the Nissan thing surprised me but the 350z might say more about the drivers of such a car than the car itself.
gammelvind,
May 15, 6:57am
That was my thought as well, dipsticks with a fast car and no skills. Conversely it could also show that that car is unforgiving at the ragged edge. The Nissan Utes did kind of stand out, since they are the ones half my workmates drive,
gunhand,
May 15, 7:04am
Well it has a french motor in it, course it's gunna kill people.
3tomany,
May 15, 7:05am
I wonder if the death rate is caused by the vehicle having an un forgiving chassis or poor crash worthiness I guess the answer is in google somewhere
tweake,
May 15, 7:42am
keep in mind they are v8 utes and 2wd. even the chevy ute is 2wd and mostly single car accidents. your workmate would be driving D40 navaras, titans are the bigger brother to the navara and are fairly rare here.
2wd utes are generally cheaper and they probably drive in some fairly poor weather. not a good combo.
fordcrzy,
May 15, 8:52am
buy a ford! Chevy should be put out of business for ever after the illegal and just downright immoral trading of the last ten years. the fact that they can now avoid being sued by the families of dead relatives due to CHevy's practices just galls me. in what world is it ok to build deadly cars and then sell them at a loss just to take market share from your opposition. then when you go bankrupt, get bailed out to start from fresh while ford has had to wear it all.
tgray,
May 15, 9:16am
I don't agree with one single word of your rant. Utter rubbish.
tamarillo,
May 15, 9:45am
Ha! You've been listening to Clarkson too much!
mojo49,
May 15, 10:12am
Next thing the Yanks will come up with a list of the 10 deadliest guns in the USA and blame the guns for the deaths. Dumb statistics derived by emus. Drivers kill, guns owners kill, not cars or guns.
franc123,
May 15, 10:28am
GM have certainly had some credibility issues to deal with over the last decade or so but its not stopping people from buying the product, they've just cracked 500 mill vehicles produced since its formation and are doing very nicely out of sales at present, its clear that the public are liking what they see and don't really care THAT much about recalls and how likely you are to crash something. Either that or they've decided that a USA without GM is worse than one with.
Most of the GM recalls are not because they built a deadly car, but are preventative recalls, which shows their commitment to safety. One two seater GM sports car was recently recalled because a 'side seat airbag might not deploy properly in a crash with a small unrestrained passenger that was not wearing a seatbelt'. Think about it for a minute - they are trying to protect people who may want to operate their vehicle in an unsafe and illegal manner. By wearing a seatbelt, the small child would be protected. With regards to the Camaro's that were recalled due to a long keyfob that might turn of the ignition by someone's knee - I have owned many of these cars, and you would literally have to have your knees wrapped around the steering wheel for this to happen. If you sell half a million of anything and it's something people use everyday, you are going to get people having unusual outcomes eventually. You can't always blame the manufacturer for everything.
dave653,
May 16, 9:08am
Again. the safest car in the world will still kill everyone driven by a moron!
aredwood,
May 16, 12:15pm
And in NZ Mitsubishi are still selling the L300 van. No airbags, no abs brakes. Almost no crumple zone. Virtually the same design as the version that was for sale in 1983. Lots are company owned. Meaning the worker ends up in a wheelchair for life. And the company gets a little extra profit.
coralsnake,
May 16, 12:46pm
Ahhhh my little Aveo is on the list! We went looking for a second hand car for running around in and finished up buying a new Aveo. I liked the Cobalt but they only had a 2dr on the lot. Loved using the Aveo and was sad to leave it behind.
For longer highway trips, we still used the Pontiac Bonneville! For pickups etc, the GMC truck.
Miss them all!
o0_hamburger_0o,
May 16, 2:09pm
does it also apply to the merc that killed lady dianna or just incompetant racing skills by the chaffeur?
gunhand,
May 16, 9:49pm
? I foolishly brought my wife a french car, thought we would try something different. Had a couple of redeeming features but on a few occasions it tried very hard to kill my wife. Total loss of many functions when the motor shut itself down for no good reason, well it may have had one in it's computer brain, like, kill someone. All I can say is thank Christ it happened at town speeds and less. Had this happened at 100kph I imagine mayhem would have happened. I won't own a french car again.
elect70,
May 17, 12:48am
surprised at that . After a fatal accident several years ago the coroner s inquest said those things should not even be allowed on the road . Bloody death traps
vtecintegra,
May 17, 12:52am
The VQ is a Nissan design that later got re-used in some Renault models - it isn't French at all
gunhand,
May 17, 12:52am
I think that would fit into the "failing to provide a safe (as possible) work place" wouldn't it? And buying a van on cost alone wouldn't look good when there were safer ones about. Be a good one to take on I reckon.
mimik3,
May 17, 1:46am
Like they way GM handled the faulty ignition switches. Where they suppressed the problem for 13 years while people kept getting killed.
Obviously one life lost is too much, but putting things in perspective, 13 deaths were 'linked' to this issue, and 2,600,000 cars ended up being recalled over it. It was not established that the key fob was definitely at fault, as it is impossible to tell if they crashed and THEN their knee went forward and knocked the key fob into the off position, or it happened before hand, thereby causing the crash. You have to remember, over 30,000 people die in the USA every year in traffic accidents (and many hundreds of thousands injured), so recalling 2.6 million cars over 13 deaths that have only just been 'linked' to the fault was a big decision. GM ended up doing the right thing and should be applauded for it. It's easy to see a sensational news headline and jump to conclusions, but one must look a little deeper at the facts, before judging them.
mimik3,
May 17, 7:30am
I think it was the way that GM handled the issue. It should never have taken 13 years. But yes they have done the right thing and apologised and employed a claims lawyer to pay the victims and finally fixed the problem. Still could be worse, could be VW where they just deny everything. and I see that there sales figures here in Australia have plummeted after they have been found to be negligent.
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