Despite how the smart fortwo looks like it’s a disaster waiting to happen during accidents, smart says that it’s actually safe because of the use of a solid steel “Tridion” frame, left visible at the exterior as a major design element. While on paper it looks alright, but how does the smart fortwo perform in real life crash tests? 5th Gear decided that an experiment was long due… video after the jump!
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After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history.
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One tough nut to crack !
yes, but you as the driver and passenger would not have survived.
Well Paul, any normal passenger car going at 70mph/112kmH to 0 in 1 second would not survive unless you have a real good air-bag or if you're in a Formula 1 car. I guess any car with a reinforce steel cage would withstand some substantial frontal impact force. Anyways, great illustration Paul. Thks.
i think airbags would be useless as well
the bottomline is speed kills!
OZ gov says drop 5 save lives! and yes! its true… no matter how well the car is constructed, your body may not.
The car just too small. It the doesn't have a crumple zone, which would absorb the energy during collusion. A car that have a crumple zone may look like a total wreck after a collusion, but the passenger inside it would survive.
A stronger car alone doesn't save your life during collusion, you need a crumple zone, airbags, to delay the collusion timing which would reduce the impulsive force and save your life.
I'm going to get my self a kancil today !! !
wooo hoo !
the end paragraph of the clip says it all…a human body cannot take such huge impacts…no mater wat solid cell ur into….ur whole body will be the crumble zone itself…can u even imagin how the driver looks like after an impact like this,,??his head probably 20meters aways from his body…
so the moral of this story is dont buy Smart car for RM75……just buy a Proton wira it really a good car….i have been in an accident last year on the higway with the speed of 130km/h , only a minor injury occured….BELIEVE ME!
buy a volvo, that box model, better
I guess its not just the job of one safety feature to save a person's life but the combination of them all. The rigid structure of the ForTwo may be solid but the crumple zone area is still insufficient. To little mass to take away the shock impact of the crash, going around the passenger and into the rear.
I guess the only moral we can really use from the story is drive safely even if there are safety features incorporated as nobody would want to go through the usage experience example in a car crash.
Amir… your time is not up yet… don't be so cocky. The Mighty might not be that forgiving next time though. congratulation btw… u were given a second chance.
Erm, you don't normally bring a SMART to 75 mph and ram it into concrete wall now do you? Even if conditions are right, the driver wouldn't want to bring it to such speeds on a clear road. I know I wouldn't. I wouldn't even hit 80kph in a Kancil.
Bottom line;
1. don't drive into walls
2. advanced car body structures are to give you a *chance* of survival, not a guarantee
at least the car frame stays intact, and that may increase the passengers' chance of survival. that little car bangs into a concrete barrier which weights a few tons, of course the barrier wins hands down. if it hits a kancil, which one do u think will survive?
SMART is not so SMART. :D ..
man that must be hurt!
yupp Amir, you're just plain lucky, someone didn't make it at 80km/h in a same model as yours, happened in front of my eyes!! so don't be too sure or cocky dude
I'm watched the ForTwo-E Class colllission clip before, but watching this one amazes me more; I expected the ForTwo to come out of it worse. Anyway, just goes to show how hardy the car is, but I get the idea now, the car may survive, but the passengers might not.
I totally agree with what "i'm run" said and requoting his statement.
"The car just too small. It the doesn’t have a crumple zone, which would absorb the energy during collusion. A car that have a crumple zone may look like a total wreck after a collusion, but the passenger inside it would survive.
A stronger car alone doesn’t save your life during collusion, you need a crumple zone, airbags, to delay the collusion timing which would reduce the impulsive force and save your life."
Cars like Smart has its good and practical points. However, lagging a substantial front end reduces its ability to effectively absorb enough energy. Imagine what would happen to our lungs hitting the ribs or our brain hitting the skull at that speed. Our organs wouldn't be able to take the impact.
Yeah, above 60-70mph, whatever you drive is really doesn't matter too much anymore… maybe just the difference of firemen need to chainsaw your dead body out from the wreckage of your car, or the polis need to collect/clean up your pieces all over the accident scene.
But the smarty smart really impressed me, its seriously a tough nut.
Everything is just about Physics.
“The car just too small. It the doesn’t have a crumple zone, which would absorb the energy during collusion. A car that have a crumple zone may look like a total wreck after a collusion, but the passenger inside it would survive.
A stronger car alone doesn’t save your life during collusion, you need a crumple zone, airbags, to delay the collusion timing which would reduce the impulsive force and save your life.â€
I don't think this statement was right because all modern cars have crumple zone! Despite the front end of Smart ForTwo is short, but it does contain crumple zone. If it doesn't have any crumple zone, how could it score 4 stars in EuroNCAP? If the front end is a lot more longer and contain more crumple zone, it definetely can score 5 stars.
'Tridion' safety cage works. Because of it, Smart and the passenger inside can survive at a very high speed collision. And about the crumple zone, does anyone knows that Smart ForTwo exterior bumper & body panel is made of elastic plastic so that it won't easily break and maybe these plastic act as crumple zone too.
dont forget "carenthusiast", euro NCAP doesnt crash cars at 75mph. Sure,the smart has a crumple zone, but i think what they meant is, its too small to be significant in absorbing energy in a 75mph crash.
btw "òmnÃcp". speed alone doesnt kill. by saying that, you are ignoring the hundreds of other factors that contribute to fatalities in an accident. govt's love to say that, because it helps them ignore the fact that they havent done a good enough job at driver education, road design..etc. etc. etc. "reduce speed limits, put up more speed traps, give lots of summons, generate some revenue and accident rates will drop..etc." does it work?
In the UK, they have more than 3,000 speed trap cameras on their roads (we probably only have 20 at any one time in the country, or less), yet their rate of accidents increase every year. so is speed alone the culprit?
Silly idiot. Just because u survive a 130kph crash doesn't mean the car is safe neither will u next time.
Myself survived 3 major accidents. In 1 case, the car was a total loss. Now, I call this pure luck. Both cars do not have any airbags or side impact bars.
Plus, u may not have any injuries but it will show up after 2 days. Mine did, a broken rib and bruised knee and elbow. Think again b4 u boast.
Hell, even Princess Di did not survive an accident in her Merc S280 some 9 years ago.
acbc, I thought that princess DI was not buckled up and the car crashed at 200 km/h. Moreover, the guy sitting on the front seat was buckled up and survived. I guess there is a higher chance to survive in a larger car…
actually, how come so many people believe the human body can't survive a 75mph (121 kph) deceleration just because the program said so? Assuming 75mph to 0mph in 1 second the acceleration is only 33.6metres per second squared: around 3g, which is easily survivable as long as you are wearing a seatbelt.
also you will NOT get the full force of a 75mph – 0mph deceleration at all, because the car bounces away from the wall – it is still moving after the collission. hence, the force is actually smaller.
notice that the engine did not intrude the cabin – although the cabin plastics dropped off, those are very light components – the real items that could cause damage were safely handled by the structure.
i would feel extremely safe in a smart as long as i buckled up.
like they said…speed doesnt kill…sudden stop does….
chiliq: not very sure if you were referring to my comment above, but just to make clear that 3g (or 33.6m/(s^2) deceleration refers to sudden stop, not to speed itself. F = m x a
just an extension of a motorbike….
dont expect much of a car,
but STILL stuck ia a traffic jam.
if p1 o p2 built up like smart technology do eye of us trust it in a first place if there come out??.
Strange, if its so safe, why din they test it themselve instead of remote control the car…. hehehehe… Further more, what if a bus or truck whack the car from side???
Is Smart fortwo better or the kelisa?
can u give me some comments and advices on..advantages and disadvantages on smart fortwo, kelisa and kancil…
which will be the best choise?
Visual after crash inspection of the Smart would elicit a question about the occupant's legs–they're not retractable and it did appear that the damage caused considerable intrusion into the under dash area of the vehicle.