My guess:

1) New cars are too cheap to make at scale.

2) Old cars are quite unsafe to drive, comparatively (airbags, backup cameras, lane departure alerts, blind angle alerts, etc)

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jimnotgym 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

2) cars have had airbags for a pretty long time. Backup cameras are a simple retrofit. Lane departure alerts are not universally loved, mine is turned off...

	▲	rockostrich 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		To be fair to the person you're responding to, airbag systems in modern vehicles are a lot safer than the single airbag per front passenger in older cars. The original airbag systems were just a single bag that deployed at a single rate based on an inertia sensor. Modern systems have several bags with multi-stage deployments that are inflated depending on seat belt and weight sensors. But yea, as for the rest of the "safety mechanisms" the only modern change that I can think of that's not easy to retrofit but is a huge safety boost is blind spot detection. As someone that drives older (and smaller) cars, being able to see the blind spot detection light on other cars' mirrors is always a bit of a relief that their car will notify them if they try to change lanes.

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noir_lord 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Aerodynamics as well, new cars and especially ev/hybrids are slippery compared to many/the average if we take old cars to mean 50’s through 70’s.

	▲	jimnotgym 16 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Does that matter much if you only drive around town at 30mph?
	▲	rob74 14 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		An older sedan-style car might still be more aerodynamic than a modern SUV, simply because the frontal surface area is smaller. The less air you have to push out of the way in the first place, the better.

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psd1 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Cameras are a mitigation for high waistlines, and only a partial one. Keep your cameras and alerts, and give me a car with better fields of vision.

I think there are important dimensions of safety that go unmeasured. You have much less road awareness in new cars.

Survivability is great and all, but not at the expense of children and pets becoming invisible.

All the focus on survivability provided another incentive for makers to put ever larger pieces of steel on the road. I disagree that new cars are safer.

I have experienced driver aids glitching, and i want none of it. Anything that can take control of the car needs to be bulletproof, and it isn't.

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cansofgrease 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The big one is probably cost and scaling.