Oh really, how in the whole wide world did VW get away with selling the old style beetle and bus for as long as they did???!!!
While GM certainly has its problems who has sold more sub standard cars in Latin America in terms of safety than VW???

 

If life with cars seems hazardous then try living without them. Would things be better with cars priced out of the range of most potential buyers?

 

Safety in "thrid world" countries would be vastly better enhanced in a bigger statistical way by improving road-design quality, policing, public transport priority/right-of-way etc than by forcing consumers to buy too-expensive because ostensibly "safe" cars.

NCAP was founded by a corrupt, sordid racketeer, and extortionist whose modus operandi has always been to create arbitrary "crash safety tests" through which to target auto firms, esp in safety-unaware markets, but over time enable these very firms/the industry as-a-whole to extort large amounts of extra money for purported safety benefits and features that fail to show up statistically (road safety stats, traffic deaths), since 90%+- deaths and injuries are of pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists NOT of car-occupants, no matter how safe or not their cars are or are said-to-be.

Unlike in the usa where there are detailed road-safety, police and esp insurance-related statistics and information, 'third-world' markets have little to no such data, making it all-too easy for a firm like NCAP to act like it has the patented-data-key to safety (Latin NCAP, Asean NCAP.) They are currently also trying to establish themselves as a gatekeeper on the 'which car and which brand is safe' in India through exactly such scare-mongering as in this report concerning a chinese made GM Sail in lat-am.

 

Lawyers keep us safe and make things expensive.

 

You got it half right.

 

Oh really, how in the whole wide world did VW get away with selling the old style beetle and bus for as long as they did???!!!
While GM certainly has its problems who has sold more sub standard cars in Latin America in terms of safety than VW???

I believe what it means is that even 3rd world countries now see the US as weak-kneed suckers and it's large corporations as targets. I.M.O.

 

Airbags: aside from a driver's side 'face bag'; I have my doubts about them as long as all seating positions are fitted with 3 point seatbelts and usage of said belts is enforced.

ESP: that's another feature that I don't trust since it's another computer controlled feature than can fail, just like ABS brakes.

 

Airbags: aside from a driver's side 'face bag'; I have my doubts about them as long as all seating positions are fitted with 3 point seatbelts and usage of said belts is enforced.

ESP: that's another feature that I don't trust since it's another computer controlled feature than can fail, just like ABS brakes.

We certainly don't need 10 air bags per car . You wonder why insurance is so much . We lived for decades without ABS or stupid TPMS .