Smart Car does highway-speed triple roll. Driver unscathed, seeks orphan
Laboratory crash testing is a great tool to give automakers and the public an idea of how well a vehicle might protect passengers in an accident. However, there can be a huge difference in crash simulations involving dummies with sensors and real world crashes involving real world people. As you may have guessed from the headline and the smashed Smart fourtwo pictured above, we have some real world crash results to share with you.
While driving along on I-95 in Connecticut at 70 mph, a fourtwo driver who goes by the name of "evilbean42" on the Smart Car of America forum (SCOA), was on the receiving end of a bump from a car which had been bumped by a car which had veered from the exit lane into the next, somewhat occupied, lane. The momentum sent the Smart into the guard rail off of which it bounced "like a ping pong ball" and rolled three times back across the highway into the opposite guardrail whereupon it righted itself. The seat-belted evilbean42 opened the door and emerged unscathed, thanks to his Smart friend.
It seems the first thing to cross the accident victim's mind was, Oh my God! I need to get an orphan! (Orphan appears to be SCOA forum-speak for a Smart car shipped to North America whose would-be owner had a change of heart). We wish evilbean42 the best of luck in his orphan quest and thank him for demonstrating that the Smart is not only good on gas but also safe in a crash.
Changed "Four Two" to "fourtwo". Thanks "gotsmart".
[Source: SCOA] Thanks to Ryan for the tip!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Doug 6:32PM (6/18/2008)
idunno... if anything, it shows how violently the car can be tossed around from a small "bump" due to its low mass. I'd like to know what happened to the other cars.
Reply
Gabe 6:35PM (6/18/2008)
I'd really like to see someone play a game of pong with a couple of buses for the "paddles" and a smart for the "ball." Would make a great video.
Reply
Dad 9:47PM (6/18/2008)
A "bump" and it crashes. Yeah, sounds like a lovely car.
Reply
zoomzoomr 10:31PM (6/18/2008)
Sounds like the Smart was a ping-pong ball between two Expedition/Suburban paddles.
Reply
davodn 1:50PM (6/19/2008)
well, i think any bump at highway speed will send any car into the guard rail, and hitting a rail at 70 mph would cause any car to bounce back onto the road, which the guard rail is designed to do, to bounce the car back into the highway to prevent you from going into other oncoming lanes. i think it did rather well at the speeds and conditions.
Reply
GenWaylaid 5:01PM (6/19/2008)
Given how easy it is to "total" most modern cars (purely an insurance calculation, usually damage costing more than 75% or so of the car's depreciated value, and have you priced a new fender lately?) I figure bounding about like a pinball is pretty unimportant. As long as all the humans walk away unscathed, that's good enough for me. The car is just about guaranteed to be hosed in a serious crash anyway. The only downside I see is the possibility of even more secondary collisions as the highway turns into a big pool table.
Reply
stevefazek 8:47AM (6/19/2008)
the police use "Bumps" to send cars spinning around.
All it takes is a little sideways force on the rear corner to cause a car to lose controll
Reply
bulgarian solicitor 12:10PM (6/19/2008)
Wow, I hope they make a movie out of this!
Reply
Phil L. 9:12AM (6/19/2008)
BTW, this isn't the first real-life accident in which the Smart proved it has benefited from some first-class engineering:
http://jalopnik.com/389911/smart-fortwo-punted-by-delivery-truck-returned-by-van
Reply
gotsmart 9:16AM (6/19/2008)
It's "fortwo" not "Four Two".
Reply
dwf 9:39AM (6/19/2008)
Was he really "bumped", or did somebody in a nearby car just sneeze?
Reply
Rick 7:23PM (6/19/2008)
The good- the car protected him. The bad- another example that small cars should not be so narrow. If the Smart had a wider wheelbase, similar to a normal compact, it might have held the road better. These tiny and narrow cars are just asking to be tossed around. A car can be small without being narrow on bicycle tires.
Reply
CNCMike 12:03PM (6/19/2008)
My first thought was "I doubt many other cars could roll 3 times and still look this good. I got bumped one time in a 70 Chevelle so lightly that all I got was a scratch on the chrome bumper and it turned me about 30 degrees from straight.
Reply
Matt 2:36PM (6/19/2008)
Ok "roll" in american clearly doesn't mean the same thing as it does in English.
In England when we say a car has rolled, we mean it rolled upside down (the roof of the car on the floor, the wheels sticking up in the air).
I am EXTREMELY SURPRISED that the car appears to have suffered so little deformation of the roof or tops of pillars if it there was enough energy to make this thing roll over **3** times. The wing mirrors are still attached, the side windows aren't broken, no air bags went off (not sure if they have side air bags on the smarts now? they usually go off on rolls), and the paint isn't even scratched!!
Clearly he had lost control enough to hit the barriers, but I'm calling BS on the hollywood-style multiple flips across the carriageway!
Reply
Tush 2:35PM (6/19/2008)
To dad:
Read the article, a bump at 70mph would said most vehicles careening.
Reply
brn 3:25PM (6/19/2008)
Gonna have to agree with Matt. If the car did roll (means the same thing on this side of the pond) three times, there would be a lot more superficial damage.
This whole thing is likely marketing propaganda.
On a related note, for certain types of crashes, the design of the Smart will do very well. For many others, it will do very poorly. Examples of one, have nothing to do with the other.
Reply
Wave54 3:38PM (6/19/2008)
to #13:
It probably never touched the ground -- sort of a Cirque de Soleil triple somersault.
I agree, the pictures shown don't look like it rolled end-over-end, without a scrape to the roof or broken side windows, but who knows? I wasn't there.
Does sound like a future Olympic Games event, though -- the Smart ForTwo toss.
Reply
CanaDoc 5:47PM (6/19/2008)
I'll grant that "rolled", in car terms, does imply 'on it's roof' but would the naysayers prefer "flipped" or "somersaulted" or perhaps "barrel rolled"? Why are we surprised that a car weighing ~700kg (1600lbs to some of us) bounced and twirled after hitting what's essentially a highway-sized pinball bumper? FWIW, I'd rather be involved with a 1600lb 'ping pong ball' than a 4000lb land yacth.
The takewaya is still this: a driver walked away from an accident in a SMART Car after a highway speed collision... here's to SMART (pun intended) engineering.
Reply
tio 8:42AM (6/20/2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZICPgRpyWE&NR=1
Reply