IIHS ex president survives serious crash

BrianD3

He was involved in a wrong way highway crash where he was doing an indicated 60-65 mph and the other vehicle was doing around 50. Unclear if there was much or any braking before impact. He got away with minor injuries but sadly the other driver was unbelted, ejected from her car and died. Vehicles were a G30 5 series and a 2016 2 series.

If he had been in an E60 or older 5 series he would undoubtedly have been mangled or worse. He might have gotten out of an F10 5 series but then again that car showed significant weakness in IIHS small overlap testing, the G30 is much better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfeT0NJlIDE

https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/former-iihs-hldi-president-recounts-how-his-car-protected-him-in-high-speed-crash

I would like to see a repeat of the old Fifth Gear Volvo/BMW test but with new vehicles. I think that test would be more severe (120 mph closing speed and possibly a bigger overlap) than the one that Adrian Lund survived though, deceleration might be too much even if the passenger compartment were to remain fairly intact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SDzLVMuxZo

rapid deceleration turns internal organs to mush. The bodyshell can't work magic.

Not arguing with content of the Video.

BrianD3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118945957#Comment_118945957

We can see from F1 crashes what sort of g forces are potentially survivable for the organs, obviously there are lots of factors , racing drivers use harnesses and HANS devices and are in peak physical condition, also impacts are almost never head on. Robert Kubica experienced 75g in his one in Canada. Martin Donnelly had a terrible one in Jerez where his car disintegrated, if it had stayed more intact maybe he'd have had less extensive but more serious (dead) injuries.

The older video that I posted mentioned that cars might need to have "30 foot long bonnets" to make such impacts survivable, it was a flippant comment which probably wasn't meant to be taken seriously. We might not be far off making such crashes somewhat survivable especially with electric cars having a lot of crumple zone in front.

zg3409

Typically larger cars are safer, but the tendancy was for European cars to be small. In general EVs are safer as they have no big engine in the front. They also don't have petrol to ignite, batteries tend to smoulder and smoke but not burn. EVs can be heavier so more energy on the move.

Cars are designed to crumple at the front and rear and not crumple in the passenger compartment. It's good that cars are brittle at the front, if you are a pedestrian that is hit.