Do you think about on the road safety?

Driven5 said:

I have a family that is more important to me than anything else, so yes safety plays into all of my vehicular decisions.

Yes. I used to ride a motorcycle and loved it but once I had kids I decided it was no longer just my risk to take. Even with all the gear and a sober sharp brain you are still at serious risk of death on the road on two wheels so I sold it. Our dailies are both modern. Instead of a motorcycle I have the mr2 spyder which while small still has steel around me. That's as far as I'm willing to take it until the kids are grown. 

Nope. I buy what I can afford, and use it until I either can't afford to fix it anymore or something better comes along. All the safety stuff in the world won't fix idiots in other cars though. 

Observing and avoiding a situation is the best strategy but not foolproof.  Driving distracted is a huge problem.  Car selection is secondary to these issues.  When the kids were in car seats we drove 90's volvos, when the kids started to drive they drove audis and volvos.  Never mattered but it made me feel better.  There were only 3 cars that truly made me feel unsafe; VW van, spitfire and lotus europa.  Now that I am approaching 70 and accept that my senses are not what they used to be I try to compensate with extreme vigilance.  So yes I do think about it.  

It depends. For a weekend driver, not really. The lower mileage of driving and lower volume of traffic means I feel an accident is less likely.  For a daily driver, yes kind of. As long as it is reasonable modern, I feel like it is good enough.

I work in automotive safety.  Things have come a long way in the last 15 years, more than you might think. Just about anything newer than about 2012-2015 is a quantum leap from before 2005. Between the government regulations (NHTSA) and the insurance industry (IIHS stands out) there has been a lot of pressure to improve things. Newer tests on small overlap that IIHS started has been showing results in how manufacturers are designing the most recent platforms for instance. 

Insofar as "mass wins" you can always come up against a semi truck, but in the big picture it does have some statistical weight. That said, I would look at NHTSA NCAP and IIHS crash testing results before just going straight to buying the biggest thing you can. 

Also, fatalities from car accidents are getting less frequent in the big picture. Statistics say that the vast majority are still people who cant be bothered to put on their seat belts or were doing something stupid enough that they crashed at a speed incompatible with survival. 

I've driven what most Americans, or at least the ones here, would call death traps, so no.

I've always thought that if you were smart with what was actually in your control then a serious accident should be a pretty rare event.

I work from the, newer is safer perspective for a lot of the reasons that Apex mentioned, as such my family cars are the newest vehicles in my fleet. I absolutely think about traffic and road safety conditions when I drive my older vehicles, I won't ride with my kid in the car if I know there is going to be substantial traffic and I rarely take the fun cars out during busy times of day. This is two fold, they aren't that much fun in stop and go and I become tremendously aware of how small and primitive my safety features are. 

Being in a bodyshop the last 2 years I have no qualms about any of the small modern cars. Yes, they will total out, but the crumple zones and airbag/seatbelts/safety cage is seriously good. What I would NOT buy would be a jeep. Super small hits taking out axles? No thanks. 

bobzilla said:

Being in a bodyshop the last 2 years I have no qualms about any of the small modern cars. Yes, they will total out, but the crumple zones and airbag/seatbelts/safety cage is seriously good. What I would NOT buy would be a jeep. Super small hits taking out axles? No thanks. 

Well, theres also it getting pretty actively pitched into a rollover on the small overlap crash test...

Granted, I would still take it over an older car, but it would not be a selection amoungst its peers

Its not always in the driver's control.     The last accident I was eye witness to involved a drunk guy running a red light and  speeding through an intersection busy with crossing traffic.  An innocent party t-Boned the idiot.  It happened so fast I don't think he could have avoided it.  Even if he had responded with an evasive maneuver he would either hit oncoming traffic or me sitting at the red-light.

So my biggest safety concern is red light runners.  Its getting more and more crazy out there.

SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) said:

I completely agree with you on the defense driving, that is one of the best ways to avoid an accident.  I will also say that the zero accidents part for you, while outstanding, is part skill and part blind luck.  Having witnessed countless accidents via dash cam, sometimes no matter how defensively you drive, an accident is going to happen.  Doesn't mean you need to join the arms race, it's silly.  However, safety of the vehicle is a major factor for me.

True. There are a few accidents I only avoided because the timing of when I arrived was off just enough, when someone else blew through a red light or came around a blind corner in the oncoming lane on one wheel. And there was one I didn't avoid because the timing was exactly wrong, when someone decided to pull out of a side road right in front of me on a decreasing-radius off-camber corner. Just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I try to have functional airbags in my daily, but beyond that I try not to think about it too hard. I will admit that when I hop in my barely-streetable Miata that the recognition that any heads-on impact is potentially very fatal crosses my mind occasionally, but the car is so dang fun I'm distracted from my mortality pretty quickly. I have owned and driven a lot of "unsafe" cars that have been some of my favorite driving experiences - a Honda Beat, Multiple Miatas, an EG Civic - so unless I want to give up that level of driving pleasure safety will continue to be a small voice in the back of my mind.

And I thought my B13 Sentra was safe back in the day....

But we've come a long, LONG way from the bad old days:

As a general rule no. I drive what I want. 

I won't let my kids daily the Samurai though. 

Ironic someone put up the videos.

I've said many times that I'm pretty sure my Outback is safer in an on track crash then my fully caged Datsun.

Also this weekend I was working in the garage and two young solar sales guys were going door to door; They looked at the F500 & Datsun and a comment was made about all the safety gear.

To which I replied "you'd be safer in a modern car; the older the car the less safe it is"

The engineering in modern cars is amazing.

Just saw an article talking about how heavy and fast new electric cars are and they pose a risk to "regular" drivers. 8000 lb Hummer does 0-60 how quick? 

My brother test drove a Tesla for the hell of it, his reaction? "My wife would have this wrapped around a tree before she went 2 blocks" 

I've been to IIHS and they still have the bel air on display there.  Scary to look at.  In regards to the statements I have seen from some keyboard quarterbacks, IT HAS A FULL DRIVETRAIN AND WASNT A RUSTBUCKET. 

I am a huge proponent of modern safe cars for DD duty, daily, in traffic, nasty weather, tired, rushing to and from work, is the worst and most dangerous driving you'll ever do. I pulled a guy out of a truck on its side, and the worst thing he had was that he couldn't find his phone. The other lady had the side curtain airbags prevent her head from hitting anything. Watch crash tests, especially the IIHA 59 vs 09 crash. It's not mass, it's not height, it's good design.

In reply to Steve :

That's a extremely complex question. 
  Driving the kids to and from school I'm hyper alert.  Trying to keep kids in their seats and out of the aisles.  I can't see if they have their seatbelts on. ( big buses don't have seatbelts) 

  Then trying to figure out which wacko is going to do what. Keeps my head constantly moving.  That and I'm so blind in the smaller buses.  I've got 8 rear view mirrors ( every bus has that many) and each one is part of my scan.  Then too  I have to look at the blind spots behind those mirrors. I do that by leaning forward and back. Two I need to stretch up and down.  
     Oh and the gps every bus has keeps track of my speed.  The computer spits out a report for minor fractions over but more than 5 mph  gets me a sit down with the safety director.   On top of that I'm expected to stay exactly on time according to the schedule. 
  Serious challenge on snow days. 
    
Then the times when my wife rides with me.  Back seat driving is her super power.  
 

In traffic?  By myself?  peaceful but vigilant. 
    
     No,    they see my big Red pickup.  And fuel mileage with that V8 4x4 ?  Low to mid 20's. 
       But by using E85 instead of a fill-up being $75  it's $35/40 

Since buying my Miata 20+ years ago, everything else out there seems to have gotten bigger....

Considering 70% of the vehicles I share the road with have their battering ram bumpers right about the level of my forehead, I drive defensively, give myself extra space and try not to think about it too much

My Mk5 VW had a chip in the passenger door glass from the tow eye from one of these bumpers on a dodge. It happened in a parking lot, barely made contact but the rough flame cut triangle lefts its mark.

It lined up perfectly with my spouses temple. It still gives me pause every time I see a brodozer with a fabbed bumper.