Death Trap

The Smart ForTwo is the reknowned Daimler product commonly referred to as "The Smart Car". A two-passenger, rear-wheel drive auto, the ForTwo is among the tiniest production cars ever seen on American roads.

The EPA rates the Smart vehicle at 36 miles-per-gallon (combined city and highway driving), barely beating the Obama administration's recent directive of 35.5 MPG for entire auto fleets by 2016.

Put simply, Obama and the Democrats want you and your family driving in these unsafe vehicles.

Oh, don't get me wrong, Smart Cars have performed reasonably well in some controlled tests.

Crash tests have shown that the Smart, while having little in the way of crumple zones, has performed better than might otherwise be expected. That said, NHTSA's testing group gave the ForTwo mediocre marks in both frontal passenger protection as well as rollover. It awarded the vehicle its highest score in exactly none of the testing categories.
As for those big government Statists (AKA "Democrats") who say, "well, there won't be any SUVs in the future", I simply ask: will there be tractor-trailers? Pickup trucks and heavy vans for business? If so, the physical mismatch between these types of vehicles endangers anyone inside the rolling death traps.

In January of this year, The Seymour Herald reported on one such encounter, which -- fortunately -- was not a fatal accident.

A two-vehicle collision on Chapman Highway Monday afternoon stalled traffic for at least an hour near Shiloh Church Road.

According to the Tennessee Highway Patrol, Teresa Melas, 41, of Knoxville, received non-life threatening injuries in the accident. She was driving a Mercedes-Benz Smart car that was traveling west on Chapman Highway.

Melas was removed from the car with the Jaws of Life, and was flown to an area hospital by a Lifestar helicopter, which landed on Chapman Highway at the intersection of Shiloh Church Road.

...Rupprecht, who had recently returned home from basic training at Fort Knox, Ky., said he was driving a white Chevy Camaro in the right westbound lane of Chapman Highway when the tiny car driven by Melas passed his car and clipped its front driver’s side tire.

“She was going really fast and when she hit his front wheel, her car came around in front of us and she hit the embankment and turned over,” said Ranieri. “It scared us, because her car went way up in the air and we were afraid it would land on us.”

[Passenger] Ranieri said she looked in the mirror and saw Melas’s car flip over several times behind them. Ranieri said it scared her because the car was lightweight and “flying like paper.”

In another instance, reported on AutoBlog Green:

...While driving along on I-95 in Connecticut at 70 mph, a [Smart Car] driver who goes by the name of "evilbean42" on the Smart Car of America forum (SCOA), was on the receiving end of a bump from a car which had been bumped by a car which had veered from the exit lane into the next, somewhat occupied, lane...

The momentum sent the Smart into the guard rail off of which it bounced "like a ping pong ball" and rolled three times back across the highway into the opposite guardrail whereupon it righted itself. The seat-belted evilbean42 opened the door and emerged unscathed, thanks to his Smart friend.

And this Edmunds reporter's eight-year old daughter intuitively knows that riding in a Smart Car is, well, dumb.

Although I'm not exactly keen on strapping my life's most precious cargo into the Smart's passenger seat, I have on occasion offered to take my eight-year-old daughter for a ride around the block just so she could see what the diminutive ForTwo feels like...

She vehemently refuses. Just doesn't seem safe, she says... She's always happy to pose in the Smart Fortwo, just don't ask her to ride in it.

While there are still very few Smart ForTwo's on American roads, other "fuel-efficient vehicles" have proven exceedingly poor performers when matched against larger vehicles.

This photo depicts a fatal accident in which an undersized gas-sipper (not a ForTwo) met up with a semi.

And these photographs illustrate an SUV and a normal-sized sedan after they smashed into each other. The driver of the SUV was unharmed while, tragically, the driver of the sedan was killed by the impact.

Knowledgeable commenters at Reddit observed the crash test footage and noted that the "Smart ForTwo has a tiny crumple zone, and as a result it's coming to a much more violent stop at the end. Notice how the rear end of the vehicle comes flying up off the ground."

The fact about the ForTwo is simple - there just aren't enough of them driving around right now to determine what actually happens. Far fewer of them have been in serious accidents. However... "In the 40-mile-per-hour frontal collision into a stationary barrier, Institute president Adrian Lund stated "We recorded a high head acceleration when the driver dummy's head hit the steering wheel through the front airbag." For responders, his indicates that the institute's test dummy used up all of the available ride down room in the Smart's seatbelt system and interior space as the crash occurred."

The test dummy hit the steering wheel THROUGH the airbag in a 40 MPH crash test. 'the crash test engineers also noted that during the collision, the driver's door unlatched. This also occurred during side-impact crash testing conducted by the NHTSA."

Still feel safer in that little Smart ForTwo? Personally, I think the thing is a little deathtrap but like I said, not enough of them have been wrecked to see. I have seen people driving them like complete assholes, though. Speeding through traffic and cutting into small holes that the ForTwo's size allows for, so it oughta be pretty soon...

And given the fact that modern SUV bumper levels are about shoulder-high for a typical Smart Car occupant, well, the results of a high-speed impact won't be pretty.

Protect your family. Protect your children. Say "Hell, no!" to the Statists that want to control the size of the cars you can buy, what types of lightbulbs are legal, how much water you can flush, and every other trivial aspect of your life. Say no to the Corpulent Government Democrats.



Update: True: "I think the theory with the midget cars is; if you die on impact then there won't be any healthcare cost for your recovery."

Linked by: Gateway Pundit, American Thinker and Fausta. Thanks!