See this article for photographs of a Smart Car that a friend of mine was driving when he was involved in a head-on collision with another vehicle.
LI Herald: Crash at Atlantic Beach Bridge I submit that had he been riding a motorcycle, he would have been in MUCH worse shape.
Any estimate on the speeds involved in that collision?
I'm not familiar with that car but from that pic I'd say that was *very* close to unsurvivable - the crumple area is completely gone and everything significantly pushed back into the passenger area. I hope he can walk again.
Cars have made huge improvements in the last 25 years but crumple zones still need space to crumple into, space the passengers do not occupy. A motorcycle is basically a vehicle where your jacket is the crumple zone - uh oh.
It sure took a lot of damage aft of the firewall and in one pic partially collapsed on the front passenger. It may have passed but it's not impressive. To put it another way: if that's a pass, what does it take for a car in 2010 to fail?
From the side-impact pic it appears there is no intrusion protection in the door?
Rather than asking "would you drive one?" a more interesting question might be "would you buy one for your wife to drive the kids to school etc?"
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