I think you should do more than that. You ought to take those figures you did and send them off to Dave Schembri or even Ken Kettenall. I feel they be very intrigued at how you came up with what you did and add them to the safe and smart webpage. BTW i hope you do the vid and then i can share it with my naysayer pals out there. The more ammo the better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BobDiaz
Thanks, part of me wants to create a Youtube video about the Smart Car safety to respond to those who think it's a death trap. Pity the El Camino College semester is about to start in 1 week and I really have to get things ready for the classes I'm teaching....
Now that I have the spreadsheet, updating the numbers is easy.
Looking at it another way - if you do manage to crash your smart, the most that die in your vehicle is two. As compared to as many as 8 or more in a large van or SUV. So you can't take as many along with you . . .
In general, we want to have a large sample, like 5,000 or more. However, this is just not possible with today's figures. I could say that out of 34,607 Smart Cars, only 2 had an accident that resulted in death for the people in the Smart Car. In this case, the number of Smart Cars on the road is large enough to fit the definition of a large sample.
The real problem with 2 deaths is that a random event can increase or decrease this number. What if the 81 year old man, died of a heart attack the day before his accident, now the number is only 1 death in the Smart Car. What if someone felt sick and decided to stay home that day and if they had not been sick, they would have been killed in an accident in their Smart Car. Now the count is 3 deaths in a Smart Car; 4 if he was driving with a friend.
One can make a case of +/- one death (possible), even +/- two deaths (less possible, but not impossible), and + three or more deaths (now the odds are really starting to increase against it). So this is why I stress that the result is only a ballpark figure.
I notice that a few have said that the number will increase as time goes on. Clearly given enough time, more people are going to die, BUT if we talk about the ratio (Average Car vs. Smart Car) changing from good to bad, that's more a statement of Faith and not a statement of fact.
One year from now, we can look at the numbers to see where things stand, but until then, the early numbers point to the Smart Car as being a safe car.
Good presentation Bob. There was another smart death out in California but it seems to have disappeared from all news and if memory serves correct the thread about it disappeared from here too. Still, that makes 3.
Either way, don't fall prey to the trolls. Some trolls can't/won't tell us what they drive because we could nitpick it into looking like a deathtrap too. Plus I have a feeling we could provide data to PROVE it were a deathtrap.
I disagree with this, right off the bat. The Smart is a city car, an A-series car as I think they're called in Europe. It's got no direct competitors to compare it with until we get the Toyota iQ or Fiat 500.
And I'm really sad to see you're polluting another thread, btw.
Well, for the sake of making a direct comparison, there has to be at least ONE other vehicle that is considered a direct competitor to the smart. I just picked a Yaris because I believe people cross shop the two vehicles. So even if you believe they are not direct competitors, they are close enough to compare for the sake of gathering data. My idea is certainly no more flawed than Bob's!
Actually the smart is smaller than the A series (Mercedes A class, as an example.) I think Bob and smart enuf are on target. As far as comparisons to other cars - too many variable IMHO: road conditions, time of day, medical event, impaired driver, etc. Unless you can group all the accident fatalities by similar circumstances the comparisons are pretty much apples and oranges. The recently expired thread on the smart running the stop sign is a good example: smart driver dies in crash - since we aren't the local cops or the county coroner, we don't what he died from - the crash itself or possibly a heart attack just prior to the intersection.
Exactly. At least someone else is thinking the way I'm thinking. I wasn't going to even bring up the variables, but since you pointed it out, I'll have to give you props and agree completely.
Let me explain how I was able to come up with the figure of "2 Smart Car Deaths":
Using Google (news), Google (web), Yahoo, and Bing, I did a key word search on "Smart Car", "Accident", ("died" or "Death" or "killed"). These are all the words we would expect to find in any account of an Smart Car accident with someone who was killed.
This took me days to sort through all the bad hits I got, but in the end I kept landing on the same two stories of real deaths. The coverage appears in both online news papers and TV Stations.
Now, one could make a case that maybe there was a death or deaths I missed. Possible, BUT given the dislike for the Smart Car and the thinking, "It's a Death Trap". I find it hard to believe that a Smart Car death story would be missed. In both cases of the Smart Car Deaths, the news appeared in several places; so I tend to believe that my search caught all the deaths. If anyone believes that there are deaths I missed, they are free to prove it and list the deaths with the links.
Potential Errors In The Model:
As a number have pointed out, the model isn't perfect. In my model, 8,378 cars = 1 death in 1 year. Granted that there are accidents where more than one person in the car dies as a result, but most of the time people are driving solo. With the Smart Car one could have either 1 or 2 people in the car, so up to 2 deaths are possible. With other cars: some sports cars are limited to 1 or 2 people, but most other cars could have 3, 4, or 5 people and some even more.
It would take a lot of research to make the corrections, but my feeling is that the difference would be minor. Again, if someone feels differently, prove it!
The issue of millage traveled in a Smart vs. other cars; we could also add the type of driving and the kind of drivers. This type of question is very difficult to resolve without very extensive and expensive research. However, if the average for all Smart Car owners was 1/2 the mileage of the other cars per year, the correction for the number of deaths would match the expected average for all other cars. At what point to we consider the number excessive, 6 deaths when there should have been only 4, Smart Car drivers would need to drive 1/3 the miles per year as other drivers. How about 8 deaths, with 1/4 the millage per year. As you can see, the numbers start to look silly:
1/2 = 6,000 - 7,500 miles
1/3 = 4,000 - 5,000 miles
1/4 = 3,000 - 3,750 miles
I'll be the first to admit that my model is not perfect, BUT it does give us a ballpark idea as to the general range of expected deaths vs. number of real deaths. Right now, it's coming in low, NOT high as the "Death Trap" supporters are saying.
Bob Diaz
Bob, I like this post a lot. You've mentioned why the model isn't perfect and explained your reasoning in more than one way. That's great and I appreciate it. Just one thing though--- as the person forming a theory and supplying data to support the theory, the burden of proof is on you...not the other way around. So if you're going to say that anyone who doesn't believe it should prove it, well, that's just wrong. You may be able to prove that an accident happened, but it is impossible to prove that an accident didn't happen. Using Google as a research tool is great, but that also has limitations. In another thread there was a member who said he knows of 3 deaths occurring in a smart...
Or think of it this way: If I told you that I met a green man who was 12 feet tall, could you prove that he doesn't exist? No, you couldn't...and either could anyone else.
Well, for the sake of making a direct comparison, there has to be at least ONE other vehicle that is considered a direct competitor to the smart. I just picked a Yaris because I believe people cross shop the two vehicles. So even if you believe they are not direct competitors, they are close enough to compare for the sake of gathering data. My idea is certainly no more flawed than Bob's!
The Yaris sure is the current main competitor but it's wrong on safety. The Yaris' safety doesn't even get close to the smart's
The Yaris earns "GOOD" for frontal and "MARGINAL" for rear unlike the smart and the Yaris earns "POOR" for side UNLESS the owner chooses to get side airbags, then it gets "GOOD" for side. These ratings are valid for ALL Yaris types
When another car was introduced into the equation the Yaris failed all over. The driver's head ended up on the Camry and the passenger cabin couldn't hold up and buckled.
The smart on the other hand, earned "GOOD" for for front and side with standard equipment. Rear gets "ACCEPTABLE" unlike the Yaris.
The smart's roof crush ended up being five times the car's weight, easily earning it the "GOOD" rating
When the smart was paired to a C class it held up well. The passenger cabin kept its shape and the only parts of the driver that hit was the knees and head. The smart did spin off into the corner, which could lead to a secondary crash.
Both the smart and the Yaris earned "POOR" for offset frontal crash at 40mph against mid-sized sedans.
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2008 Smart Pure
1 - Kermit
3 - The Street Rod
4 - Split Window Vette
5 - The Veggie VW
Still, that makes 3.
The Beast
The Chick Magnet
Today
Linear Mode
