Cirrus Killer? Cessna just doesn't get it...

"Montblack" wrote in message
...
("Greg Copeland" wrote)
Actually, the safety aspect is not suspect. It's fairly well accepted
that SUVs are safer because there are so many SUVs on the road. If you
remove SUVs from the equation then pretty much all other, smaller,
vehicles sudden become much, much safer. Last I read, the roads would
be
much safer if it were not for SUVs.


Check the accident stats. Many fatalities are single car accidents. Now we
need to figure out if SUV's are more, or less, safe than "smaller" cars in
this category?

Single vehicle deaths is a healthy percentage of the pie.


Montblack

A factor that cannot be determined is how many accidents are avoided by
smaller vehicles due to their greater maneuverability.

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
. ..
A factor that cannot be determined is how many accidents are avoided by
smaller vehicles due to their greater maneuverability.

Many factors are difficult or impossible to determine using current
statistical data gathering.

However, as in aviation, driver error is fundamentally the root cause of
most accidents. I find it amusing to see so many people (not just in this
newsgroup either) argue about which vehicle is "safer" when first of all
they haven't even agreed on what "safer" means, but more importantly when
most of those drivers need a "safer" vehicle because they and everyone else
on the road refuse to drive safely in the first place.

I'm not pointing fingers here. For all I know, every single person
commenting on SUVs here is in the top 1% of safe drivers. I doubt that's
even close to the truth, but the real question is drivers in general. On
the whole, they are terrible. If they approached driving with any real
sense of responsibility and care, then maybe it wouldn't matter so much
which vehicle was "safer".

Pete

TaxSrv wrote:

I don't think it was purely the airplanes themselves that
catapulted Cessna to the top of the bizjet market relatively
quickly. I suspect it was also at least partly due to all of
the pilots trained in Cessna's who now fly for, or own,
many of the companies that fly Cessna jets.

Matt


I have little clue on that, but I would say that these are
hard-dollar propositions, with many competitive choices, new or
used. A corp's flight dept, or outside consultant even, in an
ideal world should do a purely objective analysis for top
management. Nevertheless, I suspect a more common personal bias in
the process is where a turboprop may be the correct choice, but the
guys would really rather pilot a jet!

I dunno, but do you think where a company upgrades from the rather
ubiquitous King Air, they'll tend to buy a Beechjet? Comparative
jet shipment stats don't look conclusive in that regard. Maybe
there's a growing factor in the female voices I'm now hearing
working radios in these things. Not to stir up trouble, but just
what is the cutest bizjet they make? :-)

Well, I've talked to a few folks in corporate procurement and flight
departments, and you would be surprised how much "other" factors beyond
cost weigh in. Things such as which jet the CEO likes or which interior
the CEO better half likes. Anyone who thinks selling bizjets is based
mainly on the objective analysis is deluded indeed. :-)

Matt

Greg Copeland wrote:

On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 08:44:27 +0000, Dylan Smith wrote:


On 2005-10-01, Matt Whiting wrote:

Yes, most folks don't tow their trailer to work every day with them.
However, they may tow it every weekend.

Most folks with SUVs never tow anything at all. SUVs were popular where
I used to live in Houston. I'd estimate from suburban driveways that
about 1 in 10 SUVs ever towed anything at all, and about the same
proportion ever used more than 4 seats - ever. Out of the 1 in 10 that
had a trailer to pull, about half of those trailers could easily be
towed safely by a normal midsize car. Most SUVs are bought not to
offroad, tow, haul 7 passengers - but to look cool.


IIRC, you're not far off form the real stats. Again, IIRC, only 2 out of
10 actually tow/haul anything, ever leave pavement, ever have more than
four people in them. Basically, only 1/5 of all SUVs owners, own them for
anything other than status or coolness factors.

If that is true, then there are a lot of deluded Americans out there.
An SUV for status or coolness as compared to a Vette, Miata, etc. That
is hilarious.

Matt

Peter Duniho wrote:

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
. ..

A factor that cannot be determined is how many accidents are avoided by
smaller vehicles due to their greater maneuverability.


Many factors are difficult or impossible to determine using current
statistical data gathering.

However, as in aviation, driver error is fundamentally the root cause of
most accidents. I find it amusing to see so many people (not just in this
newsgroup either) argue about which vehicle is "safer" when first of all
they haven't even agreed on what "safer" means, but more importantly when
most of those drivers need a "safer" vehicle because they and everyone else
on the road refuse to drive safely in the first place.

Yes, it is unfortunate that to the auto crowd, especially folks in
government or the IIHS, that "safety" is defined as "crash worthiness"
rather than "capable of crash avoidance."


Matt

Stirling Moss was commentating at the Watkins Glen GP years ago. He
described being pulled over the day before by a NY State Trooper while
"enthusiastically" motoring along the winding upstate NY roads in a borrowed
Mini Cooper S (the original one). The cop walked up the window and asked,
"Who the hell do you think YOU are, Stirling Moss?" After a bit of humorous
confusion over his driver's license, the cop was pretty nice until they got
into a heated debate about the relative safety of the Mini versus the cop's
Police Cruiser. The incident ended with Moss getting a ticket. True story.

Having had a Mini in the 70's, I would rather be driving one of those than
any SUV anytime. The ability to AVOID the accident in the first place is
always better than just surviving one.

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)


"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Peter Duniho wrote:

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
. ..

A factor that cannot be determined is how many accidents are avoided by
smaller vehicles due to their greater maneuverability.


Many factors are difficult or impossible to determine using current
statistical data gathering.

However, as in aviation, driver error is fundamentally the root cause of
most accidents. I find it amusing to see so many people (not just in
this newsgroup either) argue about which vehicle is "safer" when first of
all they haven't even agreed on what "safer" means, but more importantly
when most of those drivers need a "safer" vehicle because they and
everyone else on the road refuse to drive safely in the first place.

Yes, it is unfortunate that to the auto crowd, especially folks in
government or the IIHS, that "safety" is defined as "crash worthiness"
rather than "capable of crash avoidance."


Matt

"Bob Chilcoat" wrote in

Having had a Mini in the 70's, I would rather be driving one of those than
any SUV anytime. The ability to AVOID the accident in the first place is
always better than just surviving one.

I doubt that maneuverability trumps crashworthiness. I suspect that the
most important maneuverabilty feature of small cars is the shorter stopping
distance. Driving around an accident situation is usually a pretty tough
challenge. And, when it comes to taking a hit, most small cares, and
certainly small cars from the 70s don't fare so well.

moo




--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)


"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Peter Duniho wrote:

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
. ..

A factor that cannot be determined is how many accidents are avoided by
smaller vehicles due to their greater maneuverability.


Many factors are difficult or impossible to determine using current
statistical data gathering.

However, as in aviation, driver error is fundamentally the root cause of
most accidents. I find it amusing to see so many people (not just in
this newsgroup either) argue about which vehicle is "safer" when first
of all they haven't even agreed on what "safer" means, but more
importantly when most of those drivers need a "safer" vehicle because
they and everyone else on the road refuse to drive safely in the first
place.

Yes, it is unfortunate that to the auto crowd, especially folks in
government or the IIHS, that "safety" is defined as "crash worthiness"
rather than "capable of crash avoidance."


Matt

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
. ..

A factor that cannot be determined is how many accidents are avoided by
smaller vehicles due to their greater maneuverability.


That assumes that many people know how to maneuver out of an accident
situation. Attend a Bondurant Driving School and see how many people have
that skill (hint: about 2%).


--
Matt

---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

On 2005-10-03, Matt Whiting wrote:
If that is true, then there are a lot of deluded Americans out there.
An SUV for status or coolness as compared to a Vette, Miata, etc. That
is hilarious.

I reached this conclusion long ago - there are indeed a lot of deluded
people out there. The advertisments tell them an SUV is gung ho and
cool, so they think it is so. The Corvette now has a
boy-racer/mid-life-crisis image, and the Miata has an image of being a
hairdresser's car, but a giant 4x4 now has accepted macho appeal. The
same thing to a lesser extent goes for a pickup truck, but most the
people I know with pickup trucks actually do throw **** in the back of
them from time to time.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On 2005-10-03, Matt Whiting wrote:
Yes, it is unfortunate that to the auto crowd, especially folks in
government or the IIHS, that "safety" is defined as "crash worthiness"
rather than "capable of crash avoidance."

It's the Volvo driver effect. In this country, Volvo drivers have a poor
reputation (mainly amongst motorcyclists) for being dangerous drivers.

What happens is a bad driver tends to gravitate towards Volvo cars
because Volvo are always pimping their safety features (and Volvo cars
do have very good passive safety features). Instead of correcting the
driving errors that caused their last crash, they just buy a Volvo so
they have a better chance of walking away from the next crash they
cause.

I think in the US, this forms part of the SUV buying mentality from the
people who would be perfectly well served by a mid size car.

Governments don't help either - they just bring out initiatives to make
it look as if they are doing something (lowering speed limits, speed
cameras, traffic aggravationg^W calming measures etc.) which are quick,
simple, popular and cheap - instead of addressing the real cause of poor
road safety (which would be very unpopular - I think there should be a
BDR - Biennial Driving Review, and the mandatory driving instruction and
tests should be much tougher - and include emergency training, such as
skid pan training, plus eye and reaction tests as a simple medical).

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"