Modern day cars.. actually death traps

[GIR]

Everybody knows about all the stuff we have been seeing the last few years on cars which are supposed to improve safety and most of them do, but some of them have a huge draw back.

Things like side impact bars, side airbags, enforced frames, etc. sometimes make it impossible for fire fighters or other safety services to get to you quickly.

A study done by a competitor of ours proved just how unsafe some of these devices can be.

How do fire fighter go to work when somebody is trapped in their car?

1. Scout the immediate erea and determine of there is any immediate danger to the passengers.

2. If there is immidiate danger to the passengers break open the door and pull the passenger out.

3. If there is no immidiate danger to the passangers make up a plan to get the passangers out safely and easily.

Why can't they just pull you out immidiatly? Why do they need a plan?

Past studies have shown that if you rip out the doors and pull the passengers out then 80% of the time the passangers will be wounded worse then they were after the crash. For instance most of the time a passanger is just trapped with his foot between the pedals and for the rest is fine because the airbag cought him/her.

But if the car is on fire at the same time you have to pull that person out quickly, which in most cases means breaking his/her foot or leg.

But if there is no immidiate danger then they don't have todo all that.

So what's the plan?

Basicly they plan what they're going todo. Can they break open the door and easily wedge you out or do they need to cut of the roof, stuff like that.

Okay fine so what does this all have todo with the new safety tech?

When they want to cut your roof off, with modern day cars they have a few problems. First of all the so called side impact bars and the newer sandwich bars (sandwhich bars is a bar which has allkinds of metal pressed onto each other like a sandwhich, this makes it smaller, lighter and stronger then a seperate impact bar) these bars a tuff, infact the same company that did the study developed special pneumatic scicors which can apply 69 tons of force.

They need that much force to cut through these bars but not every firefighter unit has that kinda specilized equipment.

Then another problem comes into play, side airbags or rather the pyrocanisters that power these bags. These canisters have highly explosive gas in them under high pressure. When the need comes they release the gas in a controlled way into the bags and the bags catch you. But if there is a frontal impact then these devices don't go off.

Most of these canisters are hidden in the pillars or sils of the car, because they're hidden so well you can't see where they are.

So when the firefighters cutting through the pilars they have no way of knowing they might be cutting thought a pyrocanisater. Remember earlier I told you how the canisters release gas into the bags in a controlled way? Well cutting though them isn't very controlled anymore and there is no bag. So what happens is you get a huge explosion and a fire which not only hurts the people in the car but also the firefighters.

Every manufacturer has their own spot where they hide these devices. Some models have them other models don't. And many manufaturers don't even want to share this information because it's concidered as a engineering secret.

The Dutch firefighter union started a new initiative to cooperate with manufacturers and make a list of no-go areas for future models and a list of current models so they know what to expect. Mercedes, BMW and UK manufacturers were more then happy to help. VW was a little reluctant but offered some limited info. Opel, Ford, Renault and the rest didn't reply or said they wouldn't help out because they cooncider the info a secret.

And here's a funny one, many people buy SUV's because they think they're safer then regular cars while infact they're not. Most of the time, because of the increased mass, the force involved with the crash is much higher then a normal car. As a result the force on the passengers is much higher and the cars is banged up mugh harder. What happens is that most of the time the people in the car are sealed into a huge metal mess.

The chances of you surviving a crash in a sedan are much higher then you surviving a crash in a SUV. Funny and ironic at the same time don't you agree?

Anywayz I don't wanna scare anybody into thinking twice before buying a car cause like my late uncle used to say: "Life is a big lottery. At birth you are given a number and when your number comes up you gotta go" so no way avioding that. Bu I though you guyz should know that this problem exists.

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Hallo GIR,

 

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[LateNightCable]

Yes, those canisters do sound dangerous. I think that if they were a necessity, the danger could be lessend a great deal by simply mounting them in remote locations, such as near the trunk, and linking them to the bags through a tough but flexible hose - rather than actually in the door.

About the SUVs' though, the amount of force involved in a crash would really depend upon the speed of both vehicles, unless it was a single car crash, for example the SUV hitting a wall. In that case the force definitely would be greater than that of a lighter vehicle hitting a wall at the same speed. But in a two car crash, the lighter vehicle takes the brunt of the impact usually, although the SUV with it's higher center of gravity probably would run a greater risk of flipping over. I think that would be it's biggest safety downfall.

[GIR]

About the SUV tipping over. That's what I actually ment when I said that you could be "trapped in metal mess". The SUV has a much higher risk of tipping over and rolling over several times leaving nothing but a huge twisted metal mess with you in it.

Because of the much higher center of gravity and much higher mass a SUV is a danger to other road users, the person in the regular car is running a much higher risk. With a SUV on SUV crash... imagine 2 sedans crashing head on but then 2 times the mass... ouch.

[thepolarfoxqx]

hey, there aren't many SUVs to top a 7 series, an S-Class or worst of all a Phaeoton in weight.