Don't be tempted to buy your teen a cheap (old) car, parents

[srinivas]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 210019.htm

Excerpt:

Given that teen drivers are more likely to be involved in road traffic collisions than older drivers, it is especially important that they drive vehicles fitted with key safety features, which afford good protection in the event of a crash, say the authors.
"Larger, heavier vehicles generally provide much better crash protection than smaller, lighter ones," they write, pointing out that even when teens were driving cars, 2 or fewer years old, these tended to be small or mini.
"Newer vehicles generally are also more likely to have better crash test ratings and important safety features such as ESC and side airbags," they say, adding: "Parents may benefit from consumer information about vehicle choices that are both safe and economical."

[FreeAtLast]

Also....get a mechanic you trust to check out the brake pads, the rotors, the calipers, and the brake lines all the way to the master cylinder....and while you are at it, the condition of the struts and shocks.....and then the tires for tread depth, sidewall damage, and uneven wear patterns.

[Epsilon Delta]

In order to determine if older cars are more dangerous you need four pieces of information:

1) Number of accidents in older cars.
2) Number of accidents in newer cars.
3) Exposure (number miles driven or similar) in older cars.
4) Exposure in newer cars.

They could at least try but no, they only gather 1 and 2 and throw in a bunch of obfuscation, followed conclusions that have nothing to do with the data.

[Busting Myths]

Two questions...

What is the probability of a teen driver dying in a car accident driving a new car?
What is the probability of a teen driver dying in a car accident driving an old car?

[FreeAtLast]

Even more important.....has the teen learned how to drive defensively?.....and also, how not to drive like a motor head maniac?

[leonard]

Is a sense of entitlement correlated to an increase in accidents?

[Busting Myths]

In order to determine if older cars are more dangerous you need four pieces of information:

1) Number of accidents in older cars.
2) Number of accidents in newer cars.
3) Exposure (number miles driven or similar) in older cars.
4) Exposure in newer cars.

They could at least try but no, they only gather 1 and 2 and throw in a bunch of obfuscation, followed conclusions that have nothing to do with the data.

I get the feeling the report left off the following...

"Funding for this report was provided by insert auto manufacturer name."

[gardemanger]

This question came up a while ago and I looked into it a fair bit. It does appear that the data supports the idea that newer cars with better safety features do pay off in terms of fewer fatalities and injuries.

Here's an article just today from the Wall Street Journal:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-auto-re ... 1419014182

Deaths in car crashes have fallen by about a quarter in the last decade, new federal data released on Friday show, as safety features built into the latest models have powered a drop in fatalities even as auto-safety recalls have surged.

The fall in deaths in newer cars has been especially sharp, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data shows. The number of fatalities in the latest model released each year has fallen by nearly two-thirds in the past decade. In 2013, new cars had a lower fatality rate than cars fresh off the line did just a few years earlier.

Overall, auto deaths fell 3.1% last year over the prior year and the number of people injured in auto crashes fell 2.1%, according to figures released Friday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Safety improvements, in particular electronic stability control systems that make vehicles less likely to flip, are responsible for at least part of the drop in deaths, according to auto-safety and industry experts.

David Zuby, executive vice president and research chief at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said many factors, including driver behavior, could influence fatality rates from year to year. But generally speaking “cars are getting safer,” he said.

“Stability control is huge,” said John Capp, director of global vehicle safety for General Motors. “It’s head and shoulders above any other technology, since the seat belt, in terms of effectiveness.”

[flyingaway]

In other words, buy your teenager an expensive new car?

[ChicagoMedStudent]

I believe that cars are probably getting safer.

But as far as the article goes I'm not convinced. This seems like this is not particularly thorough research if you look at the source material. Who knows what kinds of confounding factors are out there. Not saying it's wrong, just that this is pretty surface level research.

It seems like the obvious message is to teach safe driving skills, especially re: not being overly aggressive, teaching defensive driving skills, not texting, and not drinking before driving.

[gardemanger]

If you want to take the really long historical view of auto safety, check out this graph. I remember seeing an earlier version of this graph when I was in college studying related topics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transporta ... er_VMT.png

There were of course, many fewer miles being driven in 1922 but the fatality rate was relatively huge. Cars and roads were both hideously unsafe. It would be interesting to see a version of this graph updated with the post-2012 data and see if the drop-off from the introduction of mandatory stability control even registers on the long historical scale. Probably doesn't look so dramatic because at this point we are looking at far more incremental improvements than were seen in the earlier history of the auto.

ETA: Aw, hell, for some reason I was able to access that full WSJ article the first time I looked at it, but now I'm getting a "subscribers only" preview, so probably most of you won't be able to read the full text. Sorry about that.

[gardemanger]

Here's another study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, September 2013. Variables including driver age, blood alcohol content, time of day, speeding, and type of road were all corrected for. And this is all pre-2012 data, to boot.

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811825.pdf

This analysis examines how the age of the vehicle at the time of
the crash and the vehicle’s model year are correlated with the
injury outcome of the driver of a passenger vehicle involved
in a fatal crash. A multivariate logistic regression model was
constructed to model the relationship between injury outcome
(fatally injured versus survived) of the driver and the
independent variables vehicle age (0–3 years, 4–7, 8–11, 12–14,
15–17, and 18+) and vehicle model year (MY 2008–2012, MY
2003–2007, MY 1998–2002, MY 1993–1997, and MY 1985–1992)
while accounting for many other crash factors. Based on criteria
described in the Data and Methodology section, 117,957
fatally injured passenger vehicle drivers and 133,869 surviving
passenger vehicle drivers are examined using data from the
Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) for 2005 to 2011.

The analysis shows that conditional on being involved in a
fatal crash, the driver of an older vehicle is more likely to be
fatally injured as compared to the driver of a newer vehicle.
In fact, the model estimates that the driver of a vehicle that
was 18+ years old at the time of the crash was 71 percent
more likely to be fatally injured than the driver of a vehicle
that was 3 years old or less. The model also produces an
estimate for the driver of a vehicle 4 to 7 years old, being 10
percent more likely to be fatally injured than the driver of a
vehicle that was 3 years old or newer; a driver of a vehicle 8
to 11 years old (19% more likely); a driver of a vehicle 12 to 14
years old (32% more likely); a driver of a vehicle 15 to 17 years
old (50% more likely); and a driver of a vehicle 18 or older
(71% more likely). Each estimate represents a comparison to
the baseline vehicle age category of 3 years old or newer.

[...]

A recently completed NHTSA report titled An Analysis of
Recent Improvements to Vehicle Safety (Glassbrenner, 2012)
quantifies the benefits realized due to improved safety of
newer vehicles and their contribution to historically low
fatality and injury rates that have occurred in the United
States in recent years. The report estimated that the likelihood
of crashing in 100,000 miles of driving has decreased
from 30 percent in a model year 2000 vehicle to 25 percent in
a model year 2008 vehicle. This comparison is based on both
vehicles being driven as “new.” The likelihood of escaping
a crash uninjured has improved from 79 to 82 percent as a
result of improvements between the 2000 and 2008 car fleets.
The report found similar improvements in light trucks and
vans. The vehicle improvements from vehicle fleets in 2000
to vehicles in 2008 were estimated to have saved 2,000 lives
in the 2008 calendar year.

Another report that looks at vehicle improvements is
Lives Saved by the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and
Other Vehicle Safety Technologies, 1960–2002 — Passenger
Cars and Light Trucks — With a Review of 19 FMVSS and
Their Effectiveness in Reducing Fatalities, Injuries, and Crashes
(Kahane, 2004). This report used a statistical model to examine
in detail the effectiveness of 19 different Federal Motor
Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) from 1960 to 2002 . Using
NHTSA’s published effectiveness estimates, the model estimates
how many people would have died if the vehicles had
not been equipped with any the safety technologies from
the 19 different FMVSSs. The report states that vehicle safety
technologies saved an estimated 328,551 lives from 1960
through 2002. The annual estimated number of lives saved
increased from 115 in 1960, when few passengers used lap
belts, up to 24,561 in 2002, when most cars and light trucks
were equipped with numerous safety technologies and seat
belt use rose to 75 percent. Information and more recent estimates
of lives saved can be found at www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.
gov/Cats/listpublications.aspx?Id=5&ShowBy=Category

[livesoft]

The WSJ chart shows fatalities only on age of car and not divided into cars with and without ESC, side airbags, etc.

Old cheap cars do have ESC, side-impact airbags, ABS, daytime running lights, third brake light, traction control, shoulder belts, etc. We have a 2001 that has all those things that my oldest child drives. Our newer car has only a couple more safety features related to parking: back-up camera, sonar beepers in the bumpers, side mirrors that tilt when backing up and illuminate the side doors when you get close to them. None of these newer features are gonna help in any accident above 10 mph.

For parents with young children that are buying cars now, they may wish to think about that car being the car that their future teenagers will be driving.

From the PDF linked by gardemanger:

These safety improvements include the number and quality of frontal and side air bags; seat belt quality (including seat belt load limiters and pretension- ers); electronic stability control; antilock braking systems; roof crush strength; energy-absorbing steering assemblies; traction control; lane departure warnings; and forward col- lision warnings. Driver behavior improvements including increased seat belt use have also occurred. This report does not attempt to isolate the safety benefits of each improve- ment. The summarized benefit estimates of vehicle age and model year in this report are assumed to be due to many improvements in vehicle design.

[gardemanger]

Here's a whole bunch more studies if you like data.

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Cats/listp ... y=Category

Now mind you, I'm not posting all this information because I hate being frugal and want everyone to buy new cars. I'm so frugal I don't even HAVE a car.

I'm saying there is real data, and a lot of it, that shows the cumulative effect of multiple recent safety improvements do make newer model cars safer. When someone I know made that claim a while ago, I pooh-poohed it too, until I read the actual studies.

Now that fact, and it is a fact, all by itself does not make 100% of your decision for you about what kind of car to drive or what kind of car your kids should drive. It would make sense to carefully scrutinize the data and judge for yourself what dollar value you would place on an incremental increase in safety, rather than going on your "gut feelings" about things being "probably" more safe or less safe.

[Epsilon Delta]

But as far as the article goes I'm not convinced. This seems like this is not particularly thorough research if you look at the source material. Who knows what kinds of confounding factors are out there. Not saying it's wrong, just that this is pretty surface level research.

If the conclusions do not follow from the data the research is wrong. Doesn't matter if the conclusions and data are both factually true.

[ChicagoMedStudent]

But as far as the article goes I'm not convinced. This seems like this is not particularly thorough research if you look at the source material. Who knows what kinds of confounding factors are out there. Not saying it's wrong, just that this is pretty surface level research.

If the conclusions do not follow from the data the research is wrong. Doesn't matter if the conclusions and data are both factually true.

I'm not saying the conclusion doesn't follow. What I was getting at was more the issue of the research and results being so general and non-specific that it isn't very informative, and there still being reasonable doubt about the conclusions, even if the conclusion is likely. There are tons of studies like that. An analogy would be if a study showed that there is likely a link between greater alcohol consumption and liver disease, but didn't take into account what the other risk factors are, how much you needed to drink to get cirrhosis, confounding factors, etc etc.

[TomatoTomahto]

I'm saying there is real data, and a lot of it, that shows the cumulative effect of multiple recent safety improvements do make newer model cars safer. When someone I know made that claim a while ago, I pooh-poohed it too, until I read the actual studies.

I believe in data. I also believe that people often resist accepting things that they have personal reasons to not want to believe.

There is no doubt in my mind that my kids are safer in their newer cars than the beaters I started driving in. They are safer in their cars than the cars I owned 10 years ago. I can't prove it to anyone else, but I know it sufficiently to let it guide my actions. That's not to say that skillful driving isn't important. It's also important to not drink and drive, text while driving, etc. But, beyond any reasonable doubt for me, it is worth it for me to purchase newer cars for my kids. The kids' character will have to be molded elsewhere.

[leonard]

Perhaps safer cars make people feel safer, so they take more risks while driving?

I see many, many people driving in new cars staring at the phone down in their lap. Safer cars could explain taking such risks.

[ChicagoMedStudent]

There is no doubt in my mind that my kids are safer in their newer cars than the beaters I started driving in. They are safer in their cars than the cars I owned 10 years ago. I can't prove it to anyone else, but I know it sufficiently to let it guide my actions. That's not to say that skillful driving isn't important. It's also important to not drink and drive, text while driving, etc. But, beyond any reasonable doubt for me, it is worth it for me to purchase newer cars for my kids. The kids' character will have to be molded elsewhere.

Agreed. What I'd like to see are data on which new car features contribute most to safety (to avoid the pitfall of thinking that the newest and perhaps most expensive car = safest).

[TomatoTomahto]

Perhaps safer cars make people feel safer, so they take more risks while driving? I see many, many people driving in new cars staring at the phone down in their lap. Safer cars could explain taking such risks.

I see people driving distracted in a wide range of cars; do you believe that it happens more in safer cars? I personally don't. In a newer car, they're more likely to have Bluetooth and voice activation for phone calls. Texting isn't much improved in newer cars. However, if I text in my car (for the record, I don't), and lift my foot off the brake at a stop light, not only will the car make very loud noises before it hits anything, it will apply the brakes. If fumbling for the phone makes me leave my lane without using the turn signal, it will make annoying noises. It will maintain an appropriate distance from the car in front of me if I'm using cruise control. It will recognize a pedestrian if he steps in front of my car and apply the brakes. And if, in spite of these and other safety features, I get into an accident, the passenger compartment is many times more capable of protecting its occupants. Talk to some firemen and EMTs about how structurally sound newer cars are.

There is the fact that certain risky behaviors increase in counterintuitive ways. Put a helmet on a kid and he's more likely to initiate head contact in a sport. Still, I'll take a helmet plus better rule enforcement over playing without head protection.

[denovo]

What a garbage article. They didn't try to isolate out any variable factors.

[MathWizard]

We let our kids have our car and we got a newer
car. The kids had been riding in that same car
with either me or my wife as the driver.
We buy safe cars. They have seen us both drive defensively and
we taught them to drive and then sent them to driver's education.
I think this is so much more important than
the incremental improvement in safety equipment.
They always use seat belts, and the cars have
air bags and the highest safety ratings in their class.

I guess you should by your teen a new car each
year or you get accused of child neglect.

[leonard]

Perhaps safer cars make people feel safer, so they take more risks while driving? I see many, many people driving in new cars staring at the phone down in their lap. Safer cars could explain taking such risks.

I see people driving distracted in a wide range of cars; do you believe that it happens more in safer cars? I personally don't. In a newer car, they're more likely to have Bluetooth and voice activation for phone calls. Texting isn't much improved in newer cars. However, if I text in my car (for the record, I don't), and lift my foot off the brake at a stop light, not only will the car make very loud noises before it hits anything, it will apply the brakes. If fumbling for the phone makes me leave my lane without using the turn signal, it will make annoying noises. It will maintain an appropriate distance from the car in front of me if I'm using cruise control. It will recognize a pedestrian if he steps in front of my car and apply the brakes. And if, in spite of these and other safety features, I get into an accident, the passenger compartment is many times more capable of protecting its occupants. Talk to some firemen and EMTs about how structurally sound newer cars are.

There is the fact that certain risky behaviors increase in counterintuitive ways. Put a helmet on a kid and he's more likely to initiate head contact in a sport. Still, I'll take a helmet plus better rule enforcement over playing without head protection.

It's a simple equation - if one feels safer, they make take risks that they wouldn't otherwise.

[KC1983]

By far the biggest factor in the safety of young people driving (like all people) is their driving skills and habits. For a competent driver, the safety difference between a mid-sized, brand new car and a compact 5 year old car are going to be difficult to measure. A teenager who has had good teaching about defensive driving and who follows that teaching while driving a 1969 VW bug is going to be a much safer driver than a teenager who feels invulnerable and doesn't see a problem with texting and using a cell phone while driving a brand new Escalade.

[robert88]

Of the people I knew who had fatal crashes as a teen, they all fell into one of these categories:
1) driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol
2) driving way over the speed limit
3) driving in snowy/icy road conditions when they probably should have stayed off the road.

A responsible teen with a 1980s beater is probably safer than an irresponsible teen with a new 5-series.

[ChicagoMedStudent]

A responsible teen with a 1980s beater is probably safer than an irresponsible teen with a new 5-series.

+1000

[Ged]

It's a simple equation - if one feels safer, they make take risks that they wouldn't otherwise.

There have been a fair number of studies on this. The conclusion seems to be that while people do behave this way the improved safety technology still results in lower fatal accident rates. That is the risk compensation is only partial.

[KC1983]

Let me amend my response. If you want your child to grow up into a responsible adult, don't buy them a car. Let them buy their own car with money they've earned. They'll treat it better, drive it more safely, and learn lessons that will last a lifetime.

They'll also start driving later. Everyone I knew who started driving at 16 with a car their parents got them either had an accident or two in the first year, or had several close calls that they escaped harm thru sheer luck.

[Epsilon Delta]

In a newer car, they're more likely to have Bluetooth and voice activation for phone calls.
...

There is the fact that certain risky behaviors increase in counterintuitive ways.

It's been pretty convincingly demonstrated that hands free phones are not safer. The limitation is not that we only have two hands, it's that we only have one brain. So hands free phone is exactly the type of thing that increase risky behavior.

[AviN]

Australia and New Zealand collect a large amount of data on the real world safety of vehicles:

http://www.monash.edu.au/miri/research/ ... arc318.pdf

Medium (mid-size) vehicles tend to be a lot safer than small and light vehicles.

Newer cars tend to be a lot safer than older ones.

[ks289]

In order to determine if older cars are more dangerous you need four pieces of information:

1) Number of accidents in older cars.
2) Number of accidents in newer cars.
3) Exposure (number miles driven or similar) in older cars.
4) Exposure in newer cars.

They could at least try but no, they only gather 1 and 2 and throw in a bunch of obfuscation, followed conclusions that have nothing to do with the data.

Your point is well taken, but in reality concluding that the age of the car is the variable which is causal and not just associated with the number of accidents requires a whole lot more analysis for other variables (age of driver, alcohol, gender, socioeconomic class, ethnicity, geography, weather , etc) . As you know this is why research is so easy to criticize but hard (and/or expensive) to do well.

I agree that this study is clearly overreaching in its conclusions which heaps a great deal of blame on differences in car characteristics between young and old drivers to explain higher fatality rates. In reality much (??how much) of the higher fatality rates may stem from differences between younger and older drivers themselves (inexperience, riskier habits, distractions, etc).

Nonetheless, I happen to be biased towards believing that newer cars are safer, so I will likely consider a newer mid-sized sedan for my children when they begin driving.

[livesoft]

A link to the study and not a report of the study:
http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content ... l.pdf+html
The abstract ends with:

Few teenagers’ vehicles had electronic stability control or side airbags as standard features. Parents should consider safety
when choosing vehicles for their teenagers.

I think these statements are very legitimate.

In a national survey of parents of teenage drivers conducted in May 2014, parents ranked safety as the most important reason for choos- ing a particular vehicle for their teenagers, but many teenagers were not driving vehicles with the most important safety features or an acceptable level of crash protection.14

My take from reading the article is that the authors are not anti-old cars per se, but they are pro safety features regardless of the age of the vehicle. That makes perfect sense to me.

The thread title perhaps comes from reports of the article (perhaps the ScienceDaily.com site). If the thread title had been "Your teen should drive a safe car with ESC, side airbags, [mass], and other safety features"*, then I think the reaction would be "Well, duh!"

*And you should, too!

[2cents2]

I wonder which car would meet all the specifications--being heavy enough and incorporating all the safety features?

[tadamsmar]

In order to determine if older cars are more dangerous you need four pieces of information:

1) Number of accidents in older cars.
2) Number of accidents in newer cars.
3) Exposure (number miles driven or similar) in older cars.
4) Exposure in newer cars.

They could at least try but no, they only gather 1 and 2 and throw in a bunch of obfuscation, followed conclusions that have nothing to do with the data.

I don't think the intent was to show that heavier cars or cars with ESC are safer. They just assumed that based on other studies that show that a vehicle without ESC has a 50% higher fatality rate.

[livesoft]

I wonder which car would meet all the specifications--being heavy enough and incorporating all the safety features?

AviN's link to the Monash University Australian/NZ article has a chart that shows the Volvo XC90 probably fits your query.

[tadamsmar]

In other words, buy your teenager an expensive new car?

I have a blog that can help one get a less expensive used car with ESC:

http://epicurusgarden.blogspot.com/2011 ... h-esc.html

ESC alone accounts for a relatively large proportion of the safety advantage of new cars. It's 10 times more important than side air bags.

See this for ratings that take vehicle weight into account:

http://www.informedforlife.org

The government and IIHS ratings ignore weight. In the small print they say that the ratings should not be used to compare cars that differ in weight by more than 250 pounds

[tadamsmar]

I wonder which car would meet all the specifications--being heavy enough and incorporating all the safety features?

See here: http://www.informedforlife.org

But, if you are on a budget, just make sure you get ESC in a used car. ESC gives you the best safety bang for the buck of all other safety features except perhaps a few features that you will probably have anyway like seat-belts, front airbags, and a collapsible steering wheel.

Informed for Life recommends avoiding cars below 3200 pounds. The Accord-sized is basically the lower limit by that standard. But the fatality rate keeps going down for heavier cars.

[cherijoh]

A link to the study and not a report of the study:
http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content ... l.pdf+html
The abstract ends with:

Few teenagers’ vehicles had electronic stability control or side airbags as standard features. Parents should consider safety
when choosing vehicles for their teenagers.

I think these statements are very legitimate.

In a national survey of parents of teenage drivers conducted in May 2014, parents ranked safety as the most important reason for choos- ing a particular vehicle for their teenagers, but many teenagers were not driving vehicles with the most important safety features or an acceptable level of crash protection.14

My take from reading the article is that the authors are not anti-old cars per se, but they are pro safety features regardless of the age of the vehicle. That makes perfect sense to me.

The thread title perhaps comes from reports of the article (perhaps the ScienceDaily.com site). If the thread title had been "Your teen should drive a safe car with ESC, side airbags, [mass], and other safety features"*, then I think the reaction would be "Well, duh!"

*And you should, too!

+1
For any given model year, auto safety varies considerably by vehicle type and manufacturer. Today's already safe vehicles have little room for improvement year-over-year except for the new "save you from yourself" features like auto-braking. IMO, if people would maintain a safe driving distance instead of maintaining speed until they are right up on the bumper of the car ahead of them, we would have far fewer accidents! I have a 2010 vehicle that I upgraded with a back up camera, cross traffic alarms, and blind spot indicators. They are all great features, but the first two mainly prevent parking lot accidents, not serious bodily injury.

On the other hand, cars with lower safety ranking are the ones most likely to improve in significant ways year-over-year. There are also some types of vehicles that are prone to more issues with inexperienced drivers. So a toxic combination would be to give a teen driver an older SUV without stability control. But it might not be as critical to get a new sedan for the kids - i.e., let the teens drive the old family car while the parents get the new car.

[Ybsybs]

Why do these stories never consider the chances that your kid kills someone else? Put an inexperienced driver in a tank and if he has an accident, he gets a greater chance of being the one who walks away while the person in the normal sized car he hit dies.

[TomatoTomahto]

Why do these stories never consider the chances that your kid kills someone else? Put an inexperienced driver in a tank and if he has an accident, he gets a greater chance of being the one who walks away while the person in the normal sized car he hit dies.

A good portion of the new safety features are intended to avoid a collision, which benefits everyone. Volvo, for example, has considerable technology which applies the brakes before a collision, and has gone the extra mile in protecting pedestrians and cyclists. I wouldn't characterize the Volvo as a tank; it's not the equivalent of driving a Hummer, which I doubt anyone recommends.

As far as inexperienced drivers go, I'm among the many on this forum who think kids should have a lot more training than some lazy parents give them, and am a believer in graduated licensing.

[nedsaid]

I used to be a believer that the tanks the automakers made in the 1960's and 1970's would hold up well in a crash. I believed that until I saw a clip on Youtube showing a test crash between a seventies vintage vehicle and a modern car. The old cars just don't hold up and don't do a good job of protecting the passenger compartment. The newer cars absorb the forces of the crash so that the passenger doesn't have to. Seeing the crash videos was shocking to me to say the least.

[3CT_Paddler]

What's safer... A 2004 Tahoe or a 2014 Civic? I would take the Tahoe. Many 10 year old cars still have most of the modern safety features that matter.

[TomatoTomahto]

The newer cars absorb the forces of the crash so that the passenger doesn't have to.

A friend of mine is a fireman who is often a first responder to car accidents. It's his observation that modern cars often maintain enough structural integrity that they don't often require extracting victims with "the jaws of life." A good crumple zone around a reinforced passenger compartment safety cage leads to good results.

[pshonore]

That's great if you stay in the car. Unfortunately there seems to still be a lot of "ejections" in the accidents around here, particularly with young adults. I can't believe that people still fail to use seat belts. Even a seat beat will not prevent all fatalities but it sure improves your chances.

[sls239]

I'll buy the ESC, there is strong data to support that. But major safety improvements like ESC don't happen every year. Maybe not even every 10 years.

Anybody in the car industry here know of anything in the pipeline that would even approach the breakthrough that ESC was?

And I can't help but think that maybe the teens who have older smaller cheaper cars are more likely to have jobs or other obligations that leads to them being on the road more and in less favorable conditions.

[dbr]

Why do these stories never consider the chances that your kid kills someone else? Put an inexperienced driver in a tank and if he has an accident, he gets a greater chance of being the one who walks away while the person in the normal sized car he hit dies.

This is the issue with choosing a big, heavy vehicle because it is "safer." It is safer because the physics of collisions dictate that the occupants of a heavier vehicle will experience consequences less severe than the occupants of the lighter vehicle in the collision. It is hard to see much consolation in unloading your kids risk on someone else. On the other hand, improved vehicle design features that reduce the likelihood or severity of collisions and mitigate the consequences through better crash protection make all kinds of sense.

It is still the case, as someone above observed, that eliminating all of driving under the influence, driving too fast for conditions or driving at all in bad conditions, driving while distracted, and failing to wear seatbelts would help tremendously and more than exactly what vehicle a young person is driving.

[TomatoTomahto]

It is still the case, as someone above observed, that eliminating all of driving under the influence, driving too fast for conditions or driving at all in bad conditions, driving while distracted, and failing to wear seatbelts would help tremendously and more than exactly what vehicle a young person is driving.

I only have some influence on my kids' behavior, but essentially none on the millions of other people on the road.

[livesoft]

So do folks allow their kids to get into their friends' cars that do not have ESC?

[dbr]

It is still the case, as someone above observed, that eliminating all of driving under the influence, driving too fast for conditions or driving at all in bad conditions, driving while distracted, and failing to wear seatbelts would help tremendously and more than exactly what vehicle a young person is driving.

I only have some influence on my kids' behavior, but essentially none on the millions of other people on the road.

Yes, and that influence is most productively directed to those factors above in addition to selecting a vehicle with good safety performance.

[Epsilon Delta]

A link to the study and not a report of the study:
http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content ... l.pdf+html

The thread title perhaps comes from reports of the article (perhaps the ScienceDaily.com site). If the thread title had been "Your teen should drive a safe car with ESC, side airbags, [mass], and other safety features"*, then I think the reaction would be "Well, duh!"

*And you should, too!

An editorial that said that would be fine. An editorial that said that and quoted a study that showed it would be better. But an editorial that says that and refers to a study that sheds no light on the matter is at best an error.

Shame on ScienceDaily for publishing a press release, shame on BMJ for writing the press release, shame on BMJ for publishing an editorial disguised as a study, shame on the authors for writing an editorial disguised as a study, shame on the entire academic community for encouraging this.