BMW plunges 7 floors from parking garage

[E39hijinks]

Originally Posted by RABAUKE

That's crazy, the front doors still opened. Great engineering, hope she's ok.

Ehhh. Not really. I mean it's a modern car, so the engineering is probably pretty good as it should be, but i'm not impressed the doors opened. 7 story drop sounds crazier than it is. She got hurt because of the angle she landed is not really how cars are designed to crash.

Anything from today would've performed the same. Hyundai, Kia, BMW, Mercedes. With today's cars, there's nothing special about any country's engineering when compared to another's.

Anyway this is probably the equivalent to a 25-30 mph crash, but just at an unusual angle. She's lucky she didn't land roof first. She would've been crushed instantly.

[KrashFinatik]

Originally Posted by KevinM

It's America. You can sue anybody for anything. If she is suing anyone, it would likely be the garage owner given the previous safety concerns there. Anyway, glad she survived.

Yup that's right! You can sue anybody for your own mistakes or stupidity.
For example many years ago a woman sued Winnebago because she crashed after setting the cruise control and went in the back of the RV going down the interstate. She won $$$ plus got a new RV because Winnebago did not have it in the manual you must still be in control of the vehicle.

[MalibuBimmer]

Originally Posted by KrashFinatik

Yup that's right! You can sue anybody for your own mistakes or stupidity.
For example many years ago a woman sued Winnebago because she crashed after setting the cruise control and went in the back of the RV going down the interstate. She won $$$ plus got a new RV because Winnebago did not have it in the manual you must still be in control of the vehicle.

Under the American tort system the comparative fault of the parties will be determined. There is no question she is primarily at fault. But the garage operator is at fault too. Using tort law to require the operator to repair a dangerous condition is an important function. Needed here since the City of Austin obviously didn't do it.

[RABAUKE]

Originally Posted by E39hijinks

Ehhh. Not really. I mean it's a modern car, so the engineering is probably pretty good as it should be, but i'm not impressed the doors opened. 7 story drop sounds crazier than it is. She got hurt because of the angle she landed is not really how cars are designed to crash.

Anything from today would've performed the same. Hyundai, Kia, BMW, Mercedes. With today's cars, there's nothing special about any country's engineering when compared to another's.

Anyway this is probably the equivalent to a 25-30 mph crash, but just at an unusual angle. She's lucky she didn't land roof first. She would've been crushed instantly.

I didn't say that other makes of cars wouldn't perform the same way, my point was that thats pretty good engineering. If you look at your attached photo you can see how the crumple zone does its job. My math says the speed would be closer to 40mph, striking a fixed object, the ground didn't have any rebound affect as hitting another car at that speed may have, but regardless I think we can all appreciate this engineering if we find ourselves or a loved one in a 40mph crash with a fixed object.

[SakhirM4]

Originally Posted by RABAUKE

I didn't say that other makes of cars wouldn't perform the same way, my point was that thats pretty good engineering. If you look at your attached photo you can see how the crumple zone does its job. My math says the speed would be closer to 40mph, striking a fixed object, the ground didn't have any rebound affect as hitting another car at that speed may have, but regardless I think we can all appreciate this engineering if we find ourselves or a loved one in a 40mph crash with a fixed object.

What I was really impressed with is how the convertible top held up.

[thaalrasha]

Originally Posted by DrivenByE30

Thats the ONLY explanation.

I am surprised it took 5 pages for someone here to state it so.

I think part of the reason is that BMW auto transmission is a very bad and counter-intuitive design.

I don't think the ZF selector is at fault here, the driver was rather too distracted...

1. You need to press the brake to go in drive or reverse, so you have pressed the brake and probably still have your foot on it when maneuvering at low speed.

2. When you go on reverse a shit load happen, from PDC beep initializing and iDrive showing your sensor / camera. If you missed all this cues (or them not happening) then you were really too distracted in my opinion.

[Maynard]

Originally Posted by E39hijinks

Ehhh. Not really. I mean it's a modern car, so the engineering is probably pretty good as it should be, but i'm not impressed the doors opened. 7 story drop sounds crazier than it is. She got hurt because of the angle she landed is not really how cars are designed to crash.

Anything from today would've performed the same. Hyundai, Kia, BMW, Mercedes. With today's cars, there's nothing special about any country's engineering when compared to another's.

Anyway this is probably the equivalent to a 25-30 mph crash, but just at an unusual angle. She's lucky she didn't land roof first. She would've been crushed instantly.

I think you are deluding yourself, probably b/c you have people you love who ride around in Kia's or Hyundai's - there is a huge difference in safety across brands. IIRC, somebody did the math and this is actually more like a 55mph head on, far more than most cheapo brands engineer for. Even at 30mph, most lower priced cars would have been much more damaged (along w/ the driver) - not necessarily a country-of-origin issue, but there is a huge gap between 'goodnuff' and the top tier. Check out the IIHS site to see how much difference a little extra engineering can make (when I was shopping my 228, the most telling comparo was with the BRZ - you'll see where a lot of that extra $$$ went on the offset impact test). I just wish they would take it to the next level and start offering 'extra safety' versions, like the track packs - with another 50-100 pounds of metal, and probably just a few hundred bucks, you could turn a 2 series into quite a tank, if you were building it from the ground up.