Bumpers are the reason these 4 x 4s are so dangerous I guess. Sure, the people inside are safe and cozy, but anyone else who meets that high-up bumper is a gonner.

The bumper on those should definatly be lowered or replaced with a crumple zone in my opinion.

I'd suggest that it's happened because strictly speaking bumpers aren't nessecery any more.

Back when cars were first invented, and they were those big hulking monstrosities with wide wheelarches and built-on foglamps, they were much less strong and well built. So crashing into something, even at comparitivley low speed, could do pretty severe damage to both man and machine as the thing fell apart around them. The bumper was the shock absorber, to stop some of the impact and cause less damage.

Now, though, cars are sophisticated enough to have crumple zones...the entire chassis is set up to absorb the impact in a collision, not just the bit at the front. So because the whole car can handle the smash much better, there's no need for an extra barrier at the front of the car to do the job, so bumpers are now nothing more than a style tool for the car, to make it look good and give it it's own personal attitude. And because there's no need for the bumper to be 'functional' anymore, it can be purely asthetic, appearing in whatever shape, and more importantly height, the designers wish.

That'd be my take on it...

There is something to consider Wraith. One side-effect of modern cars are the lighter materials used to make the chassis (for greater fuel efficiency and less production costs), as compared to the predominant material of older cars...AKA, steel.

Case in point; my stepfather and little sisters were being given a ride by a family friend in an old Ford car. They had an accident: a collision. In the end, the Ford car was barely dented, and no one was injured. The other car was not as fortunate, but I don't think the driver had been injured either.

You're right, the materials were tougher back then, but I was primarilly meaning build quality... *shrugs*

Actually, the way I understand it was that the carswere built too tough. In a collison, the cars would basically be perfectly fine, but all the energy in the collision basically transferred to the divers, with fatal results.

Which is why crumple zones and the like were made, have the car absorb the energy rather than transferring it.

That is true, but that was in collisions between two steel vehicles of doom.

When it's Steel Vehicle of Doom vs. Modern Day Car (with Crumple Zone Action), the first one's not going to feel much of anything (depending on how the collision goes).

It's all about the style of the car, people!

Safety doesn't matter anymore, just the look of the car!

I remember a car the family once had, an old SAAB v4 (I think) where the bumper basically was this metal core surrounded by a thick layer of rubber, forming a bumper that could almost be considered all but immortal. (Obviously this isn't true, but compared to most other bumpers..)

It was also huge and heavy, compared to the bumpers on the more modern cars at the time which seemed to be made out of little more than plastic.

Cars have become more and more about design, and there's been a great deal of research into how to preserve both the person inside the vehicle and anyone outside it - the idea in general being to sacrifice the car (something that can be replaced or repaired) for the wellbeing of the humans.

As far as I understand it, today the bumper is most often a thing completely about design. It's there because it looks good, to accentuate some lines and possibly to have somewhere to put your foot or other things when hauling heavy things into the rear of the vehicle. The original intention - to absorb shocks - have been distributed to reinforcements elsewhere, aswell as allowing some peices of the car to absorb the collission so those inside won't have to.

Of course, take a solid heavy object and throw it against something that gives, the thing that gives will.. naturally.. give quite a bit. Take two solid objects and bang them together though and the concept of whiplash is quite likely to rear in its ugly head. Our way of looking at how to make cars safer has changed quite radically - it's no longer about the car itself being immortal, it's about sacrificing the car to protect those inside.

Some of this discussion has got me thinking of this devil's advocate's question: then should it be illegal to have bumpers made of heavy steel or other materials? Sure, older cars get phased out over time, but many are still on the road today, and they present a real danger in any collision, regardless of whether it's their fault or not.

Another motivation to get rid of heavier cars is fuel efficiency; a heavier car will undoubtedly be less efficient with gas than a lighter one, all other factors being equal. And gas prices have been rising steadily for a while now.

Maybe some kind of trade-in recycling program could be instituted to exchange heavier steel-laden cars for lighter and safer cars.

While it sounds like a resonable idea in theory, I don't think regulating the size and construction limits of cars is directly viable in practice - not unless old vehicles could be upgraded to fit newer regulation (such as Catalytic converters, for example) without too much work. The cost for new vehicles, even second hand, can be very prohibitive with the state some cars are kept in, and then what about sturdier vehicles like Jeeps and even Hummers?

I think there's too many people who have classic or special cars for it to be viable to introduce a new regulation for how much a car might weigh and how sturdy it can or can't be. And while I admit, there are many who have cars that probably are far larger and far more costly than they'd need - how do you resonably seperate them from the ones that do have need for larger and more powerful vehicles?

Cars are so much more than just transportation and can cost such huge ammounts that suddenly demanding they all have to be designed a certain way while there'll still be far heavier and durable vehicles (like trucks) on the roads just isn't very feasable - especially with people around that occasionally do need some level of all-terrain ability.

As a potentially more likely alternative, driver's license tests could potentially be expanded and certain, more "dangerous" vehicles might require a higher classification. This would, of course, still not stop occasions where people drive drunk, very tired or chatting on mobile phones though.