www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23889163-driver-killed-as-g-wiz-is-cut-in-half-in-collision.do
Last time I saw a car in bits like that (i.e. as a result of the crash itself, rather than fire brigade trying to get people out) was a Reliant Scimitar on the old A23 at Twineham, one night in the early 80s when we were coming home from a visit to my grandmother.
Surprised they are allowed on the road if they are that flimsy.
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to put it in perspective its only tubular frame covered in marzipan
would you let you loved one have one of these? no
would you let your loved one run around in an old mini/beetle with clag in the sills? no
but people do
why?
because its cheap-------------------
:-)
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Using same logic one should never ride motorcycles.
One can run over by a car when walking on road. Does it mean we should not be walking??
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movilogo, I'd much rather be on my bike than in one of these things. Apart from anything else, on the bike I've got full armoured kit and a crash helmet. Asked whether I felt safer doing 100 mph (somewhere where this is legal) on the Bandit or 50-odd in a G-Wiz (which I understand to be top whack for one of those), I would be picking up the keys saying Suzuki on them, every time.
Zero said on another thread that we take it for granted that we can walk away from an accident, and we shouldn't. That's right, but it alarms me that a vehicle that flies apart so lethally at a comparatively low speed is available.
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Jonathon Ross has one..that would be reason enough for me.
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I bet its about as safe as a car from 20 odd years ago
Yet we drove around quite happily then.
Rover metro springs to mind !
Using this thought process, wasn't there some really dangerous cars back in the 50's ?
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As Clarkson said on Top Gear maybe some 2 years ago now
"It has the crash protection of a slipper"
Thats why I am rather glad Bamber Gascoine drives one apparantly
As always
Mark
Last edited by: Mark on Tue 19 Oct 10 at 17:24
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"Using this thought process, wasn't there some really dangerous cars back in the 50's ?"
You mean TR2 and TR3 with the steering column designed to impale your chest in the event of an accident...?
Also most other cars to be fair...
I like the TR2 - still do - but the column was iirdc mounted before the engine so the steering box took the full force of any frontal impact before the engine - thus ensuring you were properly skewered..
See also.. Mini - a death trap on wheels when over three years old due to rust everywhere...
Ditto 1100..
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Hillman Imp was another where the steering column would pop in and say hi, I understand? Vague memory of seeing one once that had been front-ended and the column had come so far in that the steering wheel had actually dented the roof from the inside.
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>> I bet its about as safe as a car from 20 odd years ago
20 years ago I T-Boned an Opel Omega that pulled out in front of me when I was doing 40mph. I walked away from the collision. The car I was driving was a Fiesta XR2i.
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>> to put it in perspective its only tubular frame covered in marzipan
Sweet!
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Everything will disintegrate if it hits something hard enough (or is hit by something)...
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>> Everything will disintegrate if it hits something hard enough (or is hit by something)...
>>
Yes but these seem not to need hitting hard before they come apart.
Someone above states about crash worthiness of old car and people used to drive them. Well yes they did and maybe wouldn't drive those cars today if they had the choice.
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>> Yes but these seem not to need hitting hard before they come apart.
>>
This is what I was getting at. The one in this instance collided with a garden wall (a thing not generally notable for structural rigidity) at what appears to have been not very high speed, and fell to bits with fatal results for the driver.
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>> >> Yes but these seem not to need hitting hard before they come apart.
>> >>
>>
>> This is what I was getting at. The one in this instance collided with a
>> garden wall (a thing not generally notable for structural rigidity) at what appears to have
>> been not very high speed, and fell to bits with fatal results for the driver.
>>
>>
Structural rigidity not needed.
1 tonne car meets 10 tonnes of stone has only one outcome...
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>> Structural rigidity not needed.
>> 1 tonne car meets 10 tonnes of stone has only one outcome...
>>
Was thinking more of the single-course brick job found at the pavement end of many a suburban garden. These can be pushed over by boisterous drunks on their way back from the pub, as a cousin of mine discovered to her annoyance (and expense) earlier this year.
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A section of garden wall is not 10 tonnes though. The weakness will be the mortar too. Although our garden wall won't be pushed over easily.
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>> >> >> Yes but these seem not to need hitting hard before they come apart.
>> >> >>
>> >>
>> >> This is what I was getting at. The one in this instance collided with
>> a
>> >> garden wall (a thing not generally notable for structural rigidity) at what appears to
>> have
>> >> been not very high speed, and fell to bits with fatal results for the
>> driver.
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>> Structural rigidity not needed.
>> 1 tonne car meets 10 tonnes of stone has only one outcome...
>>
The weight of the wall is irrelevant, it isn't moving..
I reckon even in a typical 1 tonne 1970s car you'd stand a good chance of walking away from a crash like this. Certainly given the choice between taking an impact in this junk and a Viva I'd choose the Viva.
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My cousin hit a tree at 50MPH in an Astra in a country lane in Wales. I think it was an Astra G.
The car was completly wrecked, the tree was badly dented. He broke his leg andf spent the night in hospital but other than that was fine.
The police said it was the airbags and seat belt which saved him and that if the car was just a ten year older design the outcome would have been different.
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Remember the top gear banger stunt? They had to crash a £100 banger into a wall at 30mph. All cars destoyed the wall but I think Jeremey Clarkson was injured in his Volvo.
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But his speedo didn't work, so he crashed into the wall at a much greater speed than 30mph apparantly. Of course it was probably all fiction.
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Still good cars.
The bloke is a bore. I've read the books and although funny, I can write that stuff no prob. It's about telling the truth, not about trying to be funny!
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 19 Oct 10 at 20:58
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>>The weight of the wall is irrelevant, it isn't moving..
You need to think about that a bit more;-)
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>> 1 tonne car meets 10 tonnes of stone has only one outcome...
This G-Wizzo thing isn't a car, though, is it. Saying "Oh, it fell to bits, it's rubbish" is like saying "Oh, that motorbike person hit a wall at 40MPH and it did 'im".
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I wont be buying one because its crap and its horrid.
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In 1964 not long after I got my first company car ( a Ford Anglia 1200 de luxe, pronounced 'diloo' at the time) I crashed it head-on into a telegraph pole in mid Wales doing about 50mph. Totally inept driving on my part and no-one else involved. Seat belts had hardly been thought of in those days let alone fitted and I was catapulted through the windscreen which had almost certainly been 'popped out' by the force of the accident. I was found, miraculously, by a passing doctor lying at the side of the road with the car 40 yards away pointing in the opposite direction to that in which I had been travelling. I had a very sore head and spent a night in Machynlleth hospital but was otherwise unharmed. The Anglia was, of course, written off, but only because the engine had been decimated by the force of the impact. The passenger compartment had a lot of glass in it but was otherwise not damaged.
Maybe older cars were not as flimsy as some have suggested.
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Old cars aren't necessarily flimsy, however this can be a problem.
How much did they charge you for the telegraph pole?
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"How much did they charge you for the telegraph pole?"
Funny you should mention that. I seem to remember that I got a bill for £80 which in my naivity at the time I thought that I would have to pay myself. As it was about a month's salary at the time I was pretty concerned until my more savvy friends pointed out that it would be covered by my company's insurance policy.
The incident made me a much safer driver.
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>> "How much did they charge you for the telegraph pole?"
>>
>> Funny you should mention that. I seem to remember that I got a bill for
>> £80
Hah! I remember a bill for exactly the same amount! Not *my* bill, of course, an acquaintance's.
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FT
I imagine that the telegraph poles at that time would have been owned by the Post Office (ie the government). You're not suggesting that they might have been 'at it' are you?
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I don't know. Old Matey certainly *had* been "at it", though. The "A" pillar formed itself into shape around his head when he crashed into the pole, unbelted. 'Twas a good thing he was thick.
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A guy I once worked with hit an old Reliant van that pulled straight out in front of him to cross the southbound A1.
The impact split the van in half producing a shower of shattered fibreglass. Miraculously, it split just behind the seats leaving the elderly occupants extremely shaken but with no serious injuries.
Wouldn't mind a G-Wiz if they had a V8 on the options list.
Kevin...
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It is simple energy transfer laws. If the car is very tough and strong all the energy will go straight into the people inside of the car and probably kill them.
With modern cars they are designed to crumple, a modern Fiesta will probably look far worse than the Anglia did after that accident, but you would have just walked out of the Fiesta without a scratch.
This why after a frontal collision you often the see back is damaged too, it is because the energy is designed to transferred to all the areas of the car which don't carry people.
Crumple zones are probably the most important modern safety feature after the seat belts. Airbags and the rest just help.
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Rattle, should have seen the damage to a rear ended Fiesta I drove in Italy. Maybe I sent a picture once.... crumple zones are all in the front. With beams in doors to protect against side impact. Roll on rear impact protection! .... says me feeling the big scar on the back of my head!
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A V8 would rip it apart at tickover. (and quite rightly too - horrible cheapskate lump of pooh which trendy "me toos" want to be seen in)
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From the pictures that car didn't exactly crumble - it broke in two killing the occupant in the process.
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And PU, the car should not be allowed on the road. You'd have more protection as already said on a motorbike!
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G Whizes are horrid little things. That's why I wouldn't have one: not because they are dangerous, because they are horrid.
There are other small electric cars that look much less horrid and may be less dangerous. But they are quite rare.
All electric cars are still a bit expensive. But if I could afford it and find a bearable one I would buy it for short journeys. The efficiency is unarguable (notably that there is no need to enrich the mixture when the engine is cold; electric motors run efficiently at any temperature).
If we want to save fuel - and we do - we need to think a bit like this sometimes, without losing our love for snorting V8 monsters.
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what about instead of going to the gym an hour before work the greats of london who run our lives could power a great big elastic band up in a gee wizzy type vehicle and then let it go as they traverse the londonian streets as the go on their way to work?
and i could sabottage them and deprive them of their manhoods and all the banks would be nationalised------------hoooray...
Last edited by: Bellboy on Tue 19 Oct 10 at 23:31
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We don't know how much had been cut away by the emergency services, there's usually less of a car left after they've been at it.
The inertia of the batteries could also have quite an effect.
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>> We don't know how much had been cut away by the emergency services, there's usually
>> less of a car left after they've been at it.
>>
>> The inertia of the batteries could also have quite an effect.
>>
The unfortunate driver was thrown clear of the 'vehicle', so presumably there would be no need to get the cutters out. My guess is the inertia of the batteries - which must be a big proportion of total weight I should think - tore the thing in half.
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>> the car should not be allowed on the road
It's not a car.
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I think Ralph Nader would disagree.
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Who's he? Whoever he is, he'd be wrong.
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Google "Unsafe at any speed". Made Mr Nader not especially popular in the US car industry in the mid-60s.
Has run for president several times since and quite recently, too.
So, if this 'orrible little thing isn't a car, how would you describe it?
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Nader's most recent run was in the famously tight 2000 election, so he's arguably - and indirectly - responsible for giving us George Bush.
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They're not cars in the legal sense - but if it has 3 or 4 wheels and it honks it's a car and the horrible nasty little things should be tested as such.
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>> They're not cars in the legal sense
Absolutely.
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>> So, if this 'orrible little thing isn't a car, how would you describe it?
It's a Category L7e Quadricycle.
bit.ly/aUSOvN
See Chapter 1, Article 1:3(b), included for your pleasure and convenience here:
(b) quadricycles, other than those referred to in (a), whose unladen
mass is not more than 400 kg (category L7e) (550 kg for vehicles
intended for carrying goods), not including the mass of batteries in
the case of electric vehicles, and whose maximum net engine power
does not exceed 15 kW. These vehicles shall be considered to be
motor tricycles and shall fulfil the technical requirements
applicable to motor tricycles of category L5e unless specified
differently in any of the separate Directives.
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>> >> So, if this 'orrible little thing isn't a car, how would you describe it?
>>
>> It's a Category L7e Quadricycle.
>>
Crikey. Box duly ticked for "learn something new" today! Thanks.
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...who's Ralph Nader?...
The Buzzcocks knew who he was:
"Sooner or later, you're gonna listen to Ralph Nader."
A line from their song Fast Cars:
www.actionext.com/names_t/the_buzzcocks_lyrics/fast_cars.html
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I wonder what Pete Shelly drives then?
Ralph Nader is probably one of the reasons the USA did a massive safety shake up in the early 70's. Some of the yank tanks of earlier years were pathetically dangerious. Sharp objects on the dash etc.
The G-Whiz is a car it is just not legally classed as one.
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>> The G-Whiz is a car it is just not legally classed as one.
So it's a car but not really a car?
It is not, in fact, a car. Neither is a van a car, or a lorry a car, or a pair of motorised roller skates two cars.
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I thought anything with four wheels and a cabin is a car?
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It is more like a minature milk float.
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Surely no-one actually thinks protective motorbike clothing and a crash helmet offers any realistic protection if the rider hits hard things at 100mph? Skidding down a nice friendly track maybe, but not colliding with anything likely to be found on or near the road. Granted that the G Wiz offers very little protection but there are a few contributors on here that will attest to the fact that there's no protection in motorbike gear in many RTC's. And yes, there are loads of stories of walking away from bike accidents but the 500 odd motorcyclists who die each year won't be posting their stories on here...
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You're not far wrong, guys on Bikesafe reckon that any fall off a bike at 20mph is likely to be serious or fatal - the Paramedic on my last course described an accident 40 years apart involving identical circumstances at the same location (hypothetical) and then described how modern gear would make a difference. I try not to fall off which is always a good plan !
Last edited by: Pugugly on Sat 23 Oct 10 at 12:59
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>> Surely no-one actually thinks protective motorbike clothing and a crash helmet offers any realistic protection
>> if the rider hits hard things at 100mph?
This is aimed at me, I assume - if so, that wasn't what I said.
What I meant was that in the circs here I would rather be on my bike with all my protective gear, than wearing normal clothing and driving a plastic box which flies apart as soon as it hits something at urban (and hence comparatively low) speed, thus depriving us of a highly valued member of the scientific community.
I then said separately that I would feel safer doing the ton on my bike than doing 50-odd in a G-Wiz, seeing as the bike is at least designed to operate at those sorts of speeds. That is a purely subjective opinion. Many on here - bearing in mind we have some members who appear to be scared stiff of bikes - would disagree. They are entitled to their view.
Plus there is also the point that if you bash into something immobile at 100 mph, it is unlikely to end well irrespective of the type of vehicle you are using.
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It's a miserable, joyless, bandwagon jumping pile of excrement. Those would stop me buying one long before I worried about crashing in it.;)
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Same here DP, how horrible does a thing need to be before people wouldn't buy it.
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>> Same here DP, how horrible does a thing need to be before people wouldn't buy
>> it.
No...No... I mustn't
< fingers twitch on the keyboard >
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I saw another two X1s today Zeddo. :-)
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....I saw another two X1s today Zeddo. :-)....
I've seen a couple recently in typical BMW metallic colours.
Looked OK in a sort of Hyundai-ish sort of way.
A black 635 barelled past me on the A1(M) - now that did look the part.
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Reva G-Wiz - - why I won't be buying one - Bellboy
