firedemon101
1 HN recommender · recommended in 6 months, 2011–2017
1:42 · 3.2M views · Sep 25, 2009
An IIHS crash test pitting a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air against a 2009 Malibu in a frontal offset collision for the institute's 50th anniversary. The old car's occupant space collapses while the modern car's protects its driver.
Commenters cite it as stark evidence that modern cars are far safer than older ones, countering nostalgia for 'built like they used to'.
8 comments from Hacker News
Watch this video of a crash test between a 1959 Chevy and a 2009 Chevy: this video The '59 Chevy gets 13.5 miles per gallon. [1] The '09 Chevy gets 25. [2] Yes, modern cars are more difficult to maintain than older cars -- they require more specialized equipment to maintain, parts are more difficult to replace, so on and so forth. Modern cars are also incredibly more fuel efficient and safer to ride in, and much of that is enabled by the same engineering efforts that make cars more difficult to maintain. 1) [LINK] 2) [LINK]
First: SUVs don't survive crashes particularly well -- they're very prone to rollover, which generally makes for a bad day for the occupant. I've witnessed multiple large-SUV vs. Camry (mid-sized sedan) accidents where the Toyota fared far better (walk away vs. ambulance or worse). Weight can be a factor, especially in multiple-vehicle accidents, where the heavier vehicle simply has more momentum and kinetic energy. In a multiple-vehicle accident, the larger vehicle experiences lower g-forces, and the occupants lower forces. Collisions with a stationary object (the basis for the NHTSA tests) largely takes this factor out of the equation. More mass can _still_ result in better survivability if it means more material around the driver, but here the choice of materials and engineering matter far more. Look at the comparison tests of classic (1950s/1960s) and modern (post 1980 and more recent) vehicles: this video I don't know the GVW of the Bel Aire, but I suspect it's rather higher than that of the Malibu. Of course, modern vehicles with poor engineering and materials can also fare badly: [LINK]
Fukushima was fifty years old. Compared to modern reactors, it's approximately as unsafe as a car from 1971 is compared to a modern car [1]. Which is to say, it's pants-shittingly unsafe and we should've replaced it 20 years ago but idiots say we're not allowed to "because it's dangerous oooh noooo". If you want to badmouth nuclear by spouting off its worst-case scenarios rather than its average or expected scenarios, I invite you to do the same for the alternatives. Coal's worst case causes the Great Smog and Beijing and New Delhi. Oil's worst case causes the Exxon Valdez and Piper Alpha and the Texas City Refinery explosion and oh yeah global climate change. Hydro's worst case is the Banqiao Dam burst, which directly killed 200,000 people and forced 11 million out of their homes. Badmouthing nuclear over fukushima and chernobyl is like badmouthing cars because a Fluorine tanker crashed in downtown Seattle around 1935. 1: this video
> 2. More prone to breakage due to complexity I agree with a lot of the newer features, but it's a fact that old luxury features are now standard, (and more reliable than the old luxury features) and the regular features are more reliable than ever. Transmissions last longer, brakes last longer, engines last longer, tires last longer. Hell, tire technology has gotten so good that you actually have to do something to get a flat. It used to be that you just got flats every now and then. Not anymore. Basically, if you want luxury features that will break at about the same rate as the luxury features on cars in the 80s, you can get them. If you want a really basic model car that doesn't have motorized doors and electrically controlled seats, you can get that, too. And it'll get fantastic gas mileage, and it won't kill you in a car crash, either. this video
lighter, deadlier cars Lighter <> Deadlier For one thing, lighter frequently means "more agile", i.e., better able to avoid a crash. But even given a crash, modern engineering can yield great safety with light weight. See the results of a "Crash Test 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air VS. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu (Frontal Offset)" [1]. In it, the dummy driver of the big iron Bel Air is pretty thoroughly killed. [1] this video