Outback Skewered by a Guardrail

@john-norris said in Outback Skewered by a Guardrail:

@HFV_Junkyardin

Well, close enough, anyway, the airbags didn't deploy, I'll bet you could have it back on the road with a junkyard driver's door, if you really wanted to

@HFV_Junkyardin
Precisely none of that is supposed to happen. Which makes all of it quite amazing and thankfully fortuitous for one young lady.

@HFV_Junkyardin jesus CHRIST

@ranwhenparked said in Outback Skewered by a Guardrail:

I have no idea how she only got minor injuries

Obviously she was thrown clear of the vehicle.

Seriously though, the rail goes between the seat and the belt, which is unbuckled in the photo. Was she strapped in?

@ibRAD said in Outback Skewered by a Guardrail:

@ranwhenparked said in Outback Skewered by a Guardrail:

I have no idea how she only got minor injuries

Obviously she was thrown clear of the vehicle.

Seriously though, the rail goes between the seat and the belt, which is unbuckled in the photo. Was she strapped in?

That's what I'm wondering. If she wasn't, then she'll be one of the "seatbelts are dangerous" crowd and will use this story to proselytize for her cause.

@BicycleBuck Take it one step further and seat belts and guard rails are dangerous!

I wonder what happened that the side airbags didn't deploy.

@HFV_Junkyardin I don't feel like that guardrail went through slow and steady.

@ibRAD said in Outback Skewered by a Guardrail:

Seriously though, the rail goes between the seat and the belt, which is unbuckled in the photo. Was she strapped in?

I think she was. If the belt wasn't buckled, it'd still be hanging up on the pillar and the rail wouldn't be inside the loop like that. If she was the type to latch it in order to turn off the dummy light and sit on top of it, I still don't think the rail would have gotten in the loop from that angle. I also don't see a reason to have unbuckled it after the crash if she had it buckled behind her previously. It makes much more sense that she was wearing it, and she probably instinctively leaned forward to hug the steering wheel when she lost control and saw that she was headed for the rail.

@Urambo-Tauro That's a good point. I bet she just got lucky and jostled enough by the impact that she was missed though. How would you know the rail was going through or where it would? Not like flipping over where you might duck down.

@ibRAD I think it's pretty natural to fixate on the car's trajectory upon losing control. She literally had a front row seat to see the rail coming, and likely had a couple of seconds to react to its approach. Perhaps not enough time to climb out of the seat in the heat of the moment, but enough to hug the wheel and hope for the best.

@HFV_Junkyardin Uhhhhh, no thank you.

Seems like a poor guard rail design if it can do that?

@HFV_Junkyardin said in Outback Skewered by a Guardrail:

Local government decided that putting impact absorbing end caps on the guardrails was too expensive

And car spearing ones was the only alternative I guess?

Are lawsuits cheaper than proper upkeep? (don't answer that, they probably are...)

@HFV_Junkyardin Where's Subaru to use this as a campaign for how safe their cars are?

inb4 the head gaskets and leaking coolant didn't melt the snow

@Urambo-Tauro said in Outback Skewered by a Guardrail:

@HFV_Junkyardin Waitaminute that's not a Chevy Impale-a!

@john-norris said in Outback Skewered by a Guardrail:

@HFV_Junkyardin

came here for this

@facw said in Outback Skewered by a Guardrail:

there was a big mess with many being found to be defective a few years ago

Trinity Highway Products "ET Plus" head treatments. A lawsuit by a competitor resulted in a massive verdict, but it was overturned on appeal because the appellate court found that the government had not been defrauded.

Separately, there was a class action by Missouri counties for the cost of replacing the guardrail head treatments in question; I think that one stood. I think there have been other such cases. A number of states won't use this product anymore.

There are a number of ways to design the end of a guardrail depending on the terrain and what you want a car that hits it to do, but "harpoon" is for sure not the intended outcome...