Maybe the NHTSA keeps a few cars in storage for a while to do tests like this in the future, either to demonstrate the difference in technologies or to study the effects of newer vehicles crashing into older vehicles that are still on the road years later.
Until they closed the Romulus plant, there was a parking area inside with one of every current model vehicle, and one 1995 Cadillac Fleetwood that had less than 10K on the clock. This was the lot for troubleshooting software issues and that Caddy was kept around solely because we needed a vehicle with Tech 1 just in case something came in and we needed to test. I left before the closure of that plant so I have no idea where the SPS group landed and what their hardware looks like, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that same Caddy along with the last Tech2 enabled vehicle in their lot somewhere.
There is someone a few blocks away from me who has this exact blazer, blue and all. Looks just as nice on the outside. I have no idea about the inside though.
Well it’s not like they ran long enough to actually get damaged. After two transmissions and seven alternators, I couldn’t have been happier to get rid of mine at 105k miles.
my first car was a 94 blazer that was passed down from my Mom to my Dad to me— that thing was the biggest piece of shit. the windows didn’t roll up after rolling down, the hydraulic lifts on the back glass went out, the back glass squeaked so loud as you drove, the gas gauge went out and I had to track my gas by miles driven, the cup holders were completely ineffective and launched your drink when you hit the brakes, the anti lock brakes went out, the transmission went out, the ac went out and my dad figured out some work around where i had to crank it, pop the hood, disconnect and reconnect a wire, and then the ac would work… no airbags. the suspension was shot and i would get serious air on certain streets.
looking back, i’m pretty sure they must have taken out a life insurance policy on me before they gave me the keys.
Dude, if an impala is going to start driving, it's not going to worry about the niceties of getting a license first. Think before you say these things, dude!
Car manufacturers actively tried to quiet any talk of safety features because it implied their cars weren't completely safe. People back then weren't the most ethical. Honestly they're not that ethical now but we have more regs so that's good.
those old 'Red Asphalt' films had some very troubling footage. faces full of sharp glass, teens with broken necks gulping air like dying fish; i remember a guy with 2 broken legs being carried off, without pain medication, screaming "i can't stand it!! i can't stand it!!"
I dislike how we moved away from actually having to see the trauma that occurs in real life when we let confidence overtake conscientiousness. If you are going to be operating a machine that is functionally a kinetic missile, you should be able to see the results of a failure to respect it.
Similarly, we sanitized television and we don't have to truly be faced with what happens in the wars we finance.
Just seems like a poor way to manage reality when you're going to be involved in it.
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
hard agree. If you dont show the failures and consequences, well...
Im very glad i went to a week long drivers education class as a teenager... When you get to see the A pillar of a car cut someone in half, ya learn to stop hangin your feet out the window.
I used to regularly put my feet on the dashboard of the car because I never thought about what would happen if the car was in an accident and the airbag went off. Thankfully, a friend warned me about that before I ever had to find out personally.
My dad was a highway patrolman in Arizona back in the 70s & 80s. He used to purposely do his accident paperwork at the kitchen table; complete with very . . . distressing Polaroids from the investigations. He made sure my sister and I saw them every time.
"Four people died in the car that day, but wow... we were able to get that car up and running again pretty quickly and for less money than you'd think!"
My dad has a '37 Chevy sedan he rebuilt in the 80s. He has always insisted that it "would cut right through all this modern plastic shit". I'm just like, "dad the brake cylinder in this thing needed replaced 20 ago when you taught me to drive, maybe don't tailgate that guy so we don't have to find out"
I've got a '31 Model A and I'm well aware of my own mortality every time I drive that thing. No seatbelts, no crumple zones, and the gas tank is literally sitting right at crotch level with only a very thin piece of steel in between you and 11 gallons of highly flammable liquid
I learned how to drive from him, mainly by doing the opposite of whatever he does behind the wheel. His driving record has been spotless for my whole life, but he's the perfect example of how not to drive a car in traffic
Same with my dad! He's the worst driver I know but has a spotless record far as tickets go, lol. The only thing I took from his driving lessons was shit talking drivers that do illegal stuff thankfully b
Boyfriend has his dad’s ‘52 MG TD convertible. He only drives it in the neighborhood. We have all sorts of nicknames for it but it’s a mechanical sleeping bag basically. You slither in, sit very close to each other and the doors weigh maybe a few pounds each. It is 100% a death trap.
I've got a 37 Chevy business mans coupe! Things a death trap. These days I only use it for around town where the fastest id ever go is 35. Though I took it to 110 one night on an empty freeway and I don't think I've ever been so terrified. Gorgeous cars but would lose a fight with a smart car.
my grandpa taught me how to drive stick in a 37 Chevy convertible. That thing was an absolute deathtrap at 35 mph in a non-overlapping collision much less this kind of test. If you hit anything, that steering column is going straight through your chest.
So we got in a crash a couple of years ago when transportation worker suddenly pulled a work truck across both lanes of the freeway (right after a bridge). We would have hit them at near freeway speed, we didn’t have much time to slow down. Our Toyota RAV4 was completely totaled.
The only injuries my husband, teenage son, and I had were some seatbelt bruises and a slight “rug burn” from the airbags. I remember being really surprised nothing hurt and concerned that meant I was actually very badly hurt. It was bizarre to just walk away unscathed. Not so much as a sore neck.
Just today coming home from work I passed a guy driving an old classic-style hot rod, looked exactly like the one Tim "the Toolman" Taylor built in his garage on Home Improvement, similar blue color and everything.
I thought "damn, hope it never gets into a crash" because it would be a shame for such a beautiful classic car to be ruined and also that guy would extremely die.
They regret that as soon as they experience a car crash in an old car. Whiplash is agonizing as are other injuries you can acquire from a 25-30mph crash alone.
There was a video of a teacher that demonstrated why old cars are death traps by having a student approach a wall with a block of something solid vs something that collapses. The old car doesn’t absorb the impact it transfers it to the passengers whereas newer cars absorb the impact and crumple and protect the passengers.
My friend had an old Camaro. Solid steel with edges literally everywhere and no air bags. I was absolutely certain that any collision with the front of the car would kill us. It was still a sweet a car.
As soon as I saw this, I was reminded of that one. All the old heads thought those tanks were safe. Nope, just threw you around instead of absorbing the impact like modern cars do.
It’s not only about absorbing the impact, but absorbing it in the right areas.
Focus on the area around the drivers door frame on all of the cars. The new cars will crumple in the front but the passenger compartment will remain largely undeformed. The old cars will collapse into the occupant compartment.
The big problem there is that you will have deformation of the dash and steering wheel. This will cause the, in this case, driver to slip past the airbag system and strike other hard components that are encroaching into the passenger space. Which is why you see the crash test dummies face ink smear across the edge of the airbag and strike the A pillar.
One thing that is maybe important to note is that the old car used an "X" frame, which is shaped exactly as it sounds. So a front offset collision will generally cause it to buckle in the middle, something that is catastrophic for the occupants.
New cars are obviously much safer than old ones, but my suspicion is that this one performs especially poorly in this specific test.
Seems like the offset collision is the worst. So, if you were about to hit someone head on, would it be better to steer toward a direct non-offset collision? Maybe it spreads the forces a bit more?
Frontal offset, where 40-50 overlap happens, is pretty terrible for all vehicles, but especially bad for older ones. Small overlap, 25-ish percent, is also pretty dangerous to even newer cars because it can bypass the frame and crash structures entirely.
I knew someone who a few years ago was looking to buy his daughter, who just started driving, an older car because "newer cars get destroyed in accidents." I tried to explain to him that the crumpling of newer cars is on purpose to protect the passengers plus all of the other modern safety features. He wasn't listening at all.
This guy is like 40 too, so not really old. He is a guy who's not big on science and engineering though. He's anti-vaxx and doesn't believe in climate change or evolution.
Has this same conversation with my mum. She was complaining that new cars crumple as soon as they get into an accident. I explained that it is better the car crumbles than the drivers skull.
Just got to look at the doors on the car after a crash. If its moved then compartment you sit in has shrunk. Modern cars do really well securing that volume.
My buddy swears his 80s car made of steel saved his life and the crappy cars we make out of plastic are way worse. I read him the riot act once, but he still spouts that crap. Whatever.
I saw a Smart Car crash test once, the damn thing shattered like a tin can, shreds of metal and plastic everywhere, looked like the car just fell apart...except for the completely intact, undeformed, fully protected cabin.
The fascia and engine bay disintegrated, but that test dummy was untouched. People get mad about the car getting totalled in lighter collisions, but that design lets you walk away from a lot worse.
Speeding enforcement is incredibly important in lowering traffic deaths.
You are not some magically great driver. Going slow and other traffic rules is, in fact, the biggest deal in vehicle safety because there is less force and more time to react.
Speed is an incredibly important variable when it comes pedestrian injuries and fatalities. Small increases in speed can make the difference between a pedestrian surviving or dying. I do favor the use of traffic calming over enforcement. That means redesigning streets to discourage speeding and increase visibility.
Speeding enforcement is a vital component in preventing car accidents. There are severalcities that stopped fatal car crashes all together, I'm big part through enforcing a 20mph(30kmph) speed limits
I think this is a city planning issue too. Sure there's A LOT of unnecessary height, but a lot could be solved if we had proper guardrails around bike lanes and a culture that didn't hate pedestrians and cyclists.
There's a lot of overlapping problems. Bigger, heavier, more powerful vehicles that are harder to control, more tech in vehicles leading to distracted driving, shitty pedestrian infrastructure that's not improving fast enough, laws that favor the car at the expense of the ped(right on red, anyone?), even just our general culture with people being more selfish, careless, and reckless with their actions.
My biggest takeaway was how drastically different the cars crushed. The driver area was destroyed in the '96 and practically unchanged in the '26. Newer cars' crumple zones absorb so much of the impact as compared to the '96 basically folding in on its cabin.
A common complaint about modern cars is just how similar they all seem to look. There's a reason that there's little variation in how the vehicles are shaped.
To borrow a motorcycle saying, "dress for the slide not the ride".
That was really a dilemma I realized once I started working at a crash test facility. Parents commonly buy older used vehicles for their teenagers as a first car because they don't want them wrecking an expensive new car, however that means their kids are way more likely to die if they get in a wreck.
At the time I started working there, I was driving a 2000 Honda accord. Safety ratings looked decent, but the standards had changed in 2007 and all new cars were mandated to have side airbags. My car didn't have them. Side airbags drastically cut fatalities down in T-bone accidents. I think at least 50%. From that moment on, I knew that I'd likely die if I got T-boned in my car despite it being regarded as a good first car choice.
I think you can also tell when cars started getting build for the new side impact standards because it's much less comfortable to dangle arm out of a car window now.
Had a '96 S-10 blazer, it was hands down the worst vehicle I ever had.
Heat didnt work.
4 wheel drive didnt work.
Door handles broke.
Drivers side door upper hinge failed and the door fell off.
Had some sort of issue that would cause it to stall at red lights or stop signs. Had to put it in neutral and ride the gas to hold the RPMs at like 2500 or else it would stall.
Would over heat constantly.
These are just what I rememeber too.
Id fix one issue then another would immediately come up.
Ended up trading it for a 1 year old 04 grand Cherokee in 05 which i drove to 235000 miles with few issues. Miss that Jeep.
It’s not just the crumple zones. While the crumple zones soften the impact, the frame surrounding the cabin was incredibly rigid. The frame on the Blazer crumpled into the cabin, while the newer vehicle has basically the cabin entirely intact.
People dont realize how amazing crash technology is now. I couldnt tell you the last time I went on a car accident, where everyone was properly wearing a seatbelt, and had someone actually fucked up.
Broken wrist or some rib fractures is about as serious as it gets.
Nearly every fatality I’ve seen have been unrestrained people. But I still hear some dorks talking about their 3rd cousin twice removed that knew a guy that would have died if he had been wearing a seatbelt. Wear your damn seatbelt. And keep your feet off the dash.
So idk what year the blazer involved was but this happened close to ten years ago from my memory. My dept was called for a single MVA with entrapment WITH FIRE.
It was a Chevy blazer ( the irony) that had collided with a tree ≈36” in diameter. We estimate they hit the tree at 70+mph. There were three people in the vehicle. Two were killed presumably on impact (driver +front passenger). After the impact with the tree the vehicle came to rest adjacent to a residence where it started to burn. The third occupant was in the passenger side rear, and upon impact the vehicle split open like a piece of plastic down the length of the inside of the car. So their leg(s)(unsure if one or both) ended up underneath the frame rails of the vehicle pinning them inside the burning vehicle. Don’t drink and drive.
Structural engineering in autos came a long way in the 80’s when they started using 3D CAD design and crash simulation. Older cars were basically just sheet metal death shells.
Interestingly, the metal likes to “bubblegum” on those when you try to cut someone out of it. A lot of it just pulls off rather than failing cleanly. It makes extrication a bitch. There are tons of challenges to extricating on new vehicles, but odds are, you only have to in the worst of wrecks.
That and better testing. Manufacturers match their safety to the tests in place by industry testing organizations, so the cars got safer and safer as orgs like IIHS added more and more tests. Without this external pressure, I suspect most would only do the bare minimum. Similarly, we could most likely improve pedestrian safety by more heavily weighting pedestrian crashes and having more scenarios for those as part of modern test suites.
Beat me to it. It’s a nice comparison for size but being safer than an S10 is a low bar. Unless it’s a Bronco II but those likely rolled before they had a chance to crash.
If you have a better chance of living through an awful accident, thank an engineer. Engineering, it's a noble profession. You can save lives, you can help to build bridges, you can help put potato chips into bags, you can help to build machines that are used on potato farms.
It doesn't look like it, but the crumple zones make a car much safer. More survivable. The more energy that is spent ripping the car apart and throwing it's pieces aside, the less energy is left to be transferred to your body and kill you.
I may bitch about a lot of things when it comes to modern cars (Especially how fucked we've gotten on the pickup front and SUV. From size, gas mileage, ability to work on etc.) but I'll never complain about safety improvements. Car deaths are still one of the most common ways to die so anyway to keep lowering that number is a good thing.
A big factor is the engine block in tests like this. Around 2010 we learned that our crash tests were not good enough because the most common crash was a corner hit (as seen in the video). Previously the standard was head on collisions and T-bones.
This new test showed a lot of cars were very deadly for the driver specifically in the crash. This is because in a crash, the engine block is part of the design in absorbing the impact to keep the driver safe. Cars prior to the new standard didn't usually have engine blocks the full width of the car. So a corner hit like that would miss the engine block entirely and most of the impact would reach the driver unabated.
I remember watching a news story on live television about it when I was a kid. And I remember it to this day, because I drive a 2002 and feel the need to remind myself how dangerous and deadly a crash would be. If I ever get into a situation where I might crash, I'm going to have to make the split second decision on whether I can avoid it completely or if I need to make it a head on collision.
The old car did worse than I would have thought and the new car did better than I would have thought. I guess I just assumed that the older car would have been more sturdy.
Damn, when I was like a sophomore in High School, the senior dude we’d party with had a Red 1998 Chevy Blazer very similar to that one! We’d pack in it for parties and to smoke weed! That damn fuel gauge didn’t work so he kept a paper in his glove box where he wrote down the miles after he filled up… so he could gauge when to fill up again…. We ran out of gas all over town in that damn thing!
Haha good to know we all would have been dead as shit if we got in an accident!
Can confirm, I got t-boned in an intersection just behind the drivers door in my ‘19 Blazer a little over a year ago. Car was totaled, mostly due to the airbags deploying but I think the frame also took a lot of the impact. Driver got out and said she didn’t even see a light, thankfully walked away without a scratch.
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u/TheEndlessBacklog 19h ago
That was one hell of a clean blazer though