|
But the S80, I believe, gets better safety numbers. A couple outfits, as I recall, consider the S80 the single safest vehicle on average that you can ride in, particularly as most real-world accidents are of the single car variety...not frontal offset collisions with SUVs. And if you're going to leave the pavement, better to be in a car than an SUV.
(By the way, I witnessed an accident the other day. About 2 minutes after a light rain began to fall - making the roads treacherously slick - a local girl in a brand new Lexus full-time AWD came over the crest of a small hill at 40mph. The road curves away a bit just as it crests, and first her front axle went light - which resulted in loss of steering - then the rear, and suddenly she was spinning like a frisbee. She caught the curb at 45 degrees, spinning the car back the other way, rammed a tree behind the driver's side B pillar, and spun back the other way before coming to a stop. She was wearing her seat belt, and managed to unlatch herself and climb out the sunroof, called her mom on the cellphone - and then went into shock, babbling incoherently. The police investigator on the scene made two observations to me. First, this accident was greatly exacerbated by the fulltime AWD as traction came and went on the axles. Second, if the SUV had flipped, she would have been sent to a morgue instead of the emergency room - he pointed to the roof of the car, which was almost blown off by the side impact, noting that it would have simply caved in. He told the girl's mother later that if she wanted her kid to be safe, they should have gotten her a car (preferably a Volvo) instead of the SUV that nearly killed her. That's my $.02 worth of journalism. Anyway, happily, she's alive.)
--
David
1998 S70 T5SE // misc mods (mostly lighting) // red calipers
1992 940 GLE // Hella Micro DE foglights and 170K miles
|
