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“Mercedes E-class sedan has the safest design among any car or truck and two-door Chevrolet Blazer has the worst. among four-door midsize cars, the Volkswagen Passat performed best, with an average of 16 driver deaths per million registered vehicles annually. At the other end of the spectrum, the Chrysler Sebring had 126 driver deaths. Among midsize S.U.V.’s with four-wheel drive, the Toyota 4Runner had 12 deaths per million registered vehicles annually, compared with 134 for the two-door Ford Explorer.”
Apart from raising the regular problems of statistical dilemmas (“E-Class drivers tend to drive more carefully than Blazer drivers”), we see an interesting correlation between the country of origin and car’s safety. Can it be said safely that American cars are less likely to be safe than European or Japanese cars? American car makers GM, Ford, and Chrysler are known to make rugged cars and trucks that are big on looks and power and small on efficiency and reliability. Toyota is set to overtake GM as the world’s largest automobile manufacturer in the next couple of years and it is hardly surprising. Toyota – the desi’s favorite brand is known for its reliability, fuel economy, and reasonable pricing thus leading to a higher resale value.
Of course, there are thousand other factors that make a car safe including the driver’s track record. But it was not surprising when “pound for pound, cars are safer than S.U.V.’s because S.U.V.’s ride higher off the ground and have a greater tendency to roll over than cars” when in fact, it is considered safe to be inside a SUV rather than a car in case of an accident. But strangely minivans and station wagons have low fatality rates although not because of the automobile’s safety features. “They tend to be driven by soccer moms and dads,” said Adrian Lund, the chief operating officer of the institute. “They tend to be conveying their families and are careful when they are doing that.”
PS. On an unrelated thought and for unrelated reasons, thank god the chief operating officer doesn’t live in India.
by Patrix | on Thursday, March 17th, 2005 at 11:00 pm | 
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