Recent SUV 5 mph crash tests (Pacifica ranked poorly)

Yes, you said forces of physics, same difference. I've never heard of
such a concept - there are forces and there is physics, but never heard
that physics had a force.

OK, now explain how the "forces" of physics make it such that a bumper
that can withstand better a 5 MPH impact is now unable to also better
withstand a 35 MPH impact. You say the "forces" of physics preclude
both being accomplished simultaneously. I think that's a bunch of
baloney, but I'm open to a sound physics based argument.


Matt

 

The real roblem with bumpers anyway is not whether they can be designed
better or worse at such-and-such a speed. The problem is that there's
apparently
no uniform bumper height requirement. As a result you get collisions such
as I
had a week ago where I rear-ended a Chevy truck going at about 3 Mph with
my Datsun 210, doing no damage whatsoever to the truck and completely
destroying
my grill, both fenders, headlights, etc. because the bottom of the truck
bumper was
fully an inch above the TOP of my bumper.

Now granted I was happy since I didn't have to have a fat claim put against
my
insurance, and the car I was driving was basically worth about $500 anyway.
However, clearly it would have been better if it had been a bumper-to-bumper
bump, rather than a bumper-to-plastic gingerbread bump.

Ted

 

If I were you I would not post the facts of such an incident for the
whole world to see. Before you posted it there was no record of it.
Now there is.

 

Yeah, my wife's LH car has had about 4 rear bumper replacements (3 times
someone hit it while parked in a parking lot, and once a Crown Victoria
taxi rear-ended us because th cabbie was gawking at an accident and
became one himself). Its been close to $1000 EVERY time that stinking
thing has to be repaired because the plastic cover always cracks and the
new one then has to be painted and installed. Interestingly, it appeared
the LEAST damaged when the Crown Vic nailed us at 15 mph or so. All
the 2-3 mph parking lot incidents were with the other cars' bumper
corners, trailer hitches, or other things that made a point-impact and
really tore up the plastic. The Crown Vic was right out of a
crash-test... full bumper-to-bumper contact with no lateral motion. My
conclusion is that modern body-color plastic-over-foam over steel-beam
bumpers do great in staged collisions, but cost a frickin' fortune to
repair for any sort of real-world damage.

I'd give anything to have shock-mounted chromed 5 mph bumpers like an
old '74 Dart that used to be in the family. Those things were truly
5-mph bumpers that could survive real-world low-speed contact without
any damage, cosmetic or otherwise. And besides, chrome looks 100 times
better than painted plastic.

 

Hogwash. The old-style steel bumpers mounted on TRUE shock-absorbing
struts (circa 1974-early 80s, most American cars) could absorb a LOT
more joules of energy than any cheesy 2-inch thick chunk of styrofoam,
AND they could survive low-speed impacts without any visible damage.
They were better all-around.

 

Tell me about it - I hit a 35 pound dog going 55 mph (uh - my car - not
the dog). $1500 due to the fascia, etc. The dog however was totalled.

I'm on my third front fascia (counting the factory one). First time did
$4500 at 5 mph (full disclosure: right wheels drifted into a concrete
lined ditch, and a chain link fence scratched the paint on the right
upper doors and right side of the roof, fence post took out left front
fender).

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Dude, it's a crime to fail to file an accident report in the state that I
live in if damage to
either vehicle is over $1000, or if there's ANY medical claims at ALL.
Furthermore
my insurance company will not cover me in the event the other driver files a
claim if
I do not file an accident report. So of course that accident is a matter of
public record
and can be looked up by anyone with too much time on their hands and a
willingness
to go to the state capital in Salem.

All I can say is that if you think that it's such a good idea to try to hide
accidents, you
better give your insurance agent a call and get your head straightened out.
One of these
days your going to get yourself into what you think is a "minor"
fender-bender, fail to
report it, then a month later find yourself staring at a $50,000 civil
lawsuit on a trumped-
up medical claim, with 3 witnesses of the accident to serve as backup, and
your insurance
company pointing to the fine print of your policy that you violated and that
requires you
to report accidents if you don't want them to deny coverage.

In Oregon, insurance companies are not allowed to count non-chargable
accidents against
you (ie: ones that they did not pay out on a claim) no matter who is at
fault, nor are they
allowed to count accidents against you in which you were determined to not
be at fault. You
can have 2 dozen accidents in a year's time on your record, as long as none
of them are your
fault, your premium is the same as someone with a completely clean record.

The ONLY thing you want to avoid in these minor fender-benders is having a
police officer
show up at the scene, because they invariably write a ticket. Thus, it's
crucial to get your
information exchanged with the other driver ASAP, and it's crucial to drive
your vehicle
out of the vicinity, even if pieces of it are hanging off scraping the
ground and the radiator is
belching water. Once both drivers are out of the accident scene, the police
cannot do
anything.

Ted

 

Certainly your insurance company always has to be informed of an
accident otherwise they could deny coverage. However they are
unlikely to ask for details unless there is a claim. Without a claim,
all they will note is that they have been given notice of an accident,
in my experience. Also at least in the 2 states I've had accidents
in, if only the negligent party's car is damaged, the police may not
even bother with a formal report though indeed he may give a ticket.
In my current state, if you are given a ticket for an accident and the
other party is made whole the charges will probably be dropped.

 

Well when you are in dramatic collisions, bumper height is probably not
very important. I have unfortunately been involved in a couple of chain
collisions. In both cases I was in the middle of the chain (nothing like
having a Pontiac push your Jensen-Healey into another car). When the
cars involved in a collision are on the brakes, the cars in the line
adopt a nose down, tail up stance, which means that even if the bumpers
all started out at the same height, they didn't stay that way during the
collision. Unless you want to design very tall bumpers (and heavy)
bumpers, it is unlikely that you can avoid under running bumpers in many
collisions.

Ed

 

And they were, in most cases, hideous looking.

Ed

 

Well in my area (Raleigh, NC), the Police almost never write ticket at
an accident scene, even when there is clear evidence of fault (unless
there a significant injuries). The last time I was in an accident, I was
rear ended by a Tempo. My vehicle was undamaged (unfortunately his
wasn't). The Police officer arrived and interviewed both of us. She
filled out an accident report and gave me a case number. She told the
person that rammed me that he was at fault and financially responsible
for the damage to my vehicle (which was negligible). She did not write
him a ticket. This was somewhat different than when I was the person in
fault in another similar accident quite a few years before. When I was
the one at fault, I was given a ticket (for failure to avoid collision
with a vehicle then stopped in the roadway). However, when the officer
gave me the ticket, he told me that if I went to court and provided
evidence that my insurance had covered the other parties damage, the
ticket would be dropped. THis is exactly what happened.

Ed

 

I suppose, but they were ugly (of course I thought the whole car was
ugly, so I suppose they were not out of character). The battering ram
bumpers on my '75 Datsun 280Z were terrific if you were planning on
knocking down fences. However they were complicated, heavy,
unattractive, and Datsun raised the car to put them at a useful height.
I far preferred the original, if weak, Datsun 240Z bumpers. Maybe I am
lucky, ut I have only ever had to replace two bumpers, and since the
collision where they were damaged (front and rear) occurred at more than
5 mph, I doubt that 5 mph bumpers would have done anything except raise
my repair costs.

Ed

Ed

 

Some states do not centralize accident reporting, in those states the local
city/county whatever has jurisdiction and maintains the accident reports.
Not so in Oregon, by state law the state DMV runs it. However, despite
that, many local police departments in Oregon do in fact maintain
independent
accident reporting databases (Beaverton is one, for example, while Portland
is not) that are used by the city for rating road hazard abatement projects,
and by the local
police for determining patrol patterns. While there is no law
compelling a motorist to report to the locals, if your unlucky enough to be
caught in Oregon by the local cops in an accident in a jurisdiction that
maintains independent reports, they will insist you waste
your time filling out duplicate paperwork with them, before you leave the
scene.
It's just another great example of how our local government likes to
spend money keeping people employed sorting data that the state already
does.

The one exception to this is if the traffic accident is a felony - ie: hit
and run, etc.
In that case, all police departments will take reports. But in those cases,
those
reports are filed with the general criminal reports of the department.

Your lucky. Oregon courts never drop charges for moving voilations
if the cop shows up, no matter what the circumstances, and if the internal
paperwork is followed properly. The judge may reduce the fine to
a paltry amount but that is it. And all the police departments have pretty
much standing orders to the officers that they attend all court trials for
any moving voilation. Most tickets in fact do not go to trial because the
local courts make you jump through endless hoops in order to go before
a judge. After all, liability insurance is mandatory here, they
automatically
assume in all accidents that the other party is going to be made whole, you
don't get any points for that in the eyes of the court.

The only _legal_ ways in Oregon to get a ticket dismissed is to jump through
the hoops (which means a minimum of 3 separate personal appearances at
the courthouse before they even schedule a trial) and have either the
officer
not show up, or show an improper paperwork procedure has been done (such
as the poilice department rescheduling the appearance more than 2 times in
a row, which is not allowed) Officers generally don't show on equipment
problems (cracked headlight, expired tags, etc.) but the court will fine you
unless you show up with evidence the problem has been corrected, in which
case the ticket will remain on your record but the fine will be suspended.
For
speeding type tickets, stop sign violation tickets, etc. if in the rare
event the
cop does not show, as long as you have pled innocent all along, and you
swear out that you wern't speeding (or whatever) then the courts will drop
those. But they really do try their utmost to avoid having to drop tickets.

Out here, the challenge to the driver is to avoid getting the ticket in the
first
place, once you get one, the system is setup to milk you for everything they
can get. On the plus side, though, the state does not ban radar detectors.
(although if a cop sees one in your car if they pull you over for speeding,
they
will tack 15-20Mph on your speed as punishment)

Ted

 

Your state must not mandate motor vehicle insurance coverage. I always
wondered how the states that don't mandate it "encourage" people to have it.

In Oregon, they mandate motor vehicle insurance and the court could not
give a crap that your insurance covers the other party, if you get a
ticket, your going to pay regardless.

Ted

 

Quite true, but in dramatic collisions the bumper is going to be toasted
anyhow.
Bumpers exist for one reason - to prevent minor bumps from turning into
$2000 repair expenditures. If they can't do that, because of positioning or
crap design, there's really no point in having them at all.

Ted

 

I'd gladly take hideous-looking bumpers on my car anyday to avoid the effort
and
time needed to piece back together the front end.

Ted

 

North Carolina requires all drivers / vehicles to have liability
coverage.

In North Carolina you pay if you are at fault whether you get a ticket
or not. I think this is the better system.

Ed

 

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

And as far as I'm concerned, modern cars don't have them anymore. And
haven't had them for years.

 

C. E. White wrote:

Opinions vary. Some were poorly-implemented monstrosities, but ANY
chrome bumper is way better looking than body-color painted plastic.

 

Maybe when new but I remember plenty of ugly rusty chrome bumpers.