Dodge Ram vs. Prius - Bad Accident

Not to make light of this..... but

Where's the Hazmat Team? Isn't the Prius radioactive or something after a crash?

 

Wow E thats horrible. I can't believe how bad the Prius is torn up.The guy survived though. Its hard for the airbags to help when the metal body parts its bolted to is gone.

 

i'm pretty sure they cut the doors away to get the poor guy out.

but still, that's a nasty accident. maybe alcohol related... at 3pm... shame.

 

This post should be referenced whenever anyone wonders about the "safety" of a prius. I happen to own a large dodge truck, and a prius, and was just wondering the other day what might happen in that kind of collision. The damage to both of the vehicles is incredibly severe, but the fact is that the prius driver survived being struck by a vehicle twice as heavy in a head-on orientation. Guess I wont wonder anymore. Cant wait for the wife to get home to read this article...

 

Hi All,

The Prius was cut apart by the rescue people. You can see the straight cut at the top of the B pillar in the pictures. Then they pulled it down. I imagine they cut the doors off and pushed out the windshield too. The picture on PC makes the Prius look allot worse than it was.

The collision effects on the Prius passenger compartment look to be less than I would have expected being impacted by such a large truck.

There is one picture that shows the two vehicles side by side from the top and rear of the Pickup. One can see a big buckle in the Pickup roof, whereas the Prius roof appears to only be damaged near where the rescue crews would have cut away the B pillar. The Pickup truck roof buckle indicates the Pickup passenger compartment collapsed partially.

 

I hope all those involved have a speedy recovery. Not to discount the seriousness of this accident, but what was that stuff spilled all in the back seat? Was that Prius hauling gravy or a flock of birds?

 

the pickup is also really badly damaged:clap2:

prius vs pickup 1-1

 

both vehicles a total loss. the prius does look bad, as Galaxee is correct, it was cut open, look at the other photos. I think it speaks volumes for the Prius' safety, as the occupant may well have been killed in any other vehicle.

Very sad. Hope all recover well, and the the prius driver was no one we know from PC....

 

The 16th picture shows a close up shot of the interior. I noticed a splattering of a white like substance on the back of the front seats, almost like bird poop. Any idea on what this could be? I guess it could be ice cream from the grocery bag, but could it be the battery acid some have talked about?

 

The driver of the Prius should be grateful the Ram driver didn't have brush guards. Looks like the crumple zones did their job.

 

the first thing i look at is the integrity of the passenger compartment in any accident.

the overhead shot, i see a Prius roof, still square, not crumpled... that tells me the passengers were well protected.

on the truck, you will notice the roof over the driver is wrinkled. that tells me the crumple zone for the truck invaded into the passenger area. the truck being twice the weight of the Prius would imply that the driver of the truck would not be as badly injured.

the descriptions of the injuries are vague, but the truck driver had major head trauma and the roof of his vehicle is crumpled.... once again, despite the laws of physics... i would rather drive a Prius

 

FIrst thing I noticed was the position of the collition. When you watch crash tests you usually see the 3/4 frontal driver side and the T-bone. This is exacly what they test for. If you didn't know, and the driver wasn't cut out, you'd swear this was a crash test.

Being from San Diego I know no one drives the speed limit anywhere. Just because the speed limit mgith be 35 doesn't mean people don't drive 50 regularly. I didn't see any speed indications in the story, but if the inclease to 55mph is any indication, a 110mph impact it's impressive they both servived.

 

Reminds me of this accident from last September (also in the San Diego area):

Two killed in wrong-way Prius collision

 

I think the accident actually happened several metres behind the Dodge where there is liquid on the road but this may have been from another source.
The A pillar of the Prius has folded into a Z shape near the top and the lower side rail has torn at the front of the door opening. Unfortunately the integrity of the passenger capsule has been compromised. The energy dissipated would have been right at the upper limits of a survivable crash. Had the Dodge been loaded or had there been more people strapped into the Prius the mass increase may have seen the lower rail of the Prius tear right through and much worse injuries, maybe fatal injuries would have occurred.

I can give 1 guarantee about this crash, both drivers were wearing seat belts. How hard was it to get Americans to wear seat belts? Would seeing pictures like this convince people seat belts are a good thing?

 

Hi Pat...,

Yep I saw that too. But since the roof is intact there, that means that the force that buckled the A pilar was perpendicular to the A pillar. My conclusion is that this occured well after the initial impact, when the truck road up on top of the Prius. If you look at the left front zone of the Truck, u will see its underpinings were stripped, must likely by the heavy motor and metal of the Prius. Which probably means that the A pilar on the Prius was bent by the Pickup truck engine falling on top of it, after it had been thrown up in the air by the initial collision.

 

Pat, WHOOAAA, let's not get carried away. If the dumb people don't want to wear seatbelts lets not make them. We still have to allow for thinning of the gene pool a little.