I drove a Ford Mustang and survived

COMMENT
Newsflash: we're all going to die. Unless some miraculous medical breakthrough occurs in our lifetimes, death is as inevitable as tides, taxes or Donald Trump's fury over 'fake' news.

Based on the excessive amount of feedback we had across social media and on the website in recent weeks, driving the Ford Mustang is akin to signing your own death warrant.

One bloke on Twitter quipped "It's a coffin on wheels".

The reason for this public outcry against the Mustang is because the latest ANCAP crash test results gave it two stars out of a possible five.

That's a poor score — one of the worst in years — and it highlights serious safety shortcomings in the Mustang.

Don't get me wrong, most reactions to the Mustang's poor crash safety rating are warranted. I have no argument with the criticism. In fact I agree with most of it.

The airbags didn't inflate properly, the A-pillar deformed and crash test dummy heads hit the dashboard. And I'd be loathe to put my child in the back seat.

But if you believe half the social media keyboard warriors, I'm the ghost who walks.

I drove not one but two Mustangs recently, well aware of the low ANCAP safety rating. In fact the cars I drove were more powerful Tickford Mustangs, tuned versions of the pony car.

Did I feel unsafe at any time? No more so than when driving my 2002 VX Holden Berlina.

It reminds me of what one bloke, the head of the Pedestrian Council of Australia, Harold Scruby, said in 2013. The Northern Territory government would have "blood on its hands" if it removed speed limits on a stretch of the Stuart Highway.

The limits were removed. During the first year's trial there was not one road fatality.

I'm not saying the Mustang is a safe car and everyone should get one but claims of the car being a death-trap may be an overstatement.

I also regularly ride motorcycles knowing full well I'm 28 times more likely to die if involved in a serious accident than if I drive a car. I'm yet to see the same vitriol aimed at motorcycles.

With more than 6200 Mustangs sold in Australia in 2016, making it the nation's top-selling sports car by a country mile, should owners rush out and sell their vehicles? Or how about the almost 106,000 Americans that bought a new Mustang last year?

Better yet, will owners of vintage 1964 Mustangs (which would probably have a negative 10-star safety rating) have their cars crushed for the greater good?

ANCAP's tightening safety standards should be commended and are partly to thank for the high level of active and passive safety equipment standard in all current models.

But think about all the cars on the road that were built in 2005 or earlier which, if tested to the current ANCAP rules, wouldn't even rate a single star.

Mazda's new MX-5 RF was awarded a five-star ANCAP safety rating last month despite, and I quote ANCAP, "The driver's head contacted the A-pillar during the crash and then contacted the steering wheel through the airbag."

ANCAP didn't crash test the five-star safety-rated MX-5 RF, instead regurgitating a rating from September 2015 based on a different car, the MX-5 soft-top. It didn't test the car to the same stricter regulations it tested the Mustang against.

Crash-testing has shown the Mustang is below par and Ford needs to fix it, no question. I'm not defending the Mustang here. I'm just hoping for a little more perspective.