(G) ENCAP Crash Tests

This may have already been posted, but just in case you missed it, here is a link to the ENCAP crash tests for the 500, including movie footage -

http://www.euroncap.com/tests/Fiat_500_2007/298.aspx

Brings tears to your eyes, doesn't it -poor little car. But it does look as if we have a reasonable chance of coming out alive, if the worst happens.

John

Thanks John for the link, it's one of the reasons the panda's off. What with the excellent results the 500 has scored.

John, not long to wait now!!

Yoshi

Not so good for pedestrians.

Interesting though, most people including parents may think 5 star means their family is safe but actually in the case of children the result isn't quite so good. I wasn't aware of the 3 ratings before I thought the fact that it was 5 star meant it scored highly on all fronts.

Another good reason to keep children out of my car and away from my ivory ambience

I don't think it's too good to hit pedestrians in anything really. I keep hearing radio ads that tell me to drive at thirty so that I will only maim children, whereas if I go at forty I'll kill them outright. Which somehow seems kinder?

couldnt care less about NCAP, i dont buy a car for its crashworthiness, I buy cos I like. As for pedestrians, well they shouldnt be in the way of cars, when Im walking I keep out of their way
When I was little my stepdad drove a MkII Cortina which was rusted to hell in 1977 and it was a 67 car... we went on holiday to Wales, about 130 miles... He wore a seat belt, my Mum wouldnt, my little sister sat on the handbrake and myself and his kids sat in the back, loads of luggage on rear shelf and roofrack. We stopped every few miles for me to be sick, as I always was and lo and behold this was a regular holiday thing.. and by some miracle non of us died NCAP, my ars*

NCAP rating wouldn't be a major factor for me in buying a car......dread to think what the ncap rating of a caterham would be........however I know people who do consider it to be a major factor and what I'm saying is that saying the 500 has 5 stars is particularly misleading as it is only 5 star for the adult rating. If you take the 3 ratings and average them then it is 3.33

I guess its probably the same for all cars, just as with many things you often need to delve a bit deeper than the marketing spin to find the truth.

Do people really exist that worry about the harm they would do to a pedestrian though, seriously? If they did exist, wouldnt they drive about in a giant baloon

Nuovapanda

I think very seriously about the harm I might do to anyone, no matter what I am doing. While that would not necessarily influence my choice of car (because the way that you drive is far more important than the car's design in terms of safety), we should all be grateful that car designers now have to take secondary safety seriously. By secondary safety I mean the factors that influence your chance of survival once the crash has happened - rather than primary safety, like good handling, visibility, brakes and so forth which prevent a crash happening in the first place.

Forty years ago, the interiors and exteriors of cars were lethal in the event of a crash. Many people were quite unecessarily maimed and crippled for life as the result of relatively minor shunts. I love those older cars, just as I do my classic motorcycles, but I am always aware when driving them to leave a very wide safety margin around me. Crashes happen, and often they will not be your fault but someone else's (note that I do not say "accident", because very few crashes are accidental - almost all are preventable).

I have been lucky enough to walk away from three potentially fatal crashes which wrote my car off. Two of them were not my fault and I could not have avoided them. One of them was entirely my own fault and I could easily have killed my brother as a result. I have also attended (by pure chance) and assisted at several more serious crashes where people were severely injured. When you see what steel and glass can do to human flesh and bone it sobers you somewhat.

I love driving, and I enjoy driving hard and fast where the road and conditions allow. But the kind of bravado which belittles safety and pokes fun at those who take it into account has no place on today's roads. If it was your child, mother or sister who died as result of some other driver's lack of care, how would you feel?

John

John, me too...
Check out this thread:

http://www.fiatforum.com/500/133610-...ings-do-2.html

For me safety is no.1 in choice of car. in the end NOTHING else about the car matters to me...
not looks, not performance, not interior space etc.

Those vids made me feel sick... And that was just at 40 mph and 18 mph side impact. I've seen a car literally ripped into two separate sections by a side impact. The occupants were not recognisable as humans. Sorry for this-i get emotional when talking about this...

Well, well, sermon over. We all think that we're immortal, and that we'll get away with it. Me too. But if you like to go fast, join a club, get yourself an RAC competition licence, and go do it on the track. Very sobering, bad for the ego (when you realise how crap you actually are), but much better for the rest of your driving career.

John

I had my neck broken very badly over twenty years ago in a crash in the Middle East. A friend was driving and the problem was a lorry coming the other way with a sleeping driver at the wheel. I was very grateful to be in an Opel Senator, which had an immensely strong passenger cell and protected us both when we spun seven times, flipped onto our roof and slid along the boulders, finally coming to rest on a huge rock that pushed the roof up on my side. The seat belts held us in place and, bar the broken neck, neither of us had a scratch. I was paralysed for a few weeks and three and a half months in hospital.
So, as far as I am concerned, safety is paramount. A crash happens in the twinkling of an eye, so why not try and be careful and be in the safest car you can. Well done Fiat and the rest for now taking this seriously. By the way, this is the main reason I don't like sun roofs, they rob you of headroom - one more inch of that and I'd never have sustained a broken neck.

I have to say that the devil-may-care approach to safety I find a bit irresponsible. I guess experience might alter certain views

Speak for yourself!!!!!!

Don't worry, Mark, I was

John (hillclimbs and sprints, never better than halfway down the field)

Never been outside the top 3 personally in sprints.