the Austrain car crash

Matt Simis

There is a detailed thread on the Phaeton forum on VW Vortex, As one of the rare Phaeton crashes there is quite a bit of interest.
http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=4068524




Reconstruction:
http://news.orf.at/video/iptvpopup.html?zib_auto_EDIT.wmv

Summary (copied from a VWVortex poster):

"In general, car doors are build to withstand impacts from the outside (have a close look at the construction in your own car). This case the concrete pole did struck the roof/windshield/A-pillar from the top in an outside rotating way (about the weakest part of the car), and simply pushed the B-pillar to outwards, opening up the doors. Subsequent rotation did just throw off the doors as a result of centrifugal forces.

This does also match the drivers' injuries: severe head, breast and a nearly torn-off left arm. That's were the concrete pole came in. Airbags won't help for this kind of impacts/forces. Also broken neck as a result of extreme rotational acceleration.

I guess every other car would have been demolished significantly more with such an impact, maybe even break up the car in two pieces and a large debris field.

Current Austrian police investigation results say extreme speeding (142 vs 70 km/h allowed) as cause of the accident. Though the 142 km/h might not be realistic because the car did drive on slippery surface before the impact, which might have resulted in revving up the engine and as such much faster rotating wheels, without the actual car speed being that high."

The Phaeton had several audacious design goals, one of which was extreme rigidity (its rigidity is over 37,000 Nm) and safety. However, its also a 200MPH 2600kg saloon, loosing control, hitting a concrete wall then rolling was always going to be devastating.

Phaeton crash test (vs small car):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFMrx3BGXpQ

Guy:Incognito

He should have bought it in RHD, that side looks a lot better. (and not been a crazy nazi, maybe karma wouldn't have been chasing him)

delly

And just a reminder of the Phaeton itself and how it seems to have everything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmGNRMOpg7E

Vertakill

I don't think there's many, if any, 2.5 tonne car in the world that would fair too good after an 90mph+ crash.

Think about the amount of force that much weight would be exerting on whatever it hits, and the knock-on effect on the body of the driver...

No chance.





- At least he went out in style though.

cabrwab

Middle age man?! (rather then young) i must say id didn't hear about this either i mustn't have being paying attention to the news properly!

2.2tonne car 88 to 0 in a couple of second plus look where that door pillar ended up in or around the head/neck. Car held up well but the forces involved are huge on the human body.

Matt Simis

I would suspect it was either the V10 or W12 which is a manly 2.5 - 2.6tons
Only the baby engined versions are 2.2ish tons.

RobAMerc

Does anyone else think that the way they deduced his speed to be 88 mph is a bit suspect. They say the speedo was stuck at 88mph - but if you flipped a car surely the speedo would jump as the driven wheels become unloaded no ?

Anan1

RobAMerc wrote: »

Does anyone else think that the way they deduced his speed to be 88 mph is a bit suspect. They say the speedo was stuck at 88mph - but if you flipped a car surely the speedo would jump as the driven wheels become unloaded no ?

Very fair point. Not exactly a snappy headline though, is it?;)