What can happen when you hit the barrier

[moggy1968]

oopsy
https://www.itv.com/news/2018-12-22/driver-survives-spectacular-crash-after-car-flies-through-air/

 

[Higgy]

oopsy
https://www.itv.com/news/2018-12-22/driver-survives-spectacular-crash-after-car-flies-through-air/

Looks like he was cracking on !.. Or on Crack!..... Some of the Dash cam stuff on 'You Toob' (Mainly Russia) amazes me how they walk away from similar Crashes/Launches...

 

[froggy Steve]

how the heck did he survive that! Lucky sod!!!!!

 

[moggy1968]

Improvements in car design have been the single biggest factor in reducing road deaths (speed cameras btw made exactly fuck all difference!)

 

[Higgy]

Improvements in car design have been the single biggest factor in reducing road deaths (speed cameras btw made exactly fuck all difference!)

Yeh! Love or hate the modern stuff... Most crashes are survivable Nowadays... I dont think he would of walked away had he been in a mk 2 Ford Cortina. Or a Vauxhall Viva.. Ahhh! My misspent Youth!

 

[Towpack]

Yeh! Love or hate the modern stuff... Most crashes are survivable Nowadays... I dont think he would of walked away had he been in a mk 2 Ford Cortina. Or a Vauxhall Viva.. Ahhh! My misspent Youth!

My mate's Wartburg Knight wouldn't have faired much better. Come to think of it, it probably couldn't go fast enough to take off.

 

[StarCruiser]

Being asleep at the wheel probably both helped and hindered here. Helped because he was probably totally relaxed when it happened. That was one rather sudden awakening. Lucky.

I do think the safety features can contribute to the sort of speeds and lack of attention we see these days. It’s very easy in a quiet vehicle to be doing more speed than you think. Plus with all the air bags etc, does the mind start to think you are likely to ‘get away with’ a worse accident these days? Plus being so cosseted, are we more likely to fall asleep at the wheel.

Chas, please don’t try this one.

 

[Higgy]

My mate's Wartburg Knight wouldn't have faired much better. Come to think of it, it probably couldn't go fast enough to take off.

Just a gentle Thud! Into the Barrier

 

[Shayne]

The car didn't save him luck did ,

I did something similar maybe 27 years ago , police said in court he had seen many fatal rta's in his 25 years but none as bad , and he could say with certainty we wouldn't have walked home had we been wearing a seat belts .

My best mate , who was in the car with me , died a year later in what might have been a trivial motorbike accident had he not been unlucky enough to headbutt a tree when he came off .

Luck - for better or for worse it always plays a part in things .

 

[moggy1968]

Being asleep at the wheel probably both helped and hindered here. Helped because he was probably totally relaxed when it happened. That was one rather sudden awakening. Lucky.

I do think the safety features can contribute to the sort of speeds and lack of attention we see these days. It’s very easy in a quiet vehicle to be doing more speed than you think. Plus with all the air bags etc, does the mind start to think you are likely to ‘get away with’ a worse accident these days? Plus being so cosseted, are we more likely to fall asleep at the wheel.

Chas, please don’t try this one.

I’m a great believer that the more you remove the driver from the driving function the less safe they become, and modern cars are doing just that.
As clarkson once said, if you had a big spike sticking out of the steering wheel people would probably drive a lot more carefully!!

 

[StarCruiser]

As clarkson once said, if you had a big spike sticking out of the steering wheel people would probably drive a lot more carefully!!

I remember that and agreed wholeheartedly (no macabre pun intended there) at the time.

 

[Higgy]

I’m a great believer that the more you remove the driver from the driving function the less safe they become, and modern cars are doing just that.
As clarkson once said, if you had a big spike sticking out of the steering wheel people would probably drive a lot more carefully!!

Agree! An old mate of mine always said."Replace the air bag with a Dagger!" That will slow 'Em' up

 

[clivehorridge]

Whilst agreeing with all of the above, the barrier in the vid is not designed well.

It’s there to protect the roadside furniture, but at the same time, it should do it in a way that offers the least danger to a vagrant vehicle.

There should have been a flare on the taper to direct a vehicle back onto the carriage way, before rising to full height.

IIRC The UK’s transport and road research laboratory (TRRL) was set up in the mid 70s and had a history of research dating back to the 30s.

I think it was privatised in the 90s, but their labs did all the official crash tests trying out variants of safety barriers to come up with appropriate functional designs.

The favored outcome was tensioned guardrail with sacrificial intermediate “positioning” posts who’s only function was to maintain the alignment of the barrier prior to an impact.

There are other types but not so effective IMO, the US and the UK use a lot of tensioned wire rope mechanisms these days.

Roadside furniture protection should also safeguard the errant vehicle as much as possible.

I’m not very popular in my theory of the evolution of the motorcycle. In my day, small bikes were 150cc and would barely do 50 mph, bigger bikes went up to 650cc but still they were heavy, old tech and you would be lucky to push them up to the ton without tuning.

In those days helmets were optional but we used to use them, but clothing was basic, jeans and a tight fitting jacket, with no protection at all. We’d ride up to 90mph but all the time going through our minds was “what if I come off?”

If you’ve ever seen the aftermath of someone in shorts or jeans coming off at speed, the road will shave your flesh to the bones in a matter a few hundred yards.

Then came the more modern era of protection, leather, Kevlar, back braces and armor, hi-tech helmets full face, steel and Kevlar lined boots and so on.

I’m sure the added protection has changed the modern rider’s approach to speed to the extent that (young riders in particular) feel invincible.

You’ll see on Utoob guys arsing around at 150mph + coming off and walking away from very high speed solo slides on the asphalt.

I applaud the reduction in road deaths, but we’ve got to the state where we’ve interfered with Darwin’s principles, and many riders simply don’t have the sense or intellect to appreciate their vulnerability on today’s high speed machines.

The same goes for car safety features, self tensioning seatbelts, air bags front, side all over, collapsible components, impact absorbing dash boards the lot. Drivers have generally lost all sense of fragility in these vehicles, so the speed and lack of care increases.

It’s evolution I suppose, but IMO it’s good therapy to take yourself back in time occasionally, to consider what would happen if these high tech gadgets were not there.

 

[flint]

True, and back in the days before collapsible steering columns and seatbelts, you did in effect have a spike in the steering wheel. Cars were not meant to be mobile sitting rooms !

 

[Paddler Ed]

IIRC The UK’s transport and road research laboratory (TRRL) was set up in the mid 70s and had a history of research dating back to the 30s.

I think it was privatised in the 90s, but their labs did all the official crash tests trying out variants of safety barriers to come up with appropriate functional designs.

The favored outcome was tensioned guardrail with sacrificial intermediate “positioning” posts who’s only function was to maintain the alignment of the barrier prior to an impact.

There are other types but not so effective IMO, the US and the UK use a lot of tensioned wire rope mechanisms these days.

TRL at Crowthorne and Thatcham still exist - TRL @ Crowthorne does more of the planning and that side of thing (I had interviews with them back in 2001/2 as an economist), whilst Thatcham (now known as Thatcham rather than TRL) does security and insurance work

Roadside furniture protection should also safeguard the errant vehicle as much as possible.

One of the good things in the UK is the use of the deformable signpost poles, as opposed to the solid ones that nearly everywhere else use.

I’m not very popular in my theory of the evolution of the motorcycle. In my day, small bikes were 150cc and would barely do 50 mph, bigger bikes went up to 650cc but still they were heavy, old tech and you would be lucky to push them up to the ton without tuning.

In those days helmets were optional but we used to use them, but clothing was basic, jeans and a tight fitting jacket, with no protection at all. We’d ride up to 90mph but all the time going through our minds was “what if I come off?”

If you’ve ever seen the aftermath of someone in shorts or jeans coming off at speed, the road will shave your flesh to the bones in a matter a few hundred yards.

Then came the more modern era of protection, leather, Kevlar, back braces and armor, hi-tech helmets full face, steel and Kevlar lined boots and so on.

I’m sure the added protection has changed the modern rider’s approach to speed to the extent that (young riders in particular) feel invincible.

I ride either the big XT600 or the WR250 - always in at least a pair of heavy jeans and a proper motorbike jacket, and also with gloves and a full face adventure helmet.

Having spent 25 years on a push bike before getting my motorbike licence, I do tend to factor that most car drivers are idiots, and therefore don't expect them to do anything sensible... the benefit on the WR250 is that it has the acceleration to get away from the problem!

 

[Higgy]

I remember watching a Documentary regarding the collapsible Lamp Posts on motorways and A roads. And the tension Wire. that keeps cars from leaving one side of the Motorway in the event of an Accident... If I remember correctly They got in some experts from Sweden for their Innovation and Ideas.

 

[froggy Steve]

agree with the safety gear on a bike. I have a 1731 cc Big cruiser. full leather with kevlar armor on back and elbows. Mike biker jeans have leather inside where it matters, and proper strong boots.

 

[StarCruiser]

My neighbour was a down to earth character who called a spade a spade, could read but not write and had every job going from dustman to mental nurse at Broadmoor. Back in the 70s he was a handyman at the Road Research Laboratory at Crowthorne. One day the guv’nors there came up to him and said ‘err, we might have a little job for you George’, so before health and safety came in to spoil the party, he said he was given the job of driving and crashing the vehicles into whatever they wanted. He must’ve had a blast. Lord knows what was done to keep him safe mind.
I miss ol’ George, he was a real character.

 

[moggy1968]

It does make people more risk complacent, but there is no denying that safety clothing on motorbikes and safety features in cars save lives and serious injuries.
I do think though that in our sanitized cotton wool society that as a society we seem to be losing our ability to assess risk for ourselves. I see it all the time in A&E where people have done the most staggeringly stupid things, and of course we all see it on YouTube and the like.

 

[StarCruiser]

It does make people more risk complacent, but there is no denying that safety clothing on motorbikes and safety features in cars save lives and serious injuries.
I do think though that in our sanitized cotton wool society that as a society we seem to be losing our ability to assess risk for ourselves. I see it all the time in A&E where people have done the most staggeringly stupid things, and of course we all see it on YouTube and the like.

I often think the extended health and safety and all that comes from it is interfering with the Darwin theory so that those that would have left the gene pool due to their own stupidity remain to be able to reproduce. It doesn’t take much to work out where this will lead.