I have tried the search feature but only got an error for this, though it probably has been discussed before.

What are peoples opinion on the safety of motorway driving in micro cars as part of someone's work activity. I appreciate the environmental benefits of a micro car, but what do people think about safety. Say driving 120 to 140 miles round trip in a micra or Seat Mii type car. I was thinking about safety if involved in a collision and/ or possible comfort issues and or ability to accelerate away from a problem.

Has anyone seen any sort of guidance or is this just an unwarranted concern ?.

It is probably safer than being a pedestrian on a pavement alongside an urban road. Are you going to say no-one is allowed to walk anywhere? All journeys of any length only to be completed in a car weighing at least 1.5 tonnes with at least three air-bags, anti-lock brakes, and a minimum 0-60 time of ...?

Plus, 'accelerate away from a problem' practically never happens. It's a smoke-screen promulgated by people that want a faster car and are desperate for a justification. "I like to pretend I'm a racing driver when I exit roundabouts", while more truthful, apparently isn't sufficient.

I had a clutch "go" and had to nurse the car to the next service station travelling at around 30MPH

I've never been so scared in 40 years on the road

this was on the relatively quiet M69

I think my mate Chris is having a giigle over this one :-)

Chris is after a BMW, no doubt about it...
:-)

Well Zimmy yes and no. Ok I would not mind driving around in a nicer car ( there is always a nicer one). But I have driven both the above cars in the last few days, and I admit I didn't "feel" terribly safe and that was only 40 miles on the motorway. They did seem quite nippy around town environment, but felt they struggled a bit on motorways.

They both seemed to be adversely affected by cross wind and noticeably slowed down in head wind (more so than my Focus). Changing motorway lanes was more of a challenge, as at 60 mph to change lanes ( not to overtake, but to get off filter lane) from behind a truck, was hard to get to 70 to match the speed of the traffic I was trying to merge into. Probably just need a different driving technique ( certainly a lot more gear changing).

I'm would be happy with a small ish car Astra , ford Focus etc but felt that three trips of 140 miles each per week was not really what these cars were envisaged to do. As noted above more town cars.

I wondered if this feeling of unsafe was just irrational on my part or if others had come across issues. My first car was a mini which I loved (mainly for the freedom it gave), but it was also not so good on the motorway. It would do it, but you could tell it was not impressed.

I don't ride a motorbike anymore, similar feeling of unsafe (mainly due to the other lemmings on the road). I also don't use my HGV1 licence anymore ( in fact the last time was on my test over twenty years ago). So I have a fair bit of driving experience behind me, but feel a little weary of these micro cars.

And no Zimmy I don't want anything too fast, I would like to keep my licence and not be tempted.

Thanks for all the comments, sounds like it is just me then.

Chris

There is information from ROSPA that you may find useful:-

Choosing Safer Vehicles:-
http://www.rospa.com/roa.../info/safer_vehicles.pdf

Vehicle Safety Advice & Information:-
http://www.rospa.com/roa...formation/vehiclesafety/

I don't believe you, basically. If you are alongside a foreign truck that suddenly starts to move across into your lane, both of you at motorway speeds, no production car is going to accelerate sufficiently to get you ahead the length of the truck while remaining in your lane.

Your vehicle is (say) 1.9m wide central in a lane 3.6m wide. You start accelerating when the truck hits the white line. You need to advance (say) 15m relative to the truck (I'm assuming your nose is 10m behind its nose and your car is 5m long), in the time the truck moves sideways 0.85m. Let's say you have a generous half a second to do that. s = 0.5 a t^2. So that's an acceleration of 120 m/s^2, or twelve g - four times the peak acceleration of the space shuttle taking off, three times the drag racing quarter mile world record.

Suppose you use the full lane width, so you move sideways 0.85m at the same time, so you get twice as long to pull ahead - now you only need 30 m/s^2, about the same as the space shuttle, merely 11 times greater acceleration than the manufacturer thinks a a 4.4 litre V8 BMW M6 can achieve in 4th (50-75mph in 4.2 seconds).

'Accelerate out of danger' just doesn't happen, though lots of people like to pretend it does In my opinion.

Your calculations are wrong because you are incorrectly assuming pretty much everything you consider! The position of the car, the speed at which the HGV changes lane, when you would start accelerating, available sideways space.

In the example I gave "foreign HGV" my car was roughly level (just behind) the HGVs cab - therefore not a great distance to cover, but in your average car at 70mph the situation would have been ALOT closer / incident would have occurred than what acutally happened.

Having ridden motorcycles is side winds on the elevated section of the M4 near Port Talbot without incident for some 44 years on and off (and biker1 would know about this sort of fun), and taken the Royal Enfield to the Ace and back in November storms, the sort of side wind that would make travel in a small car 'unsafe' would have to some wind! You'd have more problems in a lorry.

Regarding acceleration, try a 'Blade or Busa or a 1400RR, now you're talking ;-)

Better still, drive safely x

Jay thanks for the links I will have a look at those out of curiosity.