The New Zealand Herald today published an article with commentary from various motor safety experts on ways that drivers can increase their chances of surviving an accident. Suggestions included avoiding "small car death traps", SUVs and ....
The Herald interviewed three motor safety experts, including the Dog and Lemon Guide's Clive Matthew-Wilson who commented,
"The real deadly ones are those designed to save fuel, with safety not really an issue. As a result, their bodies are not strong. They don't have proper seatbelts, they don't have proper airbags, and they tend to crumple in an accident. They're absolute death traps. There are cars that are so unsafe that you could make a pretty strong case for offering owners bribes to crash them."
The Dog and Lemon Guide also stresses the importance of air-bags:
"Drivers shouldn't get a small car without airbags from the 80s or 90s. Any decent car has airbags, and if it doesn't, it won't protect you in an accident. If you doubt that, go to crash test sites and see what happens when they don't have airbags."
The full text of the article is available online here: Small Car Death Traps
