Page 1 of 5

What Happened?

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 11:01 pm
by Mini Spirit
http://dailym.ai/1PdXf56

Blue car undertaking?

Re: What Happened?

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 12:30 am
by Rainmaker
The footage doesn't quite show enough to know for sure (at least on my laptop screen?), but that's a nasty crash by anyone's standards. Bloody lucky the baby got out of that in one piece. Volvo safety strikes again... probably.

Re: What Happened?

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 12:59 pm
by exportmanuk
I suppose that is the reason behind the massive A pillars we have in Modern cars

Re: What Happened?

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 2:53 pm
by StressedDave
They're less for rollover (which isn't tested in any of the EU tests IIRC and would be way overkill for that scenario) but to stiffen the structure around the passenger cell far more than was the case 20 years ago.

Re: What Happened?

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 9:11 pm
by Astraist
True. On-road rollovers (unlike rolling into a deep ditch) usually don't end in tragedy or even much injuries to speak of. The car tends to just roll onto it's roof and slide on it - not ulike this case.

Looks dreadful, but ultimately does not involve much force fed into the occupants bodies unless the car hits something else (as is the case in this shot). If anything, most injuries in this case are caused by drivers trying to get loose and out of the car, only to fall on their heads...

The main causes I see are mounting the concrete "New-Jersey" barrier between lanes, which is sloped so as to allow a stray vehicle to "climb" it and than roll back down onto the road surface. Problem is it was designed for lorries at very specific angles. With a car it tends to end on the shiny part...

Another cause, more plausible here, is a driver dropping two wheels over the edge of the road (you have camber and the fact that most distractions in the cabin tend to be the driver's right to thank for that).

Said Driver panics, pulls back on the road way too sharply, car rotates excessively, leaving the rear-inside tyre last to leave the gravel. Said tyre digs into dirt or scrapes against the jagged edge of the roadway, leading to a rollover.

Re: What Happened?

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 1:02 am
by waremark
I assumed that this accident started with a collision between the white and blue cars. I try to avoid having three vehicles abreast.

Re: What Happened?

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 9:07 am
by Astraist
From taking a second look it is possible too, a car hitting or sideswiping the back corner of another car can catapult off it and roll, but it is also possible that the onset of the rollover preceded the impact with the blue car.

Re: What Happened?

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 12:22 pm
by StressedDave
waremark wrote:I assumed that this accident started with a collision between the white and blue cars. I try to avoid having three vehicles abreast.

Some sort of collision between the two, followed by the Volvo hitting the lorry and tripping over one of the tyres or underrun structures and rolling over. If you look at the footage closely you'll see the impact on the lorry and the effect of the corrective steer. Rather a good bit of reaction on the part of the driver.

Re: What Happened?

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 12:37 pm
by Mr Cholmondeley-Warner
<removed after I watched the clip again>

Re: What Happened?

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 4:28 pm
by martine
So do people here think there should be a nationwide Road Accident Investigation Branch (like the Aviation: AAIB and Marine: MAIB) that would formally investigate all serious collisions, apportion blame and hand the details to the CPS as well as suggesting improvements in car design, road engineering, driver training etc?