Quote:
Originally Posted by steamship
As in Demolition Man.
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More like 'I Robot' with the Audi!
The biggest problem with all car safety is the rate of deceleration of the occupants. Deceleration needs to be as slow as possible (micro seconds make a difference), and manufacturers spend millions engineering crumple zones, seatbelts and rate of airbag deployment. The recent switch had been to active crash avoidance - the technology for which is flying headlong into automation, unfortunately...
I found the premise of this thread interesting, because there's been a concerted drive in the last 25 years in Australia to improve car safety (driven by annoyance for discrepancies like the Aussie designed Capri (POS - poor imitation of a MX5 based on 323 underpinnings, don't bother!) that was fitted with airbags for the US market, but not for ours).
There's a website called "How Safe is Your Car" which will give an indication of ENCAP and ANCAP (Aussie New Car Assessment Program) ratings for all cars on Australian Roads on the last 20 years and is recommended for people to visit before making any purchase decisions.
Safety is a major market driver in this country, and a poor ANCAP/ENCAP ratings will affect sales (the exception being the two star Mustang, although with the late 2017 update model promising five stars, we'll watch that one!). Even Toyota had to lift their game when ANCAP started testing utes and the Ford Ranger/Mazda BT50 (twins under the skin) and VW Amarok attained five stars. The new Hilux is now five stars, and that's despite commercial classed vehicles (vans, utes, and chassied 4x4's) not having the same legislated crash requirements as cars - it was purely market driven.
In fact most safety improvements over the past 20 years can be attributed to the critical success of ENCAP/ANCAP.
Just ask my missus why we bought the XC90 (the V8 version was my concession!)...