Its here!

However......
You mean to tell me THIS is safe?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02eghIfyHP0


Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

 

CPone, your sig says it all when it comes to a crash like that.

 

A pimp named slickback?

 

I wasn't expecting the Smart to hold up too well against the S Class at all, but I wasn't really expecting it to literally be propelled backwards and bounce around like a pin ball. Seriously, if this was on Freeway, or an divided highway with no separation barrier with a little traffic, the Smart car could literally be ping ponged between cars.

 

Those Smart car drivers should be wearing 5 point restraints, and helmets with the Hans device. That car took one hell of a beating in that video, and I can only imagine if there had been real people in that car, the severe neck and back injuries they would have sustained from the cars violent rolling/bouncing.

 

The Smart's well-publicized roll cage held up amazingly well considering the difference in size and weight between the two cars....also the fact that the Smart didn't have an engine up front for protection either.

So the Smart car itself can be bounced around like a rubber ball and still hold up pretty well. Unfortunately, however, Turbo GG has a good point about the occupants, who have a lot less resistance to being thrown around like that than the car itself does....I agree they probably would have sustained severe injuries.

 

It has been said that the initial impact is not what kills people in car accidents. It is the secondary impacts by your body bouncing around within the car, and/or objects within the car hitting you like projectiles. Anything loose within the car of significant weight can be deadly in a car crash if it hits you in the right spot.

 

Despite the lack of significant intrusion into the cabin, I would like to see the instantaneous accelerometer data on the G's the passengers took in that crash. It's one thing to hold up well to the collision, but quite another to keep from transferring those impact forces to the humans inside. Thus, large crumple zones to dissipate the forces of impact over time before they are transferred to the passengers. Yes, it's ugly, but it's better to let the car sacrifice itself by collapsing and shedding parts than to maintain its integrity and transfer those shock loads to the fragile human cargo.

 

What I want to see is the area around the legs, following that impact.
Something tells me they are NOT intact.

 

I thought the same thing myself. I've watched that video a few times now, and I don't think I've seen anything quite as violet as how that car reacts to that collision, except for a Formula 1 crash at 120-170+ mph (and of course those cars are designed to crash and minimize damage to the drivers, which that smart car isn't).

 

Wow, that was pretty catastrophic for the Smart car...

 

But doesn't that apply to ALL cars, no matter what size, during a collision?

 

70Mph head on into concrete barrier.
Not any better

Insurance highway safety test
Good Luck.

 

welcome to yesterday's news!

I think we all know tanks are safer thank motorcycles....what's your point here?

The 2008 smart fortwo achieved the highest ratings from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for front and side crashworthiness.

....so what else do you want the car to do?

 

I was pretty impressed the way the Smart kept its structural rigidity in what was, after all, a pretty severe test. In real life you would hope one of the two parties would brake, not just continue at a steady speed until impact.