To pick up on a recent thread in which the safety of the 997 was questioned (using the example of the California girl's accident, which is why I don't want to post this there), this is a picture of a 997 Turbo Cabriolet that crashed last Thursday on Reichswaldallee in Dusseldorf, Germany. The car belongs to the father of the 18-year old driver who (1) had only had his license for three months, (2) was drunk, and (3) was speeding in (4) rainy conditions (i.e., on wet roads). The boy lost control of the car and ran head-on into an oncoming Mercedes; a BMW driving behind the Mercedes then also ran into the wreck. No information on the exact speed.

Anyway, I can't believe someone got out of this alive, but the driver did; he got stuck between seat and steering wheel and had to be cut out with the jaws of life, but he survived (with serious, non-life-threatening injuries). His 18-year old passenger wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from the car; he died at the hospital later that night. The Mercedes driver also suffered serious injuries. The BMW driver was not injured.

Again, I think that this is another piece of evidence that 997 cars are pretty safe.

 

Wow, I'd like to see another image showing the driver's footwell area. If there was not significant intrusion I would be highly impressed, In fact, if the driver's legs weren't smashed, I'm impressed.

 

If I had a Turbo Cab and an 18 yo son, I would NEVER, EVER give him the keys.

 

I don't think Dad just handed over the keys. Time for key codes to open and turn on the car!

 

These stories continue to amaze me. I'm not sure which part is harder to believe,--that someone could survive that level of destruction, or that someone was so stupid as to hand their keys over to such a person.

 

A bad combination.
1. Inexperienced driver
2. Drunk!!!
3. High Speed
4. Wet weather.

The car is safe, the driver was not.

I doubt that “Dad handed over the keys” sounds like booze and peer pressure lead to this mishap – lock up your keys!

 

Please see below.

On another note, the driver is from a very wealthy family and apparently the father did let the son use the car in the past. Of course I wish to think that he would not have let him take it if he had known his son was under the influence.

 

Right there, above, you rested the case eliminating the car as the cause of the accident.

Young kids (even worse while drinking) and powerful cars do not mix.

 

Oh absolutely, I think most of us are on the same page in that respect. I think the concern of the OP in the other thread was how safe the cars were once we get involved in an accident. Personally, I'm really not worried, but weirdly enough the issue was brought up by my date today when we had two big trucks standing next to us. By comparison, the 997 does look small and she thought they would simply crush us in a collision; I tend to disagree - I think that the impact will be absorbed mostly by the car, while protecting the occupants well. Of course, once you begin exceeding certain speeds, even the best car can't save your butt.

 

Anymore pics?

 

I wouldn't draw that conclusion based on this accident.

Just because the driver survived does not mean this is another piece of evidence that 997s are any safer than any other modern car such as a Mercedes or a BMW.

The main reason the driver survived likely has more to do with the resiliency of his young body, and less to do with the safety features of the car. Also, being inebriated may have contributed to his survival as well, ironically, as many instances have been documented where drunk drivers usually survive an accident that happens to kill others, presumably because the state of inebriation prevents the body from tensing up and allows it to be tossed around like a rag doll, minimizing the absorption of collision forces.

It's likely that had any of us been driving that 997, we would not be here today. This was a head on collision - the deadliest type because of the velocity vector summation. The report states he was speeding. Maybe he was doing 80 mph while the Mercedes was doing 60. This would mean a collision speed of 140 mph. Which means his body had to sustain a deceleration from 140 mph to 0 mph in the short distance afforded by the crumple zone of the car. Knowing this distance and the speed of collision one can easily calculate the g forces involved, which had to be tremendous and deadly for most of us.

Yes, the car performed as designed in absorbing as much of the collision as possible. The purpose of the crumple zone is to provide some deceleration distance in a collision. Collision forces are inversely proportional to distance. The greater the distance for deceleration, the lower the forces. The shorter it is, the greater they are. A car that is rigidly built with no designed crumple zone will have little deceleration distance for its occupants, resulting in tremendous forces on their bodies. Rapid deceleration is what usually kills in a collision. Our bodies are frail and can only sustain so many g's.

But I wouldn't look at this accident and take away a false sense of security about our cars just because this 18 yr old drunk driver survived it. It's a miracle he wasn't killed. I doubt any of us would have been as lucky.

 

Quick comment - the two pics don't jive to me. Seems like in the first pic, the passenger seat is crushed against the dasboard, when in the second picture, there is plenty of space between the passenger seat and the dashboard. wonder if this difference is a result of the jaws of life prying the car back open...

 

Good observation.

I don't believe, however, that the jaws of life can be used to straighten a frame out.

The first and the third photos look like from the same car. The second photo, the one on top in your post, looks like from another car. But it could just be the camera angle and the optics of the lens. The orientation of the car with respect to the edge of the road looks to be the same. Also, it appears the turbo took the brunt of the blow in the right front end, as this is crushed the most.

 

Seems to be a trend here: stupid parents + stupid children + porsche = someone's going to the hospital.

 

Here's the whole set: http://www.wz-newsline.de/?redid=207...81&galP=117283. No worries, no pictures in which the victims are visible. No updates on story either (not that I'm aware of anyway).