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Fitting a towbar generally helps.
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Buy a mkIV Golf!!
Parents-in-law were rear ended "square on" by an artic when stationary in queue on the M40 a few months back. Police reckon it was doing 40 when it rammed them into the car in front.
Car obviously a complete write off, but drivers door still opened, and the passenger one would have if the car in front hadn't landed on the bonnet and stoved the A-pillar in. They were physically uninjured.
I'm not a big fan of VW products, but respect is due here.
Cheers
DP
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04 Grand Scenic 1.9 dCi Dynamique
00 Mondeo 1.8TD LX
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The taxi driver we saw being rear ended last Friday would have had more protection against the head injury he sustained if he had been wearing his seatbelt. I hope this is taken into consideration when any compensation payout is assessed.
He stopped at a crossing, but the Corsa following didn't. The taxi shot forward and knocked over the pedestrian, I imagine the Corsa will be written off.
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The taxi driver we saw being rear ended last Friday would have had more protection against the head injury he sustained if he had been wearing his seatbelt. I hope this is taken into consideration when any compensation payout is assessed.
Quite possibly true, and if no-one else had been involved it might be relevant (i.e. if he was claiming on his own insurance).
But as it's third party negligence, the third party has to take the consequences of his actions.
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What are the chances of anyone ever getting to know he wasn't wearing his seatbelt...
I bet he won't admit to it, the car that hit him from behind might not have known and even if they did then who'd believe him when he didn't even see the car in front...?
I agree totally with what you are saying he shouldn't get anywhere as much though.. plus he should get a nice fine for not wearing it...
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Rear ended by an HGV in Italy last summer whilst we had a Fiesta. No idea how fast the HGV was going when it hit us. The HGV itself was also then run into by a tanker lorry.
The Fiesta back end was crushed in a lot. The roof in the rear caved in and there was a V shaped intrusion across the back of the rear seats. Had there been anyone in the rear they would be dead with massive head injuries. There would have been no way to survive. The caved in roof ripped the back of my head open - about 1.5 inches across all the way through to the skull. I also got knocked unconscious and don't remember anything until I was looking out of the ambulance. Who got me out I have no idea - other drivers possibly or the ambulance crew. Wife stayed conscious throughout but split her lip and broke a tooth. She was shouting for help for me as she thought I was dead with blood pouring out of my head.
So yes I think there should be rear crash tests.
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I agree totally with what you are saying he shouldn't get anywhere as much though.. plus he should get a nice fine for not wearing it...
Don't you think the crippling injuries are punishment enough?
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Thanks for that example RTJ70; I hope you are well-recovered from that injury. You illustrate my point though - had your car been a Fabia rather than a Fiesta, I wonder how much better (or worse) it might have fared if it had been the saloon or estate version?
Andy Bairsto's towbar idea is interesting - admittedly it's going to be fairly rigid, so you're going to get more push and less crush, and therefore more whiplash G-force. But I suppose high G for a brief period at least gives you a chance of survival, where crushing within the passenger cell probably doesn't.
So, if you must have a stumpy-tailed hatchback, always fit a sturdy towbar?
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"had your car been a Fabia rather than a Fiesta, I wonder how much better (or worse) it might have fared if it had been the saloon or estate version?"
Had the car say been say an S-MAX, the Peugeout 4007/Mitsubishi Outlander or any vehicle with similar seating arrangement with people sat in the boot.... Might be bigger and stronger cars but we were hit by an HGV.
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As in some other things in life, there's no substitute for size. You are always going to be better off in an NCAP 5* large car than a 5* supermini. More sheet metal and distance between you and the outside world plus better crumple zones. It would be interesting in these times where we are encouraged by the tax system to buy smaller 'greener' cars to see whether the level of injuries and deaths goes up as the the proportion of smaller cars increases. Perhaps because there will be more small car/small car accidents rather than big car/small car accidents there'll be little difference. But I would suspect not.
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I would imagine the rear of most cars and especially superminis would not deform as much as the front.
The fuel tank is usually located in the area under the rear seat. It would not do much good to have that split depositing petrol onto a hot exhaust or hot engine of the impact vehicle.
A comment earlier about the Nissan Micra and preferring to put a toddler seat in the front passenger seat rather than the rear. OK, would provide better protection from a rear end shunt but very little protection from a side impact. The space between the back of the car and the rear seat must surely be greater than between the passenger door and seat.
Slightly off topic of this discussion as this was specifically talking about rear end impacts but I would have thought a better shaped rear seat cushion and putting a toddler seat in the middle of the rear bench would provide the optimum space all round for impact absorption.
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a friend of mine was in the middle of a 6 car pile up at traffic lights ( the guy at the front stopped on a red!!!!) I arrived at the scene 5 minutes afterwards and stopped to see if he was ok. He had a Laguna witha towbar and was rear ended by another Laguna which was itself hit by a Vectra. My point here is that looking at the two Lagunas one with a tow-bar and one without, they both had very similar damage from 35-40 mph impact. A tow bar is designed to tow with it's not an extra bumper.
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Driving westwards on Marylebone Road one sunny lunchtime in the sixties, sunroof open. Stopped gently at a traffic light in the outside lane. A repmobile drew up gently behind me. Several seconds later there was a squeal of tyres and a double bang. I felt a gentle impact. Some East European clown in another repmobile had rear-ended the car behind very hard and shunted it into the back of my R Type Bentley, then 16 years old or more. The culprit was running up and down saying: 'I vos blinded by a reflection! I vos blinded by a reflection!' Surprisingly, no one tried to kill him.
I was unhurt, not even shaken, but the Bentley was a goner so far as I was concerned. Quite apart from the huge aluminium boot lid which may or may not have been repairable, the elegant curve over the offside rear wing of the car was bowed outwards three inches or so. Repairs worth three times the car. I had just had the rusty front wings done properly too. Both the other cars were bleeding oil and water in large quantities and were dead. The Bentley drove normally.
Sad story I have told here before. Sorry to be a pub bore.
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when I walk up the street I always find myself looking at these small cars, and i imagine what it would look like if my old Senator gave it a good belt up the backside. I'm afraid to say that crumple zone or not, most rear seat passengers would have broken backs, not a pleasent thought! but something to think about if you are planning to buy one.
Billy
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I did read somewhere that it worth keeping keep the rear seat belts fastened at all times, and that you should certainly make a point of doing it if the car has folding rear seats and you're carrying stuff in the boot.
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Hmm, i've thought about this myself over the years, I can see the point of the seatbelts in a "head-on", restraining you from flying forwards and being severly injured or causing injury to others, but in a "rear-ender" surely they may make any injuries you recieve worse, by the fact they are providing "resistance" to the impact, and not allowing you to be pushed away by the initial impact. If you see what i mean!.
Billy
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If you see what i mean!.
I meant when the seats where unoccupied.
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I did read somewhere that it worth keeping keep the rear seat belts fastened at all times and that you should certainly make a point of doing it if the car has folding rear seats and you're carrying stuff in the boot.
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I saw some crash test video with regard to cargo in the boot area bursting through the rear seats.
Fastening the seatbelts will not help on many hatches as the centre seatbelt is located in the seat itself.
The only hatchback I've seen which prevented this was the mid-90's SAAB 900 which has a bar, almost like a strut brace, which is at behind the seat at the top and the seat actually locks into. This prevented the seat from collapsing in an accident.
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Fastening the seatbelts will not help on many hatches as the centre seatbelt is located in the seat itself.
Certainly not on most (all?) recent cars. The diagonal mounting for the 3 point middle belt is in the roof. Out Jazz is 4 yrs old and it's like that, and I'm sure the Clio before it was the same.
Anway, if you fasten the outer belts, they will hold the seat back in place.
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Anway if you fasten the outer belts they will hold the seat back in place.
Not if the weight in the boot hits the middle of the seat.
Where the 60/40 seat back joins there is no support so the seat simply separates and whatever was in the boot enters the cabin. The seat belts will only hold the backrest at the side of the car should the seat back clips fail. There is nothing in the middle of the rear seat to stop the seat separating except, as previously mentioned, in the case of SAAB.
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The middle belt of a Mazda6 actually fixes to the roof so wonder if that would withstand forces from heavy items in boot?
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I thought taxi drivers were excused from the seatbelt law for reasons of their own security? I have never seen a taxi driver wear one?
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2007 Seat Altea XL 2.0 TDI (140) Stylance
2005 Skoda Fabia vrS
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So that they can escape from murderously irate passengers when they've just taken the third deliberate wrong turning in a mile?
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This reminds me of Clarkson once talking about MPVs like Zafiras and he said along the lines of, you buy the big car with all the seats for your precious little darlings and then what do you do - you let them sit in the rear crumple zone with their heads almost touching the tailgate!
Fair point!
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2007 Seat Altea XL 2.0 TDI (140) Stylance
2005 Skoda Fabia vrS
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I agree with Clarkson (for once). I was looking at one of those Zafiras on Saturday and with all seven seats in place the rear ones are quite close to the tailgate. I'm not sure I would want to sit there or put kids there either.
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Like putting children in the bed of a pickup, or letting them stand on the running board of an old car or the back axle of a tractor, the rearmost seats of a 'people carrier' are all right for short journeys in slow or light traffic (going down to the beach), but you wouldn't want to drive across Europe on motorways with your nippers sitting back there, especially around Milan in rush hour.
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I have a people carrier and can think of many saloon cars that have a shorter distance between the back of the rear seats and the outer edge of the rear bumper.
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There are alot of comments here from people driving big cars that think they will smash a small car to pieces if they hit it from behind.
Once agin like the Volvo and Modus test this is not necessarily going to be the case.
Old Senators do not have a high tensile steel safety cage like modern small cars.
I appreciate that hitting one from the rear - then it may not be as well protected than from the front but the safety cage design does tend to surround the passenger cell.
Also basic laws of physics state that for every action, there is an equal and opposite re-action.
When you have a safety cage that transmits these forces around the cell and not through like in an old car then you will be better of in the small car again.
Having said that there is alot more work to do on rear impacts to fully protect the occupants.
This can be done one of 2 ways - strengthen the car even more or reduce the forces of the car doing the impacting with things such as CMBS from Honda, Lexus and MB where the car senses it is going to run into the back of another car and then hits the brakes hard and warns the driver.
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I think the point is, big new car safer than small new car.
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I'd still rather be hit in my 20 year old landie than in a brand new micra.
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Friend of mine was rear-ended on the motorway, probably at about 60mph. His car was at a stop. It was an Alfa 147, admittedly only a 3-star car, but the entire rear section of the car was destroyed. He was OK, but if anyone had been in the back they would certainly be dead.
Rear impact protection is certainly not as good as the front (obvious really), and I think I'd still rather be in the back of an old Volvo than a new Modus that was struck from behind.
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Friend of mine was rear-ended on the motorway probably at about 60mph. His car was at a stop. It was an Alfa 147 admittedly only a 3-star car but the entire rear section of the car was destroyed. He was OK but if anyone had been in the back they would certainly be dead.
I'm not sure the 3-stars have much to do with it. At a 60mph closing speed, I wouldn't expect there to be much left of any car.
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big new car safer than small new car.
Big old car too... :o}
My sister was sitting in the back of my father's 1200cc Mk 1 Cortina, hesitating at the wrong moment when a fast-moving Zodiac came over the horizon on Salisbury Plain, ran into the back of it and wrote it off. She was bruised by the old man's toolbox which surged through the back seat, but not seriously injured.
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If someone wants to post a picture of my hire Fiesta on the HJ MSN photo site I can provide. Low quality as it came via Hertz. When I pulled out a camera phone when retrieving (remains of) luggage I got shouted at by all present including two police officers!
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Do you know why that was, RT?
In this country the general instruction is always to take photos at the scene of our own accident if we have a camera available.
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The car was no longer at the accident it had been moved and was in a compound. I was in no state to take a picture of the accident itself. But the fact an HGV was parked in the boot gave a few clues. Closed roads out of the airport for a bit I think.
No idea why I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the car at the compound though.
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the rearmost seats of a 'people carrier' are all right for short journeys in slow or light traffic (going down to the beach) but you wouldn't want to drive across Europe on motorways with your nippers sitting back there especially around Milan in rush hour.
Don't most accidents happen within 3 miles of home?
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Now most makers can build cars to meet NCAP's 5 star standard, a sixth star for rear impact (and other factors) can't be far off. The scheme started with four starts, after all, and on the very first round of tests many cars in all sizes tested strugged to collect two stars.
As to the taxi driver referred to above not wearing his seatbelt, taxi drivers in Ireland are exempt from the law on wearing belts because its thought more likely they'll have to make a quick escape from being robbed or assaulted that they'll be invovled in a road accident. Which is alarming when you consider the mileage most cabbies do in a year!
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Don't most accidents happen within 3 miles of home?
This is a real "shark attack" statistic, skewed by the fact that most cars spend more time within 3 miles of home than any where else.
(99% of shark attacks on humans happen in less than 3 feet of water. This leads swimmers wth a poor understanding of probability to believe that they are safer if they get out a but further)
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>> Don't most accidents happen within 3 miles of home? This is a real "shark attack" statistic
Not entirely. When people are on their home turf they unconsciously drop their guard and fall into last-few-corners habit. Can be disastrous.
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What are the chances of anyone ever getting to know he wasn't wearing his seatbelt...
As a taxi driver he is *not* legally required to wear a seatbelt, therefore he was doing nothing wrong when he was smacked into by the Corsa. Therefore he will get a nice large payout, as well as loss of earnings, lets not forget that whilst he'd off the road his mortgage probably isn't getting paid.
I vaugely remember something from my law module about liability and how "you do not choose your victim" (I'm sure someonce can remind me what the precedent was) but basically the gist is, if you run over someone who has a bad back, and as a result the injuries are worse than if you'd run over a healthy person, you still end up paying a larger quantity of compensation. You can't just avoid compensation (or reduce it) on the grounds that a "normal" person wouldn't have been hurt.
Personally, if I was a taxi driver, I would probably wear my belt, but then if I'd had it wrapped around my neck and been robbed I may well reconsider.
Blue
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"As a taxi driver he is *not* legally required to wear a seatbelt"
Like most law it's not as straight forward as that:
Hackney Carriage drivers are exempt from wearing seatbelts whilst they are on duty. (i.e. whether they have a passenger or not). Private hire, are only exempt when carrying a fare paying passenger. They must wear a seatbelt at all other times.
This was a private hire taxi with no passengers.
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