personally i wouldnt want my children in a mini when they are little. unless i strengthened the car to survive an impact.
I can't see why a mini is unsafe for babies!
In terms of the "is it safe to put babies/small children in a classic mini?" question. I really don't think that there is a straight forward answer to that question, because it really is almost impossible to define any car as "safe".
The classic mini certainly doesn't have the same air bag, crumple zone or side impact protection that modern cars do. To be fair, apart from the improvements made to the late MPi models, the classic mini design virtually pre-dates the incorporation of crash safety in automotive design completely. To my knowledge it has never been NCAP crash tested/rated either, so it's really very difficult to definitively say just how safe, or unsafe it actually is by comparison to other cars. That said in all the pre NCAP crash tests that were performed on the classic mini, it did actually seem to stand up surprisingly well, particularly for such a small car with so little in the way of designed in safety features.
So if you were looking to buy a car to specifically to transport your young family around in, with the highest level of safety available, then a classic mini certainly wouldn't be a particularly good choice. But then I really don't think that means that the classic mini should necessarily be a no child zone either. If you think that the classic mini is that unsafe, then to be fair you probably shouldn't be putting yourself at risk as an adult occupant in one either. You would probably be far better suited to a modern 5 star NCAP rated Toyota Corrolla Verso, or Renault Modus Expression instead.
As someone who sees death and serious injury on a regular basis due to my line of work, I'm probably a more safety paranoid parent than most. But even I would still deem my classic mini as a "safe enough" form of transport to move my two small children around in. Also strengthening a car really only makes the car survive the impact, not necessarily the occupants. In the vast majority of road collisions, people tend to die and receive the most serious injuries from the effects of rapid deceleration, not from the physical damage caused to the car itself.
i believe myself to be a good driver. but that didnt stop the jerk crashing into me did it?
Puggered also raises a good point, in that good standards of driving probably play an as important, if not more important part in road safety, than vehicle design does. I'm an advanced driver and my additional skills in observation, anticipation and planning mean that not only am I less likely to cause an accident, I'm also far more likely to be able to avoid people crashing into me than the average drivers is. It also means that I'm more likely to take action to minimise the severity of those accidents that I am involved in, but are unable to avoid completely.
Edited by AVV IT, 25 March 2012 - 09:10 PM.
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