But you should have crumpled like a tin can!

[SuaSponte]

Two evenings ago, I got into a fender-bender. It was completely my fault; I was behind a car in the turning lane at a red light. The car in front made as if to make the turn and I, quite foolishly, took my foot on the brake and looked over to the left to prepare to make my turn. The guy in front had changed his mind about turning, and I hit him, at about 3-5 miles per hour.

Now I called it a "fender-bender" but, as it turned out, no fenders were bent. The driver of the other car and I checked his bumper, his lights, and his trunk and latch, and there was no damage whatsoever. I apologized, he said "de nada," and we went on our ways.

In other words, I dodged a bullet. An accident that was completely my fault, and I got to drive away with no exchange of insurance info, no money out of my pocket, no police report, etc.
So why am I posting a Pit thread, you ask? Well, here's the thing: I drive a 1979 Cadillac Coupe D'Ville. It's 85 tons of Detroit steel (approximately); I should have turned the other driver's pissant little early-90's Buick into a quivering hulk of aluminum and plastic. How the hell will I ever be recognized as god of the road and lord of all I survey if my car won't total the cars it hits?!!

Yeah, sure, I don't have to pay any money or have my insurance premiums increased. Small compensation; couldn't I at least have scratched his paint job? :(

Sua

[Bruce_Daddy]

I don't 3-5 miles an hour would ruffle the elderly, much less bother aluminum and plastic.

I ran into a fire hydrant at about 25 and my airbag didn't go off. I was dissapointed. Oh yeah, in my own front yard. Don't ask.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Dude, my shitty little plastic-and-tinfoil 95 Prizm put a two-inch hole in a new Beamer when I bollocksed a parallel-parking job a couple years back. Trade ya!

Daniel

[friedo]

Heheh, when I was a kid, my dad had this big old giant van.

Driving down the highway one day, I pointed at some little Toyota or something and said, "Dad, if we hit that car, would we win the accident?"

[rjung]

Originally posted by SuaSponte
How the hell will I ever be recognized as god of the road and lord of all I survey if my car won't total the cars it hits?!!
Do what millions of Americans have already done and buy an SUV. ;)

[fruitbat]

I was in a similar fender bender with my Honda Civic. It was nearly totalled. I understand crumple zones and all those happy safety improvements. I am sure I am in the minority in saying that I would gladly trade an extra 5% chance of being seriously injured in an accident for a car that didn't crumple like a slug sprinkled with salt.

[Arcite]

Crumple? Where have you been? Everyone who has seen contemporary action movies knows that cars explode when they collide.

[JeffyDMan]

Not only do they explode, Arcite, but they fly dozens of feet into the air while doing amazing stunts! (Barrel rolls, end-overs, etc). And then when all is said and done - they land on another car that doesn't explode!

Guess you have to cushion that impact. I think the OP has a dud for a car.

[Encinitas]

Ha! I guess you not be as fly as you thought! ;)

The SuaMobile is born (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=110300&highlight=suamobile)

[trabi]

I used to drive a four-stroke Trabant. Made mostly of compressed cardboard and resin and designed to take a 650cc two-stroke engine, in the last two years of production some lunatic decided it would be a laugh to fit them with an East German copy of the VW Polo engine made under license. Being so light it had wicked acceleration and a top speed of 140km/h. Crumple zone? Just one, but that was the whole car. I found the best way to avoid serious injury or death was to avoid hitting anything, even at low speed.

[Incubus]

My best friend rear-ended some guy's Audi in his Jeep Grand Cherokee on the freeway. His front bumper? Caved in so much it smashed the fan/radiator to shit. The Audi? only had a scratch on the bumper! :eek:

It was very bizarre. The Jeep must've weighed 3 times as much as the Audi, it was at least that much BIGGER. I have no idea what they make Audis out of to smash an SUV like that.

[Antonius Block]

Originally posted by Arcite
Crumple? Where have you been? Everyone who has seen contemporary action movies knows that cars explode when they collide.
Amen to that. Fortunately, you can easily outrun the ensuing fireball, as long as you remember to leap towards a camera at the last moment.

[E-Sabbath]

My Bug gets rear ended... well, not _frequently_, but about six times since I've owned her. Stop and go traffic, and a moron behind me. No, I'm not talking about me stopping short, I've even seen it once, they just gracefully ram a stopped car. I've got a pair of round scars from the front license plate, and that's about it.

[Mercury]

I hit an ancient Mercury Topaz in my gigantic Taurus. The dude ran a red light, and by the time I saw him, I stepped on the brake. He had seen me to begin with and therefore was haulin' ass. I rolled into him slowly, he bounced off of my front end, his car all crumpled. My car had a little tiny hole in its plastic. I _was_ the queen of the road.

It was quite the legal headache, though.

[Ferris]

It's 85 tons of Detroit steel

Am I reading that right? An imperial ton isn't too different from a metric tonne, is it? I thought cars generally weighed around one or two tonnes at most.

:confused: (or possibly very :o)

[Elza B]

You're more than welcome to crumple my Kia Rio. Just make sure I'm not in it, m'kay? Or just crumple the back end while I'm in the front, so I can at least claim injury.

I've really been wanting a Mini-Cooper;).

Ava

[neuroman]

Hyperbole, Fenris. A US ton = 2000 pounds ~= 910 kg.

Once I had a fender bender (my fault), my mid-size sedan vs. the SUV. My fender into his bumper, big dent on my end, not a scratch on his. He wanted my info and told me he'd give me a call if he detected any frame damage after he "put it up on the rack." :rolleyes:

[dropzone]

Sua, you need a REAL Caddie, not that crappy little downsized one. Almost bought a '73 a few years ago--185 tons (hyperbole) and 500 cubic inches/8 liters (no hyperbole) of manly automobile. Or take my brother's '55--FFF-cup armor-plated tits for bumpers and next to no brakes. Mo-fo'd take out the USS Missouri, much less an Explorer. THAT was a CAR!

[Dragonblink]

Originally posted by Mercury
I hit an ancient Mercury Topaz in my gigantic Taurus.

I was in a Topaz that rearended a Buick at about 10 mph (someone else was driving, it had just started raining and the brakes didn't catch). The Topaz crumpled like a cheap aluminum can, and the owner of the Buick was screaming and hollering about the inch-square piece of plastic that had broken off of part of her bumper. Of course, half the dents in that Topaz were from its owner's Doc Martens ...

Tauruses on the other hand ... well yeah, they're huge. But my dad was in a fenderbender with an uninsured Mercedes (there are a lot of uninsured luxury cars where I grew up, despite California's Thou Must Have Auto Insurance law), and while the car still drove, the damage -- combined with the low value of an '89 Taurus -- led the insurance company to declare it totalled.

To get the salvage title straightened out, we had to replace the one piece that had broken -- the plastic bit the headlights attach to. You have to be able to properly aim the headlights, y'see. So, one part from a junkyard and an afternoon's worth of work later, I was cursing whatever freakin' genius decided to use both metric and non-metric bits on the same damn piece.

[SuaSponte]

Originally posted by dropzone
Sua, you need a REAL Caddie, not that crappy little downsized one. Almost bought a '73 a few years ago--185 tons (hyperbole) and 500 cubic inches/8 liters (no hyperbole) of manly automobile.

The '79 model year was the last of the Cadillac land yachts - the Suamobile is not downsized. Admittedly, it only has a 7 liter engine (no hyperbole), but otherwise it is quite the monster - the trunk is larger than most NYC studio apartments (OK, that's a slight bit of hyperbole).

And, of course, it is two-tone. :D

Sua

[JerH]

I had something similar happen to me a couple years back - I was driving a shitty '93 Dodge Shadow at the time. Driving along, I decided I should stop at a light that had just turned red; the guy behind me decided that he shouldn't. Results as expected. The front end of his pretty-new-looking Acura was smashed up, my rear bumper has a 1" dent and a bit of his paint scraped onto it. I didn't even bother getting his insurance info.

[Ike Witt]

Sua, I think that you may need to make some upgrades to your car. This sort of thing (http://www.lowkeeriderz.com/id40.htm) will make sure you retain the god-like countenance you want. Granted, a velvet god, but a god none the less.

[dropzone]

Originally posted by SuaSponte
The '79 model year was the last of the Cadillac land yachts - the Suamobile is not downsized.Actually, it WAS. The previous generation (until 1975) was even BIGGER. Imagine how they had to SHRINK that car to make it that huge! That was something I had to remind myself looking in the rearview mirror at the long, dark tunnel that was the interior of my 1977 Chevy wagon as I tried to back it up the first time. I had been driving a Dodge Colt for a few years before that and the size was overwhelming. And, of course, it is two-tone. :DSweet!

[Bryan Ekers]

"He's driving a 1939 Ford, we're driving a DeLorean. He'd go through us like we were tinfoil."

-Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), Back the the Future II.

[Bryan Ekers]

Err, make that Back to the Future II.

Damn, I wish I had a time machine so I could fix my typos.

[Feynn]

A friend of mine was driving his 1975 Toyota Landcruiser (5 door) and while making a left turn (with a turning light) a 5 ton truck ran through the intersection and hit him almost head on.

The Landcruiser ended up with a crushed fender and was in good enough shape to be driven home.

The delivery truck had it's front end totally demolished and needed to be towed away due to the extensive frame damage.

Another friend used to sell Landcruisers and they performed an inverted drop test as a demonstration of the vehicles durability. Once righted the LC (sans windows) could still be driven and accessed through any of the doors which all opened normally.

Landcruiser - the ultimate Suburban Assault Vehicle.

And then we can root for the little guys too...

While I was working at a restaurant in B.C. another staff member asked the bus boy to go and start her Honda Civic. She failed to ask if he knew anything about manual transmissions and he got into the car and turned the key without depressing the clutch or checking to see if it was in neutral.

It climbed the BMW 735 that was parked in front of it like a goat scampers up a hill.

[AHunter3]

Naaaw.... Sua, what you need is one of these (http://www.zephyr.pleasevisit.com/classic-cars/1952packard_lg.htm).

Drunken frat boys driving Hummers will pull off the road in trepidation.

[Lyllyan]

I would like to pit your Caddy aginst my daugther's 1990 T-bird.

A few weeks back, the "R" and the "D" were switched by aliens in the middle of the night. Therefore, when she tried to back out of the driveway (at 75 mph), she went forward instead, completely demolishing a heavy wooden garage door (which was closed at the time) AND striking my poor little parked and braked Infiniti and rudely shoving it forward a good 6 feet.

After we dug daughter and car from wreckage, we found NOT THE SLIGHTEST HINT OF A SCRATCH on her car.

[Netbrian]

Do what millions of Americans have already done and buy an SUV.

Screw that. A Sherman Tank is the ONLY way to drive.

[Necros]

dropzone is right. F=MA, right? So, while your 1979 is a normal-sized Cadillac at 121 inches, you give up a lot in other areas.

For example, you have the patheticly small 425 in there, as opposed to the beefy 472/500 family. Also, while your car weighs in at svelte 4143 pounds, my 1968 Eldorado at home rocks your world with 4580 pounds. And the mythic 1973 Eldo to which dropzone refers (and I used to own) weighs in at a lovely 5094 pounds. So, sorry to say it, but your car is a victim of the fuel crisis, and had to be downsized.

:D

[E-Sabbath]

http://www.1959eldorado.com/en/

5060 pounds.

But with the 50's bumpers. You know. The ones that were solid steel. Had Dagmars.

One day, it will be mine.

Still, you can add a bit more mass...

http://www.luckyfish.net/hearse.html

This is the car Death drives.

[SuaSponte]

dropzone, necros, that's rather frightening. :D

Sua

[MikeG]

In 1991 I was working for a glass shop in the North suburbs of Chicago. I was driving a mid 80's Ford Econoline van, the kind with the glass rack on the side and the big square bumper with diamond plate on it that you step on to get into the back.

Well, the van was pretty rough from all the slacker glaziers driving it but two weeks prior to The Accident, I had backed into a a concrete filled steel post in the parking lot of the shop. I put a nice dent in the fender about a foot from the left corner. Imagine the left corner is now twisted out a couple inces....it wasn't pretty.

So Here I am sitting at a red light and I see a little teeny Ford (Ranger?) pick up - is that the little one? coming up behind me. It is black with flames painted on the sides, purple accents on the roof and hood, and Neon effect on all four sides. Did I mention that there seemed to be a distinct lack of a suspension on the truck? It was drafting about 3" off the pavement.

All this goes through my mind in a second as say to myself "Self, He ain't gonna stop"!

BAM! He goes right into the back of my truck at 30 miles an hour.

I was unaffected. Really! I didnt even move forward! I jump out of the car, walk around back and there is this poor 17 year old kid freaking out. " Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit I knew I should have gotten the brakes fixed oh crap im losing my license, my dad will kill me"

I look at his car. This is an ex-car. The radiator is about an inch thick smashed together with the grill and fender into a horrific tangle of metal and plastic, the tie rods are snapped so the tires are sitting all cockeyed, and radiator and what looked like transmission fluid were pooling out from under the ex vehicle.

My truck?

The bent fender is now fixed :D

I told the kid to shut the hell up about his brakes, he didn't need to be telling anyone he knew they needed to be fixed. He got towed, I drove off, all is well for me at least.

[catsix]

About six years ago I had loaned my car to my sister to ferry around my cousin while I was at work. I had a 1988 Topaz at the time, power windows, air conditioning, paid for. I was quite happy with that car, and normally wouldn't have let it out of my sight, but I figured it couldn't hurt anything since it was only for one day.

Well, my sister and my cousin (9 year old cousin) came to pick me up at work, and since I was tired to the point of exhaustion, I didn't make the little one get in the back seat where she normally had to ride. I just climbed in back and we headed for home. About 3 miles into our 12 mile trip (You know how they say most accidents happen within 10 miles of home?) we were following two cars, a Subaru up front and a Volkswagen Jetta right in front of us. The Subaru decided to make an immediate left turn, but there were cars coming in the opposite direction, so the Subaru stopped. The Volkswagen stopped. We stopped. As everyone had stopped PDQ, my sister (driving my car) had the inclination to look up into the rear-view mirror, and apparently so did the driver of the Jetta. I remember thinking 'We're gonna get hit' and then seeing the Jetta shoot forward on the shoulder trying to get the hell out of the way.

About 3 seconds later the impact happened. My car, which was previously stopped, was now moving forward very rapidly in the direction of the Jetta. We collided with the Jetta and came to a stop 100 feet from our original place of rest, and I noticed that my sister was now in the back seat, the seat-back having broken in the accident. Checked the cousin, who was not harmed but a little shaken up, and we all climbed out of the car through the only door that would open - the driver's door. Looked behind us and saw the crumpled remains of a Ford Probe. Yes, you heard right. I was rear-ended, hit in the ass-side, by a Probe.

The driver of the Probe was on her cell phone, so we assumed she was calling the police, still sitting in her car in the middle of the road. We were wrong. She was not calling the police. The owner of the house we crashed in front of happened to be my sister's volleyball coach, and he was kind enough to bring us a phone and let us call the police and the tow truck and my parents to come and pick us up. It turned out that the driver of the Probe had been on the phone when she crashed into us at 65 mph, (~100Km/h) and did not even end her call after hitting my car.

My car was a total loss (the fact that the gas tank came through the back seat likely saved all our lives), the Probe was a total loss (boo hoo) and the Jetta whose owner was nice enough to calm down my sister was only barely wounded. The bitch in the Probe was cited for reckless driving. As well she should've been.

It sucks to be rear-ended by a Probe.

[Ike Witt]

Originally posted by catsix
It sucks to be rear-ended by a Probe.

This is the exact reason why I always thought that Probe was the worst name ever for a car - unless you were a proctologist.

[Mercury]

Dragonblink, that sucks. If I could find an '86-'89 Taurus to play with, I'd be all over that like white on rice.

I would just like to say that "It climbed the BMW 735 that was parked in front of it like a goat scampers up a hill" is the funniest thing I have ever read! The eleventh commandment is Thou shalt never park it in first.

[Wikkit]

Originally posted by neuroman
Hyperbole, Fenris. A US ton = 2000 pounds ~= 910 kg.Ferris, not Fenris. Fenris would recognze an exaggeration.

Where is Fenris, anyway? I haven't seen him in ages.Feynn:
While I was working at a restaurant in B.C. another staff member asked the bus boy to go and start her Honda Civic. She failed to ask if he knew anything about manual transmissions and he got into the car and turned the key without depressing the clutch or checking to see if it was in neutral.

It climbed the BMW 735 that was parked in front of it like a goat scampers up a hill.How? It shoudn't have started if he hadn't depressed the clutch. Even if the clutch-detecto-doodad wasn't working, the starter shouldn't be powerful enough to get the car moving enough to get the engine to start in a short distance.

[AHunter3]

I don't know of Honda Civics, but I had a Datsun (back when they were Datsuns and not Nissans) that you could start in gear as long as it wasn't pointed uphill. (It would also climb a hill in first gear at a slow loping idle if you let off the clutch slowly without feeding it any gas).

[E-Sabbath]

Eh, if it was in gear, I can totally see the guy trying to start it, figuring out the clutch lockout, starting it with gas and clutch out, and dropping the clutch back in, with a foot on the gas. Boom.

[Feynn]

Re: The BMW killing Civic (cvcc) was an very old model and either didn't have a clutch lockout or it had ceased to function. How it cleared the rear bumper to make it's climb up the BMW is still a mystery.

The damage to the BMW was immense while the little Civic was relatively unscathed and still driveable.

[Sock Munkey]

Once when I was in one of those big rectangular oldsmobiles built in the 80s we were on the freeway and some guy a few cars ahead of us suddenly slammed on his brakes and everyone had to do the same to avoid crashing. We slightly rear-ended a compact car, the result of which was that it came away with a bent frame and we came away with a spilled milkshake.
Seriously, that thing was a tank.