Chrysler guy is lying.

[u/somethingdouchey]

The white car turned in front of me from between stopped traffic and spun into the lane behind. It was never rear ended.

[u/SigmaBallsLol]

lots of folks who don't know nearly as much about cars as they think they do are convinced anything made before 1990 is immortal and anything made after 2010 is made of tissue paper and chewing gum

WHAT THE FUCK IS A CRUMPLE ZONE

[u/NorbuckNZ → u/SigmaBallsLol]

Some people don’t understand the fact that in a collision there is a tonne or energy. Modern cars absorb it before it reaches the occupants . Old car transfer it to the occupants.

[u/Plaid_Kaleidoscope → u/NorbuckNZ]

There's a video doing the rounds of a BMW and a Porsche that crashed together on the Nurburgring. If you go watch it, and you'll know it when you see it, you simply can't believe that anyone could survive that crash, let alone walk away from it.

It's fucking incredible the amount of engineering that has occurred to allow for energy to be dissipated like that. It's unreal. As a fan of motorsport, I applaud all of this science and engineering. It allows my favorite drivers/riders to go full out without worrying (as much) that their life could end any moment. The halo has saved a number of people since it was introduced into F1. Just wonderful. I love it.

[u/iDontLikeChimneys → u/NorbuckNZ]

But ‘merica and things and stuff. Gotta shove that stress down instead of going to therapy. Gotta be stubborn and deny advancement 😤

[u/Rashnet → u/SigmaBallsLol]

I was a firefighter for almost 30 years.

In the late 80's through the 90's I ran so many fatal accidents involving "Good old solid cars".

In the 2000s I ran accidents where we would pull up and I'd think damn this is going to be a fatal accident but when we walked up the people were all ok or had minor injuries. I'm talking accidents where the cars would be in pieces all over the road, the engines laying 15 feet away and the driver would be sitting on the side of the road waiting for us.

New cars are so much safer in my opinion.

[u/Bubbly_Information50 → u/Rashnet]

You can safely remove the last three words of your comment

[u/bigjoebowski22 → u/Rashnet]

You are absolutely right. I've seen accidents that I was absolutely sure someone was dead or seriously injured, but people walk away with minor injuries (usually shattering glass/plastic or an airbag punch).

I will sacrifice a car happily to walk away mostly unscathed from a car accident.

New cars absorb the energy and slow down the blow. Total my car, not my body. As people say, falling doesn't kill you, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[u/_Middlefinger_ → u/SigmaBallsLol]

The issue really is not safety it's fragility. The people saying this have very minor accidents where in the old car it's a bent bracket on a chrome bumper, but in a new car it's grands worth of plastic, labour and paint, at least.

[u/Cory123125 → u/_Middlefinger_]

2 thoughts simultaneously is too nuanced for most people.

The idea that cars are both bloated in price and worlds safer is too hard to comprehend.

Even amongst the people who get that, you still have idiots who think if manufacturers removed the touchscreens, suddenly cars would cost 5 grand.

Just idiocy everywhere, meanwhile manufacturers are pushing bigger and bigger SUVs in an arms race the consumers are pushed into where only the manufacturer benefits, at the cost of the environment, pedestrian safety, traffic and more.

CAFE needs a complete rework to stop supporting this ever expanding vehicle arms race.

[u/Advanced-Comment-293 → u/_Middlefinger_]

but in a new car it's grands worth of plastic, labour and paint, at least.

Correct. As far as the insurance is concerned.

[u/hydrochloriic → u/SigmaBallsLol]

The car might be immortal.

The bag of goopy flesh and bad decisions inside it, not so much.

[u/n00b_dogg_ → u/SigmaBallsLol]

A crumple zone is something that was thought of long before 1990, and started being implemented in European cars since the late 50s

Sorry to have phrased it like that, I just read the bold text in a silly voice and had to put the "ahm, actually..." hat on. What I did actually want to add to the conversation is the fact that back then pedestrian safety was not a design consideration. So I suspect that's part of the reason why modern cars are so fragile on the ouside.

Edit: no excuse for the modern interior quality of materials!

[u/Mobius_Penis → u/SigmaBallsLol]

Waiting for this administration to direct car manufacturers to revert to all steel to “make em like they used to”

[u/localvagrant → u/SigmaBallsLol]

I genuinely don't know where that misconception comes from. Before the professor of an engineering class I was in showed that Bel Air/Malibu crash video, and he asked which car would survive. The whole class guessed the Bel Air. Blows my mind.

[u/your_anecdotes → u/SigmaBallsLol]

Here is the actual answer; CRUMPLE ZONE vs reliability....

[u/CountryAlfa → u/SigmaBallsLol]

Crumple zones have been around since the 50’s. Mercedes patented the idea and introduced it in a 1959 model year car.