Car design dangers

[David Meacock]

Can anything be done to reverse the current ridiculously thick car roofs’ front posts at both ends of the windscreen?  They must be 5 or 6 times the vision blocking width of what I had at the start of my driving in the mid 80’s with the British Leyland Mini and Maxi: my wife and I find ourselves constantly looking either side of the driver’s side post, especially when going around right hand corners.

I’m left wondering how many accidents are being caused and lives lost by this interruption in vision ,compared with the number of lives being saved by having modern cars able to ride along the highway on their roofs in the rare instance a car might end up skidding along on its roof after a severe crash?!

Another danger is the increasing widths of cars, without a commensurate increase in roads.  How can it be safer to have cars coming towards each other inches apart at combined speeds of 60+ mph, rather than maintain the previous widths of cars with greater margins of driver error?  Again, what do the stats show?

I hope this at least gets people thinking about what really is safe.

[Andy Garden]

I understand where you’re coming from, but the A pillars are not just about the roof, but firm part of the vehicles structural integrity, especially the cabin.
The difference in occupant protection of your examples Mini/Maxi to even a small ‘basic’ car of today is worlds apart.
It’s fair to say car design /safety has changed significantly, alas, the baseline driver behaviour has not evolved at the same rate 😆

[Author]

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