crash ratings for our old wagons

Upon crowing to a co-worker about my car, he promptly told me how unsafe my car is and how poorly it would do in an accident. No " energy absorbing crumple zones" like in the new cars.

He said the only " safe" thing my car had going for it was its sheer weight. It just seems like to me in a front end collusion, my car has an awful lot of real estate to plow through before contact with driver ect.

Well, front and rear real estate, side impact, dont know. But I do know it has something to do with the type of frame a car has.
I would rather base my facts on last car standing at demo derbies........

I would love to know the saferty rating of my 88 buick wagon but I cant find a thing.....

 

Next time your co-worker is driving behind you in the parking lot at work SLAM on your brakes, then while your driving them home because there plastic crap car is not drivable anymore because it "crumpled" at 15mph, continue the discussion with them.

 

I used to think our old cars were safer too. Our 24 year old still argues they'd hold up better in a head on with one of today's plastic toy cars.
But I've seen pictures of old cars back in the day they were new and had accidents with other old cars. Not a pretty site. In fact that's why laws and rules have changed. Also that's why you see all those old junkyard pictures.

On the bright side, your 88 Buick will probably hold up against a SMART CAR.

 

Your coworker is correct in everything he says, although I would say that, by the late 1980s, cars were becoming much safer than earlier years. But, for example, airbags were still not yet common, and I'll bet your car doesn't have them.

Modern cars have second-generation airbags on all sides, anti-lock brakes, and many other safety features, and safety evolves with each passing year.

I would argue that cars from the 1980s and later are still fairly modern in term of safety, cars of the '70s are so-so in this area compared to today, and anything from the '60s and earlier are pretty much death-traps compared to cars of today. I can certainly see collecting them and driving them to car shows and cruise-ins, but using, say, a '66 Ford Country Squire as my daily driver and transporting my family around in it? No.

 

And what year were seat belts mandatory!!
Grew up in a 59 Squire 9-passenger - - NO BELTS, with 9 kids!

 

Have you checked this page:

http://www.safecarguide.com/exp/archive/archive.htm#anchor258606

Scroll down to the Buick section and have a look. Station wagons aren't shown, but, for example, an '88 Buick LeSabre 4-door did very well, getting four out of five stars for the driver and 5 out of 5 for the passenger in terms of chances of injury in a collisision.

Compare that to the '79 LeSabre further up the list. Not very good at all in comparison with one star for the passenger and two for the driver.

Interestingly, for the same model year, the Electra four-door does worse than the LeSabre. Check the '88 LeSabre (4 stars and 5 stars) with the '88 Electra (1 star and 4 stars). I wonder why the difference. Weren't those cars very similar?

 

A buddy of mine who owns a 64 Imperial had a similar discussion with a co-worker. His response was, "Your car is my crumple zone".

 

Exactly!!!

My wagon has several hundred pounds of steel in the chrome bumpers and they are mounted on recoil shocks. They can handle some serious parking lot "nudges".
These plastic cars that sustain $1500 damages with a parking lot nudge are a good part of the reason our insurance rates are so high.

 

I don't know for sure, but I think front seat belts were required by about '64 or so. Not sure for rear belts, and I think shoulder belts began being commonplace by the early '70s, although they were nowhere near as convenient as they are now.

In my '73 Custom Cruiser, the shoulder belts are separate and are tucked up into clips above the driver's and passenger's heads. They attach to an opening in the seat belt buckle, so both the shoulder belt and seat belt use one attachment point at the seat. The shoulder belt does not have an inertial retractor, so once you've sized the belt for you and attached it, you can't necessarily reach forward to open the glove box because the belt holds you tight. Modern belts lock up in the event of a collision but otherwise let you move freely even with it attached. It's interesting what we take for granted now, and I'm sure this lack-of-feature prevented shoulder belts from back then from being widely used.

We had a '71 CC when I was growing up, and if I'm recalling correctly, the shoulder belts were even more primitive in that they had their own buckles to attach to coming through the seat. So there were a total of five buckle-ends coming through the seat, two for the driver's side seat and shoulder belt, two for the passenger side, and one for the center seat seat belt. Talk about a nest of snakes in trying to deal with all those belts.

Of course, rear seat shoulder belts arrived much later. Mid-'80s? I don't know.

 

x2 on your friend being right.


Some states had their own laws earlier but Federal law made seat belts for all passengers mandatory on all cars delivered on or after January 1, 1968.
That also included shoulder harnesses for front outboard passengers, excepting convertibles.

 

You know what? I'm so deathly afraid of what might happen if somehow somewhere I might get into a car crash and something bad might happen, that I'm getting rid of all my old deathtraps. I'm going to stay inside, probably in bed, so that nothing bad can happen to me. Oh wait, bed sores. Uh oh, can't the government do something about those?

theshnizzle, enjoy your big nice American-built Buick, and don't listen to the doom and gloom naysayers.
But it wouldn't hurt to always wear a crash helmet and a suit of bubblewrap! Ooops, that stuff's bad for the environment, nevermind.

David

 

Watch this: http://www.iihs.org/video.aspx/info/50thcrash
I think this pretty much sums it up, the old cars are not as safe even with all the plastic in the new cars.

 

Newer cars are designed to be crashed.
While I understand that sometimes it is absolutely unavoidable MOST crashes are very avoidable.
The same cars equipped with a dozen airbags and crumple zones also are laden with on board distractions.
Tell you co-worker that crash avoidance is the best safety device.

 

Actually, I believe the shoulder belts were mandatory starting January 1, 1969. I've seen very few 68 model cars with shoulder belts, but only a few early production 69 models without shoulder belts.

 

That year chevy had a frame that sucked.

My "safety" bumpers are growing on me. Other drivers seem to avoid me.