The Insurance Research Council could have saved the money they spent on this study and just asked me. Or you. Or anyone else with a fuckin’ clue
IRC Research Documents Higher Injury Claim Costs with Lighter Weight Vehicles (pdf)
Even those of us who are not students of extensive physics teachings could have told them this. But to justify their expenditure, they do actually have some dollar amounts:
Lighter vehicles: $5554 claim average
Heavier vehicles: $4859 claim average
A 14.3% difference.
Call your auto insurer and ask them if the company they represent is spreading these cost across the board or if the extra costs stemming from the liability of owning and insuring a small vehicle are being placed where it should be: On the small vehicle owner.
Yes, I realize that big vehicles hit small vehicles, but those costs are already put onto the large vehicle owner’s cost to insure. (The cost of full coverage for Buddy the Jeep, with 15K miles per year allowance, is less than the bare minimum liability only insurance requirement for Grimm the Not-So-Jolly Green Giant with only 3K miles per year allowance. When I asked our insurance agent why, she said that it is because he will destroy most other vehicles on the road, including late model full sized trucks.)
Which is why I think this man should be knocked upside his empty little head and told he’s an idiot
GM’s Lutz calls for break on crash testing in US
The U.S. should suspend crash-testing requirements in order to allow auto makers to speed more fuel-efficient models to the market, says Bob Lutz, General Motors Corp.’s vice chairman and product-development chief.
Umm, no? WTF, does this guy think we want death machine cars like the Chinese build?
Basically, he’s admitting that GM got caught flat footed by the increased gas prices, with new models with better fuel efficiency a long way from being market ready, and he want Uncle Sam to give them a hand.
…or, it could mean that he’s trying to float a deal to sell re-badged roller skates from China or India, which everyone knows won’t pass the crash tests.
I have mixed feelings on this. If the CEO were to be supported, and succeed (he won’t, the trial lawyers will see to that), maybe the next thing he might realize is that tiny, hyper-efficient small engines, either tiny diesels or two-stroke gas, will get a compact sedan down the road at 50 mpg or better without spendy hybrid technology (remember the 55mpg , diesel Chevette?), and so he might ask next for a suspension of the smog rules.
If buyers are properly advised that the vehicles are untested, consent to that fact, and insurers allowed to tack on an appropriate surcharge, we SHOULD be able to buy the roller skates.
Glad I drive a Volvo, what a goddamn idiot.