Roland,Apr 8 2006, 01:48 AM Wrote:Edit 2:
Yup. Looking at the close-up of the steering wheel shows he was going in excess of 90 miles an hour at the time of impact, which means he could have conceivably been doing over 100 when he lost control of the vehicle.
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Hmm, I had concluded that it was 90+ kilometers/hr he was traveling, which would be about 55 mph. I guess because the webpage was in French (or some other latin) I was assuming ... plus, the numbers seem awfully crowded on the speed'o'meter to be mph. (EDIT: Also, the license plates on the cars in the road seem to have the European shape rather than the North American shape. The word on the side of the ambulance may be a place name, it looks kinda Spanish, maybe it's Italian. ) If the pix are from Europe, we're much more likely to be dealing with kph rather than mph.
55 mph is enough to cut yer car in half. I had a friend who took a curve at about that speed, went sideways into a telephone pole, and split his car in the same manner as these pix. (IIRC, it was a car like a Valiant or some similar no-nonsense sedan.) When the ambulance came, they were amazed to find him alive. (He was the only one in the car, fortunately.) Not only that, but he could be said to have "only scratches". Actually, he had a "gash" on the top of his head, just a matter of degree I guess.
How had he survived??? Well, first he was lucky the pole missed him. Evidently, the roof of the car was peeled off via the pole (which started its cutting from the passenger side). Then, somehow, he was ejected from the car for quite a distance (no belt, judging by that fact). He must have gone out on the passenger side through the hole that had just been made by the pole ripping off the roof. In fact I think he must have been ejected while the pole was still cutting the car, and before the roof was entirely off. My guess is that the top of his head actually hit the roof as it was crumpling, hence the gash. (I think if it had been the doorframe, the injury would have been worse.) Going through the hole was the second stroke of luck. But he still needed a third-- many times people die not from the crash but from what happens when they are thrown into the air at x mph, or more specifically, from how they come to rest after being thrown that way. This guy had good luck #3 by landing in bushes.
Roland,Apr 8 2006, 01:48 AM Wrote:Indeed, even the 850's had side-impact airbags, as well as dual-front airbags, at least as early as 1995.
As for Volvo 850's, I have one, it's a '96. It has the dual front airbags, but I don't think it has the side bags. Maybe those were an option.
-V
Night Nurse
The Forsaken Inn
(Edit: added the bit about the license plates.)