How does this happen?

How could a 180 grain bullet kill a full grown bull elk?

Trucks give a false sense of security. Their occupants fair better than in a 3k lb car most of the time but they're also more likely to roll. They also seem to crumple up as bad if not worse than the small cars they tangle with. I saw a Jeep T-bone an empty dump truck somewhere years ago. The dump truck rolled and the Jeep did a 180 while staying upright. Like Moms Mabley used to say, **** the lights, watch the cars. The lights never killed anybody.

I thought the air bags could not fire if the seatbelts where not fastened. Maybe this is just in new vehicles?

One of my philosophies is that these 'safety' things are not to be depended on...

Drive like everyone out there is an idiot and cool when most prove me wrong...but
that one idiot is the one am setting up my stuff for...

Decisions, poor decisions from both vehicles contributed.

Decision to drive, with a baby in the vehicle, that fast and either distracted
or conscientiously ran that stop light...was so avoidable.

Just because the size of the truck vs car was so great...speed was the key
factor in this one.

If a small thing going fast...it can do great damage to a much bigger thing...just
think of a 200 grain bullet going 1,500 ft/sec and how much damage it can do...

ib516 wrote:

Perrysburg Dodgeboy wrote:

Me Again wrote:
Young girl that died did NOT have her seat beat on! Chris

Yep no seat belt thrown from the truck and most likely run over be the Mazda. My son now has a plate in his right arm because he didn't have a seat belt on. The driver lost control hit the center barrier and the car rolled on its top and slid over 200 feet. None of the four passengers were seat belted. Luckily Jake was the only one injured.

Seat belts save lives by keeping you in the vehicle and holding you in place via the pretensioners (sp) to keep you further away from the airbags.

Note, the airbags will not deploy if your seat belt is not buckled! Also the bags won't deploy if the pretensioners are not working.

Don

The airbags do work if you're not bucked, but the threshold and speed at which they deploy changes. It will also change based on the position of the seat (forward in it's track or rearward) indicating a shorter or taller driver.

In the end, her life would likely have been spared if she was belted in. Head trauma or internal bleeding are the two biggest causes of fatalities in unrestrained passengers.

The smaller car flipped the truck likely due to:
- Truck's higher CG
- Collision impact angles (side impact)
- Fact that the car is so much lower it acted like a wedge
- The broken wheel is on the impact side, not the "dig in" side

Total agreement. Airbags most definitely deploy even if occupant is not buckled. I travel a lot of miles often late at night and have unfortunately come up on a couple fatal accidents where the driver was ejected. In every instance the airbags were all deployed.

Perrysburg Dodgeboy wrote:

Me Again wrote:
Young girl that died did NOT have her seat beat on! Chris

Yep no seat belt thrown from the truck and most likely run over be the Mazda. My son now has a plate in his right arm because he didn't have a seat belt on. The driver lost control hit the center barrier and the car rolled on its top and slid over 200 feet. None of the four passengers were seat belted. Luckily Jake was the only one injured.

Seat belts save lives by keeping you in the vehicle and holding you in place via the pretensioners (sp) to keep you further away from the airbags.

Note, the airbags will not deploy if your seat belt is not buckled! Also the bags won't deploy if the pretensioners are not working.

Don

The airbags do work if you're not bucked, but the threshold and speed at which they deploy changes. It will also change based on the position of the seat (forward in it's track or rearward) indicating a shorter or taller driver.

In the end, her life would likely have been spared if she was belted in. Head trauma or internal bleeding are the two biggest causes of fatalities in unrestrained passengers.

The smaller car flipped the truck likely due to:
- Truck's higher CG
- Collision impact angles (side impact)
- Fact that the car is so much lower it acted like a wedge
- The broken wheel is on the impact side, not the "dig in" side

Lets keep the posts on how a Mazda can flip a heavier rig like the pickup. No eed to go over the what or why the teen died.

Thank you
Marty

The roof has really caved in a lot . Makes you wonder about the strength of the roof structure on trucks

All that matters here is the tragedy of the situation, none of you were there and don't really know what happened. My heart goes out to the family and friends of the girl.

I cannot read articles like this because .......

Lack of seatbelt, lack of curtain air bags, and relatively poor roof strength of the older truck.

A high speed side impact is probably the worst kind, even if you survive the chances of serious injury is nearly unavoidable. The truck was hit from the passenger side, the driver's body would be violently tossed towards that side. With no support in that direction (head rest, airbag), serious neck / back injuries are likely.

If I had to pick a vehicle to be in, it'll be a modern large SUV with tons of airbags and strong roof structure (the Ram looks to have caved in a bit). Most modern SUVs and trucks can support 4 to 6 times their own weight on their roofs.