Buying a used XT5

I'm not disagreeing with the fact that vehicles produced by different manufacturers perform differently in crashes. However, except for bumpers (if i recall correctly), the potential for a vehicle to be repaired after a crash is not part of the structural design characteristics. Preventing structural intrusion into the occupant space is the goal. That end is achieved through different architectures. I also have 25 years in public service (law enforcement) and agree that some vehicles seem to perform better than others considering the potential to be repaired. Completely unscientific observation, but I cannot recall any performance differentiation among the brands (later years at least) regarding intrusion into the passenger compartment. I do recall a few crashes with Tesla and they seemed to be pretty remarkable. Not sure why.

Interesting data set. But number of vehicles (by make model) in service, driver behavior & experience, vehicle maintenance and condition, roads, weather, speed, etc., are also contributors.

CSIMME01 said:

I bet if you compare this to a list of the number of vehicles on the road by make and model they are a perfect match. Nothing to do with safety. If there are more of vehicle X on the road than any other then more people will die in vehicle X than any other. There is a name for this type of data manipulation but it escapes me at the moment. It is used quite often with great effect.

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Using that logic, we would see a 1 to 1 correlation and that's not the case. There were half a billion Silverados and 220,000 Tacomas sold last year. That would mean that we should expect to see about double the number of fatalities with Silverado but they are at multiple of ~4 compared to the Toyota. The Honda Accord did sell at about a 50% rate compared to the Silverado and fatalities are represented closer to the 1-1 ratio. Population density vs. vehicle ownership, average number of miles driven in each model represented in the data, age, education, road condition, average posted speed limits, driver behavior, weather patterns, law enforcement per capita, probably have more influence on the outcomes than number of each vehicle model sold and in service. The engineering designed to protect the occupants probably also has a significant influence.