8 Responses to “No Serious Injuries When Car Hits Hwy. 29 Sidewalk Railing, Pole”

1. David Huie Green on March 1st, 2011 2:14 pm

   REGARDING:
   “I’m sorry David if you believe what you READ.
   The cheap products are just for bigger profits. Car companies will tell you anything.”

   I didn’t talk to the car companies but to the engineers who designed the cars. They told me what they were shooting for as well as the federal regulations involved.

   Further, I’ve read a number of times in the past when a car was involved in a collision with little damage to the car but the riders killed. In other instances cars were totaled with minor injuries to the riders. (By the way, air bags were added because so many refused to use seat belts. Unrestrained bodies tend to rattle around, sometimes being ejected and then rolled over by the vehicle or another. I knew a kid who died THAT way. His truck wasn’t particularly hurt, he was just thrown out of it into the path of a semi.)

   And then there’s Ralph Nader’s UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED in which he pointed out that cars were too hard, too likely to kill the passengers. This led the federal government to write regulations leading to the things you think were done to make cheaper cars.

   David for soft obstacles
   rather than hard ones

2. Horrific on March 1st, 2011 9:28 am

   EWMS
   You are absolutely correct.
   I have been in an accident and neither of us were going fast and
   I have broken my neck and need two surgeries yet among all I have
   already been through which I won’t even go into, because the cars are not like they used to be.

   I’m sorry David if you believe what you READ.
   The cheap products are just for bigger profits. Car companies will
   tell you anything.

3. EWMS parent on March 1st, 2011 8:43 am

   That’s where the airbags come in…the plastic is for the vehicle to get better mpg. But think I’d rather spend a little more on gas and feel safe than be in a car with plastic bumpers where even in a low mph impact the car crumples in on me!
   Been there…me going less than 45mph was hit by an early 90s small car going bout 20; totaled mine (late 90s station wagon with plastic bumper…no metal underneath, that way from factory), messed up my neck and shoulder, broke my hand, and internal bruising. Have been through one surgery on hand already, it’s been almost 3 months and still cannot lift arm or use that hand & still doing physical therapy with very little improvement, and other problems I won’t put here. But, the other car, with a metal bumper, driver was NOT hurt and the car was driven away from the scene with a dent and a bent bumper…all was fixed within a week.
   So me & my family are firm believers in metal bumpers!

4. David Huie Green on March 1st, 2011 7:10 am

   REGARDING:
   “Them plastic bumpers really don’t hold up to impacts…need to go back to real metal bumpers, then car’s wouldn’t be ‘totaled’ so easy”

   Design philosophy for cars is not to make a car which will survive a crash but to make one in which the riders will survive. The best way for that to happen is for the vehicle to absorb as much of the energy of any impact possible. That involves the car crumpling.

   David for polyurethane foam car bodies

5. Know your neighbor on February 28th, 2011 9:40 pm

   Hard to believe the rail did all that damage. I want a car made out of that rail.

6. Name (required) on February 28th, 2011 6:56 pm

   There are steel bumpers behind the plastic when they are new,
   this car looks like it repaired once before and the steel bumper might
   have been removed (they are easier to fix if you just remove it).

   I have owned 5 of these Saturn ‘S’ series and they are pretty good cars in my experience.

7. EWMS parent on February 28th, 2011 4:19 pm

   Was there a health issue or something with the driver?
   I saw this today and wondered how they managed to hit the pole that hard on the south bound side of the highway when it looked like they were north bound.
   Them plastic bumpers really don’t hold up to impacts…need to go back to real metal bumpers, then car’s wouldn’t be ‘totaled’ so easy.

8. whitepunknotondope on February 28th, 2011 3:34 pm

   Looks like the railing won that battle.