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VOLVO

2020 vision: The injury-proof car

SARAH EDMONDS

REUTERS

Latest comment posted at 9:30 PM EDT 05/05/08

Volvo is using its test track, one of the most advanced in the world, to test prototypes of a vehicle designed to keep its occupants safe in even the most serious crashes. ...Read the full article

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  1. A A from Canada writes: If Ford still owns Volvo by 2020 you know damn well this will NOT be a reailty.

    US car manufacturers take cost out of their cars and that will trickle to the Swedes unfortunately (even though it's a Volvo)
  2. M Samra from Canada writes: How about a car that doesn't need gasoline.
  3. Paul Bunyan from Northern forest, Canada writes: North American car manufactures still think that price dominates quality and safety. They continue their march toward extinction..... It's unfortunate Ford controls a brand like Volvo, which is trying to do something different.

    As someone who has lost an immediate family member to a car accident, I applaud the focus on safety. Certainly we can do more for car safety. Drivers in crashes during high speed car racing (F1 etc.) seem to fare better.
  4. Walker fromtheevilempireofAB from Calgary, Canada writes: What was the name of that ship that couldn't sink? Titanic? oh yea.....pipe dream...

    How much is a car going to cost that can withstand getting smoked by a loaded semi at 75mph or a train at 55mph? Or going off a cliff, or rolling into a lake? James Bond eat your heart out my Volvo is a tank!

    Next option, tiny laser's that vaporize bugs and rocks before they hit your car!!
  5. harry carnie from Northern,B.C, Canada writes: Interesting fact ; Ford stressed "safety" during the mid 50s. Padded dash board ,seat belts, safer steering wheel, and extra strong laminated "push out" windshields.

    Customers avoided their vehicles like the plague...no one WANTED to think of safety in those days.
    Customers were into "hard topped" designs as well . Cars that had all the protection of a starched bed sheet in a roll over.So safety was not pursued farther.

    Do NOT blame the North American auto makers...They only provided us with the crap ..WE WANTED TO BUY.
    Volvo has ALWAYS stressed safety ...but the customers have preferred muscle and glitz .
  6. Hugh Draper from Vancouver, Canada writes: Don't people just drive more dangerously the safer a car?
  7. michael moore from toronto, Canada writes: In the end, you can build all the safety you want into a car -- and I've been a Volvo driver for three decades -- but the biggest cause of road accidents is still stupidity.
  8. Sissy Schuss from Canada writes: I guess with car makers under the gun to produce environmentally sound and extremely fuel efficent vehicles - or face extinction - they will find other ways to appeal to potential owners and maintain their high profit margins - safety being one of them

    I can envision all sorts of moral hazards with this approach though - kids on the edge and thrill seekers who deliberately crash into each other just to find out how safe these cars really are - a new breed of cars that claim perfection will only create owners those of us who will want to break those barriers
  9. John H from Barrie, Canada writes: We are assuming by this date the world will have magically come up with a new form of fuel as the Saudi lie is now getting exposed and most are realizing that biofuel cost more calories in that out.
    The horse and carriage system was a lot safer and seems to be the future...
  10. harry carnie from Northern,B.C, Canada writes: Micheal Moore ... You ARE correct!. Just a thought though........Who is the MOST STUPID ...the stupid drivers themselves....OR US FOR ALLOWING them on the road?
    Road rage, road racing, impaired ...or criminal negligence...we appear to accept it ALL...with very little IF ANY "justice" for the GUILTY.(and no sympathy for the victims)
  11. harry carnie from Northern,B.C, Canada writes: John H........you are obviously "a towny". Your "horse and carriage dream" would be somewhat compromised by the TONS of horse manure, in the streets

    This was already a problem when the traffic became motorized. Then the pollution went from the street, to the air.
    Good public transit and small runabouts will be the answer in the future. It will not be with the present SUVs anyway..except for the VERY rich.
  12. laura paul from Canada writes: Oh yea, volvo safety, so does that mean that Volvo is going to do something like make sure the rear seatbelts on our 2001 station wagon don't myseriously come unbolted while we buckle up our children, or that our mechanic doesn't need to call us to say a bolt that was supposed to be holding the front axle just fell out while he was working on the car, or that the fuel pump won't crap out at 30,000 k in the middle of the 401, or the rear bearing won't wear out under 60,000 k and won't sieze suddenly on the gardiner expressway for no apparent reason, sounding like a freight train's metal wheels sheering against the tracks during an emergency stop, or that their shop mechanics won't inproperly install the gas tank which they didn't need to remove in the first place so that gas isn't leaking out into the rear seats? (who puts access plugs for the gas tanks under the removeable passenger seats? Volvo does!) Or that their customer service at head office won't suck so badly you'd swear they were trying to tell you that you were an idiot for buying their faulty car? i can hardly wait.....
  13. Alchemical Methods from Ottawa, Canada writes: But will it be electric?
  14. Kim Philby from Canada writes: Until car manufacturers can figure out how to stop the brain and other internal organs from smashing into bone or tearing from their "moorings" when the human body suddenly decelerates, no car will completely protect you in a crash.
  15. Sissy Schuss from Canada writes: Kim Philby from Canada writes: Until car manufacturers can figure out how to stop the brain and other internal organs from smashing into bone or tearing from their "moorings" when the human body suddenly decelerates, no car will completely protect you in a crash

    I had in mind a very large version of my kid's hamster ball - I have seen this thing go down a flight of stairs with hamster unharmed

    whaddya think?
  16. D K from Canada writes: Will it be the car from Demolition Man?
  17. Don Quixote from The drying Banana Belt, Ont., Canada writes: This is all fine, the total protection for the driver/passengers in the car.
    It's almost trying to shift the driving responsibility from the driver to the vehicle........

    But what about getting rid of drivers which propel in real life into bridge post, spin out into telephone poles, crash into moving trucks, trains, get wedged under trailers.

    Who gives licenses to these people which are incapable to drive responsible at any speed.

    If we would weed those drivers out, there would be no need for 10 air bags, crumple zones, dangerous driving fines and more.

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