Yes, let's always assume everything European is better.
http://beta2.tbo.com/business/business/2008/aug/29/bz-us-puts-european-cars-to-the-test-ar-132989/
"But introducing the cars to the U.S. market isn't as simple as changing the speedometer from kilometers to miles. Ford has to reconcile American and European safety regulations - everything from the color of rear turn signals to the positioning of crash test dummies - that will keep the cars from hitting U.S. highways anytime soon."
"Ford recently studied 43 regulations in Europe and the United States and found that just 11 were equivalent, Vondale said. Fourteen had major differences that would require significant changes. Asian countries' regulations, which are closer to European requirements than their U.S. counterparts, add even more complexities."
"Tests may look similar at the outset but contain crucial differences. The European frontal crash test uses a deformable barrier - made to mimic another car - that slams into 40 percent of the front of the vehicle. That challenges engineers to spread the energy from the crash across the rest of the car. The fixed barrier in the U.S. test absorbs no energy, causing a severe crash that evaluates the vehicle's overall strength."
American or European safety regulations are no better or worse than the other, they're just different.
Edit: Comparing American and European litigiousness, I would assume American cars would have to be safer, just for liability concerns.
i totally disagree.
quote from the link you post:
"Some tests have different goals. Institute tests bumpers with 3 mph and 6 mph collisions to see how well the bumpers protect the vehicle in a crash. In Europe, tests replicate hitting pedestrians at 25 mph to see how much harm the bumper causes."
so you get results like:
yer that car just went through a house, killed its occupants and the people in the house, but the bumpers fine!
also who has a crash at 3 MPH? or even 6 MPH?
LMAO
*bullet time* ooooooooooooo nnoooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!! weeeeeeeeeeee'rrrreeeeeee gooooooooooiiiiinggggggggg toooo crrrraaaaaaaasssssssshhhhhhh!
so you reckon that U.S. standards are no worse than euro Ncap tests?
so you are saying that it doesnt matter if you kill people, as long as your bumper is unscathed?
seriously?
U.S. standards are more interested in keeping GM happy than they are keeping the general public happy.
indeed, to build and put into production a bumper designed to absorb the energy out of any impact is a tad more expensive than a bumper made out of steel designed to be hard as steel...
how much more expensive? million times more expensive? i bet even more than that.
ofc american politics dictates that US citizens have no say over big corp decision making.
or things like public safety issues would have been solved...
btw apparently the best driving road in USA is the
Blue ridge parkway:
469 miles (755 km) of beautiful mountain road.
max speed limit? 45 mph (70 km/h) LMAO
for sure im never ever driving down there, i bet even a granny in a golf caddy would get a speeding ticket.
im doing 90MPH down narrow country lanes in the uk, I mean 60MPH (speed limit).
If I were to ride on a beautiful wide road like that I wouldnt expect any speed limits at all.
so to ccl, all i can see is a bunch of nonesense rules in US of A and rules that make sense in Europe.
with regards to the automobile industry^
on all other fronts, european safety measures are plain ridiculous.