A look at the effects of CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards (wiki) from outside my house yesterday afternoon.
My red 1996 Ford Explorer was parked along the road when a dark blue late model compact (obviously going much faster the the 25 MPH posted) came around a curve and rear-ended it. Look at the difference in damage between the two cars. The rear bumper (steel) of the Explorer is bent down, a taillight was broken, and there's a dent in the back panel. The compact is totaled, and the unconscious driver left in an ambulance.
History of CAFE standards:
The 1973 Arab oil embargo and the ensuing quadrupling of oil prices by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) prompted Congress to enact the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program in 1975 as part of America's Energy Policy and Conservation Act. The aim of this program was to reduce the consumption of gasoline and thus the need for oil imports. Beginning with the 1978 auto model year, the program required all auto manufacturers to maintain certain minimum fuel economy averages for their fleets of vehicles sold in the U.S.
Decades later, when it turned out that there actually was no oil shortage, the federal government switched to a new rationale for federal regulation of vehicle mileage. Now it's climate change.
To meet higher CAFE standards, which increase periodically, American manufacturers have been forced to produce more smaller, lighter and therefore less safe cars.
Links to more information below the photos.
I don't want to re-write what others have already written better than I could hope to, so here are some references for you:
Auto Cafe Standards: Unsafe and Unwise at Any Level. (from 1991)
Note that damage done to the car was not damage done to the driver. even the windows aren't blown out. This is by design, as the body of the car is built to absorb kinetic energy. Without that crumpling, that energy would have been transmitted to the person in the passenger compartment.
ReplyDeleteThat the car is lighter than it might otherwise have been also spared your vehicle some damage, too.
I think you may be proving the opposite of your point.
There is a lot to complain about with CAFE standards, but this isn't it.
Agree
Deleteif she had been hit by another Ford Explorer, same year, you would get the point ... both drivers would have walked away ...
DeleteDid you read any of the links? I guess scientific proof doesn't beat conjecture in your world.
DeleteConsider, as we look at both vehicles, in a front-end collision there is only the front sheet metal and frame to shed energy away from the driver. The next line of defense is the air bag. You can't have the motor, transaxle, and steering assembly collapsing into the drivers compartment. Had another Explorer hit this one in the same way it would look in similar shape. The back end can be darned tough, though. On the Explorer it needs a heavy bumper and frame for towing, of course, but also if you're hit in the rear much of the force to the passengers can be absorbed by the seats and head-rests, plus the additional mass of the vehicle slowing acceleration. None of those factors help at all in a head-on collision. If you were to truly examine the blue compact I'm betting the rear doors barely open and the trunk is also out of shape as the frame transferred and absorbed the force of deceleration. For a truly eye-opening look at crumple zones, look for Formula 1 or Indy Car race crashes on YouTube. The entire car quite literally crumples and disintegrates, shedding energy away from the driver and the roll cage he is in.
DeleteAs a salvage dismantler I must disagree. It may look bad but modern vehicles are designed to do just what that new vehicle did, absorb energy while keeping the driver area intact. See what happens to the driver of that old Explorer in reverse rolls.
ReplyDeleteI won't defend CAFE standards, but different factor also may be in play in here. Modern cars are designed with "crumple zones" to absorb and spread out the force of collisions. If the compact had been as "hard" as the Ford Explorer, might the driver's injuries been more severe?
ReplyDeleteThe energy would have been shared more equitably - proportionately, so no.
DeleteIf the Civic had not crumpled (in a controlled fashion - note where the damage stops) then the driver would have experienced a far greater deceleration event increasing the risk of internal injuries, up to and including aortic tears and basilar skull fracture. Yes, the Explorer would have suffered more damage as well, but what we're really concerned about is protecting the occupants. The crushable structure allowed the deceleration to take place over several feet. The stiffer you make the structure (less crushing) the shorter the distance there is to decelerate in a crash. Half the distance means twice the g's.
DeleteI hate CAFE. It's a negative drain on my business on a daily basis, but this is not a useful case for criticizing it. Anytime a 2700 lbs Civic rear hits a 3900 lbs sport utility the Civic is going to get the worst of it by a good margin.
Those old Explorers are amazing. We bought our son a used '98 model at auction (cheap!) that we hoped would get him through high school. He drove it through high school, college, law school, and now as a young working attorney. That vehicle has never batted an eye! It just keeps going, through winters in Colorado and Wisconsin, numerous road trips all across the continent. The seat adjustment lever is broke. And the leather interior is quite worn now. But she runs like a top. And it is amazing how many Explorers from that era are still on the road!
ReplyDeleteGlad you weren't hurt. Hope the other driver is okay. And hope that isn't the end of your Explorer!
Reverse roles
ReplyDeleteOf course it was. You cant cheat physics - the energy has to go somewhere, and the light frame crumples until it crumples over you. And when the other car massess so much more - the lighter car has to adsorb all that energy. The fact that the driver was seriously injured in what should have been a minor accident makes your post a lie.
ReplyDeleteNOT a lie, at worst, a misunderstanding of how CAFE morphed. What is sad, is you made a statement without backing your position, with your not so good name. I say not so good, because you appear to be ashamed of it. I post under a pseudonym, but you follow the links, and I can be found, in person, ready and willing to discuss MY position.
DeleteThe design protects the driver, not the front of the car.
ReplyDeleteIf the car remained undamaged, it would mean a large shock load was transmitted to driver's body.
I dislike CAFE standards because they are an artificial constraint on the market to force a goal that would be better served in other ways. But, that said the other commenters are correct.
ReplyDeleteCAFE standards have little direct impact on vehicle safety, and it some ways could be credited with making cars safer by forcing manufacturers to utilize different technologies. The links are not science, but just other opinion pieces, often by writers with agendas.
The modern sedan is a wonder of physics, designed to dissipate energy instead of transferring it to the soft, squishy cargo. If that 1996 Explorer had hit a comparable barrier at a comparable speed, the driver would have been in worse shape.
This ain't very bright. Modern cars have crumple zones for a reason - look up YouTube test footage showing modern compacts slamming into (or being hit by) older full-size cars. The dummies in the compact would have lived, even though the cars looked destroyed. The dummies in the older cars were dead - very dead in most cases - and though the cars certainly looked busted up, you could still tell what they were from any angle (modern cars sometimes barely look like vehicles after some accidents). Cars have become provably safer over the years.
ReplyDeleteLucky you weren't cited for assault, doing such damage with your thug Explorer.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the driver of the sedan was distracted by the house in the background having 2 red shutters and 2 blue ones. That homeowner is clearly at fault and should should be responsible for the damage to both vehicles.
ReplyDeleteBig Government is to public safety as "Global Warming" is to so-called climate change. In this regard, without recapping Robert Holmes' 2017 "Mean Molar Mass version of the Ideal Gas Law" (T = PM/Rp), Henrik Svensmark and Valentina Zharkova's correlation of sunspot cycles with Total Solar Irradiance TSI) affecting Earth temperatures through cloud-cover, we recall "Climategate" e-mails in November 2009 during Globalists' COP-15 attempted Copenhagen coup d'oeuvre.
ReplyDeleteIn brief, Britain's University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) stood exposed as a blatantly corrupt, unconscionably malignant Luddite-Malthusian fraud. Under criminally bad faith, false pretenses, Phil Jones' credentialed charlatans obtained grant monies furthering crypto-totalitarian academic functionaries’ snuffle-grunting One World Order that stank to heaven then as it does now.
From wildly inflationary, willfully endangering CAFE mandates to virtually any other irresponsible, unaccountable Fourth Branch ukase one could name, benighted post-Wilson/FDR/LBJ cohorts have slit their generational wrists without a qualm.
It's a chicken/egg situation. Fed dictates mileage, manufacturers reduce weight, engineers design crumple zones to save lives, but somebody has to buy the new replacement car. 20k (or worse) plus insurance woes vs 2k repairs. I prefer my solid Suburban that might get bent but fixable as opposed to a disposable car.
ReplyDeleteGoing home for Christmas in 1971 with six in a 1971 Cutlass we hit black ice and a parked semi. We were doing at least 50 when we hit and were rear ended by a following car. None had been wearing seat belts. One had forehead stitches from hitting the mirror, one broke her jaw on the dash, and I had a scratch on my elbow. The driver and I were the only ones awake and the only ones with muscle soreness in the morning. The police wrote up the car in the accident report as a Comaro. Not sure modern design would work as well.
ReplyDeleteCrumple zones are an artifact of the CAFE standards in that auto manufacturers cannot afford the weight of frames, solid bumpers and other systems we used to have on cars to distribute impact loads to minimize irreparable damage to both the vehicle and the passengers. The point made is valid.
ReplyDeleteThe Explorer shed the energy imparted to it through the frame to the axles to the tires to the friction between them and the road.
To quote Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a practical illustration of crash safety standards is just a practical illustration of crash safety standards.
DeleteThe mid-2000s Corolla appears to have perfectly illustrated the NHSTA's offset frontal impact test, at about the same 45mph speed. The front of the car sacrificed itself as much as possible to slow down the rate of deceleration experienced in the passenger compartment, while ensuring little or no intrusion.
Want to feel the difference? Jump into the air and land with your knees locked in place. That horrible jolt you feel is the entire impact being transmitted from your feet into your vitals. That's also what someone in the Explorer would have felt had it been in service at the time. Now do it again, but bend your knees to absorb the impact. That's what the driver of the Corolla felt.
Here's a Malibu of similar age being crashed against a '59 Bel-Air. Makes the point about as clearly as possible:
https://youtu.be/fPF4fBGNK0U
To see what an actual deathtrap looks like, here's a similar test being performed on a 2015 Nissan Tsuru, which was being manufactured in Mexico up until recently with the same body structure as an early-1990s Nissan Sentra:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85OysZ_4lp0
Interesting you claim the car's design is dangerous, but fail to note the traumatic condition of the driver and other people. FYI, when a car absorbs the kinetic energy instead of traumatically transferring it to people, IT'S A SAFE CAR!!
ReplyDeleteAnonymousMarch 24, 2020 at 3:08 PM
ReplyDeleteTo quote Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a practical illustration of crash safety standards is just a practical illustration of crash safety standards.
The mid-2000s Corolla appears to have perfectly illustrated the NHSTA's offset frontal impact test, at about the same 45mph speed. The front of the car sacrificed itself as much as possible to slow down the rate of deceleration experienced in the passenger compartment, while ensuring little or no intrusion.
Want to feel the difference? Jump into the air and land with your knees locked in place. That horrible jolt you feel is the entire impact being transmitted from your feet into your vitals. That's also what someone in the Explorer would have felt had it been in service at the time. Now do it again, but bend your knees to absorb the impact. That's what the driver of the Corolla felt.
Here's a Malibu of similar age being crashed against a '59 Bel-Air. Makes the point about as clearly as possible:
https://youtu.be/fPF4fBGNK0U
To see what an actual deathtrap looks like, here's a similar test being performed on a 2015 Nissan Tsuru, which was being manufactured in Mexico up until recently with the same body structure as an early-1990s Nissan Sentra:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85OysZ_4lp0