who sez old school is tuff...

[ron.brown11]

Just a couple of things; First, the A-B-& C pillars are visible in all of the shots of the 1959 Chevy. Second, you can see the engine at approximately 46 seconds in the 1st video. Third, and this is the most important by far. The insurance Institute gets no outside funding. Here's how they fund all of these crash tests, and why these tests are done, beyond what the Federal Government does. The funding comes from all Property & Casualty Insurance companies in America. The reason they do these tests are because the Fed's tests are flawed. The reason they are flawed is because years ago, they established what they wanted to crash test for. They're concern was mainly for how well the car survived the crash. It wasn't until years later that started to change. And they didn't change those standards because they wanted to. It was because of the Insurance Institute. You see, insurance providers figured out, that replacing the parts on the car wasn't nearly as expensive as replacing the parts (people) inside the car. You can prove this for youself, you don't have to take my word for it.

 

Most people carry one of these Bodily Injury, Property Damage limits: 15/30/10; 25/50/25; 50/100/50; or 100/300/100. Farmers is the weird guy on the block. They usually use 30/60/25, then the other numbers listed above the 25/50/25. The first number is the bodily Injury dollar amount available to 1 one person injured in the other (Not At Fault) car. The second number is the total amount the insurance company is responsible for ALL injured in the not at fault car. The third number is the amount of money the insurance company is responsible for in property damage. This number is usually the other person's car, but could be anything that this driver hits. Here's how you can see what I'm saying is true. Have your policy in hand, that shows what your policy limits are. Call your agent/company, and ask them how much your rates will go up it you just raise the property limits. It's an incredibly small amount compared to what happens if you want to raise the Bodily Injury numbers of the policy. Like I said before, it's the parts inside the car that cost the most to replace.

 

Also, the Fed's tests didn't reflect what was actually happening on the street in real crashes. This is incredibly apparent when it comes to front end crashes. The Feds still only test full frontal head on collisions. Those constitute about 11% of all frontal crashes (these are 2005 figures I pulled up a couple of years ago). What you saw in these 2 videos covers about 85% of frontal crashes. These are called off-set frontal crashes. The other 4% usually come at about 45 degrees. Now I know that this doesn't apply to the 1959 Chevy, but all of the new cars crashed are bought straight off a dealership lot, and they don't tell the dealer who's buying it. They pay full price, transport it to their test facilities, and prepare it for whatever tests they plan to run. It they are going to run multiple tests, side, front, and rear, they will buy an exact model at other dealerships. After the crash tests, they hold the cars/trucks for a period of time. This is done to allow the Feds, and the manufacturers to inspect the vehicles and all test data. It's worked, because now the Feds are running better tests. The car companies are building safer cars when it comes to survivability for the occupants. Heck, several vehicles have actually been replaced prematurely. Two that come to mind are, the Toyota mini van that was built in the mid 90's called I believe a Previa. It side impact tested so bad, that Toyota pulled all remaining units from their dealerships. They stripped them down of all parts, and crushed the bodies. It was replaced by the Sienna. Ford rushed the current F-150 models in a year early because of the Institute. The Institute crash tested trucks for the first time on the 1996 to 2002 F-150. It went VERY badly. The cab buckled a lot like the Ford Fox platform (1979 to 1992) Mustangs. The driver's door came open, and the crash dummy's head got stuck between the door and the cab. Now the Feds crash test trucks. So here's a tough question for those that feel this test was "fixed". What do they have to gain? They are spending their own money to destroy the vehicles! The only thing they hope to gain is lower payouts for bodily injuries. Hey, that saves them money. Other than these "Micro" cars that are starting to show up, the survivability in these newer cars is incredibly higher.

 

Someone (I've forgotten their name) stated correctly the the 1973 to 1987 Chevy truck results were rigged, but by who? It wasn't the Insurance Institute, it was NBC. They got caught, and it was because of the Institute.

 

Also, someone mentioned how bad GM's old X frame was. That ain't no lie, as they were deadly, and for a long time.

 

No, I don't work for the Insurance Institute. However, I was an insurance agent for over 10 years. I had some doubts about them when I first heard of them. I thought there might be some conflict of interest issues. So I did some homework, to find out more about them. It was very interesting to see to what extent they went to not only protect all insurance companies' profits, but to protect the consumers (us). Amazingly, in this circumstance, both go hand in hand. If you get hurt less in an accident, they pay out less money (more profit), and we all don't have rates go up as much as they could (lower rates). Insurance premiums are pennies on the dollar, compared to the risk the companies take, Yes, I know they're in business to make money, and you need to be happy about that. Because I don't know of any company that goes into business to lose money, no matter how big (insurance co.), or small (your business). I had a client that carried 250/500/250 coverage. That's $250,000/$500,000/$250,000. Their son severely injured 3 people in other cars (5 vehicles). The parent company paid out the full $500,000 in Bodily Injury, and almost $100,000 in property damage. My client used to complain constantly about his rates, BEFORE that accident. I never heard him complain again. We paid out almost $600,000 on his behalf. He never paid that much in premiums in his life. That was by his own admission. This guy was pretty well off with the businesses he owned. He told me that if he would have had to pay that money, he would have been bankrupt.

 

Is this video fixed? It could be, but I doubt it. They've spent a lot of years, and a ton of money building their reputation. I'm actually surprised that they did this test at all. Was anybody really planning on testing a 1959 Chevy against the new one?

 

I'm sure I'm going to get ripped, and probably by people my age and older. But I can tell you this for an absolute certainty. If I had to choose to be in a crash, I'd choose a new car EVERY TIME!

 

Ron11

[lilmodified]

I call total b.s. The b pillar is out of the car, there is no engine, I see all sorts of weird things going on.

 

None the less, airbags are certainly one of the best inventions made.

i agree! i had a 69 fairlane (granted, not the same car, but close enough) and was involved in a front-end collision...i sustained very little damage, while the 80's-something mid-size car had a crushed front end...and we were doing bout 40 mph (though i don't know how fast the cars in the video were going)...i would still feel safer in one of these older cars.

[champ1796]

Thanks for the informative post Ron. I too would rather be in a newer car in a head on crash.

[JamesHigdon]

Ron...this video has come up on a few boards a frequent and is interesting that about 90% of the people seem to think it is rigged. I see a few things that look "off" to me but much like you see not much reason to do the test other than the institute trying to prove to the insurance companies it has made vehicles this much safer through its good work.

 

This video reminds me of being in Detroit a few years back and taking a tour of GM's main corporate grounds. It's like an alter universe as there are parking lots full of cars that don't exist and smashed cars mixed in along with the occasional recognizable publicity car. Back in one corner of the compound in a separate chain linked off area was a lot of 73-87 Chevrolet trucks...all of these trucks had severe side impact damage and our host's explanation is that was GM's reaction to the NBC fiasco so many years before. GM had crash tested dozens of these trucks trying to get the same result as in the videos to no avail and these were the left-overs. Technology has a come a LONG way in 50 years and even in 20 years advancements have been amazing. The point is, a few VERY large entities spend a ton of money analyzing the crash worthiness of every aspect of every vehicle on the road today and if that doesn't justify the results of that video nothing does.

[badsonic]

thanks ron very interesting topic there, for sure i would wanna be in that 09' MALIBU ANY DAY against that land yacht..