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Re: Latest IIHS safety data



In article <46kloa$ioc@nnrp.ucs.ubc.ca>,
Ryan Rahim <rahimr@unixg.ubc.ca> wrote:
> 
>The latest IIHS safety data has been released.  IIHS stands for the 
>Insurance Institue for Highway safety, and rates the safety of cars based on 
>federal statistics for amt of deaths per 10,000 vehicles.  This survey 
>was carried out during the period (1989-93)

Where can the IIHS report be found?  Is it published, or does one
request it directly from IIHS?

BTW, as will all such data, there is a bias built in that has nothing
to do with the inherent safety of the cars themselves.  Certain cars
are purchased in large numbers by "safety oriented" drivers, i.e.,
people who won't normally take chances on the road.  In this case, the
low fatality rate in those cars may be due as much to safer driving as
to safer car design.  Such drivers might well have produced excellent
safety scores for a car that scored poorly, had they been driving it
(the Corvette is a good case in point, as it scored rather well on the
NHTSA crash test, indicating better than average survivability in a
crash, as well as being a fairly heavy car).

On the other hand, some cars, the Corvette for example, are typically
purchased by folks who like to race on the highway (and on the school
streets), and who might wrap even a Volvo 240 around a telephone pole
if that's what they were constrained to drive.  Still, as with the
NHTSA crash tests, some data is probably better than no data in making
a "safe car" purchase decision.

-- 
Ken Bell :: kenbell@panix.com   :: (212) 475-4976 (voice)
======== :: syklb@giss.nasa.gov :: (212) 678-5516 (voice), 678-5552 (fax)


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