How safe is a classic?

[Spunkymonkey]

My son James was unfortunate enough to total his daily driver Pug last week when some eejit in a 3 series coming in the opposite direction turned right.... straight across his path. Nothing James could do about it other than 'adopt the brace position!' It was a National Speed Limit road and speed before hitting the brakes was around 50.......

What would the result have been if he'd been driving his 'proper car' :



Not sure I like to dwell on the thought for too long (and neither does he)

Hopefully the result would have been (or, more to the point, will be next time) avoidance of the crash. He's now aware that some numpty who's slowed down to turn righ might not wait for him - I assume the other guy hadn't tried to two-wheel it round the corner at the national limit - and will be ready with foot over brake, if not already slowing defensively, when it happens. That will cut his "reaction" time to such "unavoidable" events by a good 1/2 to 3/4 seconds. Just one of the skills that moderns encourage people not to learn any more

[Chris Field]

Hopefully the result would have been (or, more to the point, will be next time) avoidance of the crash. He's now aware that some numpty who's slowed down to turn righ might not wait for him - I assume the other guy hadn't tried to two-wheel it round the corner at the national limit - and will be ready with foot over brake, if not already slowing defensively, when it happens. That will cut his "reaction" time to such "unavoidable" events by a good 1/2 to 3/4 seconds. Just one of the skills that moderns encourage people not to learn any more

Fortunately defensive driving is something that he has adopted from the word go having learnt in a mini and owned 2 of those before moving on to the 'B' . He has never had the 'benefit' of ABS (the 106 didnt have it either) and so has learned anticipation and cadence braking as a substitute.
So to be fair he had already lifted off defensively even though the 'other guy' actually came to a halt for several seconds before seemingly deciding he could make it!
Road was perfectly straight, dry and visibility was good so speeds up to NSL were quite safe and the reduction to 50 prior to serious braking was the result of anticipation. That said, I'm not denying that with the benefit of an extra 30yrs + experience I might have slowed a little more!

However, to get back the OP's question, there is of course the question of the extent to which modern cars are engineered to crumple etc but also the extent to which the crumpling characteristics of our classics have been compromised by restoration (or of course rot) When you look at some of the pictures posted on here during restoration, you realise that in some cases there would be no energy absorbtion whatsoever in the rotted out chassis rails / inner wing / sill sections of a Dolly. Similarly, once restored, how does it compare to the original design in terms of stress / energy absorbtion....

The 'B has been substantially restored and I am reasonably happy that the quality of welding etc is satisfactory. However there is no real way of predicting how it would perform in the sort of situation we saw last week

[Spunkymonkey]

Fortunately defensive driving is something that he has adopted from the word go having learnt in a mini and owned 2 of those before moving on to the 'B' . He has never had the 'benefit' of ABS (the 106 didnt have it either) and so has learned anticipation and cadence braking as a substitute.
So to be fair he had already lifted off defensively even though the 'other guy' actually came to a halt for several seconds before seemingly deciding he could make it!
Road was perfectly straight, dry and visibility was good so speeds up to NSL were quite safe and the reduction to 50 prior to serious braking was the result of anticipation. That said, I'm not denying that with the benefit of an extra 30yrs + experience I might have slowed a little more!

However, to get back the OP's question, there is of course the question of the extent to which modern cars are engineered to crumple etc but also the extent to which the crumpling characteristics of our classics have been compromised by restoration (or of course rot) When you look at some of the pictures posted on here during restoration, you realise that in some cases there would be no energy absorbtion whatsoever in the rotted out chassis rails / inner wing / sill sections of a Dolly. Similarly, once restored, how does it compare to the original design in terms of stress / energy absorbtion....

The 'B has been substantially restored and I am reasonably happy that the quality of welding etc is satisfactory. However there is no real way of predicting how it would perform in the sort of situation we saw last week

Well, all being well he'll go on to gain those extra 30+ years experience - with luck this incident will be a big part of it, especially as he can no doubt relate it to "what if I'd been in the B"! I shudder to think back on some of the very close calls my 25 year no-accident record is built on - many of which probably would have involved lots of bent metal if I'd had the reassurance of airbags / safety cells etc to make me invincible.

The fact is, any crash involves losing a hell of a lot of kinetic energy very quickly. You've only got to imagine (or try if you have no imagination) running at a sprint into a brick wall to realise how painful losing lots of energy fast is. Modern cars don't change that but they do make it easier to forget

I totally agree about the question of reduced protection as cars age / are repaired and so on. Having said that, there are plenty of examples of "freak" accidents where people have been seriously injured in modern cars in what appear to be minor accidents - as well as people surviving things that they really shouldn't have with hardly a scratch. It's in the nature of these things to be slightly unpredictable.

To me, that's just another reason for not having the accident in the first place!

[SprintMWU773V]

Any car that has had a lot of welding will be compromised. You can do good welding yes but crumple zones and such like are designed around things like spot welds and areas of metal like inner wings. You cut bits out and replace them the result, if done properly will be a strong car but would not perform the same as one that had not been welded.

Real problem of course is that accidents do not happen under lab conditions and as such not every accident can be designed into a car. You see this today with cars designed around crash tests and get 5 stars.

As echoed by others the real idea is not to have an accident in the first place and keep an eye out for amateurs who are are an accident waiting to happen. You can't avoid an accident though unfortunately if it's caused by someone else. However i'd rather drive a classic and take a bit of a risk than not drive one.