for the occupants of the older car because the modern one would absorb most of the crash energy? I'm no engineer and have no opinion but perhaps someone with engineering experience could comment.

 

Amen. Safety starts and ends with the driver.

Nobody can really argue that when you have a considerable crash, an old car would somehow be safer. The safest crash is the one that doesn't happen.

 

You are fundamentally correct. However, if two modern cars were to collide the energy absorbed would be 2x that if a modern and old car...

Make sense? So in a relatively low speed crash between a modern and old car, the modern car would look wasted while the old car may appear in pretty good shape. Problem is, you crank up the speed and that all goes to hell.

It's better to hit something soft (modern car) sure... but it's even better to hit something soft (new car) with a pillow strapped to your bumper (crumple zone)

 

I guess the way you could phrase this is that old cars do better in accidents where the energy is below fatal levels. The car's tend to sustain less damage due to their more rigid construction, and because the energy passed to the occupants is not fatal, everyone is happy.

Once you cross that threshold however (25, 30 mph?) the old cars lose out big and people start dying. It doesn't do you much good if your car survived the impact well if your brains are scatterd all over the dash. (Which you used to see, mostly intact cars w/ fatalities) You don't really see that anymore because the car's give their lives for the driver.

 

OH YEAH !...my last GF had me pass her on a frontage road at about double the posted limit,after thet she wouldnt ride in my plastic gibbons body 32 five window(she may have had a point) either way I wasnt happy owning a tupperware car anymore so I bought a 39 pontiac and sold the 32 to a guy in town nobody really likes.........Now she wants to go anywhere and even drive the poncho..oh and yeah we still see each other again.......I would rather hit something with steel than plastic.........er..whats up doc???

 

I agree with you for the most part. New cars are highly survivable in wrecks. The only time I think that old cars would usually be better would be in, say, a 40-50+ MPH headon collision with another car or sometimes a t-bone. However, as Fairlane Dave said, new cars are designed to move the engine out of the way, something old cars lack.

Funny you mention the Princess Di thing. Several years ago one of the writers for a magazine wrote an editorial about him and his buddies street racing a muscle car. A car pulled out in front of them and they swerved into the side of a bridge at 100 MPH. They hit so hard the tranny case was telescoped, but the guy was wearing his seatbelt and walked away from the wreck. Of course, this is hearsay and as you said, a specific situation, but does show sometimes an old car can work in a wreck.

 

I will speak from experience.
My youngest son has been driving a 65 Mustang since he graduated high school. He is now 23 years old.
Two weeks ago, a semi pulled across a four lane highway and stopped in front of him. It was raining, 930 at night and the trailer had no lights on it. He saw him at the last minute and hit the brakes. They estimated his speed at time of impact was 45 mph.
He fractured his jaw in three places, three vertebrae in his neck and poked a hole in his windpipe.
The adjuster who looked at the car said that if he had been in a newer car, he would have died.
Crumple zones and airbags are nice, but they are tested at 15-20mph, and after they are gone, you have nothing but plastic and fiberglas to protect you.
All the damage he sustained was from the steering column, it would have been nice if it had crumpled as the new ones do.
This accident pushed the floor in the car all the way up to the dash, took the third member in the rear end and turned it around backwards and impalled the driveshaft in the tail shaft of the tranny.
The motor, tranny and rear end took all of the impact and my son will be back to normal in a couple of months.
If I am going to hit something at that speed, I pray that I am in one of my old cars when it happens.
Robert

 

There are so many variables in any given collision, that you can't draw much from a specific example.

For instance, there are plenty of people who have been ejected from cars in high speed collisions and survived. However, when compared to the #'s killed in the same circumstance, the percentage is low. Saying that 'cause dude X survived means that activity is safe would be foolhardy.

 

I was in a similar collision (head on @ 45 mph) in a '79 firebird. I would have been MUCH better off in a newer car...

 

Scared little nancy boys hsouldn't be allowed to have cool old cars or motorcycles. You should be sentenced to life in Hyundai....

 

Aye.

Not the best analogy, but the way I look at old cars is like roll cages. Both are rigidly constructed and don't help much in a slow speed hit, but will give a lot more with higher speeds. Also, you have to have additional safety gear to make the old car/roll cage effective.

BTW, maybe this could be a new way to market rusty cars on eBay. It's not speed holes, it's crumple zones.