Its so true, however if you are on the recieving end a nice plastic cusion is a bonus. last month my sister was on a crosswalk in van, there was a crowd crossing and she was at the tail end. Some asian dude rips through the intersection, clips my sister and drives off. To make things worse no body came to my sisters aid while she got herself and her groceries to the curb. Luckily it wasn't an older car so the soft panels prevented any serious injury. However my sister suffers from a rare blood disease and has no spleen so if she gets injured she could easily bleed out either externally or internally. I thank the soft panels and lack of steel on the front end of the car for cusioning the blow. could have been so much worse.