Quote:
Originally Posted by MiraclePieCo
If we all wanted safety, this would be a Subaru forum.
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True there, The newer ones do protect the passengers if they are strapped down in the seat.
I was amazed with my 92 GEO Prizm GSI when the garbage truck slammed into me when I was sitting in traffic and shoved me into a Johnson barrier. He hit me so hard that it broke the seat and probably would have broken my neck except for the head rest. Then I hit the barrier that he shoved me into and that impact threw me forward and I hit the shoulder belt so hard that I carried a bruise for two months but didn't hit the windshield or steering wheel.
I opened the drivers door and got out. State patrol came the two blocks from their office and the officer asked if the car would move, It fired up and drove 200 yards to a park and ride parking lot. All four doors would open and close without effort, The state patrolman was amazed that the doors weren't jammed. I flat towed it home with my dualie and a tow bar the next day and it still will run and drive to move it around the yard. I want to use the engine in a little sports car.
The newer rigs have built in fold points in the frame or Uni body structure so they absorb a lot of the impact that old rigs didn't have.
More guys driving pre 1968 rigs got killed by the steering column than anything else though. That solid steel shaft from the steering box to the wheel doesn't give any when your chest hits it and I was at one wreck where the driver of a 65 Mustang was impaled on the steering shaft when he hit a VW bug head on killing him and the guy in the bug. Fog so thick you couldn't see 50 ft ahead with your headlights that night and he was going pretty fast when he hit the bug.
On the other hand I saw the rig one of my wife's coworkers got thrown out of and killed because she didn't have a seat belt on when she rolled it after spinning out on black ice and you could have driven that one away after rolling it back on it's wheels. If she had had the belt on she would have walked away with probably a few bruises.