THE GOODS : Damage Control

Greg Pierce remembers the day and the way General Motors’ engineers decided to measure how far they have come in keeping motorists alive.

First, they crashed a 1929 Chevrolet into a wall.

“It was unbelievable,” Pierce recalls. The gas tank burst. The steering column became a harpoon. Windows broke into daggers, doors sprung and Pierce saw an unbelted dummy tossed out to die.

“No seat belts. No give. That old Chevy was built so rigidly it literally exploded.”

Then testers rammed a 1990 Oldsmobile into the same wall.

“It did everything it was designed to do,” says Pierce, manager of GM safety issues in Detroit. Doors stayed shut. The gas tank didn’t even quiver. Seat belts held passengers safe and pffouff , the driver dummy went face forward into a marshmallow air bag.

“Crumple zones crumpled, the hood folded up and this car effectively managed all that crash energy.”

Statistically, there has been equally dramatic progress on the nation’s endless road to safer automobiles.

In 1969--when lap belts and a dished steering wheel were about the only safety equipment attached to 400-horsepower land yachts weighing two tons--56,000 Americans died in highway accidents.

Twenty-five years later--our recklessness better guarded by bags to protect faces, brakes to tame skidding, beams to soften the rudeness of being T-boned and zero tolerance plus maximum time for drunk driving--highway deaths are down to 42,000 per year even though the U.S. population has grown by 50 million.

In 1929--the same year that squished Chevy Cast Iron Wonder was on the road in pursuit of Ford’s Model A--more than 15 motorists died for every 100 million clanking miles traveled. The current rate is 1.8 fatalities per 100 million miles--and dropping.

And today’s cars, say industry analysts, auto engineers and researchers, are as safe as technology and dummies Larry and Vince can make them.

But experts cannot agree which cars are safest.

One agency says protection promised by the Hyundai Scoupe comes close to being two-door body armor. Nah, counters a rating book. Scoupe is eighth on its list. Another study ranks the poor Scoupe last among 27 coupes tested and attacks its injury and collision protection as “substantially worse than average.”

And those selections of the 10 Best Cars or Car of the Year? They are traditionally bent heavily toward speed and handling by enthusiast magazines aggressively pursuing enthusiasts who drive aggressively.

All of which led Motor Trend magazine to speak a solitary truth in its recent package on auto safety: The safest car on the road isn’t the one with the best impact protection, it’s the one that avoids a crash entirely.

So what’s a safety shopper to do?

* Car testers, manufacturers and consumer watchdogs suggest accepting generalities: That big heavy sedans such as Cadillacs and Lexus generally offer greater protection from reckless elements. That European cars such as Mercedes and Audi generally are sturdier. That short-wheelbased sport utility vehicles--even the haughty Range Rover and teak-tough Toyota 4-Runner-- generally will bite their abusers. And two-door cars generally soak up collisions better than four-door cars.

* Have greater faith in manufacturers, whose new products and equipment must meet (but often exceed) federal safety standards. They cover everything from rollover resistance of the roof to restraint systems preventing baby from becoming a missile.

* Then spend as much as the budget allows on dual air bags, anti-lock brakes, traction control, height-adjustable safety belts, knee bolsters, daytime running lights and other security stuff--all of which, estimate manufacturers, adds between $500 and $2,000 to the cost of your new car.

“You want a fairly large car with good acceleration and handling that will keep you out of trouble,” says Robert Knoll, director of auto testing for Consumers Union of Yonkers, N.Y. “You also want air bags and other equipment that will protect if you do get into trouble.”

*

Consumers Union does not issue an annual list of safe cars, Knoll notes, because too many testing variables are involved.

Still, it is possible to extract a consensus from industry surveys and government reports, while tracking consumer group guidelines and expert testimonials to a selection of vehicles considered safer than most.

Small: Most safety experts wish that light, undersized, barely equipped, sluggish, basically engineered subcompacts would go the way of the dodo.

“You can’t argue the laws of physics and considerations of size and mass that place occupants of smaller cars at a distinct disadvantage,” says Brian O’Neill, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Such as the kinetic disadvantage of a Lincoln Mark VIII smacking a Mazda Protege.

But Ford’s Escort scores well by many measurements.

It has dual air bags as standard equipment, with anti-lock brakes an option. It does well in federal crash tests. And Hyundai’s Scoupe and Honda’s Civic earn honorable mentions, while Motor Trend’s study likes the Toyota Tercel sedan.

Compact: The mind-set of domestic car manufacturers, industry watchers say, is to meet government safety standards. European makers prefer to examine real-world needs and build to higher requirements.

So the Saab 900 is highly recommended.

It comes with dual air bags, manual seat belts, anti-lock brakes and traction control as standard equipment. Also rear-seat headrests--with a three-point shoulder harness for a third rear passenger--and optional integrated child seats. It meets U.S. side-impact requirements that won’t go into effect until 1997, and features daytime running lights for maximum visibility.

Ford Probe, Honda Prelude and Mazda 626 also are worth considering.

Midsize: “In this category, safety is not something the consumer needs to be acutely aware of,” says Pat Miller, a 30-year veteran of safety research and now president of MGA Research Corp. of Akron, N.Y., “because most are safe.”

So the Chevrolet Camaro and the Volvo 850 tie for official approval, earning top scores in collision tests with high levels of protection for driver and rear seat riders.

Volvo comes with all the safety gear, meets 1997 side-impact standards, and is the only car in America to be sold with side - impact air bags that, in a collision from left or right, pop out from the seats. Camaro comes up a little short by not meeting 1997 side-impact standards--but the two-door hatchback aced frontal crash tests.

Also look at Ford’s Thunderbird and Chrysler’s LH sedans--Chrysler Concorde, Dodge Intrepid and Eagle Vision.

Full Size: “With any large car, domestic or imported, you get a rigid safety cage, large crush zones--and the bigger the crumple zone, the safer you are,” O’Neill says. “In an accident, in a large car, you’re being de-accelerated more gently and impact forces are less.”

No wonder Chrysler’s New Yorker--longer than some sailboats at 17 feet, and almost twice the weight of a Geo Metro at 3,600 pounds--looms large among the big boys. It ranks high in the 1995 edition of “The Car Book,” a popular buyer’s guide by Jack Gillis, and shares top honors with the Infiniti J30 in federal crashworthiness tests.

Of course the sticker includes dual air bags, anti-lock brakes, a 1997 side-impact rating and traction control on LHS models. And the Cadillac DeVille and Seville are only a whisker behind in the safety standings.

Vans: Although popular, relatively inexpensive and certainly ubiquitous, minivans are not required to meet automobile safety standards--including air bags.

So experts downgrade vans, yet praise them for keeping families safe. That may have to do with high, wide builds that guarantee seeing and being seen.

Ford’s Windstar--with two air bags, anti-lock brakes, side-impact beams in the doors, knee bolsters and a childproof lock on the rear door as standard equipment--wins all polls by a landslide.

Sport Utilities: Ford Bronco, by an avalanche. Which says A.C. could have driven much faster and still kept O.J. safe.

Yet safe, safer and safest remain a matter of estimate, expert opinion and educated guesswork.

*

Knoll of Consumers Union believes the weakness in the rating system is best illustrated by data that both damns and praises the Chevrolet Corvette. Respected voices such as the Insurance Institute say more people die in wrecks of the super-fast, fiberglass, two-seat sports car than any other vehicle.

“Statistics also show that the Corvette has a low injury rate,” Knoll says. “Now, what does that tell you? Only that (car and driver) are going like hell when they crash.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration constantly rates strengths and frailties of vehicles by slinging everything from subcompacts to pickups into fixed barriers at 35 m.p.h. It’s a fairly precise simulation of a head-on collision with instrumented dummies reporting jolts and wrenches to skull, chest, neck, spine and knee.

But the NHTSA crashes only 30 vehicles every 12 months, far fewer than half the new cars and trucks introduced each model year. And although 50% of real-world accidents are indeed frontal collisions, few are squarely head-on.

And Larry and Vince--with their steel ribs, aluminum collar bones and metal chest plates measuring breastbone collapse--are wearing seat belts in cars equipped with air bags. Which is far from daily truths of the Hollywood Freeway.

The industry-sponsored Insurance Institute issues vehicle rankings based on injury and damage claims. But this was the group that trashed the Corvette, while implying that the 1992 Volvo 240 was safer than a slow elevator in a two-story office building.

After studying driver deaths involving 168 vehicles over a five-year period, the institute reported that 27 people died in Corvette accidents. During the same period, no Volvo 240 owner became a sad memory beneath a marble marker.

Even institute spokesmen admitted the conclusion was a little wobbly. For Volvos are typically driven by older, sober, long-married owners of comprehensive stamp collections. Corvette drivers are usually more interested in competitive living, the opposite sex and smoked salmon quesadillas.

“A Corvette invites you to drive it fast,” the institute’s O’Neill says. “Why else have one?”

Incidentally, Volvo no longer makes the 240.

Then there is the American Automobile Assn.’s AutoTest annual. It certainly rates safe cars--but only by reprinting results of NHTSA crash tests and the federal rankings ranging from one to five stars.

This is a dangerous system, says consumer author Gillis. For in any buyer’s mind, one star means a passable hotel, a wholesome meal or a watchable movie. But a car given a one-star rating by NHTSA, he says, is “a terrible performer . . . even deadly.”

Admits a NHTSA spokesman: “One star is basically what you get if you just build a car.”

*

If there is one car guru, it is Gillis. If there be a gospel, it is his “Car Book.” Now in their 15th year together, book and author are available whenever Oprah or Bryant call for a quick, intelligent, personable opinion.

But critics claim that even Gillis only extrapolates data gathered by others, and information known to be flawed. They add that these holey findings, particularly from government agencies, create the book’s apparent bias for domestic cars.

It is a fact that of 20 vehicles listed as “the best crash test performers” in the current edition, only two are pure imports. In contrast, a recent “Design News” poll among engineers revealed they believe--and by a whopping margin--that Volvo and Mercedes build the safest cars.

Kathleen Hutt, of the Washington-based Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, says a consumer’s first resort is to pore through all sources, all reports, all magazines. Even the enthusiast magazines.

Learn the disadvantages of mechanical seat belts versus manual restraints, she suggests. Understand the advantages of anti-lock brakes. If interested in a sport utility, does it come with a roll bar?

“Don’t even consider a car that doesn’t have dual air bags,” she warns. “Then be prepared to go into a showroom with a lot of tough questions. Don’t take anything for granted. Don’t be baffled by technology.”

And don’t believe that safety ends with air bags, seat belts and government standards.

John Davis, host of television’s “Motor Week,” knows many manufacturers offer safety equipment beyond the obvious and mandated.

BMW has a traction control system that measures lateral forces in addition to wheel spin. It will automatically apply or disengage brakes to balance the car. Jaguar and Ford have seats with uphill rails and raised thigh bolsters, so that in the event of a crash, occupants will not slide and submarine beneath their seat belts.

“But even if you can only afford a (Ford) Contour or (Chrysler) Cirrus, you don’t have to spend a helluva lot of money to buy a safe car nowadays,” Davis adds.

*

All this equipment, however, is dedicated to surviving accidents. Little is being done, experts believe, to educating drivers about avoiding accidents.

Alcohol is still involved in 43% of traffic deaths. That’s 17,700 dead Americans.

Only 64% of drivers and passengers always buckle up. And of 9,000 persons killed in rollovers, most were thrown from the vehicle because they weren’t wearing seat belts.

Comforts of modern motoring--the soft sounds of a good stereo, the smoothness of automatic transmission, the softness of butt-friendly seats--may even be factors in inattention that kills.

“Put a person in a bone-shaker and they probably pay more attention to what’s going on than we do in a modern car where it is easy to relax,” O’Neill, of the Insurance Institute, says.

He remembers his own inattention on the beltway.

Twice he has arrived at his office with the son he had forgotten to drop off at preschool.

Or you can shop for the safety of a 1952 Buick.

Knoll of Consumers Union owns one.

“It doesn’t steer, it doesn’t brake,” he says. “But I can go through a brick wall in it and not get scratched.”