G-Wiz safety

[Greenermachine]

I hadn't heard of such an incident, and of course one is always concerned for anyone involved in a road accident.

However it's inevitable that one day someone will be seriously injured in a G-Wiz - as it is for any type of vehicle. I wonder how many people have been injured in regular cars in London during the 2 months since G-Wiz safety hit the headlines?

I also read in Plugged In that in London more people die from poor air quality than road traffic accidents.

Head firmly in sand. In the same accident that you'd step from shaken and shocked in a boggo new Fiesta you'll suffer horrific injuries in a G-Wiz. Fact. Cause? Poor engineering.

[Phil]

Sorry Greenermachine, but you and those who feel as you do simply don't get it. Of course you'd be safer in a Fiesta than a G-Wiz in most sorts of accident. You'd be safer still in a tank. You'd be less safe on a bicycle.
The point some of us are trying to get across is that in a G-Wiz you'd be less likely to be involved in an accident in the first place.
If you are worried about being injured or killed in an accident, drive a G-Wiz - as one individual you are statistically likely to have to drive for millions of miles before you have a reasonable chance of serious injury!

[Tim]

Head firmly in sand. In the same accident that you'd step from shaken and shocked in a boggo new Fiesta you'll suffer horrific injuries in a G-Wiz. Fact. Cause? Poor engineering.

Perhaps you'd like to ban bicycles or motorcycles too on the basis of their "poor engineering"? Or is it just quadricycles?

How about seeing some NCAP crash test results on regular cars crashed at 70-80 miles per hour (i.e. their maximum speed in use) - after all it's hardly a level playing field to test the G-Wiz at near it's maximum speed but only crash test the cars at around half the speed they often travel at.

Given a choice of environmentally-friendly transport then I'd happily use safety as a factor to choose between vehicles, but I suspect that few people (myself included) make safety their prime consideration.

Our of interest what does Greenermachine drive?

[oldoilenergy]

btw 60% of M1 cars have never revealed the results of their 42mph front offset crash tests - i wonder why - may be we should lobby TG to do a comparative test on some of those which are often at risk of 100mph+ impacts. Bear in mind that the energy of a vehicle goes up as a square of the speed so the difference between 35 and 42mph is very big in energy terms [1.44 times greater]

Mind you even a SUV would be demolished if caught between two colliding lorries. - come to think of it why aren't lorries required to have those big energy absorbing bumpers used by the motorway maintenance lorries?

And what does Greenermachine drive? and at what speed?

[marctorrance]

Until now, people - concerned about their personal safety on the road - have been buying bigger and heavier cars so that in the event of a collision with another car, the chances of their getting hurt is lower. Naturally, the weight of the average car increases and so the safety benefit decreases.... so people - concerned about their personal safety on the road....

By driving the Wiz you're making a statement. You're saying:
"Let's stop this silly upward spiral, which is putting us all at risk. I believe there's another way and I'm prepared to lead by example."

[oldoilenergy]

I couldn't agree more - if the 'risk avoidance' brigade thought for a moment they would have realised that the logical way to avoid road accidents and related injury is to make full use of modern electronic wizardry to prevent / reduce the effect of any collision, this is much easier if the vehicles are lighter and preferable of a standard design [especially around the edges].

But this would have resulted in highly efficient very low energy vehicles - not good for the auto/oil profits. So instead the richest most fearful consumers end up driving to the corner shop in armoured personnel carriers!

[Tim]

GoinGreen have announced an updated Lotus-developed safety package for the latest vehicles.

[edward]

Look forward to hearing more on all this.
Manfully trying to resist the temptation to ask that they demonstrate it on the Table, Clarkson himself, etc etc.

[marctorrance]

Here's another vehicle that was tested at 64 km/h.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMZO4qiygOE

[ArtlessWilbury]

Nasty, isn't it?  And that wouldn't have taken into account that there would normally be a load in the back of the van, which of course would shift forward.

I don't think the driver or passenger would survive anything like that.