'09 Malibu Vs. '59 Bel Air Crash Test 496
theodp writes "To celebrate their 50th anniversary, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crashed a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air into a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu. Hate to spoil the ending of the video, but if you find yourself participating in a similar car-jousting contest, pick the Malibu over the Bel Air. (Not that you'll be complaining afterwards if you don't, or doing much of anything.) Guess there is something to those crumple zones after all."
'52 Citroen DS (Score:4, Interesting)
TopGear (Score:5, Interesting)
The crash investigator they had evaluate the results said the driver of the older car would have had multiple broken bones, including both femurs, and even if he'd survived the crash he would have bled to death by the time they could extract him, which would take 30-40 minutes as the car was so badly deformed.
In contrast, the modern Espace's computers decided the crash wasn't bad enough to deploy the air bags! Only the seat belt pre-tensioners fired. The investigator thought everyone in that car would have walked away from the accident uninjured.
Their conclusion was that modern crumple zones and stiffer chassis work but because they are stiffer older cars suffer much more when colliding with a modern car.
What always surprises me is how much damage is done to any car, old or new, at these low speeds! Really says to me that any speed limit over 40 mph on any single-carriage way road is just insane.
I drive a 58 Chevy... (Score:5, Interesting)
One reason that the door crumpled so readily is the crazy wraparound windshield. The windshield pillar contains a free-hanging right angle, which is not the way that a structural engineer would have done it. It also bangs the knees.
The big problem with older cars is that the body shape was sculpted from clay in a studio separate from the rest of the car designers, rather than being designed as part of an automobile. The end result being that the body shape had no basis in sound mechanical design.
Re:And this repels morons? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:TopGear (Score:1, Interesting)
Not so surprise: the car kinetic energy is:
0.5*m*v^2
which increases by factor of 4 when doubling speed.
This energy is to be dissipated at crash...
Lets go further. Imagine you are 70Kg (=154 lb), and you travel at 50Km/h (top speed at Spanish cities). Imagine you crash into a solid wall, and you are lucky enough your car nose gets deformated 1meter. The seat belt, has to do a work on your body so dissipates all your kinetic energy during that meter (work = force * distance). Thus, you can get an average of the force of the seat belt on your chest:
0.5*70*13.8^2 = 1*Force_in_Newton
(13.8m/s=50Km/h=31miles/h)
This is 6750 N (=690Kg_force = 1520 lb_force). This is an average! the peak shall be higher!. Note also that 1meter is perhaps an optimistic deformation (just look at the pictures...)
Hopefully you get aware of the crash and you can brake, but when people get slept at the wheel, results are so bad.
If we duplicate the speed (100Km/h, 62 miles/h), the deformation shall increase but not much longer than 1m, and the energy is multiplied by 4, so a force around 2000Kg_force or 4400 lb_force is expected.
Re:Speaking as a non-car-freak (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, no, it wouldn't.
Notwithstanding the extra weight of the iron-block, iron-head inline 6, the Malibu's motor is still a substantial chunk of metal that can be considered essentially solid. You certainly aren't going to force the I6 motor THROUGH it.
What you will do is load up the engine mounts - which are much, much stronger on the Malibu, and designed to crumple in such a way that the passenger cabin is minimally infringed.
A more likely case in a 100% head-on collision is the Bel-Air's engine coming to rest in the Bel-Air's back seat, having been forced through the cabin by the Malibu.
DG
Re:Speaking as a non-car-freak (Score:3, Interesting)
Offset collisions are also more dangerous to cabin occupants than full, head on collisions. Car safety tests used head on collisions for a long time, but that was abandoned in the 80s or early 90s when it became apparent that they don't reflect real life accidents or the damage they cause to occupants.
The physical reasoning behind it is pretty simple: if you are offset, there is less material to soak up the energy of the crash. Typically enough that old school engine mounts or suspension parts would fail, and cause the drivetrain parts to intrude upon the cabin, like the Bel-Air's engine did in this test.
Re:the wunnerful 50's, not (Score:5, Interesting)
It's just one of those things car designers learnt from trial and error, like where to put a petrol tank so it doesn't explode and why not to use metal steering wheels.
I tried to find the European NCAP rating for the Malibu but wasn't able to so i have no idea on how safe the car is. But a while back on Top Gear they felt so safe about a 5 star NCAP car a presenter crashed it into a wall at 30/40MPH he came out without a scratch. Admittedly they'd wrecked the car, but the presenter didn't even have whiplash, you just wouldn't do that in a 50's car because chances are you'd end up with broken legs or internal injuries (generally from the steering wheel). Sure you were fine, but those changes happened because most people wern't ok.
Re:Classic Cars (Score:4, Interesting)
As a driver, I think they need to point out that the idea is to NOT CRASH.
No kidding! In the US we have this mindset that the only way to be safe on the road is to buy a giant armored tank and sit four feet off the ground. And so they buy a huge SUV which has god-awful maneuverability and is many times more likely to roll over. And who cares about the risk you put other drivers in (or pedestrians -- SUVs are several times more likely to back over a child, for example).
If everyone focused on light, agile, and well-built, the roads would be a lot safer place. I think it's quite telling that there's far more variance in crash survivability between vehicles in a given class than between classes -- even within the same price bracket. If the Smart Fortwo can pass crash testing with that tiny little crumple zone, it's pathetic that so many vehicles don't do any better than they do.
Re:Speaking as a non-car-freak (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact is that most accidents don't happen on the highway - you're 4 times as likely to have an accident on secondary or local roads than on the highway, and if you want realism, a LOT of those are one car blindsiding another (T-boning), or rear-ending another. On the highway, a lot of accidents are multiple-car collisions, and a lot of other accidents are single-car events (driver loses control, ends up in ditch|against concrete).
Want to make it realistic? Then you simply won't be having a 1959 Chevy Bel-Air vs a 2009 Malibu. But if you're going to do the comparison, make it a fair, head-to-head, contest.
Also, unit-body construction (the Malibu) won't last 50 years in most climates - there's no real frame - the sheet metal will have deteriorated too much by then, whereas the Bel-Air, with a separate frame, was at least drivable. It's one reason why you see more older pickups than cars.
As others pointed out, they also cherry-picked the Bel-Air as probably the worst car of its' era.
Re:Classic Cars (Score:2, Interesting)
As a driver, I think they need to point out that the idea is to NOT CRASH.
It all comes down to complacency. Safety items, on the vehicles and on the roads, encourages complacency. "If I stay in my lane I won't end up in an accident" - "If I follow all the rules and stop at the traffic lights I won't get in an accident"
These thoughts are fundamentally wrong. Avoiding wrecks is not a function of following the rules, it's a function of paying attention to what's going on around you, and what you're doing. Lines on the road and traffic control devices create a false sense of security and therefore encourages complacency.
I remember some studies where they removed all the lines and signs in some small towns in Europe and it resulted in many fewer accidents and an overall reduction in average driving speed. I really wish someone would try it in the US. We really need to remind our drivers that they are responsible for the safety of themselves and others.
Re:Safety (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you ever worry that your feelings are trying to get you killed?
1998 Toyota Corolla - 40mph into side of truck that turned left in front of me for no apparent reason. Drove the car to a parking lot and got out without a scratch. Car totalled.
2001 Toyota Echo - car driving horizontally to traffic plowed into my left front bumper sending me across a lane of traffic and hitting a concrete highway divider twice. Tires, were resting against the divider. Got out without a scratch. Car totalled.
Now granted I have bad luck. But my experience is telling me your feelings are trying to get you killed. No matter how good a driver you are if someone decides to turn left at exactly the right moment or drive against the flow of traffic, there's very little you can do evasively.
Re:the wunnerful 50's, not (Score:3, Interesting)
Nope, sorry but I would MUCH rather spend $1k than have my neck suffer 23G's of acceleration (what can occur in a 15mph crash without cushioning). That $1k represents a fraction of the monthly earnings for the average first world family, it's much cheaper to fix the car than fix the person.
Speaking as a motorcycle rider... this is why most of the time, I'm wearing a good $500 of gear when I ride my bike (half of that is around my head). Just the ambulance to the hospital from one crash was $400, then with the x-ray, and the CT scan ("Ma'am, this is super really big important, are you SURE you're not pregnant?") it easily got up to about $4k. And this was with NOTHING wrong with me except some road rash.
My jacket was in pretty reasonable condition, and my protective pants were torn to shreds. My jacket however had ridden up my arm, and why I had road rash, and my legs has the tiniest of road-rash scratches on it.
I'd much rather buy new gear, than new body parts...