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Not that it matters...
May. 9th, 2008 02:47 pmBut:
http://www.euroncap.com/tests/citroen_c6_2005/235.aspx
Highest scoring car for pedestrian safety, and greens on all major body impact areas.
Thing is, I don't care about crash protection in cars. Yet I am pleased that it gets these marks. The other car I considered was the Honda Legend, and it also scored highly, which makes me suspect the benchmarks need to be moved again. It's all relative; there's footage of a Volvo 740 plowing THROUGH a Vauxhall Cavalier as an example of mid-80s "safety", but then Fifth Gear fired a Renault Modus "supermini" into a 740 and it basically drove right through the front.
However.
I've seen a lot of crashes around Birmingham that are clearly Someone Else's Fault. Around here, if you crashed, on the whole you did it on your own and landed in a field. Yes, a safer car would benefit you, but safer driving was the primary consideration (note that safer does not necessarily mean slower). The one accident that I've had that I can consider to be "my fault", rather than due to external influences (being hit by someone and being gassed by my car respectively) was down to my own inability to read the road conditions.
The box junction at the corner of our road (Chester Road) and Sutton Road has seen at least two smashes whilst I've been nearby - T-boned on the box, usually, at least one involving a Police car IIRC. One of the West Midlands MR2 owners got T-boned by a truck running a red light and had to be cut out of their car.
In Birmingham, I can do a lot to reduce the risks of accidents - observation, planning, clear signals etc. - but it seems the chances of "someone just running into you" are quite a bit higher.
Most cars made since the late 80s are pretty good at side impacts anyway. The MR2 mentioned above fared quite well all things considered, and the MX5's weakness is in roll over - it's very strong otherwise.
http://www.euroncap.com/tests/mazda_mx_5_2002/120.aspx
(Airbags do make a difference here for frontal).
My brain is naturally overloaded and looking for "attainable" distractions; the thought of the first night drives up the M6, perhaps listening to early J-M-J or Tomita (as I'm listening to now, actually), soft glow of instruments dimmed with just the heads up display on, perfect cabin temperature, silence from outside... It's a different appeal to the visceral howl of the RX8 and the feeling of the rear wheels digging in on a fast series of bends at twice legal speeds. I like both, but I think I need a decent phase of the former. The RX8 tailed some fairly aggressive driving in the Beetle (and the 306 always had the saving grace of being quite powerful and handling well, managing a 90+mph run to Edinburgh in a terrifying rainstorm once) and I've definitely got back into the habit of being quite vicious with my cars.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siani_hedgehog and jezebel_z both noticed how much calmer I was driving the A-class. Calm is something I'd rather like to do more of.
Oh, yes,jenova_red bought me C6 RTK (it had been reduced on the DVLA site since last time I looked). She just encourages me (and it'll be paid back as part of the car costs) but I feel both happy, and silly - it's a vanity having a personlised plate on a car, and an irrelevant expense, but I like having my existing one, and one that the prefix isn't meaningless on (i.e. they're the car!) will be even nicer. A4 allegedly means paper; I since "reinterpreted" it to be the note one starts tuning one's violin from, but really, we have A4 because when my father decided to buy himself and Shirley cherished plates, A1 was expensive. Shirley's has since been lost, but he still has A4 DDK on his A140, and my A4 RTK will go on our A160.
http://www.euroncap.com/tests/citroen_c6_2005/235.aspx
Highest scoring car for pedestrian safety, and greens on all major body impact areas.
Thing is, I don't care about crash protection in cars. Yet I am pleased that it gets these marks. The other car I considered was the Honda Legend, and it also scored highly, which makes me suspect the benchmarks need to be moved again. It's all relative; there's footage of a Volvo 740 plowing THROUGH a Vauxhall Cavalier as an example of mid-80s "safety", but then Fifth Gear fired a Renault Modus "supermini" into a 740 and it basically drove right through the front.
However.
I've seen a lot of crashes around Birmingham that are clearly Someone Else's Fault. Around here, if you crashed, on the whole you did it on your own and landed in a field. Yes, a safer car would benefit you, but safer driving was the primary consideration (note that safer does not necessarily mean slower). The one accident that I've had that I can consider to be "my fault", rather than due to external influences (being hit by someone and being gassed by my car respectively) was down to my own inability to read the road conditions.
The box junction at the corner of our road (Chester Road) and Sutton Road has seen at least two smashes whilst I've been nearby - T-boned on the box, usually, at least one involving a Police car IIRC. One of the West Midlands MR2 owners got T-boned by a truck running a red light and had to be cut out of their car.
In Birmingham, I can do a lot to reduce the risks of accidents - observation, planning, clear signals etc. - but it seems the chances of "someone just running into you" are quite a bit higher.
Most cars made since the late 80s are pretty good at side impacts anyway. The MR2 mentioned above fared quite well all things considered, and the MX5's weakness is in roll over - it's very strong otherwise.
http://www.euroncap.com/tests/mazda_mx_5_2002/120.aspx
(Airbags do make a difference here for frontal).
My brain is naturally overloaded and looking for "attainable" distractions; the thought of the first night drives up the M6, perhaps listening to early J-M-J or Tomita (as I'm listening to now, actually), soft glow of instruments dimmed with just the heads up display on, perfect cabin temperature, silence from outside... It's a different appeal to the visceral howl of the RX8 and the feeling of the rear wheels digging in on a fast series of bends at twice legal speeds. I like both, but I think I need a decent phase of the former. The RX8 tailed some fairly aggressive driving in the Beetle (and the 306 always had the saving grace of being quite powerful and handling well, managing a 90+mph run to Edinburgh in a terrifying rainstorm once) and I've definitely got back into the habit of being quite vicious with my cars.
siani_hedgehog and jezebel_z both noticed how much calmer I was driving the A-class. Calm is something I'd rather like to do more of.Oh, yes,
jenova_red bought me C6 RTK (it had been reduced on the DVLA site since last time I looked). She just encourages me (and it'll be paid back as part of the car costs) but I feel both happy, and silly - it's a vanity having a personlised plate on a car, and an irrelevant expense, but I like having my existing one, and one that the prefix isn't meaningless on (i.e. they're the car!) will be even nicer. A4 allegedly means paper; I since "reinterpreted" it to be the note one starts tuning one's violin from, but really, we have A4 because when my father decided to buy himself and Shirley cherished plates, A1 was expensive. Shirley's has since been lost, but he still has A4 DDK on his A140, and my A4 RTK will go on our A160.
