218 miles and never made it to the first petrol station

[guest1372]

Write off. At least they will get a shiny new one.


--
TG

[Ozzie]

Ouch !

[Paulwhitt20]

Typical the headlights are still on!

Hope everyone is okay.

[John Ratsey]

Evidently the car didn't consider the lamp post (or whatever it was) to be an obstacle worthy of automatically slamming on the brakes.

[guest1372]

Evidently the car didn't consider the lamp post (or whatever it was) to be an obstacle worthy of automatically slamming on the brakes.

"Watch this" he says to passenger, "it's got automatic braking".  We've all tested our ABS on a quiet road, so why not this.
--
TG

[ColinB]

Interesting that the airbags didn't deploy, suggests it wasn't a particularly hard impact.

[bill ericay]

Watch this" he says to passenger, "it's got automatic braking".  We've all tested our ABS on a quiet road, so why not this.
--
TG

Nice one TG 

[olduser1]

The damage to me looks like a reverse parking incident -  hope no injuries .

[guest5643]

Interesting that the airbags didn't deploy, suggests it wasn't a particularly hard impact.

Typical! Things you want to work work don't,things you don't want to work do

[Garyman]

Oouch!!  hope you get sorted soon and everyone was ok

[Rory]

Interesting that the airbags didn't deploy, suggests it wasn't a particularly hard impact.

Well, low speed.   I wouldn't have guessed that damage would write the car off.

[culzean]

Interesting that the airbags didn't deploy, suggests it wasn't a particularly hard impact.

Well, low speed.   I wouldn't have guessed that damage would write the car off.

Cars with better NCAP rating have the best front and rear 'crumple zones' which absorb energy by deforming to stop energy of impacts being transferred to occupants, which is why big 4 wheel drives with their solid chassis used to be actually more dangerous for occupants than passenger cars,  the chassis stayed solid and all the energy of the crash was transferred to the occupants,  (think of shaking a stone around in a can LOL). The Jazz with its centrally mounted fuel tank (the safest place for it) can actually have better rear crumple zone than a lot of other cars. The side doors of the car have strong sections of metal beams across them about halfway up the door to stop doors being pushed in by side impacts and to help keep door in shape so that they can still open.

I remember a few years ago on top gear when they did a frontal impact of a newish Renault Modus against a big solid Volvo estate of about 10 years old at the time of test and asked viewers to guess which driver would come off best in a crash,  I bet I wasn't alone in choosing Volvo but turned out Volvo driver came off worse and front doors couldn't be opened and according to damage to the poor old crash test dummy the Volvo driver would have been killed / seriously injured but Renault driver was fine even though damage to Renault looked worse because its front had collapsed a lot more than the Volvo.

[ColinB]

Interesting that the airbags didn't deploy, suggests it wasn't a particularly hard impact.

Well, low speed.   I wouldn't have guessed that damage would write the car off.

"Hard impact" was a bad choice of words on my part, so just to clarify. The thing that causes injury in an impact is the sudden deceleration of the vehicle whilst the occupants continue to travel forwards in accordance with Mr Newton's well-known laws. The comments about crumple zones emphasise that the objective of the engineers is to reduce the deceleration by adding energy-absorption structures (aka crumple zones) front & rear, so that they deform progressively under impact. The airbags are a further stage of reducing the deceleration experienced by the occupants; they are controlled by accelerometers so they fire off when they detect an abnormally high acceleration. So, looking at the photos, I was surprised to see such damage without the airbags deploying. It looks like the crumple zone did it's job by reducing the deceleration to a safe level, possibly because the car was only moving at low speed at the point of impact (although the depth of penetration suggests a bit more than, say, walking pace).  The car was written-off because the frontal structure is so deformed it can't be rebuilt economically to a safe standard.

[culzean]

The airbags are a further stage of reducing the deceleration experienced by the occupants; they are controlled by accelerometers so they fire off when they detect an abnormally high acceleration.

Airbags used to be triggered (and maybe still are)  by nothing more complicated than a metal ball bearing in an angled  tube with electrical contacts at the upper end,  if the impact was severe enough the ball would roll up the tube and bridge the contacts this fired the airbag.

[ColinB]

The airbags are a further stage of reducing the deceleration experienced by the occupants; they are controlled by accelerometers so they fire off when they detect an abnormally high acceleration.

Airbags used to be triggered (and maybe still are)  by nothing more complicated than a metal ball bearing in an angled  tube with electrical contacts at the upper end,  if the impact was severe enough the ball would roll up the tube and bridge the contacts this fired the airbag.

I think you've just described an accelerometer !