[bjf66]

Glad you are okay. Funny that the first reaction after this is "OMG gotta take pix and show Internet people"

[drob23]

Originally Posted by Karura

Glad you are okay. Funny that the first reaction after this is "OMG gotta take pix and show Internet people"

He said it happened last December...you take pics for obvious other reasons.

[US///M3]

Originally Posted by Brotorious

First time I have ever felt compelled to post something. I've lurked for years and am a big BMW fanboy. About two years ago my E46 laid down her life for me. Over 200,000 miles on her and she saved me from an 18 wheelers wrong and illegal turn while I was on my way to work. I was going 55mph on a highway (the speed limit). It took EMS over an hour to cut me out. I'll drive nothing but BMWs as long as I live. No doubt in my mind, if I would have been driving our Saab, I wouldn't be here. My foot got crushed and some broken bones but that was it. Im on my 4th surgery and always in pain BUT I'd rather have a broken body and still be here. At the time, my daughter was one. That's not enough time in this world with her. Waiting on my f30 at the end of September. So, glad you walked away from that and it's a testament to the car.

That was a love tap from the 18 wheeler, the E46 probably put a few scratches on the truck and trailer an the truck driver probably didn't even notice hitting you right away.
No matter how safe you think a BMW is, if a 40 ton semi nails a BMW just right, it's not going to be pretty.

[F555]

BMW never fail
I wonder what would happen if it was a Hyundai that had the crash it won't be pretty for sure

[US///M3]

Originally Posted by F555

BMW never fail
I wonder what would happen if it was a Hyundai that had the crash it won't be pretty for sure

[georgere]

Thanks God the OP walked away. I just wanted to state my opinion how it is almost ridiculous to hear people praise BMW for saving the guys life.... I m pretty sure most other cars luxury and not would provide the same results. In an accident a lot depends on how the hit happen and size of the colliding cars.
Also, in the past I've heard from street racers that BMW IS NOT the best crashproof car. They actually recommended MB. This was a long time ago. Hopefully BMW improved their structures and perhaps this post a showcase of that.
To summarize, IMO BMW builds great cars for driving and they are also good enough in safety area. If however I was to buy a car for crash stunts, BMW or at least 3 series would not be in my safest cars list.

[Frosty]

wow.. so VERY happy you are all ok.

[Fille]

Originally Posted by Brotorious

No doubt in my mind, if I would have been driving our Saab, I wouldn't be here.

Wait what, you think BMW's are safer than SAAB's? Sorry mate, but SAAB's are/were one of the safest car along with Volvo's. They were OBSESSED with safety and REFUSED to put a car on sale that was lacking in safety compared to their rivals.

Guessing you haven't seen the Top Gear episode about SAAB where they drop an 80's E30 on its roof from 8 feet, and an 80's SAAB from the same height, the BMW was decimated and no occupant would ever walk away from it. However the SAAB's pillars were 'almost' intact, and the occupants would probably walk away unscathed.
Look it up on Youtube.

[schnell13]

Glad to hear everyone survived the crash, and it is indeed a testament to how well our cars are built. In fact, the active and passive safety systems on these cars are part of what makes me come back for more. Good luck with your new blue baby Heizenberg, and hopefully he doesn't meet the same fate as his older sister!!

[Brotorious]

Originally Posted by Fille

Wait what, you think BMW's are safer than SAAB's? Sorry mate, but SAAB's are/were one of the safest car along with Volvo's. They were OBSESSED with safety and REFUSED to put a car on sale that was lacking in safety compared to their rivals.

Guessing you haven't seen the Top Gear episode about SAAB where they drop an 80's E30 on its roof from 8 feet, and an 80's SAAB from the same height, the BMW was decimated and no occupant would ever walk away from it. However the SAAB's pillars were 'almost' intact, and the occupants would probably walk away unscathed.
Look it up on Youtube.

That was the Saabs of old, my friend. Trust me...what we had would not have held up. Those SAABs have been gone for a long, long time now.

[US///M3]

Originally Posted by Antares

well, the members here love their BMWs, and love is not always 100% rational

True.

[Fille]

Originally Posted by Brotorious

That was the Saabs of old, my friend. Trust me...what we had would not have held up. Those SAABs have been gone for a long, long time now.

Which Saab was it?

[Brotorious]

It was an 06' 9-3, 2.0t. It was a fun car but a noticeable difference from the old Arc.

[M_Azing]

Glad to hear that you are OK. Nice replacement.

[RPM90]

Originally Posted by Heiznberg

This is the result of being in a head-on collision with an SUV, and a testament to BMW Safety.

Attachment 898005

Last December, I was leaving a friend’s house just after midnight and crossing an intersection with a solid green light. Heading in the opposite direction, a driver under the influence ran the left turn light and hit me head-on. The impact was so jolting that my car made a 180 degree spin. Before even realizing that I was still in one piece, the SOS operator gets on the speakers and asks if I’m okay. I tell her “I think so” and she says she’s sending emergency services. In the meantime, I get out of my car without a scratch (!) and I walk over to check on the other driver and passenger. Their SUV was mangled and they weren’t responsive; I thought they were dead. It turned out they were unconscious and, thankfully, survived. Police, fire and ambulance arrive in minutes, check me out and ask me a ton of questions before letting me go. I was lucky to walk away from the accident, while the other driver and passenger were airlifted to the ER.

Again, I can’t stress enough how thankful I am for the designers and engineers who made this car with our safety in mind. It was my first BMW and certainly not my last.

WOW! Amazing that you walked out with no injuries.
It's great that you were able to simply walk out of your BMW. Hopefully the other driver and especially the passenger survived as well. Drinking and driving are truly STUPID.

I see you got the 19's instead of the 18's.
Florida roads are probably decent quality for the 19's.
Around here in the Chicago area the 19's on the demo 335i were kinda of harsh, at least with the standard non M adaptive sport suspension.
I wonder if the M adaptive dampers help smooth the ride better combined with the 19's?
Did you have M adaptive on both Msports?
What are you observations on that aspect?

[RPM90]

Originally Posted by US///M3

The driver of this BMW wasn't so lucky. Using your logic this is a testament to what?

You can't just cherry pick a few accidents where people walked away and ignored the ones that resulted in fatalities to brag about BMW's safety.

People have walked away from accidents in a lot of different cars not just German cars or BMW's...

Sure, but you also shouldn't cherry pick obviously incredible accidents, where the car splits in two, to suggest that BMW's aren't safe.
Most modern cars are incredibly safer than ever before, and even small cars allow people to survive accidents that someone in, say a late 60's Cadillac, would likely not survive or have extensive physical damage.

That accident you posted only shows that everything has limits.
I think you're overstating the point some are making, which is that BMW builds cars with great passenger safety engineering.
Those who think BMW's are the only safe cars and/or a BMW can survive any accident, as strictly speaking out of their proverbial exhaust pipes.

[Elk]

Originally Posted by georgere

I just wanted to state my opinion how it is almost ridiculous to hear people praise BMW for saving the guys life.... I m pretty sure most other cars luxury and not would provide the same results. In an accident a lot depends on how the hit happen and size of the colliding cars.

Absolutely correct.

Fortunately things worked out.

[RPM90]

Originally Posted by BavarianFanatic

Uh, no. He was damn lucky. NOT a testament that they're built well. The damn car is in two pieces. Another foot forward and they'd be hosing him off of that tree.

Yes, European cars are built well when compared to others. Tgey have more stringent crash standards. But no matter how well built, contact with a stationary object will always decimate a car. Survival in most cases is pure luck.

Pure luck?
So then, you don't think that modern safety engineering has anything to do with survival in most cases?

I disagree with you 100%. When a cars structure crumples as intended, and the seat belts hold the passengers as intended, and the air bags deploy and cushion as intended, and the drivers and passengers walk out with little or no damage, or even survive a big accident, that's not luck.
That's people making a concerted effort to design and build safer vehicles knowing accidents will happen, and then trying to make sure that much greater percentages of people survive.

We can say luck may be involved when someone is racing at 150mph on the street and hits a telephone pole head on, splits the car in two, and still walks away, cause we don't know how in the world someone survived wrecks like those.
In those cases we say that by some miracle or luck that person survived.
But then, in those cases we'd also have to consider that the vehicles safety engineering gave that driver a chance to survive, and it's not just "luck".

"Luck" is an unknown item that we can't measure, predict, nor understand, That concept is completely contrary to the actual work put into modern cars directly designed to give greater safety with much greater rates of survival. Engineers aren't relying on 'luck' when they do research, testing, prediction, designing, etc... in order to greatly increase the survivability of accidents. That's not 'luck', that's preparation.
Historical crash data shows that safety engineering and not luck has increased survivability and decreased the level of physical damage to vehicle occupants.

[RPM90]

Originally Posted by US///M3

No matter how safe you think a BMW is, if a 40 ton semi nails a BMW just right, it's not going to be pretty.

I'm not a BMW 'fan boy' who thinks only BMW's are safe.
I know and agree that all auto manufacturers design and build their cars to be safer than ever before.
And some vehicles are better rated that others.

Yeah, a 40 ton semi can hit a BMW just right and all the occupants die.
Do you think that most people on this site think that BMW occupants can never get hurt in an accident just because they drive a BMW?
I'm trying to understand the point you are trying to make since your first post in the thread.

[RPM90]

Originally Posted by F555

BMW never fail
I wonder what would happen if it was a Hyundai that had the crash it won't be pretty for sure

Your statement is hyperbole.
Data doesn't support your "never fail" comment.

And, yes, Hyundai's are safe cars as well.
Many of their models get high ratings based on crash testing.

[BavarianFanatic]

Originally Posted by RPM90

Pure luck?
So then, you don't think that modern safety engineering has anything to do with survival in most cases?

I disagree with you 100%. When a cars structure crumples as intended, and the seat belts hold the passengers as intended, and the air bags deploy and cushion as intended, and the drivers and passengers walk out with little or no damage, or even survive a big accident, that's not luck.
That's people making a concerted effort to design and build safer vehicles knowing accidents will happen, and then trying to make sure that much greater percentages of people survive.

We can say luck may be involved when someone is racing at 150mph on the street and hits a telephone pole head on, splits the car in two, and still walks away, cause we don't know how in the world someone survived wrecks like those.
In those cases we say that by some miracle or luck that person survived.
But then, in those cases we'd also have to consider that the vehicles safety engineering gave that driver a chance to survive, and it's not just "luck".

"Luck" is an unknown item that we can't measure, predict, nor understand, That concept is completely contrary to the actual work put into modern cars directly designed to give greater safety with much greater rates of survival. Engineers aren't relying on 'luck' when they do research, testing, prediction, designing, etc... in order to greatly increase the survivability of accidents. That's not 'luck', that's preparation.
Historical crash data shows that safety engineering and not luck has increased survivability and decreased the level of physical damage to vehicle occupants.

My comment was about that specific wrecked Audi. The wreck was well beyond what the car was designed to survive. It's in two pieces for crying out loud. The ONLY reason he survived was luck. Period. No technology saved his bacon. Luck.

[RPM90]

Originally Posted by BavarianFanatic

My comment was about that specific wrecked Audi. The wreck was well beyond what the car was designed to survive. It's in two pieces for crying out loud. The ONLY reason he survived was luck. Period. No technology saved his bacon. Luck.

And specifically, I disagree about your generalized "luck" comment.
You were showing a specific car, but your comment is generalizing that any accident where a car hits a stationary object and the occupants survive is strictly to do with 'luck'.
I disagree for the reasons I put in my post.

Some of the crash tests are specific to hitting stationary objects.
Thus, cars are designed for occupants to survive and/or suffer less injury.
Just because the vehicle suffers tremendous damage doesn't always mean that when an occupant survives it was strictly due to luck.
Car structures are designed to crumple and absorb the force of impact.
The attempt is to send the energy through the body and with certain structures breaking/crumpling in order for that energy to not get transferred to the occupants.

Just because a car ripped in half doesn't always mean that the occupants were still not protected by the safety designs.
If the vehicle splits in two and the occupants area is intact, that shows that the impact energy went around the occupants.
The vehicle may not have been engineered to split in two, but engineering and design went into diverting impact energy away from occupants.
You can't back up a statement that it's "ONLY" luck for why a driver or passenger survived. I haven't seen "luck" quantified or verified.

Of course, you're entitled to your opinion and I to mine.
So we'll just have to agree to disagree on this issue.