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Comment by samch | Hacker News Reader

Having been in a couple of rough accidents in my life, I thought it was pretty stunning that the frame of the passenger compartment was durable enough that the occupants were simply able to open the doors to get out. From what I've been witness to, often the frame and doors bend enough in a big wreck to make it difficult to exit the vehicle. The photos showing the front two doors open with all of the glass intact are quite impressive.

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Was hit head on in my Subaru Impreza while turning left. I was going 15 Mph, the guy that hit me is estimated to have been driving at around 55 - 65 Mph, a Nissan Titan pickup truck, which already had about 2000 lbs on my car, on top of the stuff in the truck bed. I was shot back 40 ft from where the impact happened, here are the pictures of the aftermath:

http://imgur.com/a/nIMOP

The entire passenger compartment is completely intact. All doors still opened, front-end was completely destroyed, everything worked as it needed to. The engine dropped, the transmission shot underneath the car, drivetrain collapsed, front crumpled, dash shifted up and out of the way, airbags deployed, seatbelt caught me. But everything from the A frame to the C frame was completely intact. Doors opened without issues, and if you looked from the back you'd almost say it was a minor accident.

I walked away from the accident, much to the surprise of first responders that arrived on the scene and saw the carnage of my cars front-end.

I went back and bought another one, just a model year newer as soon as insurance sorted everything out. Modern cars are cages designed to protect their occupants, and I am very happy that is the case!

Did you take the shift knob as a souvenir??

Yes.

This is apparently not uncommon for Volvos either:

http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/accident_story/11-11-04.h...

Volvo pillars are apparently so strong that emergency crews have to carry special equipment to cut them if needed: http://www.fullerroadfire.com/TrainingAndEducation/Universit...

Interesting, here is an older article that shows the same is true for Subaru's: http://moojohn.com/subaru/extract.pdf

That extra surprise stub of rebar welded into the middle is funny, it was probably a quick "hack" to pass some test that turned out cheaper than redesigning the whole thing.

Yeah, that's one of many examples of how well Volvos stand up in crashes.

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