Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Understanding Even More Car Crashes

I posted a lesson to accompany the IIHS "classic", Understanding Car Crashes a few years ago. If that post doesn't ring a bell, click here. Links to the video and lesson can be found in that original post.

A related story percolated up through my social media feed a few days ago. National Public Radio's Goats and Soda produced a story about the Latin New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). NCAP ran a crash test that pitted entry level Nissan vehicles against each other: The American Versa vs. the Mexican Tsura.

Crash Test Dummies Show The Difference Between Cars In Mexico And U.S.

Here's the video:

2015 Nissan Tsura vs. 2016 Nissan Versa


[Executive summary: The American passenger fares much better than Mexican passenger.]

When news of the test went public, Nissan announced that Nissan Mexico would discontinue sales of the Tsura in a few months.

It could be that the timing of Nissan's announcement coinciding with NCAP's test was... coincidental. That is a real possibility.

On a tangentially related oldie-but-goodie, some folks think cars from yesteryear were tanks that would decimate today's light-weight counterparts. An instuctive crash test pits a 2009 Impala against a 1959 Bel Air. Watch the video to see how that one turned out.

2009 Chevrolet Impala vs. 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air


If you're a classic car enthusiast, drive carefully!

The lesson I constructed includes an exercise in which students look up the IIHS safety test of the car they drive (or are commonly driven in).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Howdy! This blog post couldn't be written any better! Looking at this post reminds me of my previous roommate!
He continually kept preaching about this. I'll forward this article to him.
Fairly certain he will have a very good read. Many thanks for sharing!

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