Comments on: Small Convertibles: Don’t Forget to Duck!

By: DRIVE AWAY | Orange Life Magazine

DRIVE AWAY | Orange Life Magazine — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:23:55 +0000

[...] thing is relatively new to me. It’s a badge of honour in the car enthusiast world to look down on soft-tops. After all, with convertibles structural rigidity, light weight and handling finesse are sacrificed [...]

By: cretinx

cretinx — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:21:21 +0000

5′6″ – check
young and beautiful – check
Z4 roadster – check

I’m in the clear.

By: driving course

driving course — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:57:39 +0000

I read this post with a tinge of sadness – my wife’s MX5 (Miata) is sold and will be collected in a few days and I guess this is the last time we’ll have a convertible.
Having said that we’re selling it because there are too many fools in vans and suvs who conspire to make driving more worry and less joy, so the sadness is tinged with relief…
Before I get slammed by suv drivers – I realise that not all suv drivers are bad drivers but I hope they’ll agree that the mass uptake of suvs has done nothing to improve driving standards.

By: Martin Schwoerer

Martin Schwoerer — Tue, 20 May 2008 06:14:26 +0000

ADAC did the same test in 2003 with different cars: Miata (first-generation), Beetle, Opel Astra. The Miata fared miserably. The Beetle had pop-up roll-over bars and thus tested somewhat better. The Astra was safest because it had a large, hard roll-over bar similar to that of the Golf.

Don’t get me wrong, guys; I don’t believe that safety is the most important thing in life (I drive a Vespa on a daily basis, btw.) People should, however, know how dangerous their toys are and drive accordingly.

By: Landcrusher

Landcrusher — Tue, 20 May 2008 04:05:38 +0000

The miata top can actually support the weight of the vehicle (but I don’t know how much more it can take due to speed of impact). Also, it is possible to roll the car without hitting the top.

By: johnny ro

johnny ro — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:36:13 +0000

25 years ago, my sister rolled her MG Midget, the windshield frame was smashed flush with hood, she was unscathed.

Her secret? I am pretty sure she was drunk, made her all limber, and flopped sideways at the right time.

It seems that driving drunk did not used to be such a big deal as it is today.

By: red60r

red60r — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:23:07 +0000

An old friend once flipped a TR3 on a tight track really meant for gokarts. It did a complete barrel roll and landed on its wheels without touching in between! Ever since that time, his racing helmet sported a furniture caster on the top.

By: David Holzman

David Holzman — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:00:18 +0000

I have an exuberant friend who in her youth rolled VW Real Beetles on several occasions. She had no lasting injuries. Also knew someone who rolled a Deux Chevaux around the Arch de Triomphe without signficant injury.

These examples seem remarkable to me because neither vehicle was made to safety standards and neither impresses as particularly strongly made. On the other hand, the overall shape was designed to be sturdy relative to weight, esp. the VW, I think. Whereas these late model cars with the strongly raked windshields are just asking for it.

By: geggamoya

geggamoya — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:38:32 +0000

Im not really worried about roll-overs, but i am worried about animals. Hitting a moose with one of these would not be very nice. The nose of the car basically hits the legs and then you have up to 800kg of meat flying thru the windshield at high speed. And possibly continuing out the back.. Moose and other big animals might not be a huge problem in many parts of the world, but here in Finland they are.

Im not surprised by the results though.

By: turbosaab

turbosaab — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:31:08 +0000

Ash78, I’ve been in a rollover where exactly that happened… older Saab 9000 turbo, relatively low speed (40mph), very sharp corner, inexperienced driver did as you describe and we rolled 1.5 times. Fortunately neither of us were hurt.

By: carguy

carguy — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:11:44 +0000

No worse than many late model SUVs.

By: shiney

shiney — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:55:17 +0000

More than rolling over, I fear SUVs or trucks running over my spider from behind in stop/go freeway traffic. More than once I have veered to the shoulder when I realized a vehicle behind me was not going to stop in time. That’s when I think about adding a four point bar – so if they pop up on my trunk, there is something to help keep their vehicle from mashing my passenger compartment.

By: ash78

ash78 — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:36:45 +0000

Another thing worth noting is that most deaths “due to rollover” aren’t people being squashed due to lack of rollbar…they’re people being ejected centrifugally as the car spins violently. That speaks more to SUVs and trucks, but felt it was worth mentioning.

By: bunkie

bunkie — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:34:48 +0000

It must be pointed out that a lot of rollovers occur when a car leaves the road onto a sloped median and the driver immediately tries to drive back on the road when the right thing to do is point the car downhill and gently lose as much speed as possible before trying to drive back onto the road.

By: joeaverage

joeaverage — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:34:25 +0000

VW Cabrio – rollbar looks goofy but I’ll accept it keeping my head from getting cracked.

By: carlisimo

carlisimo — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:29:28 +0000

Good point, it’s easy to notice how unsafe it is to roll over in a convertible, but that doesn’t mean it’s much safer in a coupe, sedan, pickup, CUV, or SUV, unless it’s a Volvo.

I have a Miata – not a new one (which has nominal rollover protection), but a used one that we young, financially unestablished, and pretty people (maybe before my 5 o’clock shadow sets in) can afford. Every once in a while I read about a Miata rolling over down a ravine, but those rolls are so random. You have pretty good odds of not landing flat on your head, and surviving.

An aftermarket roll bar might cost a grand (a lot, to us) to purchase and install, but there’s a lot of concern that they might be unsafe in rear-enders, which are a lot more common. You could theoretically slide up your seat and hit the bar with the back of your head, so even with padding it might be safer to not have one at all. In any case, the only type of crash pre’-06 Miata owners really fear are side impacts. The car has a good record of either coping with or avoiding the other kinds.

By: shiney

shiney — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:25:01 +0000

Screw what other people think. I’m not so young anymore (and I’ve never been pretty), but I like convertibles and drive them because there is no substitute for the wind in your hair, the noise and feedback they give, and the feeling they create of real interaction with the world outside of your car. As for rollover safety, I’ll put on my seatbelt and take my chances. A new Miata is probably safer in all conditions than most cars from as recently as the mid-1980s, yet the corpses of people who own cars that old are not stacked like cordwood along every major highway. While safety is good, the current obsession with eliminating any possible danger in any activity is becoming truly ridiculous.

By: aggrazel

aggrazel — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:56:12 +0000

#1: That video is awesome, I want the job to launch those cars into that spinning ball of doom.

#2: I don’t think most low end coupes (these are low -end convertibles in the video) would survive that test either, roof or no. At least the cabriolets have reinforcements and whatnot, your standard run of the mill Hyundai does not.

I could be talking out of my ass there, but one of the first things I thought of sitting in a friend’s Accent was how pathetic those pillars looked.

By: jaje

jaje — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:22:01 +0000

pretty easy to roll any car – hit a curb going sideways at speed, sliding into a ditch, etc. On an uninterupted flat surface a car will likely not roll though.

By: lth

lth — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:00:26 +0000

The skill (or lack thereof) to roll a Miata has to be pretty high. I don’t think I’d want to know what it took to make it roll.

By: AJ

AJ — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:07:46 +0000

I know a guy that his wife rolled their Miata and walked away from it. I wanted to know not only how did she roll it, but how did she walk away from it? He told me that he didn’t know.