The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tells us that “stronger roofs crush less, reducing the risk that people will be injured by contact with the roof itself. Stronger roofs also can prevent occupants, especially those who aren’t using safety belts, from being ejected through windows, windshields or doors that have broken or opened because the roof has deformed.” And this is why we have to live with thick pillars, smaller windows, and the reduced visibility that comes with them.
But the IIHS says nothing of vehicles falling out of fourth floor parking garages. In this Baltimore County Police video we see a late model Audi Q5 fall out of a fourth floor parking garage after its driver failed to properly pull into the parking spot. The amazing thing is that the driver survived and was not even seriously injured, but probably seriously traumatized.
If surviving that means living with thicker pillars, I am fine with this. You may remember this Top Gear “Tribute to Saab” where Clarkson and May drop and older Saab and an E30 BMW from a much lower height, with much different results. Where we all love older cars, driving something modern can seriously save our lives.
Audi Q5 Falls Out of a 4th Floor Garage
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Rollover protection was one of the things that pushed me to buy a new Nissan Frontier over a Toyota Tacoma. I realize the chance of rolling over may be slim, but to me it’s one of the scariest potential crashes, and with a vehicle with a high CoG I didn’t want to take any chances. Similarly, crash protection is one of the things that makes me second guess buying another E30 at some point. Maybe I should go for a SAAB instead.
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4 floors at a 10 foot average floor height is 30 feet up (1st floor is 0).
sqrt(30 ft * 2 / 32.2 ft/s^2) = 1.36 seconds = 44 ft/s = 30mph* impact into solid concrete
(*ignoring any initial speed)
That’s one thing when the front or rear crumple zone soaks it up.
Basically the standard cars are engineer’d to.
But not roofs.
They are extremely lucky the rear roof soaked all that up before the front header bough hit the ground.-
Exactly. The planter saved their life.
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Jason Bourne could not be reached for comment as he was on the phone with Pamela Landy…
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The structure of the vehicle is impressive. What is also impressive was the number of people who rushed in to help. Gives me a little hope for humanity.
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That will not buff out !
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That’s the car I should have had during my teens! Seatbelts would have been a nice addition though.
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I saw this on the news the other day, but couldn’t tell what kind of vehicle was involved. I wonder if any (or how many) of the airbags deployed? It look like any did, but that would make sense, given how it landed.
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Fortunately at work I park in an underground garage, so I’ll keep driving my older vehicles.
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Do your newer ones lack the oomph to drive uphill out of the garage?
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The ones that don’t are small enough to fit in the elevator.
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Your vehicles are light enough that they would just flutter down like a leaf. Well except for the Ford, with that one you’d have to vigorously raise and retract the roof to fly like a helicopter.
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“…its driver failed to properly pull into the parking spot.”
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In fairness to the driver, without knowing more it could also have been a case of failing to pull properly out of a parking spot.
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With Audi, there’s always the Unintended Acceleration factor. In this case, the acceleration was vertical.
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If they were leaving, they WERE intending to have vertical acceleration, just of a lesser magnitude.
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I was being “journalistic”!
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Presumably he pulled into it just fine. He just chose not to stay.
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Yeah, it’s great that you can drive your car through a 4th floor parking garage, land on your roof, and not be killed. I’ve always prided myself on not driving my vehicles out of the sides of buildings. And I have a Miata. I win!
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Thick pillars and tiny windows have caused their fair share of mayhem. I’m willing to believe that for every rollover there’s many more ‘oops I didn’t see you’ accidents due to human-sized blind spots.
This is a consequence of a predominant religion that believes in a vengeful god that resides in the sky. We drive around in cars that protect us from an extremely unlikely 7000 pound impact from above.
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