How To Survive a Car Crash

One statistical group we all hope to not become members of: There were 34,017 highway deaths in 2008. You can take some actions to reduce your chances of joining this group, short of completely staying off the road.

• DON'T DRIVE DRUNK !!! it's hard to be more emphatic on this one.
• Wear your seat belt, and see that all your passengers are strapped in too.
• Avoid driving distractions: Watching your in dash DVD player while talking the phone and setting your navigation system should only be done by cartoon characters.
• Drive a safer car. Look up the crash test safety results for a car before buying.
• Save yourself from financial ruin, Insurance yourself and your car.
  

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety publishes a Top Picks list of cars that rate good in 3 different tests; high-speed front and side crash tests, plus evaluations of seat/head restraints for protection against neck injuries in rear impacts. Roughly 40% of vehicles tested made the top pick list. There are 72 winners for 2009 in the following categories.

• 10 Large Cars
• 19 Mid-sized Cars
• 3 Mid-sized Converters
• 12 Small Cars
• 1 Mini Car (The Honda Fit)
  
• 3 Mini Vans
  
• 3 Large Pickups
• 1 Small Pickup
• 27 Mid-size SUVs
• 10 Small SUVs

Note that quantities reflect the number of vehicles tested in each category, only a portion of available cars are tested each year.

The institute reminds consumers that larger cars have an inherent advantage in collisions which may provide better protection in a lesser rated large vehicle than a top rated small car.

Handling a Tire Blowout: There's a loss of control with a flat be smooth and gentle. The worst situation is getting a flat on a busy freeway, take these steps:

• Hold the steering wheel firmly, there can be severe shaking.
• Put on your turn signal before moving into the breakdown lane.
  
• Slow down gradually, don't slam on the brake pedal, it best to not pull off the road until your speed is below 30 mph.
• Stop the car after all wheels are off the road and in the breakdown lane. Turn on hazard blinkers.
  

Dealing With a Brake Failure: Your emergency (parking break) is your friend, practice locating it, so it may be operated confidently in an emergency.

• It's best to slow down and pull of the road gradually, the engine will slow your car when the you lift off the gas pedal, put on the emergency brake gradually after having slowed down.
• Of course, if your approaching traffic stopped at a signal you may have to act immediately, apply the emergency brake, apply it gradually for a controlled stop, plan for more than the normal distance for stopping.
• Leave the more radical actions like spinning the car or jamming the transmission into park to the Hollywood stunt drivers.

Escaping a Car Submerged in Water: Some 10,000 people a year are involved in cars trapped in water. The best escape plan, open the window and swim out.

• Roll down the window, wait for te rush of water into the car to slow. (Water pressure prevents the door from being opened)
• If disoriented by darkness or a rolled over vehicle, grasp the door frame as a reference point before releasing your seat belt and exiting.
• Should your electric windows fail to operate, you may have to break a window to escape, car windows are hard to break, use a hammer like implement to shatter the glass along the edge, not the center of the glass. (There are multi-function safety tools including a flashlight, seat belt cutter and glass break hammer available.) A screwdriver, knife or seat-belt latch or other hard pointed implement may be used to make an initial break in the glass. As a last resort you may have to wait for the car to fill with water, after which pressure equalization should allow the door to be opened.

A useful survival guide, written by the survivor of a harrowing submersion experience is worth a read.

Dealing With A Car Fire: Gasoline fires caused by faulty fuel lines are too common

• Pull over and evacuate the car, then call emergency services.
• It is advised that you not attempt to extinguish the fire yourself, due to the possibility of an exploding fuel tank.
  

These tips are abbreviated summaries of authoritative papers on the subject.

Here's a video report on bicycle road safety, the author had edited hundreds of riding time video to an 8 minute narrated compilation showing the sort of near misses bicyclists risk on a daily basis.

"47,000 bicycle are injured and 700 are killed annually"

The author has compiled a list of most common auto-bicycle accidents, noting that the most common cause of bike crashes are just falling down and solo collision with fixed objects.

Most common Bike-Car accident types cited in the video

1. 32% bikes and cars running stop signs
2. 21% Mid Block Pullouts (like exiting a driveway)
3. 20% Turning mistakes (like a car making a right turn in front of a bike)
   
4. 9% Bikes hit from behind (25% of these are fatal)
5. wrong direction bikes (drivers don't anticipate someone approaching on their right)
   
6. parking lots (traffic patters are chaotic, bikes aren't expected)
   

Another sometimes fatal type of collision is the opened parked car door, bikers have the option of driving in the traffic lane and blocking traffic, or passing near the parked cars, in "The Door Zone"

One can deal with inconsiderate auto drivers at MyBikeLane, where you can post photos of cars illegally occupying space in bike lanes.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration maintains a detailed database of traffic death statistics. Some note worthy statics include:

• Thirty-two percent of all fatal crashes involved alcohol-impaired driving.
• 65 percent of fatal crashes occurring from midnight to 3 a.m. involved alcohol-impaired driving.
• Fifty-nine percent of fatal crashes involved only one vehicle.
• Over 40 year olds were the age group with the lowest number of motorcycle deaths prior to 1995, they now have more than twice the number of deaths as the 30-39 year old group.
  

The Insurance Institute for Highway safety is one institution that performs crash tests on new car models to confirm their road worthiness.

The Consumer reports Crash Test Player provides analysis of some 300 different car tests.

One example that deserved close scrutiny is the tiny Smart Car, due to careful Mercedes engineering that includes front and side airbags and a passenger protective cage, the Smart Car receives a Good rating.

Seat belts should be relied on your first line of defense, air bags in part forced on drivers too lazy to buckle up, by insurance company action can cause more bodily damage to drivers not wearing belts to hold them a safe distance from the bag's explosive deployment.

One fraud perpetrated on used car buyers that can be bad for your health as well as your wallet ,are cars that have been involved in accidents in which the air bag had deployed. The space that the air bags in these cars are supposed to occupy have been found to be stuffed with paper towels, foam peanuts, rags, old shoes or anything on hand instead of paying the $1000 or so to have the bag replaced. The high cost of air bags has also made them an atractive target for car thieves supplying chop shops.

(This brings to mind when I once found a large weld on inner body panels of a used Saab I bought, while fixing the seat-belt re-tractor, this indicated that replacement body parts had been grafted on after an accident.)

One quick test for the presence of air bags: Switch on the ignition, the dashboard airbag light should briefly flash on then go off, if the light remains on or blinks air bag service is required. If the light does not flash at it may have been removed to conceal the air bag status.

An air bag technical review