Again, a car can easily be designed to have both good visibility and good crash test results, if style were not the prime consideration. So ones with poor visibility were poorly designed, placing style over safety.
Hey, Some Of These New Young Designers Probably Figure That You’ll Be Too Busy Trying To Work Everything Encompassed In The Video Display In The Dashboard To Have Any Time To Actually Look Outside.
I know I was when I rented that Dodge Journey, recently. Fortunately, I had a navigator in the right seat to mess with it. Also, to Chrysler’s credit there were redundant radio and heater blower KNOBS!
CSA
Again, a car can easily be designed to have both good visibility and good crash test results, if style were not the prime consideration
I noticed you used the term “good”. That says to me you already are aware of the compromises being made. Even the cars scoring best in safety are not as safe as they could possibly be simply because it’s likely no one would buy one. Everything in life is somewhat of a compromise and a risk/reward assessment. If it were made completely safe, it likely would be so hideous you wouldn’t buy one, especially parked next to even the best in class safety car available today. That being said, everyone has a different threshold for risk…I ride a motorcycle. I know plenty of people that never would and think I’m nuts to take that risk…
But for all of our brainstorming the initial question still seems un-answerable.
Structural integrity has nothing to do with the size of the glass ( structural ) -vs- the reduced visual area due to the stupid black border.
- why would they do that ? I don’t get it either.
Why? To have the appearance of bigger window, instead of tiny port holes.
At any rate, in my opinion styling is an important consideration to a lot of buyers, including me. Add to the mix dependability, comfort, performance, utility, price, dealer network, and a few others and you have the reason why people buy. Sure people are not going to knowingly buy an unsafe car but safety is simply an expected design quality the same as you don’t expect an office building to fall down.
I don’t give a rat’s a$$ about style, in fact most current designs are ugly to me. And I doubt I am alone in this regard. Safety, functionality and reliability are what count. Throw in cost and repairability.
But safety is a tradeoff with style, at least so it appears to me. And that is a very bad tradeoff to make, specially as the auto industry tends much towards the style end of the spectrum.
There are lots of reasons why it’s true, but it is true that deaths from accidents per million miles drive have declined steadily over the years, and are at the lowest level they have ever been.
Glass is now used to create a shiny band all the way around the upper part of the car, with no trim defining its edges except where there’s just no choice. Because a lot of it covers the steel structure of the car, it’s blacked out, but it’s still shiny and one piece. I imagine assembly is much faster when all you do is stick the piece on from the outside, rather than sealing it into a groove surrounded by exposed and nicely finished metal.
“There are lots of reasons why it’s true, but it is true that deaths from accidents per million miles drive have declined steadily over the years, and are at the lowest level they have ever been.”
Until now. Cars are safer (although they could be distracting drivers), but distracted drivers are reversing the trend, raising death tolls and raising insurance rates for all. In 2015 “…U.S. traffic deaths increased every month for six straight months.”
CSA
Whoever thought touch-screens in cars was a good idea has blood on their hands…
@csa Yes, we used to have drunk driving causing 50% of fatalities. Now we have a whole new category; distracted driving, now causing MORE deaths than drunk driving in the past. In other words, suddenly 50% more fatalities per million miles.
With the liberalization of pot, a whole new category of fatalities will emerge; STONED DRIVING DEATHS. A pothead texting his girlfriend will be the ultimate menace on the road.
So, no matter how safe we make our cars, those 3 causes will overwhelm our up to now excellent safety figures.
For what it’s worth, mechanical failure is now only 5% of causes of accidents. Driver error (85%) and road conditions (10)% make up the total.
Here’s another example, a 2011 Rogue -
I guess that’s why all the backup cameras, lane change cameras, lane change warning sensors, obstruction sensors etc., because you can’t see out of the car very well these days. The times they are-a-changing. I don’t like it either.
@“Bill Russell” quote, "I don’t give a rat’s a$$ about style, in fact most current designs are ugly to me. And I doubt I am alone in this regard. Safety, functionality and reliability are what count. Throw in cost and repairability. " Up to a point, I agree with you, but my guess is the overwhelming majority of car buyers (or lessees renters, these days) are attracted primarily by style. Form over function. Probably not enough folks like us out here to make it profitable for car makers to design a car with us in mind.
TwinTurbo: I gave up riding motorcycles in 1993. Even with headlight on (State Law) I seemed to be invisible!
common sense answer: Driving 2,000 miles in Spain 2003 with maps I had a navigator in the right seat. On the way to the beach we ended up on top of a mountain. She had no concept (at least concerning maps) that highways went 2 ways!!! It ended up OK.
I guess that’s why even ugly cars eventually sell. One thing the wife looks at is the front end. I had never considered it until the trapezoid grills appeared. But she looks at whether or not the cars smile or frown. She won’t have a car that frowns regardless of the color, safety, cost, or reliability. Its just a deal breaker.
Again, a car can easily be designed to have both good visibility and good crash test results, if style were not the prime consideration. So ones with poor visibility were poorly designed, placing style over safety.^I highly doubt that. Who in their right minds would think that a car, with (figuratively) its pants pulled up to its armpits, is good looking? With the rear windows resembling the openings in a machine-gun pillbox?
It’s the result of safety regulations…especially myopic ones, at that, that want rollover safety and don’t even bother to consider the resultant loss of visibility.
I grew up in the 1950s- early 1970s when style was king. It changed every year. Safety? Seatbelts finally became mandatory equipment in 1968.
AND . . seatbelts never changed the . . style.
Yet they were all immediately safer.
Here is another Nissan with poor visibility, how are people able to drive without staring out the back window?