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Replay - very long Posted by Ari [Email]  (#2847) [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Ari) on Thu, 14 Dec 2000 09:05:47
In Reply to: SAAB safety...reports comparisons, rumors?, Ktang, Thu, 14 Dec 2000 03:47:22 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
I doubt that no one has died in a Saab in the past two years. First, does that include all Saabs, even a clapped out '83 still on the road? And if it's for new cars, I'd say sales are way down.
Saabs are safe, but they can't contravene the laws of physics. Get run over by a semi, drop into a lake, or hit a wall at 70 mph, and somebody is going to die. People don't wear safety belts, but even then there is no guarantee.
What Saabs do provide is a very high level of safety, which is comparative. Don't want to die in a traffic accident? Then never leave your house, and put up barriers so no errant cars can crash into the living room. Everything is a matter of chance and probablilites. What you want to do is improve your chances of coming out OK, but there is never a 100% certaintly.
There are two methods of measuring 'safety'. The NTSB and Insurance Highway institute drive (actually, drag) cars into fixed barriers and examine the structure and test dummies for simulated injuries. This provides all those crash test results people crow about. Saabs are usually middle of the pack to a little above in these tests. These tests have their place but shouldn't be the only measure. First, it is a test of one vehicle in one crash (or in some cases, two), and injuries are determined from test dummies. While the technology is pretty good, my engineering background says a sample of one of a simulation should always be a little bit suspect.
The next measure is statistics. Look at all the accidents in the past X years, and see how many people were hurt, how many died, what they were driving, and how many miles those cars had been driven. This gives a 'deaths per 100,000 miles' for a particular car. The trouble with this method is that it takes time to gather the statistics, and tells you what has been, not what is. In a world where we want answers right now, this system sucks, but it is very telling. In these Real World crashes, Saabs consistently come out near or on top. The 9000 (no longer in production) had the lowest deaths per 100K miles of any car.
Also look at the Insurance Institute figures. Now, insurance companies are in business to make money, so they make it their business to know how much a particular car will cost them in an accident. Read the payout statistics, because that tells you what their research has told them about real world crashes. Saabs consistently have very low injury payout costs, but have higher collision payout costs. What this says is that Saabs sacrifice the car to save your butt. This translates into lower liability rates, because while you can replace a car for $30K, even a minor injury can run $100K or more.
From statistics that measure real world accidents, Saabs show up well. The only trouble is that this measures the cars from the past, not the car that rolls of the floor of the dealership. It's pretty safe to say that the folks at Saab haven't completely forgotten everything they learned just because GM signs the paychecks. And if you own an older Saab, the statistics say that compared to most everything else on the road, you're in pretty good shape.
Drive Safe. But if you do have to hit something, hit it in a Saab.
, Thu, 14 Dec 2000 09:05:47 <-- Viewing This Message
, Thu, 14 Dec 2000 12:05:35, Thu, 14 Dec 2000 12:00:50
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