Deadliest cars on U.S. roadways

[inggik]

GM's Blazer Ranked Deadliest Car on U.S. Roadways

Tue Mar 15, 3:59 PM ET Top Stories - Reuters



DETROIT (Reuters) - The two-door Chevrolet Blazer from General Motors Corp. has the highest driver death rate of any passenger vehicle on U.S. roadways, a research group with links to the insurance industry said on Tuesday.



The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (news - web sites) based that conclusion, and its embarrassing result for the world's largest automaker, on an extensive study of passenger vehicles from the 1999-2002 model years.


The study focused on the rate of driver deaths in various types of crashes, including both single- and multiple-vehicle accidents.


The overall driver death rate, for 199 models studied during the 2000-2003 calendar years, was 87 per million registered vehicles annually, the Insurance Institute said.


Weighing in at more than three times the overall rate, the Insurance Institute said the two-door, two-wheel-drive Blazer -- a midsize sport utility vehicle -- had an average of 308 driver deaths per million.


The Blazer also had the highest rate of driver deaths in rollover accidents at 251 per million.


Highlighting a longstanding trend, the Insurance Institute said "large cars and minivans dominate among vehicle models with very low death rates." Models with the highest rates are "mostly small cars and small and midsize SUVs," it said


Bucking the trend, however, the Insurance Institute said the small-sized Toyota RAV4 SUV from Toyota Motor Corp. (news - web sites) ranked among vehicles with the lowest average driver death rate.


Vehicles with the lowest overall rate of driver deaths were led by the large Mercedes E-Class luxury sedan from DaimlerChrysler, at 10 per million, according to the Insurance Institute.


That was followed by the Toyota 4Runner midsize SUV, with an overall driver death rate of 12, the four-door midsize Passat from Volkswagen, with 16 deaths, Toyota's Lexus RX 300 midsize SUV, at 17, and RAV4 with 18.


In addition to the Blazer, vehicles with the highest driver death rates were led by the Mitsubishi Mirage, a two-door, small-sized car from Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (news - web sites), GM's Pontiac Firebird sports car, the subcompact Kia Rio from Kia Motors Corp. and the two-wheel-drive Kia Sportage compact SUV.


Driver death rates for those vehicles came in at 209, 205, 200 and 197, respectively.


GM has already halted full-scale production of the two-door Blazer and the vehicle, one of the oldest in the company's lineup, is due to be phased out entirely next month.


Without commenting specifically on the SUV, a company spokesman defended GM's safety record and questioned the usefulness of the Insurance Institute's study.


"GM designs crashworthiness and crash avoidance attributes into all of our vehicles and conducts a battery of tests that replicate an array of potential real-world crashes as part of our commitment to safety before, during and after a crash," GM spokesman Alan Adler said in a statement.


"It is impossible looking at these statistics to know what role driver behavior, such as drunk driving and driving without a safety belt, played in these deaths. We know from decades of work that whether a driver dies in a crash has more to do with behavior than with the vehicle."

[niky]

Hmm... good point about the driver's role, but statistics do point to a trend.

Hmm... the Mitsubishi Lancer GSR? (Mirage) Malas lang ba talaga yung kotseng ito? My cousin has had so many small bumps and suspension busting accidents on his, it's not funny.

Maybe it's a combination of the type of people who buy these cars and their inherent safety, in terms of handling and crashworthiness.

[cyberdoc95]

Chevy Blazer is the worst SUV! I don't know what they were thinking releasing this poor performing SUV. Anyway, I know it will be discontinued sooner than you think. The TRAILBLAZER would have been the replacement of this old BLAZER in midsize SUV category, then the EQUINOX(which by the way, is very successful) to replace TRACKER in the compact SUV category.

I beleive american companies are starting to steer away from poor performing vehicles. They probably have learned that more and more americans are shying away from American brands each year, and turn to Japanese counterparts. American automotive companies kasi look for better numbers on company book figures than actual good quality of cars, which in the end, sila na mismo ang nag-suffer sa consequences. Nakalimutan nila na sa business, there are more returning customers than new ones. So, kung ang customer has bad experience sa product nila, sigurado na hindi babalik ito...

A decade or two ago, Chrysler was even known na parang timed lahat na parts na masira para pagpasok for maintenance check ay meron talagang napapalitan. Dito nabubuhay ang dealerships sa mga maintenance checks and parts replacements. Contrary to Japanese Car Companies that really make things durable. In the end, American brands have negative impressions that go with them and continue to lose customers while Japanese brands gained more customers and popularity. Very bad business move ng American Automotive Industry kasi all of them slowly slid down sales over the years due to poor customer confidence.

[mbt]

bakit kaya mababa ang rate ng RAV4 compared to CR-V, etc? considering that most RAV4 drivers are young (i think), and the vehicle safety characteristics of other compact SUVs (which i think have older drivers, on average, than the RAV4) are as good as or better than the RAV4. hehe wala lang, im not disparaging the RAV4 okay :D

[niky]

The RAV4 has a couple of things in its favor... light weight, low center of gravity, and good (car-like) handling. The RAV4 is more like a midsized car than a small SUV. Most small SUVs have a high center of gravity and taller tires, which aren't generally precursors of on-road safety.

The American companies are recovering slowly... but no one can yet match the Japanese in terms of safety, reliability and economy. (at least, not all in one car.)

[Jun aka Pekto]

Safety is one reason we picked the 06 Sonata. But, even the best engineered vehicle can't match defensive driving and simple common sense.

[slamtaz]

i think more should really be attributed to who's behind the wheel. no amount of technology can ever assure 100% safety as long as there's the so called human factor actually making vehicles move (although, technology has taken great strides in ever raising the bar of safety in today's vehicles). kung baga eh, tao lamang, nagkakamali din...