Depressing Stats....does the weather really matter that much

[cfg83]

DarbyWalters -

Originally Posted by DarbyWalters

I just have to add the safety of a vehicle is directly proportional to the temperment and skill of the driver...

Yeah, I keep thinking that it's close to 90% of the safety factor, but I don't have any numbers.

CarloSW2

[cfg83]

brucepick -

Originally Posted by brucepick

For some real-world safety information see www.iihs.org.
International Institute of Highway Safety.

Among other things, they rate safety by actual stats of numbers of people killed in accidents in different models/years cars. They measure deaths per millions of cars so a model selling ten times as many cars gets rated on an even playing field with other models.

Not the thing to read if you get all upset over turning highway deaths into statistics. But you really see which models win and lose.

In another thread, I think the gist was that head-to-head, an SUV obviously beats the smaller car, but the overall safety of the SUV was so much lower that the SUV owner was still less safe in general (rollover, losing control in emergency maneuvering, etc...).

CarloSW2

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Originally Posted by cfg83

Question for someone else (basjoos?) : What's the cleanest MPG test you have seen on this site? For aero mods, it's the "coast-down a hill to a stop" test that is best, right?!?!?!?

CarloSW2

High (very) speed coast down w/ a video cam on the dash for decent speed/time accuracy imo. Coasting to a stop can add a lot of error since the time from 30-0 is generally way more than the time from 60-30, so the difference in two profiles is harder to spot. It may be ~21s/23s compared to 6s/8s and there's a larger window for other stuff like weather to influence the results. At 90mph an average'ish car may need ~24kW for aero and 6kW for rolling. At 45mph it's only about 3kW for each, and a ~23mph it's only ~.3kW for aero and 1.5kW for rolling. The slower we go the harder it is to pick up any difference in aero. And... to complicate things, I think (this right treb?) the drag coefficient changes compared to speed, so that's just one more variable, although Iono if it's significant for car speeds. In any event, a 12% improvement in aero will result in ~27kW needed at 90mph versus the usual ~30kW, but at 45mph the difference is only~5.65kW compared to ~6kW, and at 23mph it's pretty well unpossible to figure a difference. Ideally, we could all get together and head out to the salt flats w/ a cam to do some timed decels. Newbs are limited to 140mph max speed IIRC and have to have all the safety equipment, but I'm sure 120-100mph could give us tons of great data on how certain mods influence certain cars. And, for a car like my veedub, that's gonna be limited by power, the top speed may be noticeably higher if the mods are as effective as we think they are.

[jeffreymccoy]

Where do you live again? You could buy matt (the site owner's) fit,

gonna buy an 08 fit I think...getting a good trade value on the truck, so what the heck.

why is Matt selling the fit though? Whats wrong with it - quick before I buy one....lol. THanks.

[SVOboy]

He's gonna buy an insight,