When does a car stop being safe?

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Fun fact from an industry insider: in many cases, the automakers had already identified and designed solutions for the problems that IIHS testing would later bring to light. The automakers calculated that they would lose money if they implemented these changes, however, so it's a good thing that testing authorities like the IIHS called the public's attention to these issues, since otherwise they might have never gotten solved!

I ride a motorcycle, so I don’t care about safety

Two years ago my 2010 Honda Fit got hit almost identically to the small offset test. I was sitting in the left turn only lane with a red light. A small suv coming the opposite way wasnt paying attention and veered across the intersection probably going at least 35mph. Hit me driver side corner. This was my first real collision after almost 20 years of driving. It was crazy violent. Air bags went off, glass shattered. Car was totalled. After all of that the only injury I had was a small scrape on my left arm. I was around corner from the golf course which was my destination. After the police took the report and the car was towed away, i took my golf bag, walked over and played. These safety features are incredible.

The one thing that is often ignored in the US and leads to a ton of SUVs and trucks is that crash tests rarely involve persons outside the car. Yet cars crashing into pedestrians and cyclists at low speed is super common! Adipositas cars (SUVs) usually fare badly here.

I'm quite surprised how you don't mention EuroNCAP at all. It's what Europe has been using for deciding what kind of cars are safe, and which most likely mutually helped the US crash tests.

The answer to your title question is: ...as soon as a human sits inside the car, the car stops being safe...

The tests from the IIHS focus on half of the equation : the injuries sustained by occupants of the car considered by the test. What is missing is: what is the potential damage to occupants of the other car? If you don't consider that side of the problem, then you could end up in a "race to the biggest, heaviest car", which would be terrible for other road users. Not only other cars, which won't be able to absorb the energy from being hit by a heavier car, but pedestrians and other road users. Those bigger cars are often higher, and offer poor visibility on their immediate surroundings. We would probably all be safer overall if that "other half of the problem" was considered by regulators.

As a bicyclist, motorcyclist, and 80s-00s car enthusiast (smaller cars with few or no airbags), I would say minimizing distractions while driving and having good tires and brakes go a very long way in improving your survivability, as well as improving the survivability of the pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists out there as well. I hope someone doesn't kill me while road raging in a Cybertruck one day ...

I was involved in an accident like a month ago, and it was a small overlap type crash. I was riding in a small suv going to my home at around 50kph (30mph) when a drunk guy in a sedan hit me at around 140kph (~86mph), I was going uphill so the other car kind of slides under mine but still manage to impact like the test in your Honda fit. The floor of the car took the impact and broke one of the seat attachments, my car ended up like the shot at 16:41 but way worse in the underside, the A pillar actually held on pretty well leaving some space to not be absolutely crushed like in the test. Luckily, I only sustain minor damages with the worst things being that I broke a little bit of the lumbar area of the spine and broke my left foot, all recovering fine btw. Anyway cars are pretty safe nowadays, I also have an old Fiat with no safety features, so glad I wasn't driving it that day. Yours is too, just remember to wear your seatbelt, just don't crash that way 🤠 Sorry for my English, my first language is Spanish, Love your content, and keep it up

I wish my city had safe cycling infrastructure. I feel like I'm risking my life everyday on my car commute.

Masterfully put together, another great video, so glad you released it! Im European and we have EuroNCAP in place of IIHS and they constantly change their tests, the latest one is highly focusing on other road users like bikers or pedestrians . It relegated a ton of previously highly rated cars into low or non existant score since they lack safery festures to avoid hitting external third parties. I believe this is the only way to improve safety in our cars and thats a good thing! Keep the fascinating topics and videos coming !

in indonesia, safety car is treated as a joke and said "no one buy a car to be crashed" and choosing a resale value as the utmost priority despite the car is literally a coffin with wheels 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

I absolutely love your videos! Some of the best, most interesting deep dives out there on these kinds of topics. Please keep making these videos!

I'm a collision repair tech and you would be surprised at how much engineering goes into crash safety, also many of the very first safety features ie. Three point seat belts, proper headrests and even backup cameras, were introduced by Volvo who had their own safety design division in the 50s! They were also kind enough to not patent the designs allowing other manufacturers to use it for an easy safety increase thus creating a universal standard without having to enforce it (at least initially). UHSS was a big step in the right direction for passenger safety ensuring the safety cage is massively stronger than the rest of the car, and I'm glad more and more people are getting to see this stuff online. Also keep in mind Your Airbags NEED Maintenance Every 10 Years! On a side note being a car enthusiast myself I have to say, if you are going to modify any safety equipment, please replace it with something of equal or greater protection capabilities. For example replacing seatbelts and airbags with a cage and harness, even the pro's crash but the pro's are driving cars designed to crash at 100+ mph and be fine, your 30 year old miata would fail 90% of current test standards and wouldn't hold up well to a new F-150.

Managing deceleration is essential to avoid internal injuries too, like a ruptured aorta. Cars can protect us externally and we can survive crashes without a scratch but die because of invisible internal injuries.

I just wanted to take a moment to let you know that I appreciate your setup and the execution of your videos! I love how you edit so that there's a great flow to all of the presentation and the information shared. I'm entertained and enlightened by your efforts, and even though I normally watch YouTube on my TV I felt compelled to get my phone out to thank you for being one of the best content creators. I hope that you are having a fantastic day.

Andrew : there aren't many channels on YouTube producing video ls at that level of quality, being entertaining and so informative. Clearly you are putting a ton of time into this. There should be a way to support your work with a bit more than just a subscription...

One of the reason you had a more efficient research in crash-tests is also the technological progress of simulations. while you will always need physical, real crash tests, the advancements in simulated material behavior helps saving a ton of money as (just for a rough example) instead of crashing 100 cars, you only crash 20 to get to satifying, in-charts results.

Love the demonstration of how the seatbelt elements work. I didn't realize how complicated modern seatbelts are. All but one of my cars are 40+ years old, so they have really basic seatbelts that are either basic ratcheting mechanisms or just straight up straps that you set the tightness manually.