WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

As of this morning, I regret to inform that I am no longer a member of the Panda fraternity.

On the way to work I was involved in a multi-car pileup. Luckily everyone walked away unscathed, bar the poor Panda. It took a fair old shunt in the rear from a fully-laden tipper, which in turn pushed me up the rear of the car in front. The crumple zones certainly worked as intended, but I'm 99.99999% sure the little bear'll be written off.

It's a real bugger. The only car that'll ever be able to match the Panda's smiles-per-gallon is, well, another Panda... Maybe one day.

Count yourself lucky.
Sure your car's a write off, but you're ok and the sun is shining.

Feckin' freezing over here!

Yes, you're very lucky to escape that incident unharmed. It looks like your wee beastie did its job, which is to protect you, very well.

Incidents like this are also a salutary reminder never to leave heavy objects on the back seat (briefcase? laptop? that bottle of wine for this evening?) as in the event of a rear-end shunt they may well be propelled towards the back of your head at great speed (as my wife discovered to her cost 15 years ago, almost to the day).

Really sorry to hear (and see) that, but glad you're OK. Hopefully the insurance pays out and you can get back into another Panda very soon....

Great shame but pleased you're unscathed. Fog? Ice? Idiot lorry driver?

Yeah, just pleased you came out unscathed like everyone else!

What a mess of the Panda though. Doesn't bear thinking about what sort of injuries my two little kids could have had sitting in the back having been shunted by that huge lorry and doing that to the back of your car (wasn't all that long ago we had the Panda to be fair).

You just have to put your faith in the seatbelts, child car seats etc and hope they do their job if you ever need it...

Air bags didn't fire? Maybe not the required sort of impact to do so?
I'm still wading through the owner handbook & if I read correctly I see that it's possible to disarm the passenger side bags if no passenger in the front(?).

gchen said:

Air bags didn't fire? Maybe not the required sort of impact to do so?
I'm still wading through the owner handbook & if I read correctly I see that it's possible to disarm the passenger side bags if no passenger in the front(?).

Click to expand...

Airbags shouldnt have gone off but possibly side curtain if it has one fitted.
Just goes to show how well cars are designed these days,its crumpled exactly as designed and everyone walks away
Good result its only a car,glad your ok tom

I once had the same experience from a truck of similar dimensions when driving my old B reg Escort, back in the early 90s. I had just stopped behind the tail end of 3 or 4 cars that were waiting to turn left in to a scrap yard instead of continuing ahead when, luckily for me, the car ahead turned at the last millisecond so instead of being squashed I was punted through the air. Managed to save the car because of that. Just. Worryingly little crumple went on in those older cars. Certainly no airbags. Seat belts saved me an my passenger though. I could actually drive away. If my old car had been crushed with one in front like yours it would have folded up and mangled us.

Try not to let it put you off driving. I've only just started again.

Very Glad your OK. Sorry about Panda!