Having been driving my smart for as long as I have, I can attest to the number of times my small size and manuverability has gotten me out of harm’s way. There’s more room in my lane for avoiding other drivers’ mistakes and I can drive on the highway shoulder if forced off the road by a careless driver. I’ve no doubt that a smart car would not be happy to meet a semi head on, but I don’t think an SUV would survive if they had to scoot out of the way of the same truck cutting them off in high-speed traffic.

When there’s enough data, I’d love to see a comparison between the type, severity and number of accidents in smarts versus larger cars. I think you will find that smarts get into few accidents because of their agility and advanced stabilizing features (more on that in my next post about driving on ice), but that when they do have accidents involving larger vehicles that the accidents will be more severe, like in that old statistics story. In World War I, there were many head injuries from shrapnel, so the army designed new protective helmets for the troops. Surprisingly, after implementation the percentage of fatalities from shrapnel injuries went up! Upon investigation, what had happened was that the helmet was protecting people from all but the most severe of shrapnel blasts, and that far fewer people were getting injured at all. Of those few who were injured, the damage was so severe, to the entire body and vital organs, that the helmet was no protection at all.