I don't usually post about news items like this, but I couldn't resist...

The thing that unnerves me is the fact that the claim is 5.2 deaths for every 10,000 1985 to 1987  Corvettes that are on the road; that's the highest for an American car...

You would think that with all the foreign car companys' cars on the road, it would be a bigger selling car, like a Camary or something similar:

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/10-startlingly-dangerous-cars.html/?a=viewall

And the study details from the L.A. Times:

http://articles.latimes.com/1990-02-06/news/mn-223_1_highest-death-rate

So I was wondering what everyone's take on this?

Corvette & Mustang?????  BS.

C.

To be fair, they DID say that the most common problem was with the idjits drivin...not necessarily the car itself. Put a young, testosteroned up teenager in a Corvette, and what do ya think the first thing he's gunna do is? Yep...see how fast it will go. Then he's gunna wanna show off, and race everything else on the road.
Admit it...we all did the same dam thing....we were just apparently lucky enough to survive to tell about it. I had a '72 LT1 convertible in high school.....wrecked it 4 times before insurance made me get rid of it. After that came the '65 Impalla SS, and '66 Hemi Charger, the '70 427 Nickey Nova, drag cars, street cars...you name it. Any of them were capable of gettin me killed....a couple of them came dam close to doin it, too.

Don't blame the cars...blame the idjits IN the cars....

Look at all the C7's that have been trashed so far, no fatalities, but major damage....car is only as good as the driver.   And some people can't handle the car.

Some times the numbers get skewed by time with an average age of 27 years the odds are increased that more will have been involved in a accident.

The same things occurs with Sport Bikes.  You get a car or bike that has sufficient performance to quickly get you into a situation above your skill level and you become one of those numbers on a report.  You can bet that youth and inexperience has a lot to do with the numbers too.  I am sure we have all been there, on the edge.  Sometimes your skill gets you through it, sometimes luck, then sometimes nothing helps!

Pity the numbers are skewed to seem like the cars are at fault. Totally unfair!

C.

The biggest problem is not the car but the nut behind the wheel Any car can be dangerous if you don't drive right and act like an idiot thinking your all bad, but bottom line is if you are careful and drive the way you should will reduce the likelihood of an accident

You're referencing an article that was written 24 years ago:

February 06, 1990|


My guess that 85-87 was used was because 85-87 probably did have a higher accident rate than the 88-89's, if data for 88 and 89 was available in 1990 when the article was written. The 88-89 had better brakes and tires. If you've never owned both a 16" Gatorback tire car, and a 88-up at the same time, (I have) you would not be aware of how superior the 88-up is in adhesion and braking. The 85-87 was a powerful car, and while the braking and adhesion were certainly good, it wasn't as good as the 88-up. but I suspect it's really that later year data wasn't available.

Also keep in mind there were only 106,000 85-87's built. This is a small sample size compared to other car models in the study. This could skew the data in that the Corvette driver could be more likely to over exceed his or the cars capabilities than the mini-van driver.

Using their numbers, the 85-87 Corvette killed 54 people. The Mustang, GUESSING that 150,000 per year were built (wiki doesn't list production for 85-87) killed 1,540.

It looks like the "conclusion" the study was after was that small cars are dangerous when hit by big cars, and therefore big cars should be outlawed. This was a popular position by libtards and safety fanatics in the 90's. And there's no bigger libtard newspaper than the Los Angeles Times. It doesn't surprise me that LA Times fudged and cherry-picked data to support the desired conclusion. They do it every day.

The data regarding Corvette deaths was to support the 'sensational' article header that got you to read the piece in the first place. 






|UPDATED|2/13/2014 10:16:03 AM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

The media drive me crazy.  As Dave points out, anytime there are "stats" and ratios thrown about, who knows how they've been skewed?  Raw data is a better way to go, but doesn't usually make for sensational headlines.  Anymore, I pay little mind to any "study" conclusions. Seems there's almost always an agenda, and usually money, determining these conclusions.