james_nicoll ([info]james_nicoll) wrote,
@ 2008-10-25 23:35:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend  Next Entry
Not the result I would have predicted
The bus I was on had to detour at Frederick and River because of a collision between an SUV and something that might have been a Saturn (I'm not that great with car models). It looked like the SUV t-boned the Saturn, spinning it around 180 degrees. Nobody seemed to be hurt (but we got there right after the accident, before the ambulance even).

The Saturn had moderate side panel damage. The front of the SUV was completely crushed in. I could see the Saturn getting back on the road after repairs but I fear it's the spare parts pile for the SUV. I am a bit surprised that that was how it played out but crumpled metal doesn't liek

When I was a little kid living on UW campus, the first serious accident I ever saw (and possibly the first dead body) involved some Detroit behemoth and a VW Bug. That was not a David and Goliath story: the Bug looked like a crushed beer can and the guy in it was pretty much crushed meat.

(12 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]montoya
2008-10-26 03:42 am UTC (link)
Modern cars are designed to crumple outside the passenger areas, to dissipate excess energy as much as possible.

(Reply to this)


[info]realinterrobang
2008-10-26 03:44 am UTC (link)
I wouldn't have thought that my parents' Tahoe (Chevy SUV) would still be on the road after a drunk driver hit my sister, pretty much head on. The Tahoe's engine block was sitting on my sister's feet. But they were able to have it fixed and it's still on the road.

(Reply to this)


[info]heron61
2008-10-26 04:07 am UTC (link)
Modern safety standards in cars are vastly better than those of 30 or 40 years ago. Not perfect, or many SUVs would not be allowed on the road, but far better. In the US at least (and I'd guess also in Canada), people on average drive considerably more than they did 40 years ago, and yet the per capita accident fatality rate is slightly down and the accident rate per 100,000,000 vehicle miles is only 40% what it was. Some of this is drunk driving enforcement, but much of the reason is cars that are far safer. Near the bottom of the page there is a useful graph of US auto fatalities over time.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]hattifattener
2008-10-26 06:35 am UTC (link)
Those are some interesting graphs. I note that the fatalities vs. mileage graph hits zero fatalities before it reaches zero mileage. (But then, I'd expect that graph to be quadratic, not linear.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Atypical crash results
[info]lostwanderfound
2008-10-26 05:32 am UTC (link)
Two stories from the aus.motorcycles newsgroup, possibly apocryphal:

1) Car t-bones twin-cylinder BMW. Bike knocked over, but otherwise okay; just a bit scratched and bruised. Car, OTOH, just got a BMW cylinder head driven through its radiator, and is no longer mobile.

2) Car pulls out in front of motorcycle. Motorcycle goes straight into the side of the car whilst hard on the brakes; rider flies over the top and goes headfirst through the driver's side window. End result: bruised and stunned motorcyclist has some difficulty extracting himself from the car, but is otherwise okay. Car driver, OTOH, is now rather seriously unconscious thanks to meeting the top of a motorcycle helmet face-first at high speed...

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Atypical crash results
[info]ffutures
2008-10-26 09:58 am UTC (link)
I can believe the first one, just about, especially if the bike had roll bars fitted. Depending on the model those cylinder heads can be up to a foot long and sometimes eight or ten inches wide, fairly solid alloy. I've dropped one three or four times (never at high speed though) and never had any reason to believe that the cylinder was damaged or out of alignment.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Atypical crash results
[info]lostwanderfound
2008-10-26 10:29 am UTC (link)
Thanks to my fondness for taking heavily-loaded touring bikes down ridiculously dodgy bush tracks, I've also had to pick up a dropped BMW quite a few times (1985 R65LS, in my case).

The paint isn't as pretty as it used to be and the pannier racks are now held together with fencing wire, but the cylinder heads (and crash bars) appear to be entirely untroubled by dumpings on bitumen, sand, gravel, mud...

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]gjules
2008-10-26 12:38 pm UTC (link)
Probably an artifact of where the vehicles were hit. The front of most vehicles is designed to crumple, while the sides really can't be. (This is why I was so obsessive about moving up to a car with side-impact airbags. In a small car, they're a major factor in survivability in a side-impact crash, especially if it's with a larger vehicle.)

The weird thing is, the SUV's passenger was probably better off than the Saturn's -- lots more space and crumple-zone between the passenger and the impact.

There's a great story in Keith Bradsher's High and Mighty about a collision between a Mercedes (BMW?) sedan and a Hummer, a car which is designed to Withstand At All Costs. The Hummer owner told the author about it and bragged about how his Hummer was great, barely a scratch, while the sedan was crushed like a tin can. He thought this was awesome. And then the author asked about injuries -- well, yeah, the sedan driver walked away without a scratch, and he's had persistent issues with a neck injury ever since....

Didn't sound like he made the connection between increased crumple and lower injuries.

(Reply to this)


[info]slrose
2008-10-26 02:17 pm UTC (link)
Saturn is good about safety features; it's good for the insurance. Including side-impact air bags for recent models.

I believe the side panels of the Saturn are fiberglass, not metal.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]le_trombone
2008-10-26 04:33 pm UTC (link)
I believe the side panels of the Saturn are fiberglass, not metal.

Yes, at least in the model that I own, a 1997 SL1.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]mathbabe
2008-10-27 09:51 pm UTC (link)
I occasionally think about stories like this as I buzz up and down 400-series highways in my 38-year-old VW Bug. Defensive driving took on a whole new meaning when I started driving a car whose safety features pretty much start and end with the horn.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]lostwanderfound
2008-10-28 02:19 am UTC (link)
Hey, at least you've got a horn; on my first motorbike (bought for Aus$800...), the horn almost never worked, so I gave up on using it. Fortunately, however, the ~13 year old Cheng Shin tyre on the back was nicely screechy in a skid and had so little grip that it would lock the instant you touched the brake.

So, I just substituted the sound of (deliberately) squealing rubber for the horn; worked much better, too. People pay attention when they think you're about to plow into them...

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(12 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…