[s-cars] Teen cars Mine vs UrS4 .. Who wins?

Wed Dec 9 08:55:33 PST 2009

 Sorry... but I have to admit being humored when this topic comes up... as it regularly does.  "What is the safest tank I can put my kid in?"

At the end of the day, I think this is still the wrong question.  The real question should be how to adequately train the young driver.  Prevent the accident rather than planning for its eventuality.

I have my own empirical evidence...  My oldest girl was carefully trained by me.  Stick car, Colorado winters and a long commute to school, some of it interstate highway.  She was the first driver, and training her was somewhat of a novelty for me, so I was careful and spent plenty of time with her.  She's been driving for 6 years now, and has yet to have any incident.

The younger girl got less of my attention... probably because the "fun factor" of training one of the kids to drive had already been experienced, and I felt that some of the task could be passed along to her sister.  Most of the time I spent with her was related to driving the stick, and less on safety and observing the surroundings.  Big time fail!  This young lady started off by backing into another car within months of getting her license... and then 2 totaled cars in less than a year.  I serious effort to "retrain" her was required.  These experiences were *my* fault, not the car's fault.

Personally... I grew up driving go-karts and learned to drive a stick at age 12.  My dad spent lots of time with me driving WAY before I got a license.  Driver's Ed was comical compared to what I learned from my dad and from driving go-karts.  I've now been licensed to drive for just shy of 30 years (driving for 34), and have not yet had an accident, except for one bad experience with 3 deer.  There's a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with the actual car I was driving.

At the end of the day... we can talk about what car is the "safest" until we're blue in the face.  I'll still argue that it's the that driver that makes driving safe... not the car.  Yeah... buy smart... but remember to focus on what's really important.

Anywho........ 

-----Original Message-----
From: Taka Mizutani <t44tqtro at gmail.com>
To: LL - NY <larrycleung at gmail.com>
Cc: erikaddy at yahoo.com <erikaddy at yahoo.com>; s-car-list at audifans.com
Sent: Wed, Dec 9, 2009 9:28 am
Subject: Re: [s-cars] Teen cars Mine vs UrS4 .. Who wins?

You're simply wrong, Larry. The way the car is constructed makes a huge
difference. The impact can be redirected around the passenger compartment in
a well designed car.

The Renault supermini that hits a Volvo 940 is a clear case of the smaller,
lighter car prevailing over the big, heavy tank of a car.

Take a look at Chevy's offset crash of a '59 Impala vs. a '09 Impala and
you'll see the same thing. Energy absorption and redirection are crucial in
crash safety.

On the same fifth gear link, the next two videos are of a Renault Espace vs.
a Land Rover Discovery- the Disco is a much heavier vehicle- guess which one
wins?

You guys are all theorizing about stuff when there is empirical evidence
that clearly shows that you're wrong.

Taka

On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 10:44 AM, LL - NY <larrycleung at gmail.com> wrote:

> Mass wins.  Since Newton's 3rd Law guarantees the force of impact is the
> same on both vehicles, from F = ma, the acceleration of the more massive
> vehicle, reduced by nearly 25% in the case of absolutes, but a whopping 67%
> compared car to car, (assuming back of the napkin road weight of 4000# for
> the UrS, 3000# for the Mini) means the passengers in the Audi experience
> 67%
> less collision force than those in the Mini. Airbags in both vehicles
> mitigate that difference substantially, however, but you're going to be
> hurting more (assuming survivable impact speeds) stepping out of the Mini
> than the Audi. Side impact, if Mini's have side bags of some form, I'd bet
> on the Mini.
>
> On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 10:14 AM, chris chambers <
> fastscirocco_2000 at yahoo.com
> > wrote:
>
> > Gentz,
> >
> > I can't help but wonder how one of our UrS4/S6 cars would fair in a head
> on
> > with a Mini or the Renault.
> > I may be completely ignorant and uninformed but I think the S would win.
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > > From: "erikaddy at yahoo.com" <erikaddy at yahoo.com>
> > > To: qshipq at aol.com; s-car-list at audifans.com
> > > Sent: Wed, December 9, 2009 10:07:49 AM
> > > Subject: Re: [s-cars] Teen cars
> > >
> > > Not a leap at all.  The construction in a mini will destroy the late
> 70s
> > tech in
> > > the cgt (or any other car from that era).
> > >
> > > I wasn't suggesting a mini for a teen, I just used that for
> illustration
> > as it
> > > is a small car available in the US.  You were mentioning the
> construction
> > of the
> > > cgt in terms of safety and I'm saying almost any 2000+ car makes a cgt
> > look like
> > > a death trap.
> > >
> > > Erik Addy
> > > Sent from a mobile device.
> > >
> > > ----- Reply message -----
> > > From: qshipq at aol.com
> > > Date: Wed, Dec 9, 2009 00:10
> > > Subject: [s-cars] Teen cars
> > > To: ,
> > >
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