What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?

[StevenRB45]

He seems to be singing the praises of it's safety as you'd expect.

Although what I can't help but notice is that it takes a lot of wall to stop 2.7 tonnes at speed

In this case the weight of the vehicle and ride height seems to have allowed it to demolish/ride over the catch fence. Something smaller would have stayed on the road and not dropped off as the wall is still up if damaged the ride height of the defender seems to have allowed to ride over the safety barrier.

So while it's stood up well...it also probably lead to the incident being as serious as it was.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

He seems to be singing the praises of it's safety as you'd expect.

Although what I can't help but notice is that it takes a lot of wall to stop 2.7 tonnes at speed

View attachment 471374

In this case the weight of the vehicle and ride height seems to have allowed it to demolish/ride over the catch fence. Something smaller would have stayed on the road and not dropped off as the wall is still up if damaged the ride height of the defender seems to have allowed to ride over the safety barrier.

So while it's stood up well...it also probably lead to the incident being as serious as it was.

I have to admit I share your view on this, such a large and heavy vehicle no doubt added to the extent of the accident in this particular circumstance. Would a lighter vehicle rolled so easily/so many times. Did the weight increase the impact force with the road below etc, but yeah a smaller car probably would not have punched thought that wall quite so easily.

Still impressive that given his age and the severity of the accident he was able to walk a way needing only a back support for a few weeks.

 

[ZaphodB]

I have to admit I share your view on this, such a large and heavy vehicle no doubt added to the extent of the accident in this particular circumstance. Would a lighter vehicle rolled so easily/so many times. Did the weight increase the impact force with the road below etc, but yeah a smaller car probably would not have punched thought that wall quite so easily.

Still impressive that given his age and the severity of the accident he was able to walk a way needing only a back support for a few weeks.

Curtain/knee and steering wheel airbags have a lot to answer for most of the time, unless you've been really unlucky from the direction of forces, people just walk out of modern crashes with a couple of scratches and a ringing in your ears from the airbags.....
or with damaged wrists if they've hung on the steering.

Near me idiots knock two foot thick dry stone walls down quite regularly after dark, going way too fast , possibly under the influence of nitrous oxide and/or cognac. Absolutely demolish them!... even dry stone walls which have been reinstated (from previous knocking down) with sand and cement

 

[StevenRB45]

Near me idiots knock two foot thick dry stone walls down quite regularly after dark, going way too fast , possibly under the influence of nitrous oxide and/or cognac. Absolutely demolish them!... even dry stone walls which have been reinstated (from previous knocking down) with sand and cement

In this case that's not a dry stone wall, it seems to be a concrete retaining wall with a veneer of local stone to make it look pretty from the road side with a metal fence bolted or perhaps even cemented in.

The veneer has gone but the concrete road retaining wall hasn't budged an inch, it's not stopped the car though as it just drove over it and bent the fence clean off the top.

It's good he's ok and good he seems to be making positive road safety messages from it but it seems a bit backwards to me to be praising the modern car he was in when if he'd been in an older, smaller, lighter car of the sort the barrier designer likely envisaged it very likely wouldn't have needed to survive the freefall to the road below.

 

[ZaphodB]

It's good he's ok and good he seems to be making positive road safety messages from it but it seems a bit backwards to me to be praising the modern car he was in when if he'd been in an older, smaller, lighter car of the sort the barrier designer likely envisaged it very likely wouldn't have needed to survive the freefall to the road below.

Absoutely , what I was saying wasn't about this guy at all - and I hope he makes a full recovery from the incident, I meant you see car thieves on telly all the time, after a car chase and the inevitable crash, they mostly just get out and run.... all because they've been protected by all the modern safety stuff.
Sorry I didn't give the full context of my remark.

 

[ZaphodB]

In other news I bought a USB adaptor on the 30th on ebay .....

Yesterday realised it hadn't shipped... so I put in a cancel request.... tonight got the message from ebay saying "the seller has refused to cancel the order" and "Unfortunately, the seller let us know that they can no longer cancel this order."

And expected delivery day is between 11th and 18th of August ..........

The seller is located a mere 12 miles away from me ..... so I'm not smiling

 

[PuntoHowTo]

these days cars are stupidly safe compared to years gone by which is why I always laugh when people come on the forum singing the praises of their 4 or 5 NCAP star fiat from 2003. It might have been safe by the standards of the time but by modern standards it really isn’t.

There was a lot of controversy a few years back (around 2017?) when NCAP made the point of retesting the Punto and the panda both of which scored zero stars?

NCAP did it to make a point about cars that have not been updated for years, and it ultimately caused the demise of the Punto and sales of the panda dropped significantly in the following years.

Fiat very quickly updated the safety of the 500 to avoid their cash cow suffering the same fate.

In this instance my medical head kicks in and asks what caused him to crash, rather than worry too much about the injuries he sustained.

Did he have a mini stroke (tia) some sort of cardiac event? Pass out? Blood sugar problem, a cognitive issue? Etc. given no other cars were involved I think no only was he bloody lucky but with a flying 2.5 ton landrover soaring through the sky, so was anyone else on that stretch of road at that time.

 

[ZaphodB]

There was a lot of controversy a few years back (around 2017?) when NCAP made the point of retesting the Punto and the panda both of which scored zero stars?

Wasn't in 2020 when they changed the frontal impact tests was it? https://www.whatcar.com/news/euro-ncap-makes-biggest-changes-to-crash-tests-in-a-decade/n21466

Oh wait it was 2018 https://www.topgear.com/car-news/crash/why-your-old-five-star-ncap-car-isnt-safe-you-think-it

The Fiat Panda zero star is listed there in that article

 

[StevenRB45]

these days cars are stupidly safe compared to years gone by which is why I always laugh when people come on the forum singing the praises of their 4 or 5 NCAP star fiat from 2003. It might have been safe by the standards of the time but by modern standards it really isn’t.

There was a lot of controversy a few years back (around 2017?) when NCAP made the point of retesting the Punto and the panda both of which scored zero stars?

NCAP did it to make a point about cars that have not been updated for years, and it ultimately caused the demise of the Punto and sales of the panda dropped significantly in the following years.

Fiat very quickly updated the safety of the 500 to avoid their cash cow suffering the same fate.

In this instance my medical head kicks in and asks what caused him to crash, rather than worry too much about the injuries he sustained.

Did he have a mini stroke (tia) some sort of cardiac event? Pass out? Blood sugar problem, a cognitive issue? Etc. given no other cars were involved I think no only was he bloody lucky but with a flying 2.5 ton landrover soaring through the sky, so was anyone else on that stretch of road at that time.

I think the issue with this is it all becomes an arms race to who can build the heaviest car.

Also while they are test safe there are issues in terms of real world examples of how they interact with an environment not really designed with such large objects travelling at high speed in mind.

There's examples of the similar vehicles clearing for example the motorway central reservation barrier in the event of a medical episode. If they had been a lower smaller lighter car it would likely have been bounced back into the carriageway with traffic heading in the same direction and likely leaving the road kerbside. Instead they get to have 140mph closing speed impact with someone coming the other way.

So while Fiat was a naughty boy lauding tanks for all is counter productive as 2 2.7 tonne cars hitting eachother head on at 70 is fairly likely catastrophic for all concerned.

Then there's the issue of if you leave the road on your own you're likely to penetrate people's houses...gardens, bus stops, playgrounds, cars etc more easily.

So it doesn't necessarily follow that something that is safer on Ncap is safer for all concerned or even the driver in certain circumstances.

 

[portland_bill]

these days cars are stupidly safe compared to years gone by which is why I always laugh when people come on the forum singing the praises of their 4 or 5 NCAP star fiat from 2003. It might have been safe by the standards of the time but by modern standards it really isn’t.

There was a lot of controversy a few years back (around 2017?) when NCAP made the point of retesting the Punto and the panda both of which scored zero stars?

NCAP did it to make a point about cars that have not been updated for years, and it ultimately caused the demise of the Punto and sales of the panda dropped significantly in the following years.

Fiat very quickly updated the safety of the 500 to avoid their cash cow suffering the same fate.

In this instance my medical head kicks in and asks what caused him to crash, rather than worry too much about the injuries he sustained.

Did he have a mini stroke (tia) some sort of cardiac event? Pass out? Blood sugar problem, a cognitive issue? Etc. given no other cars were involved I think no only was he bloody lucky but with a flying 2.5 ton landrover soaring through the sky, so was anyone else on that stretch of road at that time.

Only yesterday evening I was talking with a friend at the bowls club about various cars. He asked about the Panda, and then what it would be like in a crash. "Like a cardboard box" was my reply. He looked shocked. Not hitting things is a good preventative measure, I think.