What makes a car safe?

[Citroenmad]

I voted for tyres, as I do wonder how many accidents could be saved if premium tyres were fitted over budget ones.

Not only that but a lot of people appear to neglect tyres, without doubt one of the most important aspects of any car is its tyres, its certainly not something to get laps about. The number of cars I see driving with dangerously under-inflated tyres which have then worn badly or just cars with tyre tread to and past the wear markers. In definitely in favor of increasing the legal tyre depth limit.

Im sure most of us appreciate the difference in capabilities of premium tyres compared to the performance of most budget tyres. The grip that most budget tyres lack really worries me and I don't have the confidence in the car when budget tyres are fitted. Their main downfall is wet grip, which is when a tyre really needs to perform. It is quite alarming when looking at tyre tests at how badly the cheapies do score. Tyre are inexpensive things when you really take them into account - how long they last for, the job they are required to do the testing and research which goes into them. They are very important and only the best will do in my opinion.

I was watching a test recently which revealed one budget brand to take 5 metres extra stopping distance from 60mph than Continentals. That 5 metres could literally be the difference between an avoidance or a minor impact to a serious or fatal crash. This really should be given more thought and there should be far more awareness to the general public about the advantages of better rubber compound. A fair amount of people seem to just get the cheapest as they consider a tyre to be a tyre, when really there is so much more to know.

Certainly the other things on the list matter, however tyres are a basic and are an accidents avoidance measure, just like ABS and the handling of a car, but with awful compound tyres fitted these other safety measures are not going to have the best effects either.

[Peter.N.]

The first time I drove a 205 diesel I nearly went straight across a roundabout - I had never previously experienced or even heard about torque steer

Peter

[Xaccers]

two broken ribs and on oxygen.

OUCH!

I was doing 40mph in a 60 zone and actually slowing down which may have been what caused the accident, with the 205's reputation for lift off oversteer, something I had no idea about at the time.

You should have been doing 60!

I can't say for sure because I don't know the details of the road/bend. Either you should have had your speed down way before the bend if you felt it was too fast to be going into the corner or you should have had a very light throttle to keep drive to the wheels.

I used to have a 205 D Turbo. Awesome car. Wouldn't mind another. I never experienced any problems in it but perhaps the engine is heavy enough in this to keep it down. Were you in a 205 GTi?

I've never knowingly experienced LOO, but it's one of the possibilities.
Personally I think most likely was a blow out or maybe diesel on the road.
Here's a pic of where it happend, you can see how little the road actually bends.


I was returning to uni on the 19th April 1996 via the M25 from Portsmouth to (s)Hatfield in the best 205 GRD I've ever owned.
The M25 was full of idiots wanting to drive 2 inches from each other in really heavy traffic so I thought I'd play it safe and come off a junction early (London Colney/Colney Heath) taking the country road.
The bend before the one I had the accident at is quite tight, so I slowed down to 30 and took it safely and without incident.
I sped up to 40 before the next bend and about half way along the bend the back slipped, I couldn't get control, like I was on ice.
I saw the fence in the headlights and thought "Fence! I'm going to hit that" and I did, sliding along it backwards, which was the worst part of the event.
I then hit a signpost (warning of the right hand bend up ahead) at the B pilar pushing it in to the side of my seat which in turn broke my ribs (if only the 205 had side airbags) and pushed me thankfully across to the middle of the car, so that when the post that the car was sliding up finally came out of the ground dropping the car upside down in a ditch on the top of the A pilar my head wasn't squished.
So I was hanging upside down, I wiggled my fingers and toes to and released my seatbelt, landing on my head (yeah, i didn't think that one through too far) and putting my hand through the sunroof.
I crawled out of the car and climbed up to the road, slicing the top of my right ear on a thorn from a tree (it required 16 stitches by the A&E dentist) just as a car was approaching.
So you've got my 205 on it's back at the end of a smashed up fence, with it's headlights shining out through the trees, and me waving to flag the car down. Did it stop? Nah, the bugger probably didn't even notice me.
I then noticed the pain in my ribs and breathing began to be difficult and painful. I laid down and stopped breathing for a while. Then took a deep agonising breath, made a pointless vow, and sat up, just as another car pulled over to help. A second car pulled over and called the ambulance. One of the drivers found my glasses which had flown off at some point. I never got their details to say thanks.

[DickieG]

I know Coursers Road very well as that's on one of my 'Nursery routes' where I'll take students on long circuits past the Bell R/A through 'Ridge' then back through Colney Heath.

Hmm, you did very well to fall off the road on that bend Xac, I can honestly say that I've never had a student get that bend wrong in either direction as its preceded by a tight left both ways, strange very strange.

[cachaciero]

Toby, as a slight digression from this very important topic for a Saturday evening, the CAA is well known in its bias to blame many if not all air accidents on pilots, whether at fault or not. Usually, if the accident was fatal, the pilots cannot contradict an investigation's findings.

It is a way for the industry to maintain a whiter than white appearance for airworthiness, given we all like to fly away for our holidays in what we think are perfectly safe aircraft. I usually reserve my judgement on some of the faults I have seen on passenger aircraft.

As for numpty car drivers, we should all start on bicycles, so we understand how vulnerable we are without the benefit of a tin box around us. We should treat driving as a privilege, not a right.

Compare the difference in attitude of professional drivers as opposed to drivers using cars as a means to an end. Do not include high mileage reps as professional drivers, as they can be some of the worst transgressors.

Je reste ma valise!

Homme de mains.

Handyman

I would agree with all that you say but as regards pilots and particularly pilot training, that IMHO has been well dumbed down for the commercial guys. I would submit that much / most type rating training encourages them not to think. (which doesn't mean to say that they don't).

cachaciero

[Xaccers]

I didn't try to lose it at that bend! Honest!
Like I said, I had come off the motorway to take a "safer" route
You can barely call it a bend too, especially considering the quite sharp one just before it.
To lose it down to speeding would mean doing a hell of a lick, way more than the 205 could do and would have definitely resulted in death.
So the candidates I can think of are:

LOO. Never had this with any of my other 205s, but I may have relaxed my right foot as I went round, but I don't remember doing so, and at 40mph how much lift off would you need on that curve to cause the back to want to overtake the front?

Blow out. Didn't hear anything, the back just suddenly went and there was no reaction at all from the front wheels when I tried to compensate.
Unfortunately, due to my parents being bloody annoying, they wouldn't go into my house and get my SLR to take some decent shots of the car so I could see exactly what happened. In the end they bought a cheapo single use camera and "somehow" the film got exposed to light so there were blobs all over the photos and none were useful

Something on the road. Dad reckons there was a torn flattened coke can on the road. Yeah like that's going to slice a tyre which at the last service a month before the garage reckoned had at least 2000 miles left before needing to change it.
Maybe some oil or something. It was like I hit ice and not something I'd like to repeat.

[Citroenmad]

That doesn't sound like a good experience at all, how recent was that Xac?

[Xaccers]

That doesn't sound like a good experience at all, how recent was that Xac?

Back in '96

Caught pneumonia when I stopped breathing, although the hospital described it as "a chest infection"
Parents came to A&E with my housemate, who took one look at my chart and said "According to this, you're dead" which didn't go down well with mum, but I had been given a tamazepam injectin so I thought it was hilarious.
Evil physiotherapist insisted I got out of bed by rolling on my left side, then pulling myself upright using all the muscles around my broken ribs. First attempt I went grey and nearly threw up from the pain. I let out the F word (which I rarely do) and my mother bloomin' well had a go at me for it!
Although if it wasn't for her kicking up a fuss they would have had me get back into a bed covered in blood, dirt, twigs and broken glass.
While the old chaps in the ward had triangles above their beds to help them get up, I either had to go through excruciating pain, or waste a nurse's time lending me their arm to pull myself up.
One sent me flying back into bed with a massive static shock!
As soon as my temperature was below 100C they sent me home, where the next morning I woke up to find I'd slid down my pillows and needed to be violently ill. I couldn't keep anything down, so we called he doctor. She came out and giggling (she was a strange woman) she said I could have an injection to stop me being sick but in young men it could cause chest spasms! So i declined.
10 hours later I was dehydrated, only able to suck a cold flannel, unable to take my painkillers and had enough, spasms or not I needed to be able to keep fluid down. We called the doctor again and a different one came out, gave me an injection and a funny look when I asked about the chest spasm side effects "No, there aren't any, it's just travel sickness medication which stops your stomach being able to contract"
A few days later I pulled a glass cube out of my left wrist, and a week later I was reading in bed and made the mistake of sneezing.
Seriously, not something I want to repeat.

[Rhothgar]

Sounds more like you hit spilt diesel.

LOO is a good acronym. You certainly need it after!

Broken ribs, ummm! I've had fractured ribs from a skiing accident and that was bad enough thank you. Sneezing and laughing are not good things to do. Luckily, the pain caused by sneezing doesn't make you laugh.

Travelling backwards sounds terrifying because you have such limited backward vision. Ditches don't sound too appetising either.

You do sound very lucky to have not come off worse there Andy. My brother contracted pneumonia once and he said he'd have rather died - the pain was such!

[Xaccers]

Sounds more like you hit spilt diesel.

LOO is a good acronym. You certainly need it after!

Broken ribs, ummm! I've had fractured ribs from a skiing accident and that was bad enough thank you. Sneezing and laughing are not good things to do. Luckily, the pain caused by sneezing doesn't make you laugh.

Travelling backwards sounds terrifying because you have such limited backward vision. Ditches don't sound too appetising either.

You do sound very lucky to have not come off worse there Andy. My brother contracted pneumonia once and he said he'd have rather died - the pain was such!

The thing is, I didn't know I had pneumonia until a week after I was back at uni (I was still on strong painkillers) when I went to the doctor to say I was setting off on foot to uni and not knowing how I got there, the journey would be a blank.
She checked my breathing and said I still had pneumonia so should be resting! She gave me a course of strong antibiotics and sent me home.

4 years later I nearly did the same thing but in my Xantia. On a bend heading down the A32 she oversteered a little bit, I easily recovered and pulled over to check the rear wheels. I couldn't see any issues so took it easy for the next few days and had no further problems until returning home late one night after some flooding (a new estate on the A32 had been fenced off and you could see TVs bobbing in people's lounges) so I took a different route that wasn't flooded but was a much windier country lane.
Came around a reasonably tight bend (not quite as tight as the one to the south of my previous accident Richard) and the back slipped out again, I think I saw some debris in the road flat like a car mat.
I compensated for the slip but the nsf wheel clipped the bank snapping the track rod end and flipping me around so I ended up with my back wheels in a ditch, but other than that unhurt.
While the car was up on axle stands awaiting a quote for repair, one of the local oiks set fire to it and seeing I wasn't home, broke in and took as much as they could. That wasn't a good week, although when I called Churchill they didn't quible ove the car's value and sent me a cheque straight away.
Since then I've only ever had accidents where others have hit me.
It's a bit gutting though that on both occasions I was driving at low speed and took the route to be safer!

[Citroening]

I can categorically state nobody wants to have pneumonia...an evil condition that I remember well!

Edit - strange I typed about pneumonia, as it was just mentioned on BBC R2!

[Xaccers]

Perhaps we should add a new poll option: "Keeping Xac off the road"

[CitroJim]

I typed about pneumonia

I'm inpressed you can spell it Franklin Must have been a good school you went to....

You're right, it is very nasty indeed

On the subject of what makes a car safe, this may be a bit controversal but one major factor I believe is to have a big engine that can rapidly accellerate the car away from junctions and other potential troublespots.

I've driven some very underpowered cars, most horrifically an 1100 Fiesta, and consider their inability to pull the skin off a rice pudding to be incredibly dangerous...

[Deanxm]

I've driven some very underpowered cars, most horrifically an 1100 Fiesta, and consider their inability to pull the skin off a rice pudding to be incredibly dangerous...

Yes i think i would go with that, mostly for sliproads though, i find you can go for a space out in front of you if you like where you can see whats going on rather than coming down the slipway at full bore and hope you can match traffic speed before you run out of road

D

[Spaces]

Modern cars are usually heavy and often slightly underpowered for 'gap installing' unless a decent turbo-dizl lives under the bonnet. Good aerodynamics have allowed a 100hp car to reach 120mph, if with gentle acceleration. (The criticism of Citroens in the way-back-when was that they always felt slow - compared with their competitors they were usually much faster but amazing body-control and streamlined shapes didn't give the impression of speed.)

Sensible mass conveys so many other advantages, too, if well-engineered. BX tds were always easy to drive, because of their ability to gather speed without much effort. Most Fords I have driven (admittedly pre-Focus generation) were horrid. But a masterpiece of engineering down to a price while extracting max profit.