Gotta think engineering;
For instance in the Pontiac vs Toyota crash test shown above; while the little Toyota didn't have near as much "crush zone", it definitely did not have as much gross weight in motion, acting to crush that zone. Remember, objects in motion tend to stay in motion and 2800 pounds (est), multiplied exponentially..crushes more than 1600 (est) pounds, multiplied exponentially.
Engineering can't change the laws of physics. When a small car hits something, it will slow down faster than a larger, heavier car. The passengers don't.
http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr041409.html"Laws of physics prevail: The Honda Fit, Smart Fortwo, and Toyota Yaris are good performers in the Institute's frontal offset barrier test, but all three are poor performers in the frontal collisions with midsize cars. These results reflect the laws of the physical universe, specifically principles related to force and distance.
Although the physics of frontal car crashes usually are described in terms of what happens to the vehicles, injuries depend on the forces that act on the occupants, and these forces are affected by two key physical factors. One is the weight of a crashing vehicle, which determines how much its velocity will change during impact. The greater the change, the greater the forces on the people inside and the higher the injury risk. The second factor is vehicle size, specifically the distance from the front of a vehicle to its occupant compartment. The longer this is, the lower the forces on the occupants.
Size and weight affect injury likelihood in all kinds of crashes. In a collision involving two vehicles that differ in size and weight, the people in the smaller, lighter vehicle will be at a disadvantage. The bigger, heavier vehicle will push the smaller, lighter one backward during the impact. This means there will be less force on the occupants of the heavier vehicle and more on the people in the lighter vehicle. Greater force means greater risk, so the likelihood of injury goes up in the smaller, lighter vehicle.
Crash statistics confirm this. The death rate in 1-3-year-old minicars in multiple-vehicle crashes during 2007 was almost twice as high as the rate in very large cars."
"Mercedes C class versus Smart Fortwo: After striking the front of the C class, the Smart went airborne and turned around 450 degrees. This contributed to excessive movement of the dummy during rebound — a dramatic indication of the Smart's poor performance but not the only one. There was extensive intrusion into the space around the dummy from head to feet. The instrument panel moved up and toward the dummy. The steering wheel was displaced upward. Multiple measures of injury likelihood, including those on the dummy's head, were poor, as were measures on both legs.
"The Smart is the smallest car we tested, so it's not surprising that its performance looked worse than the Fit's. Still both fall into the poor category, and it's hard to distinguish between poor and poorer," Lund says. "In both the Smart and Fit, occupants would be subject to high injury risk in crashes with heavier cars." In contrast, the C class held up well, with little to no intrusion into the occupant compartment. Nearly all measures of injury likelihood were in the good range."
It is because 2800 pounds crushes more than 1600 pounds that I would rather be inside the 2800 pounds.
