MarkinWMich
New member
I see where you are going with this, but it is quite a bit more complicated than that from a safety engineering standpoint. Obviously, the two ways one can make a vehicle safe for the passengers is to either engineer the vehicle, itself, to absorb the energy...or follow what they do in auto racing, a full cage and/or ultra-stiff frame and have the passenger tightly strapped into the seat. Most street vehicles employ a little of both, having "crumple zones", air bags, and a stiff passenger compartment. The reality is given the proper situational physics of an accident, anyone can be killed in any type of vehicle.
I am speculating that with these "medium-sized" vehicles, they may fall into a category where they do not have enough weight and inertia, statistically speaking, to gain the safety advantage of an ultra-stiff frame, as is often the case with full-sized trucks. Keep in mind, the statistics surrounding the actual speed, at contact, of an average accident on the street. A big, heavy, stiff-frame vehicle, by virtue of it's mass can be allowed to literally drive through a smaller vehicle, Force = Mass x Acceleration. Wheras, the smaller vehicle obviously can't do that, and needs to be able to absorb a lot of energy. With these mid-sized SUVs and small trucks, I would imagine, it gets a little "fuzzy" with regards to safety engineering.
I don't see these changes in engineering design being driven by potential litigation, as it is more likely being driven by materials engineering and CAFE standards. Litigation usually implies a company knowingly designed something, found out later it was unsafe, hid its findings and/or did nothing to change it.
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