So this is a little scary

[Karnak]

Working with the State Patrol, one of our main jobs is accident investigation. I've seen a lot of accident scenes. Vehicles are made to fold up and take the impact so your body doesn't. Most people that are injured are those that don't wear their seat belt or someone is sitting behind them that doesn't have their seat belt on.

The 2001 Ford F150 didn't have a good design for that though.  If you look at the videos you can see how it does a poor job maintaining the integrity of the passenger compartment in comparison to the other vehicles linked.

[F22RaptorDude]

Working with the State Patrol, one of our main jobs is accident investigation. I've seen a lot of accident scenes. Vehicles are made to fold up and take the impact so your body doesn't. Most people that are injured are those that don't wear their seat belt or someone is sitting behind them that doesn't have their seat belt on.

Your a state trooper for Georgia? A state trooper came and talked to us during the driving course on a saturday, It actually happened 10 mins after he left the college campus.

I was the only one who recieved injury, the air bag punched my left arm into the window and my right hand rubbed against the air bag as it came out.

Also one of the kids said the suspension looked bent towards the passenger direction of the car, other than that there was no physical damage to the car. I'll post some pictures

I don't believe 2 cars going 20 equal a 40mph impact. That might be the rate of closure but it's still just a 20mph impact.

Just like hitting a stationary object at 40

if you buy a leveling kit for your truck it may save you if you get in a crash. Just watch the difference between stock head colision and a leveled out truck head on colision and the lift made a huge differnce.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCelD0qr8Do&feature=related

What do you mean leveling kit? I'm not that much of a mechanic yet but i'm working on it, please clarify?

One of the considerations when we bought our '08 Wrangler was its ability to handle collisions. Adding extremely rugged off road bumpers and additional armor (that stiffens the body/frame) results in even better crash performance. Just remember that the roof adds almost not strength to the vehicle and the doors do little more than keep out the weather. This is one very stout vehicle. I know a guy who caused a 5 car chain reaction crash when he plowed his Wrangler into a line of stopped traffic. Two cars were totaled. The 2006 Jetta he hit directly and a 2001 Civic in front of the Honda. A 2007 F-150 was considerably damaged (I think he said that the claim was for $4700). He drove his Jeep to the dealer where they found no damage to the Jeep, but recommended that he replace the beat-up bumper cover. His total repair cost? $112 plus 1 hour labor. Didn't even require an alignment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8MLVXh37ig

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfKeB43irVU&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Jeeps are tuff pieces of work,  the crash test of my moms Commander was amazing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzhQP0vRrUE

Keep in mind it has a lot less mass to decelerate.  Also keep in mind that if your truck had an offset collision with a SMART car while both going 20mph (aka, 40mph offset as in those tests), the mismatch is masses would send the car flying while the damage to your truck would be far less than in the video.  Because of the different masses those tests don't really tell the whole story about a collision between two vehicles.

Would you recommend getting one? I'm looking for something thats easier on gas millage and am debating against the Ford Fiesta or the Smart Car

Also check this out , smart car high speed crash test http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJHpUO-S0i8

The 2001 Ford F150 didn't have a good design for that though.  If you look at the videos you can see how it does a poor job maintaining the integrity of the passenger compartment in comparison to the other vehicles linked.

They designed it to kill its passengers?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKYQ1YiqQ6Q

[mbailey]

Looks like mine did pretty good, although its (mine) is a 2500 series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk4qLBEg8LM&feature=related

[Karnak]

Would you recommend getting one? I'm looking for something thats easier on gas millage and am debating against the Ford Fiesta or the Smart Car
Also check this out , smart car high speed crash test http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJHpUO-S0i8

No, I wouldn't.  I would be perfectly happy to drive a compact car so long as everybody else was driving compact cars as well, but that is not and will not be the case.  The fact is that a compact car with a great crash test rating will do pretty poorly when the other vehicle is much larger than it is.

They designed it to kill its passengers?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKYQ1YiqQ6Q

No, they just didn't design it to protect its passengers as well as newer vehicles.  There is a video out there of a crash test between a 1950s Chevy car and 2010ish Chevy car in which the old one does extremely badly.  Designs improve.

[Golfer]

I'm not sold on that math. Convince me.

http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/collisionmath.html

From Mythbusters results:

Two cars crashing into each other at 50 mph will result in the same damage (for each car) as a single car hitting a wall at 50 mph.
CONFIRMED
In their small scale tests, the Mythbusters compressed clay at 1x and 2x speeds. Their results showed that two objects hitting each other at 1x speed will cause 1x damage. In their full scale tests, the Mythbusters crashed two cars into a wall at 50 and 100 mph as references. They then had two cars going at 50 mph collide into each other. After surveying the results, it was clear that the two cars suffered damage identical to the car that crashed into the wall at 50 mph. The Mythbusters explained that was possible through Newton’s third law of motion. Although the total force was doubled by having two cars, that force also had to be divided between both cars during the crash.

[Karnak]

I'm not sold on that math. Convince me.

http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/collisionmath.html

From Mythbusters results:

Two cars have two crumple zones.  Walls don't have crumple zones.  That said, for the damage to match you need the two vehicles to mass the same.  If my 5000lb truck collides with my wife's 2500lb car, the effect will be worse for her car and not as bad for my truck than hitting the wall.

[Golfer]

I don't disagree. In fact I just read the post of yours I quoted (was out running errands and I did so hurriedly) and it doesn't read the way I thought it did at first glance.  I've been in the truck when colliding with a smaller car and I without a doubt came out ahead.

I do disagree with the premise of two 20mph cars creating the force of a 40mph accident.

[Karnak]

I do disagree with the premise of two 20mph cars creating the force of a 40mph accident.

Wouldn't the energy be the same as a 40mph collision, assuming both cars are the same weight?

[Golfer]

Wouldn't the energy be the same as a 40mph collision, assuming both cars are the same weight?

While I only took basic physics classes going on a decade ago I don't believe so.

I did catch the Mythbusters episode where they actually did this full scale and two cars hitting head on at 50mph resulted in damage to each car identical to that of a 50mph crash. Not a 100mph impact.

[Golfer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8E5dUnLmh4&feature

Mythbusters episode.

[PuppetZ]

If you're interested to see how far car safety has gone in 40 years. off-center head on collision between a 2009 malibu and a 1959 chevy belair. The driver of the belair would have been dead on the spot. The driver of the malibu would have suffered minor knee injury.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=fPF4fBGNK0U

[Traveler]

38 years on a volunteer  First Aid Squad in NJ, with a major highway running through my small town (pop 4,600).  Seems that every 4 or 5 years for the first 30 years there was always a car or van full of young people involved in some type of auto accident,  with multiple fatalities.  Unfortunately over the last 5 years, it’s gotten worse, with car loads of kids with multiple fatalities almost every year, perhaps cell phones, who knows, but I do know this, it’s always after 2:00AM, (bars close in Jersey at 2:00AM), it’s always lousy weather, seldom are they wearing seatbelts, they been drinking, at the time of the accident, they were speeding.

[Dichotomy]

I was the only one who recieved injury, the air bag punched my left arm into the window and my right hand rubbed against the air bag as it came out.

Hurts don't it?

[fbEagle]

FIXED drive a Chevy...

[Karnak]

FIXED drive a Chevy...

Vehicles that can't move are a lot safer.....