It would be interesting to see a video of two 1959 cars crashing compared to a video of two 2009 cars crashing. It's nice to have a tank, but if everyone has tanks, maybe I'm not better off.
I guess perhaps I'm mystified why they did the tests in the first place if they weren't going to do anything about them.
Maybe there was a general feeling of "if building it like a tank doesn't work, maybe cars just can't be made safe in the event of a crash?"
We are talking a car from 1959 in the original link - before computer modelling, before low tolerance robotic manufacturing and assembly, before fast response electronics for airbags and seatbelt pretensioners, before the data from crash tests could be collected in an automated fashion. We're talking before stereo sound here. The past is a foreign country, we can't judge it by our standards applied to hindsight.
(Apologies if 1959 is within your memory - for me it may as well be the dark ages ;)
Also, cars were meant to carry you from A to B. They shipped because they could do that and make a profit. Survival in the event of an accident is sort of a side benefit.
My only point was that you are much better off in a modern car striking a telephone pole than you would be in a 1959 car, even if it is true that you are somehow worse off when two modern cars strike each other (although I doubt that also). Nothing about literal tanks intended whatsoever.
Your comment seems to take the exact opposite meaning from what I intended to say, so I must have expressed myself poorly.