This morning i got a phone call of the dreaded kind, it was my brother in law trying to get hold of my wife.
Her mother had been in a head on crash with a truck.
Well we have been to see her at home and she is shook up and bruised but after a check up in hospital seems fine.
So off we toddled to the compond where the Discovery was taken and WOW.
The whole of the engine bay and chassis is pushed back and twisted to the left ,the roofline is creased and both front doors now overlap.
She was coming out of a 40 limit and he was entering it , the impact sent the the Discovery facing the way it came and he ended up in the woods so i don't want to guess how fast he was travelling
The Iveco she hit is horrific, his cab is pushed to the left away from the tipper body.
The fact that both drivers ((there were no passengers) are alive let alone walking about is a testomy to modern vehicles.
He says his throttle stuck and he was swerving across the road to a layby over taking a car and hit her head on !!.
Slag off Discoverys as much as you like but i know what my father inlaw will be replacing it with.
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how old was it..........(Discovery not M-I-L)
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Good news! Did all airbags and belt tightners etc work as advertised? Sounds as though M-I-L was both lucky and well protected by the vehicle. That was a bad crash, joint impact speed 80+ mph?
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Your Mother in Law is very lucky she was driving a Chelsea Tractor. Accidents like this make you realise that size does matter. The distance from you to the outside world is greater, hence you are more likely not to be injured.
I wonder what the result would have been if she was driving a small car? Would she have been able to walk away?
Although you MIL seems fine, the jolt from the impact will probably have some effect on her neck over the next few days, so tell her to take it easy and if there are any problems to contact her doctor immediately.
--
Roger
A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
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Nasty accident, shows how wonderful modern vehicles are !
I believe that when the insurance groups change one of the factors will be the weight and design of the vehicle.
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The distance from you to the outside world is greater, hence you are more likely not to be injured.
Simply not true. The distance from driver to front of car in a laguna or mondeo is the same as a 1999 disco.
I bet you any money you like a modern 5* car would not have crumpled like the disco in this accident and the driver may have been even more unscathed.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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NCAP ratings are only good if you crash in the same way as the test, many well rated cars come apart like foil when they hit trees etc... much worse than older heavy cars.
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OP glad your MiL is fine. Lucky she was in a strong vehicle with good passenger/driver safefy!
TVM I am with you. I gt hit behind last year in a Fiesta hire car and the Fiesta did well. Structure of car absorbed a lot of the impact.*
The HGV (and that was then hit/shunted my a tanker lorry) did shorten the Fiesta, the roof bulged and ripped the back of my head open and knocked me out for a bit. And anyone in the rear would have been dead for sure - but there wasn't anyone there thankfully. But modern cars from my experience are pretty good in accidents.
My next car will probably be Mondeo sized (maybe the new Mondeo later this year) because I still think the more space between driver and either end of the car is important. As is stronger vehicles. Best of both I say and I will got for the latest probably. It might be a no brainer if the Mondeo is the newest car of that size when I replace (Vectra next year?).
* Police apparently still investigating my accident. Accident was on 28th July near Milan Malpensa.... they are slow.
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Talking about the build quality of cars, my Volvo 240 was hit by a Volvo 940 at about 40mph. The two cars were written off but all the occupants walked away unharmed. Shaken and well stirred with beautiful bruises from the seat belts.
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Five years ago friends (stationary) were hit behind by a fast-ish (40+) van. Accident investigator put their survival and nominal injuries down to the Volvo 240 they were in.
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Quote from the current "Environmental Engineering" (article on possible changes to NCAP) =-
"percentage of accidents that result in rollovers is low (ranging from 1.8% for cars through to 5.3% for SUVs), but of these a very high proportion result in a fatality (55% of light vehicle occupants for single vehicle craches in 2004). . ."
You pays your money and takes your chance - 1 in 19 chance of a rollover with less than 50% chance of survival is a good reason for NOT buying an SUV on safety grounds!
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Your Mother in Law is very lucky she was driving a Chelsea Tractor. Accidents like this make you realise that size does matter. The distance from you to the outside world is greater hence you are more likely not to be injured.
The crash rating for this model Disco, for all its size, is actually poor. I recall a test (Auto Express IIRC) where an Espace was sent head-on into a Disco of this vintage and the plastic-bodied Espace came off far better than the Disco.
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