Concerned About Saftey

I have a mental problem. I love my 3g and want to keep it forever but the only thing that makes me want to get rid of it is because its not that safe. I personally dont feel safter in a car that has air bags for two reasons. 1) most air bags stop working after 8 -10 years and 2) if a car that is designed for air bags to keep you safe and that part is not working then your in trouble. This is one aspect i like about the 3g, its saftey features dont wear out. But my concern is just the fact that its a lightweight 80s economy car. I also have it lowered just a bit and it makes me nervous when im at a light and the average truck bumber lines up directly with my head with only my window to protect me.

Anyone else concerned about this when they drive?

I wouldnt be concerned at all if those people who like to run into others get off the road. I have never been in an accident but worry about what would happen if someone were to t-bone me.

If i were to get a new car (not really looking at one right now) but i kinda like the new 06 civics.

i tink about this a lot

these cars dont take an impact to well..very thin stamped metal with not a lot of support inside of said metal

i wouldn't wana find out what would happen if somebody lost it at 100+ in one of these things

Yup were driving in a soda can.

If you're truely worried and want to keep the 3G get a full cage installed... try and take out extra weight in the car where you can so the cage doesn't feel like a ball and chain.

I don't like air bags either... I actually want to get rid of mine in my corolla, and replace the steering wheel as well, even though a solid steering wheel will do more damage in an acident then a flexable oem one, I just don't like the feel of the Oem wheel.

if you want a tank, buy a volvo :)

front impact and rear impact they are marginally ok but i worry about getting hit in the side, seriously. The doors are pretty thin.

this car actually had a pretty good safety rating compared to other cars of it's era,if you want thin metal compare it to a crx or a civic of the same time period. after doing a lot of bodywork on it it's actually quite heavy gauge steel. there was someone on here that hit a telephone pole and walked away. can't remember who it was. if you really worry about it have a roll cage installed,I will someday. compare it to one of my 81 civics that had metal about the thickness of a coke can and no door beams.

The sheet metal on it is a lot heavier than on a geo or some other light cars. But it does seem to be made a lot like a jet everything as light as possible.

my 3gee was in my possesion for 10 years, until it met its demise at the hand of a red light runner...

i mentioned this on another thread entitled "10 things you hate..., one thing that i didnt realize when i had the car was the lack of safety. the car did not hold up well after being t-boned, a relatively minor crash totatled my 3 gee. i have 3 kids, and fortunately they (and my wife) were not in the car at the time of the accident, if ther were, they would have sustained major injuries.

i am quite pleased with my accord ex i drive now, airbags and all.

honestly I dont think anybody can exspect to much safty from a mid 80's economy car. All the big body cars of that era cost alot to produce and weigh as much as a boat are going to need alot of TQ and HP to get them moving. Given we now have much better technology so the economy cars are just as safe as the rest.

I have been in both front and rear end collisions in 3rd gen accords, and my sister was rear ended twice, one time was quite bad, $4500 worth of damage.

And all of these times we both came out with minor injuries (whiplash). I would say in that concern 3g's are fairly good for a car of their age. But I do agree, side impact kinda scares me... but like legendmaster said, you can't expect much from these cars.

Shut up and quit being babys, and learn to take a hit! j/p

I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE!!!!!

I was t-boned in the drivers door at 50 mph. TRhe dumb cunt didnt even hit the brakes. She hit me hard enough to spin me arond 720 degrees. It hurt like hell but I got out and wlaked away. I was sad to see my accord go but i was also glad I wasnt in my 78 civic either. I dont think Id be here if I was.

is it safe, yes to point. if your talking about a roll over or something where the vehicle leaves to oadway maybe not but in a minor collision or regular accident I bet they fair just as well as these newer junker cars.

I was driving a new J30 in 96 from my shop back to the dealership. I managed to rear-end a flatbed pickup fast enough to fold from the front bumper to the cab forward. They totalled the car with under 150 miles on it and the airbag never went off!!!! know just how helpful was it. Lesson learned. DONT BUY NISSAN POS. and DONT LISTEN TO THE HYPE FROM THE GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS

wow, thats pretty intense. What was the person driving that t-boned you at 50 mph?

If i decided to keep the car forever then i probably will install a roll cage or at least reinforce the sides. The sides are my biggest concern. I would install a roll cage thats hidden because i wouldn't drive a car that has bars all over the place.

For safety the bars all need to be covered so you don't crack you head on it. Which some people forget to do when they install cages, the car survives but the drived gets pummled by the roll cage.

for sure if u get a roll cage get a bunch of padding for it, it wil be worse than bieng in the accident without one (not realy though, depending on the badness of the accident....)

im like the idea of the roll bars....they have 2 uses, safety and it helps keep the chasis strongs...so it could be like 2 sturt bars but stronger. i installed some lude seats and they are lower than the original ones and i was at a stop light and i notice that the bumper of the ford expedition would hit my sholder....i got scared and lean inwards..lol well yeah if you do find a way to make roll bars for cheap it would be nice if you can share the info

With our cars side impacts are the major problem. There's really not much, practically speaking, that you can do. Also, weighing 2700-odd pounds doesn't help if you're up against an Escalade, a big pickup, or a Mercedes for that matter.

So if you're hit at speed, it isn't going to be pretty. In my case, I drive the Accord almost the same way I drive my bike...like everybody is after me. I drive the Volvo differently, as I figure I have more margin there. Particularly pulling out across traffic I am hyper-vigilant...a mistake there is curtains. I really don't worry about an accident happening, but to the extent that I am more or less....concerned....it's about getting T-boned.

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Originally Posted by conozo

wow, thats pretty intense. What was the person driving that t-boned you at 50 mph?
If i decided to keep the car forever then i probably will install a roll cage or at least reinforce the sides. The sides are my biggest concern. I would install a roll cage thats hidden because i wouldn't drive a car that has bars all over the place.

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Best thing is to look for a suitable rollcage you can live with and 5 pt belts as well.

The only thing I don't like is the belts on our cars are on the door and long with the recall on the latches there not safe. I don't wear the belts.

With mine being a 2 door the doors are pretty heavy since the belts attached there too.

wp

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Originally Posted by w261w261

With our cars side impacts are the major problem. There's really not much, practically speaking, that you can do. Also, weighing 2700-odd pounds doesn't help if you're up against an Escalade, a big pickup, or a Mercedes for that matter.
So if you're hit at speed, it isn't going to be pretty. In my case, I drive the Accord almost the same way I drive my bike...like everybody is after me. I drive the Volvo differently, as I figure I have more margin there. Particularly pulling out across traffic I am hyper-vigilant...a mistake there is curtains. I really don't worry about an accident happening, but to the extent that I am more or less....concerned....it's about getting T-boned.

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I do the same thing also because of the money i have invested in it. If you are really concerned about safety take a performance driving course,at one of the places like Bondourant they will teach you a lot of stuff you will never learn in drivers ed. like how to control the car in an emergency situation. I posted about this before. it's hard to explain stuff like this on the internet. you just always figure the person around you is going to do something stupid and plan for it. I always pause a couple of seconds at red lights for example when they turn green,always figure the idiot in the mercedes is going to want to save a couple of seconds by running the light while talking on his phone. always figure someone is going to run the stop sign etc. you can avoid most idiot drivers by being vigilant for them. the rest you can take evasive action. I see in videos of crashes for example,someone will have someone coming at them and they just sit there while the oncoming traffic lanes are empty. people are terrified of the yellow line,if no one is coming it's just more space in an emergency. do you want a ticket or a coffin? you can always explain to the judge that the other lanes were empty and you were avoiding a wreck. a lot of people were taught to drive with tunnel vision when you should be watching everything around you and be constantly planing for a way out. I avoided a wreck here not to long ago by putting the car into a slide. some idiot turned left 50 feet in front of me ,I couldn't have stopped in a straight line,but by putting the car into a sideways slide and sacrificing some of the tire tread I was able to stop. and yes he was on a cell phone

if it bothers you so much, go buy a new car. problem solved.

these cars weren't economy cars. they were more expensive than its direct competitors, which were mid-sized family sedans. the civic is the econo-box.

NO car does all that great in a side collision. i don't care what you're driving, you're pretty screwed. side-curtain airbags help a lot, but they can't protect you from the semi truck that just hit you at 50MPH.

safety isn't measured by the damage a car sustains, but by the amount of protection it affords the occupants. the j30 crumpled to protect you, MKC. you didn't seem to mention any injuries sustained in that crash, so i would assume it protected you just fine, even without the airbags firing.

like i said, if you want a safe car, you go buy a NEW car with all the safety features you can buy. you don't add a cage to your street car. you'll never get your DX as safe as a modern car with air bags, crumple zones, and more door rigidity.

and don't say a new car is expensive. you can go to your local scion dealer and get a new xA with all the safety features you'd ever want for less than $20,000. a used one can probably be found for around $14,000.

2 more things: airbags do still work after 8-10 years. i see early-mid 90's cars freshly placed in the junkyard with deployed airbags. i'd like to see your info on this.

the other thing is that we DO have seatbelts that break. just ask your honda dealer about the recall on the seatbelts in our cars.

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Originally Posted by Vanilla Sky

if it bothers you so much, go buy a new car. problem solved.
these cars weren't economy cars. they were more expensive than its direct competitors, which were mid-sized family sedans. the civic is the econo-box.
NO car does all that great in a side collision. i don't care what you're driving, you're pretty screwed. side-curtain airbags help a lot, but they can't protect you from the semi truck that just hit you at 50MPH.
safety isn't measured by the damage a car sustains, but by the amount of protection it affords the occupants. the j30 crumpled to protect you, MKC. you didn't seem to mention any injuries sustained in that crash, so i would assume it protected you just fine, even without the airbags firing.
like i said, if you want a safe car, you go buy a NEW car with all the safety features you can buy. you don't add a cage to your street car. you'll never get your DX as safe as a modern car with air bags, crumple zones, and more door rigidity.
and don't say a new car is expensive. you can go to your local scion dealer and get a new xA with all the safety features you'd ever want for less than $20,000. a used one can probably be found for around $14,000.
2 more things: airbags do still work after 8-10 years. i see early-mid 90's cars freshly placed in the junkyard with deployed airbags. i'd like to see your info on this.
the other thing is that we DO have seatbelts that break. just ask your honda dealer about the recall on the seatbelts in our cars.

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the seatbelts have a lifetime warranty,the DEALER has to repair them no matter what kind of bull they give you. the problem with the seatbelts wasn't just limited to honda,this same company made belts for Nissan and some other manufacturers too. they stopped usig that company after the recall,and the belts that have been repaired under recall are safe. there were some stories about breaking belts themselves, but they were linked to people trying to dye the belts or trying to bleach stains out of them. This was a recall done by the NTSB it has no experation date. if the dealer tries to say it does contact the nearest NTSB investigation office and report them. I did that here and they did investigate and made them repair the belts. the dealer was more concerned about profits them my safety.

I have a tube bender (not sure for how long) but I will look into the cost of making a cage.

The thing is, a cage may more or less save the car, but it isn't necessarily safer for you, since, if you hit the cage with your head w/o wearing a helmet, you'll be fubar'ed. Plus, cars are designed to crumple, and a fully caged car will not. What happens then is the car stops (with you belted in) but your brain doesn't necessarily, and then you have concussion problems....

I don't think I'd roll a cage on a daily driven car...

Alex

tim, what i was saying is that we do have problems with our safety equipment. the thread author said that our safety equipment doesn't wear out. that was simply my point that it does wear out and have the potential to break.

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Originally Posted by Vanilla Sky

tim, what i was saying is that we do have problems with our safety equipment. the thread author said that our safety equipment doesn't wear out. that was simply my point that it does wear out and have the potential to break.

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they are supposed to be covered for wear also,they have a lifetime warranty that has nothing to do with the recall. if your belts are starting to wear the dealer is supposed to fix it. thats for the life of the car. thats for all hondas