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Draco
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 well for the first time in my life i was in a car accident. luckily no one was hurt but my car was the ONLY one with damage T_T mainly to the back. a tiny bit in the front with a fender bender and a broken headlight. however my trunk was smashed in 1/3 of the way, without touching the tires and hopefully without hurting the car's frame. basically what happened was the car in front of me stopped suddenly to avoid hitting a kid that decided to run infront of her car. which lead me to barely tapping her car,funniest thing was, i saw her breaking and i was already breaking...but tapped her car anyway, but the guy behind me either was going too fast or wasn't expecting me to stop and RAMMED into the back of my car...almost totalling it. yeah it sucks to be my car ;_; man my car......*cries* >_< there goes my perfect driving record >_> my point....the guy behind me was in a large white truck and NO DAMAGE TO HIS CAR! seriously, they may be good for transporting stuff, but the hummers are no different. they cause SO much damage with very little speed. its a wonder my car can even get fixed BACK to the way it was. i HATE TRUCKS! |
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« Last Edit: 2007-07-17, 16:14 by Tabun »
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Rev 9:6 "And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them."
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Phoenix
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I'm glad nobody was hurt! The idiot behind you was either following too closely, not paying attention, or both. Either way, he should be held accountable for the damage to your vehicle. You might have legal recourse on that, so be sure to check with your insurance company. At least it was a front-back collision and not a hit to the side!
The disparity in damage is also why I warn people away from buying small cars if they can help it. The truth is, energy in a collision is a product of mass and velocity. The more mass you have, the harder you hit. The less mass you have, the harder you GET hit. A large vehicle has a lot of mass to absorb the shock of a collision. A smaller vehicle does not, and unless it's made out of some ungodly strong material, which most are not, it's going to fold up. Cars are made to crumple up anyway anymore, rather than bounce off each other. If you do drive a smaller vehicle you have to be very careful of the larger ones out there because of the damage factor. Even if you survive a bad collision, your car might not. That's something to consider before buying that little car that gets a supposed 40mpg. How does it get 40mpg? It has no mass to it. You might make it out of a collision with another small car, you will not make it out of one with an 18-wheeler. I know some people can't afford a sturdier vehicle owing to their financial situation, but it's something to keep in mind. It's not so much that trucks are bad, but that they don't build the smaller cars as strong as they could. Some are better than others - a Mini Cooper is built very well for protecting its passengers, for example. It depends a bit on what kind of vehicle you have, but the basic rule is the smaller the vehicle the more likely to suffer damage or injury. The larger the vehicle, the less likely.
I hope your car can be adequetely repaired, but should you need to replace it, check with the insurance companies and get some statistics on collision damage and injury rates for the vehicle you have in mind before you consider purchasing. They should have this information readily available or else be able to refer you to a place where you can obtain it. Some of them publish it free on their websites or send news letters.
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Draco
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I'm glad nobody was hurt! The idiot behind you was either following too closely, not paying attention, or both. Either way, he should be held accountable for the damage to your vehicle. You might have legal recourse on that, so be sure to check with your insurance company. At least it was a front-back collision and not a hit to the side!
The disparity in damage is also why I warn people away from buying small cars if they can help it. The truth is, energy in a collision is a product of mass and velocity. The more mass you have, the harder you hit. The less mass you have, the harder you GET hit. A large vehicle has a lot of mass to absorb the shock of a collision. A smaller vehicle does not, and unless it's made out of some ungodly strong material, which most are not, it's going to fold up. Cars are made to crumple up anyway anymore, rather than bounce off each other. If you do drive a smaller vehicle you have to be very careful of the larger ones out there because of the damage factor. Even if you survive a bad collision, your car might not. That's something to consider before buying that little car that gets a supposed 40mpg. How does it get 40mpg? It has no mass to it. You might make it out of a collision with another small car, you will not make it out of one with an 18-wheeler. I know some people can't afford a sturdier vehicle owing to their financial situation, but it's something to keep in mind. It's not so much that trucks are bad, but that they don't build the smaller cars as strong as they could. Some are better than others - a Mini Cooper is built very well for protecting its passengers, for example. It depends a bit on what kind of vehicle you have, but the basic rule is the smaller the vehicle the more likely to suffer damage or injury. The larger the vehicle, the less likely.
I hope your car can be adequetely repaired, but should you need to replace it, check with the insurance companies and get some statistics on collision damage and injury rates for the vehicle you have in mind before you consider purchasing. They should have this information readily available or else be able to refer you to a place where you can obtain it. Some of them publish it free on their websites or send news letters. Yeah I've already talked to the isurance company and what have you. I'll find out more today after one of the agents from my isurance company contacts the drivers of the other vehicles. But just because buying a stronger car will keep my car safe, doesnt mean that if "I" manage hit someone, I can afford to. The truck that hit me from behind, will be paying pretty much everything for the damages of my car BECAUSE he has that bigger truck. My car isn't that entirely small. Its a honda accord lx '99 model. although trucks are safer and can transport 1) they're WORSE to drive because the blind spots are more apparent then driving a regular compact 2) im not used to driving trucks 3) as said above, if i hit someone even slightly like he did to me (because my air bag didnt even come out) it would cost me thousands of dollars for the damage i did. either way i will NEVER own a truck, even if its a small one. |
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Rev 9:6 "And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them."
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Draco
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I'm not suggesting that you own something you do not like or would feel unsafe operating. Far from it. I know that can increase the chances of a collision. Also, when I said "larger vehicle" I did not mean you should only drive a Hummer or a large truck, only something that is strong enough to take a severe hit without you suffering injury as easily. I've had friends be involved in bad automobile collisions and the only thing that saved the life of one was that he was in an old 70's era car that was built like a tank. It got hit from the side by an industrial transport vehicle. It destroyed the car, but he and the driver lived with only scrapes and bruises and being knocked unconscious. Now that's an extreme case, but if that had been a modern car he would have been either severely cripled or killed. If he had been in a small modern car I don't want to think about what would have happened to him. I've also seen what 18-wheelers do to cars of ANY size. That's all I want is to keep my friends as safe as I can, so I'd rather squawk up and give advice if it can be of any use to them. im no miracle "greese monkey" so if this question seems stupid you'll know why. if the cars were built well back then as in "beat proof" wise...then why did they downgrade how much the car can actually take on impact? i mean i think of back in the days with the mafia and they had those almost completely bullet proof cars with the funky bumper. forgot what they're called but....why do they make the cars so different now? is it because of the type of metal they used back then or something? |
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Rev 9:6 "And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them."
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Kingu
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From i know it is so car absorb impact not you, so you can survive it.
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
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Ofcourse. The more the car crumples up, the more it slows down and takes the force out of the blow before it's you that's affected by it. A fully bulletproof, rock-solid, no-damage-taking car would break every bone in your body upon collision (unless it has other tricks to help soften the impact on your body, ofcourse  ). |
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« Last Edit: 2006-09-29, 16:26 by Tabun »
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Phoenix
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First, automobiles were "downgraded" because of the 1973 gas crisis. A Datsun that got 30 mpg became more desirable from an economic standpoint than the enormous American autos. A 1972 Buick Electra with a 455-4 engine guzzles gas. A 4 cylinder import did not. When the fuel prices jumped, people abandoned the larger, heavier cars for the cheap ones that used less gas. When gas prices drop, people buy larger vehicles. That's why SUV's became so popular in the 1990's in the United States when gas was around $1.00 a gallon, and why they're not so popular since gas has gone up to $3.00 a gallon. Same situation - economics drives people's vehicle choices as much as anything, and people who can't afford to pay $100 a week in fuel charges will obviously have to buy a smaller vehicle that uses less fuel.
Now fast forward from the 1970's to the environmentally-conscious 1980's and later. Emissions requirements on vehicles started becoming stricter and stricter, and so with tougher emissions standards, two things happened. First the carburetor became a casualty when computer-controlled fuel injection was finally made to work. Carburetors work fine and can be fuel efficient, but they're mechanically complex and difficult to machine, and easy to screw up if the shade-tree mechanic doesn't know what they're doing. Computer-controlled engines also took the shade-tree mechanic out of the picture, which auto dealers and manufactureres like because they make more money on sales of vehicle maintenence that way. Also, a cheap way to reduce emissions on a vehicle (and cut manufacturing costs) is to lessen the mass of a vehicle. Combine this with the advancement of CAD-CAM systems and you can produce components to their bare acceptible tolerences, thereby reducing materials and manufacturing costs further. Enter the era of the "cheap throw-away car"....
Of course, there's a problem. Any time you reduce mass, you reduce strength. Lightening a vehicle to make it cheaper and also to match emissions goals also means you make it less sturdy. So, the solution is to sell this as a feature. Instead of a heavy steel bumper with shock absorbers behind them to take impacts, you reduce the strength of the engine and cargo compartments, and strengthen the passenger compartment. You then call these "crumple zones", giving the illusion that this will somehow reduce injury. Bullshit is what it is. Most severe injuries and deaths in automobile collisions are caused by two things - either being ejected from the vehicle because you didn't wear a seat belt, or else when there is physical intrusion into the passenger compartment or physical deformation of the passenger compartment. Crumpling up the front or back of a car does NOT in itself prevent injury! You want to test this? Drive into a telephone pole at 50mph in a modern car with "crumple zones", then drive into one in a 70's era vehicle. I guarantee you the person in the more modern car will be in worse shape. The only thing that protects the passengers in that kind of collision with an immobile object is keeping the passengers from being crushed by their own vehicle, which means the vehicle cannot deform severely. You are going to stop suddenly no matter what in that situation. Allowing the vehicle to crumple will not significantly affect deceleration when the distance to decelerate over is less than 5 feet.
Now translate this to vehicle-vs-vehicle collisions. Sturdy vehicles that do not crush as much in an impact will push each other around as opposed to coming to a dead stop and binding into each other. A high-speed head-on collision, yeah, you're going to be screwed no matter what you do. I don't care how you build a vehicle unless it's an actual tank that you're driving. For side impacts, you want a strong frame. You do NOT want any crushing at all because that's an instant intrusion into the passenger area, which means injury or death for the occupent on the side taking the hit. As I said before, I could have lost a good friend of mine in a side-impact collision. Heavy metal and mass is what saved him, not some marketing tool "crumple zones", nor airbags since the car had none, and they would make no difference in a side-impact anyway. He was bruised and suffered some glass cuts, and sore for a few days, but that was the extent of his injuries. As I said before, the impact TOTALED THE CAR. Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to total a 70's era boat of a car like that?
Now let's go over the potential collision scenarios you can face, assuming your car is nice and sturdily built and doesn't squish up real easily. In a front-to-back collision, the person getting rear-ended will get their vehicle shoved forward and they'll get thrown back into the seat. The person hitting them will experience a reduction in speed or a sudden jolt to a stop, but if properly restrained with a seat belt (and this is where airbags can and do help) will not suffer severe injury. In an offset head-on crash, sturdy vehicles will be more likely to spin off each other. If the front ends crumple, the vehicles are MORE likely to come to a sudden stop rather than to deflect. In a sideswipe, relative velocities are low and side strength to prevent intrusion is all that is needed. In an offset broadside collision (T-bone but not directly into the side of the other car) the impacting vehicle will continue forward, while the impacted vehicle will be deflected laterally, spin, and either roll or else skid to a stop sideways. In a direct broadside collision, if there's no intrusion into the passenger area, the impacted vehicle will be shoved off the roadway sideways while the impacting vehicle continues forward pushing it along. In a head-on collision, you're in serious trouble no matter what you do because the energy of the vehicles is squared. You're not going 40 mph, you're going the equivalent of 80 into an immovable object. Again, crumping up the vehicle isn't going to save you when that amount of energy is applied over such a short distance. A strong frame might not either, but having your passenger compartment squish like a beer and having the engine block rammed through your knees and the steering wheel punch a through your chest is going to kill you, and that's exactly what happens in this kind of wreck. Now I didn't go into offset vehicle heights, which is another factor, this is all assuming identical vehicles impacting each other for the collision. When you start throwing in differing heights, differing mass, and differing roll over points, you can see how it becomes an ugly and complex set of scenarios. This isn't just hypothetical conjecture either. I have studied vehicle collisions in the past and the plain simple truth is that the bigger and stronger you are, the better your chances. The smaller you are, the more hurt you're going to take. It's no different from a skinny 110 lb pasty white boy charging dead into a 300lb linebacker. Who do you think is going to get hurt?
Tab, I know you think the logic of squishing the car up reduces the strain on the body, but I've seen my share of collisions, and unless you're hitting something dead straight in a head-on collision, or a non-moving object like a telephone pole or a solid brick wall that won't displace at all, no deceleration is ever instantaneous enough to really benefit from so-called crumple zones. It's an utter bullshit marketing tool that was as unnecessary now as it would have been when cars and trucks were built out of hard steel frames and didn't twist up when they hit. It's the cars that DO squish up that I see fatality and severe injury reports on all the time. I've seen vehicles mangled up so badly they've had to pry them open with hydraulic cutters to get the corpses out. None of these were the well-built, more massive vehicles. They were all smaller cars or, if a truck or SUV, were the ones that were known for high injury rates because of poor design and construction. When they can build tanks to protect soldiers from explosives, they should be able to build cars that can at LEAST keep the passenger area from deforming like this! It's criminal that they can get away with building crap so flimsy - even in trucks and SUV's, mind you - when cars from the 1960's and 1970's could be involved in the same collisions and maybe, MAYBE generate minor injuries. So no, a fully-bullet proof, no-damage-taking car won't break every bone in your body in an accident. Its MASS will absorb the impact and the energy will be transferred into the vehicle's frame, around the passengers. So long as the vehicle does not decelerate instantenously from a high speed by hitting a completely immobile object, the passengers will be unharmed or at least in decent shape.
You want more proof? Someone I know works at a shipping company. They drive 18-wheelers all over the place on a regular asis. You know how common it is for their drivers to get injured in a collision? Hardly any collision ever involves serious injuries to their drivers. Why? 18-wheelers are the most massive and sturdy vehicles on the road, and the passenger area is high up above where any impact can take place. Even when they've rolled off the highway the drivers have in 99% of the accidents walked away without any injuries. The mass of the vehicles is so great that hitting anything short of another 18-wheeler or a freight train isn't going to significantly decelerate nor deflect the vehicle's trajectory. Anything getting hit BY the 18-wheeler is going to absorb the bulk of the damage. It doesn't mean their drivers are invulnerable, but the truth stands that more mass and strength equates to higher survivability chances for the occupant. As for the other guy... well, it sucks to be him, which is the whole problem here. All I'm advocating is to build the smaller cars stronger so the occupents, while they might get knocked around, won't get maimed or killed in a severe accident!
Draco's car was damaged badly in the back, but the truck suffered nearly no damage. The truck was sturdier and more massive than Draco's car. The truck driver was not injured despite the fact that his vehicle did not crumple up in the collision. If Draco's car had been strong enough to take the collision without severe damage, it would have bounced her car forward, thrown her back into the nice soft seat, and nobody would have been injured. The only benefit derived from crumpling the back of Draco's car will be to either a repair shop's or a scrap yard's bottom line. That is what I find unacceptible here. I don't think things can be built better, I KNOW they can be built better.
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Thomas Mink
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Whoa.. I'm not the only one who laughs at the 'crumple zone' in modern cars!
Well..not really laugh, just kind of shake my head in disbelief. Anyone who seriously thinks they keep someone safe is retarded.
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« Last Edit: 2006-09-29, 22:15 by ~SpAwN~ »
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
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Elite (3k+)
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Funny thing, I actually hadn't thought of it that way. A combination of marketing tactics and partially valid--but irrelevant--scientific background. I can buy that without needing to see proof.
That aside, I obviously didn't think a crumple zone the size of the entire car would be a good thing. I had made the theoretical assumption that the passenger-cage would not be part of the crumple-zone, and would not by design deform in ways 'disagreeable' with the human frame.. ;]
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« Last Edit: 2006-09-30, 03:27 by Tabun »
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Draco
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First, automobiles were "downgraded" because of the 1973 gas crisis. A Datsun that got 30 mpg became more desirable from an economic standpoint than the enormous American autos. A 1972 Buick Electra with a 455-4 engine guzzles gas.... so considering your entire explanation for this.....what WOULD be a good 4 door compact car to buy out there? considering if there is one that will take good impacts? because the only car i know i will ever own is a 4 door compact of some sort. P.S. so you have a better idea what he did, here's a wallpaper i made of the shots i took.  |
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Rev 9:6 "And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them."
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Draco
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oh snap. why is my computer the only one that shows it? oh well. heres a link http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/40609951/click the picture on the picture to enlarge it. |
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« Last Edit: 2006-10-02, 20:05 by Draco »
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Rev 9:6 "And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them."
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Draco
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well while you do that....talked to the insurance people again and i FINALLY got an estimate on the total cost of fixing my car which comes to a total of 10k. but they're labor work is 74 bucks an hour which is bullcrap if you ask me. but it is what it is. and although me, dad, the body shop, and my insurance client thats handling my claim consider it a total loss, my agent still hasn't heard back from their appraiser. so theres still a chance that its not considered totaled...however i consider it a very slim chance. and im just waiting for the final judgement of whether i get a new car or not.
but for the hell of it since dad and i were already at the body shop, we went over to looked at what the dealership had to offer for new used cars. and i happened to find a duplicate modle of my car that was a 2002 modle special edition for 15k or so and only 41k mileage. VERY nice. it basically has everything my car has, and then some. so i felt better looking at a new car....but its still VERY sobering for me to saw goodbye to my other car. i mean it IS my first car and i was very attached to it, and just when i was beginning to own it for the first time under my name...i now have to give it up?
as woodsman would say, "liz, life goes on". and it does. if my car is totaled, my car is totaled, if not, ill probably buy that silver honda i had my eyes set on.
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Rev 9:6 "And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them."
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Phoenix
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Sorry I've taken so long, I've been busy and haven't had a lot of time to search. Here's one tool I found that might be of use. I located a data table from an insurance company called Liberty Mutual. It has a breakdown of injury, damage, and theft statistics for just about every make and model. The chart is most applicable to 2001-2003 model years, so it may be of some use to you.
Link is here. This should open a .pdf file for either viewing or download. If not, let me know and I'll download it and email a copy to you.
Edit: Here's another data tool on Progressive Insurance's site. It's more geared to specific vehicles but does have aggregate data by vehicle type, including some repair costs from collision testing.
http://www.progressive.com/rc/VehicleOwner...TestRatings.asp
I'll continue to look for more data.
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« Last Edit: 2006-10-06, 22:46 by Phoenix »
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Draco
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okay thanks. was intersting looking at the website.
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Rev 9:6 "And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them."
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Draco
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Well....since I don't want to make a pointless thread, I thought I'd end this one with a "happy ending" after quite a few frustrating hours of looking at cars and thinking of what I really wanted....I saw and fell in love with this car. Acura TL Type-S 2003 Modle An sports luxury car and let me say I'm the first one to ever own such a car in the family.  It's even better than my dad's car xD And his is a honda accord ex 2003 modle. Its even more powerful! xD Photographer: The only actual pictures I took was the one showing the inside interrior, and the picture of the backside of the car showing the logo name and my liscense plate frame that says "My Other Car is a Warthog" (im a big Halo fan). The other pictures were taken by other random photographers I found in image searches. If I knew they're name...I'd credit them, but my pictures are in here too. My New/Used Car |
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Rev 9:6 "And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them."
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Kain-Xavier
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It looks quite snazzy Draco. I'm a sucker for dark shades of blue as well. Here's to hoping this car will die of old age. |
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