just had a decent fight with my brother in law over how stupid he is..............

was over gov't car crash test rating system

follow me here,.........it seems that the more "stars" a vehicle gets, the shittier it actually holds up in a wreck

example:  he drives a honda civic, i drive a crew cab 4x4 2500hd chevy..........so i relay my thoughts to him on crash test ratings and he starts arguing with me...........i end up asking him which he would rather be in in a head on collsion between the two, my truck or his car, he picks his car i tell him he's a dead man.  (insert argument here)

so whaddya think?  gov't crash test ratings are done against immovable objects, thus smaller, lighter weight cars that have tend to bend easily win out and the big motherfuckers that are stout tend to lose out................but, when put face to face physics take over and the big motherfucker whips the ass of mr. lightweight wrinkle zone car

commence argument now

I'd rather be in the truck.



And oh, BTW, your brother in law is an idiot.[:D]

preaching to the choir, preaching to the choir

Would you believe you are BOTH right?Compare two Civic size cars, or two trucks.  The smaller one will lose every time, otherwise.

Well, let's see, I got rear ended in my Boss' 1 ton pickup (chevy)  not a scratch on it, dmaged the hell out of th eford 1/2 ton that hit me....   I fI had been driving my POS car I would be dead, sooooo


Tomorrow I go truck shopping [:D]

Your brother in law is a retard BTW

ah ha!!!!  this is my point..........my truck is a little bitch compared to a T800 KW or the like, but to a "safe" honda civic i have very damn little to fear.

P.S. im sure the kenworth would get very shitty gov't crash test ratings if they did it with them........

oh, come on!!!!!!!!!  i KNOW theres somebody out there thats gonna tell me how much better the honda would fare.................

I drive a Civic, and the Civic would lose.  But, after 12 years on the road my Civic gets (according to my measurements driving to the Cape last Summer) 46 MPG.

It's rated for 40 MPG new.  There's another way to win (unless that truck hits you).

my truck gets about 9.5mpg on average but thats a whole nother thread...............

Well, if you compare the same general make of vehicle, i would think that the higher rated gov't test car would be more smooshed.   That is the whole idea, right?   Smash up the car more, so you don't?   I think it is the idea of decelerating from 60 - Zero in 4 seconds vs decelerating from 60- Zero in 2 seconds.   Which would you rather do?

As was posted before, a quick investigation would have lead you to conclude the crash ratings are only comparable to cars in the same weight class.  

That said, a well built car can be safer than a poorly built truck (i.e. the car's passenger cage stays intact and crumple zones work correctly, and the truck comes apart and you get speared by busted metal).  If you have a Big Bad Burly Man's Truck with a bad crash rating (but hey, it weighs a lot right, and you *only* plan on running into Civics, right?) and you happen to find yourself running into something solid, you're fucked.

No it's the opposite.  And after re-reading your post, I think you and your brother are both idiots [:D]

No...

It's the 'In it's class' deal again...

Cars are compared to SIMILAR CARS, not to the whole fleet...

So '4 stars' for a Civic means it's more crash-safe than a Yugo... However, like the Avalon (1 up from the Camry) that wedged itself under my first Firebird's tail (he RE'd me, I actually drove off his hood so the FD could access it), if you hit something you will still squash like a soda can...

I think you are an idiot [;D]
Tx is actually right.  The rating is not for how well the car holds up in a crash, but rather how well the occupants are protected.  The car protects the occupants by absorbing the energy of the crash.  It absorbs the energy of the crash by disintegrating.
So the car that reduced itself to component molecules in a crash, and the occupants walked away from, gets the higher rating.  The one that is so solidly built that it can run into a brick wall at 60 mph and not have a dent in the bumper will fail, because the occupants absorbed all the energy and were reduced to their component molecules.

Id like to see how a new car or even a big truck/suv would hold up against a 70s lincoln or something like a mid 70s cordoba.

Bingo.

Bingo?

Did they do away with...

[b]Ding, Ding, Ding, We have a winner!!![/b]

[;)]