When it comes to automobiles and what makes a car safe or unsafe, there are as many differing opinions as there are people you can ask. Sadly, many of these opinions are uninformed.

Let’s look at a few opinions and beliefs that are wrong and dangerous, and the facts surrounding them. The statistical data used here comes from the web site of the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. These statistics are compiled from reports submitted to them by the law enforcement agencies in all of our 50 states and in the District of Columbia.

 Myth 1, "bigger is better". Many people believe the bigger the car you’re riding in, the better your chances are of surviving an automobile accident. People extend this to believe "heavier is better". There are some instances where this belief is true. If you were, for example, riding in a large sport utility, and you found yourself bearing down on a small compact that just pulled out in front of you, your fare would be much better than that of the compact’s occupants. However, if you were in a large sport utility and found yourself in the path of an onrushing compact, you might not fare as well as the people riding in the compact. I will explain why this is so later.

 The greatest reason why the "bigger is better" belief is not true is because 56% of all fatal automobile accidents in the United States in 2000 involved only one automobile. That means that the majority of the times people died in a car crash ,the car they were riding in left the road and hit something solid, like a tree or a bridge, or they lost control of the vehicle and were involved in a roll-over. In these instances being in a bigger or heavier vehicle would be to your disadvantage. The heavier a vehicle is, the easier it is to loose control of, the harder it is to maintain traction, the more difficult it is to slow down, and the more energy it will expend when it strikes something solid. Another factor in these accidents is the physical limitations heavier vehicles have. Heavier vehicles have more tire distortion, resulting less traction and greater instances of tire failure, and heavier vehicles carry greater momentum whenever they encounter situations that require abrupt maneuvers.

 Expanding on this, most people that buy bigger cars for safety reasons purchase pickup trucks and sport utilities. These vehicles are not only heavier and bigger, they are also taller. There is some mistaken belief that riding high is the air puts you at less risk; that you could just run over anything that gets in your path. The reality is that this higher center of gravity makes these vehicles much more prone to rolling over. Your chances of being killed or injured in a roll-over accident are much greater than they are in a conventional accident. The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration statistics show that the percentage of roll-overs in fatal accidents is 4 times greater than injury accidents and 16 times greater than property only accidents. The NHTSA also showed that utility vehicles were by far the largest majority of vehicles involved in fatal roll over accidents, being involved in 37.8% of them.

 Why, you ask, are roll-overs so dangerous? It’s because today’s automobiles have crush zones designed in them. The best crush zone is in the front of the vehicle, the next is in the rear of the vehicle, then comes the sides of the vehicle, and the worst crush zone is in the roof. These crush zones collapse, absorbing energy and deflecting this harmful energy away from the passengers. Remember the large sport utility that got in the way of the small compact? The reason the passengers of the sport utility are more likely to suffer injury or death than the passengers of the compact is because the compact has its best crush zone in the front, at the point of impact. The sport utilities point of impact is in the side where there is significantly less crush zone. The large sport utility will also be more inclined to roll over in this collision, increasing the occupant’s chances of being injured or killed. Both the laws of physics and statistics clearly show that while it feels safer riding around in that big SUV way up in the air, in reality it’s really more dangerous.

 While pickups and sport utility vehicles take longer to stop, are harder to turn, are more likely to roll over because of a higher center of gravity, and are generally more likely to be involved in an accident, they’re typically not equipped with the safety features found in automobiles. Automobile manufacturers are required by law to maintain certain minimum safety standards. Sport utility vehicles and pickups are rated as light trucks, and have a different, less stringent standard to adhere to than do regular automobiles.

 Another dangerous myth is " stronger is better". Often I would hear people comment about how unsafe some car was in a collision, how it just crumpled like a paper ball. I’ve also heard people talking about the good old days when you could run over a large oak tree without even bending your bumper. While it’s true that you want the passenger compartment of your vehicle to be strong, you want the rest of the vehicle to crumple and absorb energy. This quality of absorbing energy is the greatest deterrent to injury in a motor vehicle crash. To better understand the physics involved, imagine yourself as a motor vehicle. Imagine you are running as fast as you can, and you run into a brick wall. If you were an old , strong vehicle, you would be running with a steel plate strapped in front you, and this would be the point of impact to the wall. Would the steel be damaged? Would you be injured? Now imagine yourself as a modern vehicle with a crush zone. Instead of having a steel plate strapped to you, you have a large plastic bag full of feathers. Even if the bag popped at the point of impact, you would be spared injury. This is the principal that allows automobile crush zones to keep you from being injured. You want the car your riding in to wad up like a ball of paper when it strikes something. In doing so it will absorb a tremendous amount of energy and spare you and the others riding with you from injury or death.

 The last really important misleading belief you should be aware of is the relationship of insurance company ratings to the actual overall safety of a vehicle. While crash test data is very important to insurance companies and their determination of how they rate a vehicle, it is not their only consideration. Often the biggest determination of how a vehicle is rated is not about how safe they are, but how safe the driving habits of the people that are inclined to purchase that vehicle are. A Lincoln Continental is not really a safer car than a Ford Mustang, but the senior citizens and businessmen that buy Lincoln Continentals are much better drivers than the young men and women that buy Ford Mustangs. As a result, statistics will show that a Lincoln Continental is less likely to be involved in an accident that a Ford Mustang, and fewer occupants of Lincolns will die on our highways than occupants of Mustangs.

 Another consideration insurance companies have when they rate a car is actual repair costs when that car is damaged. A good example of how a really safe can get a poor rating is a BMW M3 that I owned a couple of years ago. This car was an engineering marvel. It not only had the required crush zones, intrusion beams and air bags, it had things like explosive seat belt tensioners that would actually bend the seats around the driver and front seat passenger, giving them a secondary padded steel safety cage that would further prevent injuries. Any frontal impact necessitated the replacement of the air bags, dash panel, windshield, front seats, seat belts, shoulder harness’, and these tensioners. The repair tab would be over $10,000 before you ever got to the front bumper. Not only was this car designed to protect you in the worst possible circumstances, it had anti lock-brakes that could stop the car on dry pavement in 102 feet from a speed of 60mph. This is less than half the distance of the average car and almost a third the distance of some sport utilities. In spite of the cars built-in safety and the its ability to avoid accidents, this car is rated poorly by insurance companies. When I bought it my agent told me that if I wasn’t a 40+ year old driver with a perfect record and a good customer, he wouldn’t even talk to me about insuring that car.

 So how can you tell if the car you’re wanting to buy is a safe one? You can do some homework. Consumer magazines and the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration tests cars for safety, and the results of these tests are available to the public via the internet. If your looking at an older car that might not have this crash test data, you can use some common sense and ask a few questions. Does the car you’re considering have the ability to stop quickly? Is it maneuverable enough to avoid collisions? What safety features does it have, and what condition are these safety features in? A good rule of thumb to follow with respect to safety features is that the older a car is, the fewer features it’s likely to have. This is because most safety features are there because our government mandated that they be there. A car built in the 80’s is less likely to be as safe as that same car built in the 90’s, and a car built in the 70’s is not going to be as safe as a car built in the 80’s. Remember that light trucks have different safety standards than automobiles. A pickup or sport utility might not have the safety features that an automobile many years older might have. Also be aware that the older an air bag or seat belt is, the less likely it’s going to be effective in the event of an accident. When it comes to buying a car for your teenager, I recommend that you not get the cheapest car you can get because you know they’re just going to wreck it, but that you get the most car you can afford, because you know they’re going to wreck it.