Hey, there! Log in / Register
Smashed cab
By adamg on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 12:17am
Historygradguy happened upon a smashed-in Cambridge cab on Comm. Ave. near the BU Bridge during the evening storm. He reports EMTs put the driver in a neck brace.
Earlier:
Smashed-in Boston cab in Cambridge.
Copyright Historygradguy. Tagged as universalhub on Flickr.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
A Neck Brace?
From the look of the impact, and the speed he must have been doing to crunch the cab like that, he's lucky they didn't put him in a bag.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Good Design
It is actually quite easy to spectacularly crunch a front end like that because it is designed to "crumple" on impact. This slows deceleration and protects the occupants. If you ever have the "choice" between a side impact and a front impact, take the front impact.
I once had someone bang a left into the Shell station on Memorial Drive when I was oncoming at 35-40 mph. I had my toddler son in the back, my husband in the passenger seat, and was eight months along with my younger son. I just assumed that we were going to hit, so my main objective was to hold the car straight, scrub as much speed as I could,and put as much of that crumple zone, hood and engine as I could between my family and the idiot who didn't bother to look.
I somehow managed to stop within a foot of the idiot's car. We all had belt marks on our bodies an hour later. The idiot's passenger stepped out of the car in the gas station and took the keys ... he had wet his pants. Another two feet of braking distance and he would have been dead because there isn't a side impact crumple zone - especially on late 80s Corollas.
I don't know. As swirlygirl
I don't know. As swirlygirl said the front is designed to crumple. The airbag had deployed too and the guy was belted in.
Mental reconstruction
So, in order to hit that pole at that angle, he would have had to have jumped the curb that separates cars turning right onto the bridge from Comm Ave outbound from cars coming from the roundabout that aims inbound Comm Ave drivers onto the bridge from across the intersection.
My guess is that he was going inbound on Comm Ave, then took the roundabout to get onto the bridge. The way that light is timed, if you're lackadaisical about the roundabout, then you'll get to Comm Ave again just in time for the yellow (assuming the bridge isn't backed up across Comm Ave). He probably saw the yellow as he came around the bend, gunned it to make the light, suddenly saw a pedestrian who was crossing against the light because traffic was light on the bridge, hit the brakes as he was bouncing across the green line tracks, skid, slid, hopped over the island (where fortunately there were no longer any pedestrians), and whammed into the pole.
Visual aid
Ok now wait, want to diagram that?
I assumed that he was trying
I assumed that he was trying to make that turn and either fishtailed on the wet pavement or got smacked from behind somehow. That would be really scary if he came rumbling over the island.
http://maps.google.com/maps?s
http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Mountfort+St&dad...