I see a few on the road and they have me wondering how safe are they. They are so small and I can not believe they would pass any crash test at all. I would not feel safe in one!
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I see a few on the road and they have me wondering how safe are they. They are so small and I can not believe they would pass any crash test at all. I would not feel safe in one!
How smart are the Smart cars anyway? What differs them from regular cars other than the size? Similar to you, I wouldn't feel safe to drive a Smart car either.
I think they wouldn't even be good for any normal size family unless they have it as a second car to do errands. I think of them as golf carts. I wonder how are we supposed to save with them.
Well according to this article, the Smart car got the highest safety rating in tests against cars of a similar size and weight. I think they're cute and would be ideal for a couple who have no children.
That's good news, thanks for sharing. They maybe the safest among the other cars of a similar size manufactured by other companies. Just keep in mind that on the road, we will mostly be dealing with larger cars.
A guy in my street has one of these and it's a convertible. It looks like a miniature sports car and it's so cute my wife would love one. They almost look like toy cars! It's nice to know that they have a good safety record though.
I also wonder about the safety but I would love to have one as the secondary car. As it is smaller in size and capacity, I think it consumes less gas than the regular cars do.
Smart cars look like electric carts to me and I worry about their safety as well. I can't buy one anyway, since I have a kid. I bet they are great for parallel parking though!
I don`t know about these cars. They are so small I too would be afraid to drive one. I think they are ugly too lol. What do they cost anyway? Anyone know?
Consumer Reports says the Smart car is one of the least reliable cars they've ever tested. It gets 39 MPG's but requires premium gas. The automated manual transmission has the worst shift quality ever tested.
And the Smart company may know it's not reliable. Their warranty? Only 2 years/24000 miles. Most cars have triple that, or more.
I agree! I would never buy a Smart Car. They are way too small and there are so many people on the road with huge oversized vehicles that I would be terrified to be in such a tiny car. It seems like if you were to get in an accident, you would be instantly crushed flat as a pancake. There is just no wiggle room in those cars to compensate for a crash. They should change the name from Smart Car to Death Car.
These are so small they would fit in the back of my mini van. I don't think they are very practical. My husband said a guy at work has one and it is like $500 for an oil change. That is crazy!
Well most of the problem is that most of the prople replying here have never lived in Europe and have no clue how things are there. The Smart car has been around since at least 1997 or so. They were designed to be used in Europe in the larger cities like Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam and the like.
The average city person in Europe lives in a small 1000sgft apartment. There is almost no such thing as provided garage and on street parking is very limited. In some places you have to rent your street parking from the city. They give you a big steel post to put in the middle of it and lock it when not using it. The concept of street parking is entirely different. In most places in Europe it is illegal to park on the street but it is permissable to park on the sidewalk. I loved my jeep Wrangler that I had there because it could jump high curbs that most cars could not get up and over.
Garage space if available can run more than your apartment $1000 a month US.
In many of the cities you can not even drive in the center part of town and in others you must buy a special permit to do so and even then you may be limited to every other day.
The car would only be used on weekends and holidays. Most Europeans drive far less than Americans 3 or 4 thousand miles a year would be a lot for them. In most coutries all cars must pass a very through inspection at 2 years of age and in some cases it is cheaper to buy a new car than pass the inspection.
Cars in most countries are taxed and insured by engine size. Those less than 1liter are taxed the least. Anything over 3 liters (which most US cars are) are considered luxery cars and taxed heavily.
I think this is a great think for this . itink its great idea.
Good safety compared to other cars of their size/weight. OK what other cars of their size and weight come to mind???? BEEEEP, sorry times up. I guess that answers the safety question. For a confirmation ask your insurance agent about insurance rates for the Smart Car. They are small and may not do much damage to others and their property so liability may not be too high but...
A little physics I would share with you... In an inelastic collision (car crumbles in a wreck and sticks to the other car like two lumps of putty banged together instead of bouncing off like two billiard balls bouncing off each other) the momentum before and after the wreck are the same. Momentum is mass times velocity. Lets say your smart car at about 1600 lbs (one of the lightest cars in the world) is going 60mph on a level highway headed north and the truck at 80,000 lbs is headed south toward the Smart Car at 60 mph. They hit head-on. The resultant mass of metal (Smart car embedded in the grill of the truck) will be traveling in the direction the truck was going. It will be going 57.65 mph. The truck driver will experience a deceleration from 60 down to 57.65 mph, a little over 2 mph and will not be seriously hurt.
The Smart car occupants and all their air bags, head restraints, and whatever will undergo a change of velocity of 117.65 mph in a fraction of a second. This is sufficient G force to turn them into jelly. The truck driver will experience a deceleration less violent than walking into a wall at a normal walking speed. The Smart car occupants will be removed from the wreckage with a fire hose.
SMART Car Crash - Video
If the government put a stiff weight tax on vehicles then over time the average weight of a car on the highway would go down seriously as market pressures took effect. This would increase traffic safety and reduce fuel consumption.
Executive summary/Readers Digest version:
The Smart Car and its occupants will be smashed by the truck like the truck hitting an insect. Truck may sustain radiator damage. Truck driver will not be injured.
Pat
Hey Pat where have you been? I haved missed all of those educational answers.
I can't see that they are practical here, not because of the fear of the safety factor, but in Europe, the Smart is diesel powered and gets close to 60 mpg. The ones that we get are in the 30's, at that mileage, there are several that fit that bill and get better mileage. The only reason I could see anybody wanting one is, they think they're cute.Quote:
Originally Posted by jimbrown
You need to get out more!!! Maybe sign up for Netflix and get unlimited movies for under $10 a month (free first month) OK, OK, new tack... Thanks for the compliment? I can't help myself... too many years working as engineer and or scientist. I even "see" my pool shots as elastic collisions in Newtonian physics with conservation of momentum depicted in my mind via vector analysis and still chaos rears its ornamental head and makes things interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by jimbrown
What are the odds that someone with two computers would lose the boot drive in each within a few weeks of each other? Answer: 100% since it happened to me. That and I've been staying pretty busy. For some reason my eyeballs sprung open this morning at 0330 and trying to get back to sleep was futile so... with a promise to take a nap later I got up and wandered to the computer.
Smart cars are a whole lot smarter in Europe running on diesel and competing for road space with other light weight vehicles (and the odd truck or big Benz.) In the USA once out of the 35 MPH (or less) zone and up to highway speeds you are about as safe as a motorcycle (murder cycle.)
I suspect Smart cars suffer one of the safety problems of motorcycles where other drivers judge your rate of closure by retinal image size and rate of change of retinal image size. This leads to the perception that the small vehicle (motorcycle, Smart car) is farther away going slower than it really is. This is why drivers trained by observing full sized cars and trucks often misjudge approaching cycles and tiny cars and pull out in front of them thinking them to be farther away and going slower. OOPS, BANG, so sorry Mrs motorcyclist widow I didn't realize he was that close going that fast.
Basis for above: depth perception via paralactic angle (how much your eyes cross to both focus on an object as measured by your eye turning muscles is noneffective beyond 25 to 40 feet (many of us can't judge distance even 25 feet with just normal 3D vision.) So how do we judge distances much greater than 40 feet like oncoming cars while you wait to pull out from a side street? Over time with experience you learn (typically subconsciously) the relationship between retinal image size of a car and the rate of change of retinal image size vs the time it takes to get to you from a known or fairly well judged/guessed distance away (a city block or x number of telephone poles or...) So then along comes a smaller "target" and your experience and training tells you it is farther away and going slower than it really is and you pull out and get T-boned by a motorcycle or Smart car.
Again as in previous post... the lighter weight vehicle experiences more G force than the heavier vehicle so the occupants of the smaller vehicle are typically more prone to injury. This works according to the ratio of the masses (weights) of the respective vehicles where the safety advantage goes to the heavier vehicle assuming similar passenger restraints, air bags, etc.
That said,our car is an '04 Prius that is full of airbags front, side, and rear. We also have two diesel pickups in 3/4 and 1 ton sizes plus my street legal VW powered dune/beach buggy which isn't driven on the highway very much (mostly off road.) I worry the least in our one ton Dodge diesel dually with service body. The thing is a tank! (and gets less than 1/4 the mileage of the Prius)
Pat