I had a teacher in high school (in the 60s) who had about a third of the top of his forearm sliced off when he had his arm side-swiped d it was resting along the side of the driver’s side window.
It had happened years before I knew him, and his arm had a kind of hollow along the bone, and it was a bit crippled.
Good object lesson to teenagers learning to drive!
And when will Paul ever learn?
To add a data point: I recently clipped the mirror of a passing vehicle (@ 2x30 km/h) . Still got the bills to prove it.
I have never heard of this happening; but back when I first learned to drive my boyfriend would quickly pull his arm in when I drove down a narrow street. I steer with my left because when I learned to drive I was a smoker and used my right hand for that.
I remember reading in the 70’s that surgical repair experience coming out of the Vietnam war was leading to improved outcomes for the far more common elbow surgery for sideswipe injuries
So, air conditioning, wider roads, different car shape. Because of improved side impact protection, I can’t comfortably rest my arm on the car windowsill at all. Even if the window was open. Which it’s not, because I have the heater and air conditioner both on, to demist the windshield, and I don’t smoke
I don’t want to call “bullshit”, because it’s obviously something that can and does happen. I just can’t imagine such amputations being something that happen very frequently. I mean how often do you have oncoming traffic or objects along the side of the road passing within an arm’s length of your car?
An arm? No. Maybe a giraffe’s head.