a brief thought on modern cars

With the whole Boeing 787 battery drama, some friends and I were discussing the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which investigates plane, train, and boat accidents in the United States, and often lends their considerable expertise abroad. I tend to view NTSB as one of the most effective and useful government agencies. They re-assemble crashed airplanes so we know what went wrong, providing a regulatory pressure on travel safety that a completely free market would lack.

At any rate, it brought to mind this video the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety made for their 50th anniversary. Even now, it's common to hear people talk about old cars as being sturdy, made of "real steel"--you know, manly, none of this Asian plastics-and-composites crap. American.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu crashing into a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air.



Well. Crashing through the Bel Air, maybe.
 
You can decide which one you'd rather drive.