Road Accidents - Food for thought

[Poppa Dom]

OK, I'll confess I am not one to post things like this normally, but this one did make me think - apologies if this story has been linked to before. We're all led to believe that cars are really safe places to be, NCAP ratings and the like have taken away the harsh reality that accidents still happen and that people still get hurt. Yet the assurances of a car being a safe place to be make some people feel untouchable. As someone who has lost my two closest friends to an RTI (they were both pedestrians) drive safe every one, here's the story from last year, really tragic...

In an accident in Wolfsburg on Wednesday evening, four young men 18 to 20 years, died. They rode in a brand new golf (MK6 GTD)

A fifth victim is in danger, police said. The 19-year-old driver had the 170 horsepower car, which was registered to his father. The car had only been picked up by him in person at the Wolfsburg plant a few hours earlier. He drove at 100mph through his home town with his friends in the car.

The vehicle crashed into a traffic island, flung against a tree and was ripped clean in two in a split second.

"The first responders offered a grim picture," said police spokesman Thomas Figge. None of the five passengers had put on a seatbelt. All were catapulted from the vehicle and thrown into the street.

One of the men died at the accident scene, the others succumbed shortly afterwards in the nearby hospitals due to their severe injuries.




Note the car door wrapped around the lamp post. Shocking and irresponsible.

[MAT ED30]

this happened a while ago and it was very bad 

[Poppa Dom]

I couldn't find it on here already with a quick search so apologies if double posting. Even if it is, it resonated with me and if it gets people to think then it is not a bad thing.

[MAT ED30]

i thought it was a gti  not the gtd  very sad anyway 

[joesgti]

It has GTI alloys!

The think that makes me squirm is the amount of blood on the road!

also its supprising how strong that bloody tree was!

[chungster]

The GTD is the GT TDI with the GTI body kit and wheels. Read this last year and yes it was a shocking story.

[cmdrfire]

This was a terrible story.

I will say this: generally speaking, if you wear your seatbelt, you are up to 80%[/b] more likely to survive an accident than if you don't. Seatbelts save lives and are considerably more effective than any other form of safety device in a car, including airbags.

Nowadays people tend to forget that it takes a helluva lot of energy to move a 1.5tonnes vehicle at any speed at all - and in a sudden stop all that energy needs to go somewhere.

One more little factoid: the human body is remarkably good and surviving impacts up to about 28mph*. Above this, survivability decreases rapidly; at 35mph you're down to a 20% survival rate (IIRC) and even less as you go faster. In pedestrian areas, don't speed - it really is 30 for a reason, as the safety ads say.


*Someone once explained to me that there's an evolutionary reason behind this. Fast sprinters can manage 28-30mph, and it would've been the maximum speed attainable by our primitive predecessors; hence we've evolved to withstand that sort of speed, and not really much more above that.

[stealthwolf]

Yes, old news but still poignant.

[Dandan]

Wow, I had not heard of this. That pic scares the living sh** out of me   
By the look of that car in half I dont think wearing  seatbelts would have made any difference (ofc cleaning up the human body parts might be easier).

VW has one of the best (read: most annoying) "Fasten your seatbelt"-attention sounds that makes sure that atleast everyone enjoying my ride is going to be wearing their seatbelts.

-Dan