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Comment by chiph | Hacker News Reader

Seat belts work. I once spent several minutes held upside down by one, after the car I was riding in rolled onto it's roof. Everything loose in the car ended up on the headliner -- change, jackets, crusty old french fry bits...

BTW: You are almost certainly not strong enough to support yourself by one hand while you unbuckle. But falling down to the roof after the wreck is far better than being thrown from the car during the wreck.

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The safety of modern cars is amazing. I was also in a rollover accident, and only had two main complaints immediately following it: my head hurt slightly from falling on it when I unbuckled my seat belt while hanging upside down, and my knee was sore from banging against the dash when the car rolled. This was in a "cheap", "plastic" 2006 Hyundai Accent. However, I don't recommend trying this to find out -- although the driver and I crawled out of the car and were standing there when the police and ambulance arrived, they were shocked that we were basically unharmed (as were the nurses and doctors at the hospital we were taken to for examination).

>This was in a "cheap", "plastic" 2006 Hyundai Accent.

This brings back memories of high school. I was driving a massive boat...a Pontiac Parisian station wagon (thank you grandpa). I was stopped at a light with a car in front of me and a car in back. I saw a truck barreling down in my rearview and knew he wasn't paying attention. I heard the screech of brakes as he slammed the car behind me with enough force to hit me and launch my wagon into the car in front of me...a cheap plastic Hyundai as I recall.

Anyway, the hood of the car behind me was totaled, and the rear of the Hyundai in front of me was demolished. My slab of Detroit steel was untouched. Even the steel bumper was perfect, -both the front and rear had a thin band of rubber running horizontally across. The rear rubber band was slightly deformed for a couple of square inches. That was it. I remember the cop just looking at it shaking his head :) I still think back to that transfer of force and almost can't believe it.

That worked out good for you because you were stationary at the time. If you were moving at highway speed and slammed into something, you would be better off in the Hyundai, where the front end of the car is sacrificed to help cushion the stop a bit. This is, of course, assuming that you hit an object that isn't easily movable, and that the Hyundai's passenger compartment is strong enough to not collapse.

Now if your Detroit Steel smacks into the Hyundai at speed, chances are that it wouldn't come to a dead stop, and the Hyundai would be smacked off the road. In that case, Detroit Steel wins. All depends on the accident.

Very true. I'm just glad I wasn't on my motorcycle. I've been rear-ended three times in my life (car all three times). It doesn't matter how defensively you drive, -you can't eliminate all of the risk from other drivers.

You should watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMK1WZjP7g

Exactly, the new cars fail gracefully- for the old cars things are much more all, or nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crumple_zone

That was a nice video demonstrating how the hood of modern cars are designed to crumple upon impact to save the driver.

Great illustration of the modern safety engineering we read so much about.

I defy anybody not to cringe hard at that first cut of the Bel Air's cabin disintegrating on impact. Scary stuff.

It could be worse, you know. The car colliding with the modern day Chevy could be European car of that era. Here, see Citroen 2CV (the first car in that queue to be hit) to disappear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR0LRSLCN2I It is like magic, but scary.

After seeing that clip I've been somewhat scared to drive my 2CV around..

Oh, absolutely. "Detroit Steel" is far more sturdy compared to its European brethren of the time, but I think the point is that good engineering is an even better protection than sheer material strength.

Pedestrian accidents and high speed impacts brought about the current crumpling cars. Heavy steel cage for the passengers surrounded by stuff designed to destroy itself in an accident at more than 15 MPH. (In a way that absorbs energy from the impact, protecting everyone involved).

Also note that the lack of crumple zones leads to a lot more movement for anyone in the car as well. And not to mention if the outside crumples the inside is less likely to.

Exactly - if all the vehicles involved in that accident were like the poster's there would have been some serious injuries. You want your car to crumple like a paper plate in an accident - if it doesn't, you will!

I had a similar "slab of Detroit steel" in the form of a '78 Chevy Impala station wagon. A drunk driver hit me at nearly 50mph while I was sitting still at a light. My car was only slightly damaged and still driveable. I however felt like I'd been nearly cut in half. From this I gleaned that the car was quite durable, but it made no concession whatsoever for my durability. There was likely a conceivable wreck that would result in my death but the car remaining driveable.

as was proved recently, it basically boils down to be hit in the right spot the cars are hardened to pass the safety ratings tests. Maybe not on malice but because the emphasis on those tests, the car engineers focus a lot on those, while ignoring (or saving costs/weight) others.

There's a new batch of safety rating tests that i can't find the link to, that changed the frontal non-centered crash from the original position to some degrees off, and most cars jumped from 5 to 3 stars.

It's called the IIHS small overlap front crash test. Many cars do poorly not for nefarious reasons (and I know you weren't claiming so) simply because it was not really considered before. What happens in many cases is the front wheel detaches and travels up into the passenger compartment, bringing the engine and transmission along as well. Also the A pillar takes a large force, which unlike the intrusion was expected. In many cars that fared well enough even when the front crush box was avoided. What happened is that statisticians at insurance companies noticed an anomaly of accidents causing high medical claims which stood out from other similar speed frontal impacts. To some extent Honda and Volvo in particular already anticipated this more than other manufacturers though.

Except in Brazil... :(

People crash tested brazillian made cars (of several companies and models) with several other countries tests...

None passed.

My associate, that is French, but bought a locally made european car thinking it would be well built as the european version, got quite disappointed upon seeing the tests results of the model he bought.

I totalled my 2009 VW Golf last year when I hit a guard rail doing about 60kph. The front end was completely smashed, but I walked away with only a little whiplash. Amazingly, the angle was such that neither of the front airbag sensors were tripped so it was entirely the seatbelt and crumple zones that saved me.

The ultimate survival bias stories.

Agreed. I had a nearly head-on collision at ~40-50mph. Both front airbags deployed and my car (1999 BMW 323i) was totaled, but I have no recollection of even experiencing any pain whatsoever. I just got up and walked away, and went to school for the day (occurred early in the morning on the way to school).

In Finnish driving schools we are taught to try to put our feet on the car ceiling in a situation like that. It seems pretty difficult, but gravity helps when you're upside down and actually in a need for that trick. That way one can avoid falling on their face after unbuckling.

I've heard that you're supposed to put your feet against the ceiling of the car before unbuckling if you end up in a rolled over car. Has anyone tried that?

I remember as a kid in the 70s I saw a car on its roof with two maybe four people in it, this happened at a beach the car I think went too far to the right on a narrow lane and onto a dune then up a steep part of the dune causing the car to tip over.

The car was a purple 1970s muscle car with rear really wide slicks I think it was an AMC AMX.

I distinctly remember (I was probably about 5 to 7 years-old) the loose change on the inside of the roof I guess as a kid seeing quarters it may as well have been gold bars.

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