Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 10:33:58 GMT From: "Geoff" <jeffe_verdenopsam.hotmail.com> Subject: Re: Caveat on death rates as an indicator of safety
That all makes sense, Matthew- but it belies the wealth of anecdotal evidence you'll find in any gathering of long time Saab owners. When I got my first Saab, I was actually looking for a BMW, but a dealer convinced me to try this strange looking thing called a Saab 99. I gave it a spin and was impressed both by the way it drove, and the way it was designed. So I started doing a little research, waylaying every Saab driver I saw and asking them why they drove this odd looking car. Almost everyone I talked to had a story that started out "I hit a... drove off a ... rolled down a..." and ended with "I should have been killed, but I walked away without a scratch. Now I won't drive anything but a Saab". Well, four Saabs and almost a million miles later, I've got my own near-death story, and like all those Saab owners I talked to 20-odd years ago, I won't drive anything but a Saab. As for - >Low driver death rates do not prove that cars to well in accidents; they may >indicate that the drivers are more cautious and/or better able to avoid >accidents I won't argue that a Saab has better handling characteristics than the majority of the cars on the road, and probably attracts a more "thinking" driver, both of which add up to better hazard avoidence. But that part about "more cautious" sounds like you're arguing that since we're not dying in our Saabs, we drive like a bunch of Sunday school teachers. That certainly doesn't describe me (85-100 on the freeways in town, 120+ on the highway) or the other Saabs I see on the road. And given the frequent flame threads of Saab owners defending the performance of their cars to the BMW set, it doesn't seem to describe most of the drivers here in the newgroup either. And certainly, the Saabs I see on the road are being driven in a much more "spirited" fashion than the Volvos they're dodging on the way to their destinations. Matthew DeBell wrote in message <37163b3fnopsam3.us.ibm.net>... >People are citing the low frequency of injury claims for Saabs as evidence >that they are safe cars. Saabs do seem to be relatively safe cars, but I >wish to offer a caveat. > >These insurance data are a reflection of the kinds of drivers who operate >the cars as much as they are a reflection of the safety engineering. Low >driver death rates do not prove that cars to well in accidents; they may >indicate that the drivers are more cautious and/or better able to avoid >accidents. As an example, consider the claims results from two essentially >identical vehicles, the Dodge Neon and the Plymouth Neon. The Dodge has an >overall death rate of 187% of average while the Plymouth has a rate only >119% of average. It looks like the Dodge is a lot more dangerous to drive >than the Plymouth, but that makes no sense because, again, these are the >same model under different badges. The difference has to be the drivers who >buy the various brands, or chance. (The sample sizes are not large enough >to offer much confidence that the Dodge would still be higher than the >Plymouth in a much larger sample.) Since we know the driver is a >tremendously important variable in accident rates, insurance loss reports >cannot be taken at face value as an indicator of auto safety. > >The numbers I cite above come from a pamphlet put out by the Insurance >Institute for Highway Safety. You can find them on their web site too: >www.hwysafety.org is their home page, and the data are on >http://www.hwysafety.org/crash/crashimg/ddrchart.pdf > >-- >Matthew DeBell mdnopsamnet > >
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