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In Reply to: yes and no... posted by Alan on September 27, 1999 at 21:57:52:
: The driver had forgotten to put on his seatbelt. The passenger had buckled up. :
: --Alan
Just a probably needless comment or two:
"forgotten" to put on his seatbelt is impossible for a regular wearer of seatbelts. I can't even move the car in my driveway without instinctively putting the belt on. Same thing with 17 year old son, and SWMBO.. He *chose* not to put on his seatbelt as he undoubtably has done whenever he got in the car. You are being much too kind to him, or else you believe what he's telling the insurance company and the police.. (is there a seatbelt law in the state the accident took place in - if so - he can be held by his insurance company for contributory negligence in paying for his OWN injuries).. but I've digressed..
Seeing the photos may seem gruesome - but they actually were VERY encouraging to me.
The passenger 'cage' in the Z3 did exactly what it was engineered to do - judging from the photos - if the driver had been wearing his seatbelt - chances are good he would have walked away also.
It wasn't obvious (since the door was missing) - was this car equipped with the side-impact airbags? Both the front bags went off - indicating the impact was not directly (or solely) to the side of the car - from the photos looks like a left-front-quarter impact at mebbe 45 degrees off axis. (Yeah - I used to do this sorta accident analysis for a living - a LONG time ago)..
In this sort of impact - if the driver had been
wearing his belt - and IF the car was equipped with both side and front airbags.. I'd say he should have walked away with a stiff neck and perhaps some bruising from the seatbelt tightening mechanism, and mebbe some brusing on the face from the airbag. It's fairly obvious from the one photo that he struck the windshield - which explains the head (and probably neck) injuries keeping him in the hospital.
Best,
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