QUOTE(Sammy @ Nov 28 2006, 06:22 PM)
ABS can still leave black marks on dry pavement, and that piece is a driver's side mirror AFAICT.
One other interesting fact, the silver car's air bag was not deployed.
If those cars collided with enough force to make one climb the other, all the air bags would be blown for sure.
I say it's staged, or the car somehow fell on top of the other rather gently, or it's photoshopped.
QUOTE(GWN7 @ Nov 28 2006, 08:35 PM)
Nope not a staged accident, no "Hollywood" effects. This happened in a downtown location where there isn't a lot of pedestrians. Airbags usually deploy at about 28 mi/h (45 km/h) (winkipedia). I have seen several accidents where the air bags haven't deployed.
If the front car slamed on it's brakes that would cause the rear end to raise as the front went down and if the second car did the same but was traveling faster than the front car it's nose would go under the rear bumper of the first car. If the rear cars front bumper didn't strike anything with enough force to cause the sensors to trigger, no air bag deployment.
Unfortunately, I can speak with relative authority on the Saturn airbags. There are no bumper sensors in the Saturns. There is an "impact sensor" somewhere between the two front seats. It measures the decelleration and pops the bags when it deems it necessary. On the incident pictured, since the Saturn went beneath the G6, it didn't decellerate as quickly as if she had hit a fixed object. So the impact sensor didn't deploy the airbags.
I did something similar a few years ago with my last Saturn. In the middle of Monday morning rushhour traffic, in the left lane, traffic was moving along real nice, about 50mph (Indiana rushhour traffic is absolutely nothing like CA traffic
), and then someone cuts in front of a lady 4 cars ahead of me. She absolutely froze, slammed on her brakes and came to a complete stop. You see brake lights in traffic all the time and you brake to adjust for it, but by the time I realized that we were coming to a complete stop and not just slowing down a little, there was no way I was stopping in time. All five of us bunched up nice and cozy. Lots of paint-swapping. I ended up doing the same thing to the truck in front of me, but I only went about a foot beneath his bumper. Since I didn't hit the truck square on the bumper, my hood crumpling absorbed the impact somewhat and slowed my decelleration enough that the airbags didn't go off. I was sore for a while, but I might have been even more sore if the airbags had gone off. I hope I never find out what an airbag feels like.
I wonder how many cars use sensors like these?
I can also confirm that the Saturn's driver's side mirror is what's on the ground next to it.