Crash Bytes (Oct. '05)

(Double-click on the photos to enlarge.)

Big Damages With No Injury?

You've heard us say that little or no bumper damages does not necessarily mean no injury occurred. Conversely, expensive damage to your Insured and/or Claimant vehicles does not necessarily mean occupants were injured. You must pay attention to bumper heights, and whether there might be a mismatch.

In recent test studies conducted by IIHS, passenger vehicles and SUVs were paired and run into each other at a speed of 10 mph. These tests were intended to determine the extent of damage that occurs when vehicles with differing bumper heights collide. In all cases where passenger vehicles collided with SUVs, the damages to both vehicles was not only substantial, the damages also were significantly greater than the damage that occurs in 5 mph flat-barrier impact tests.

For example, when the front of a Nissan Altima and the rear of a Nissan Murano were tested at 5 mph into an unmovable barrier, the vehicles sustained minor damages of $288 and $467 respectively. However, when the Altima was run into the Murano at 10 mph (roughly simulating a 5 mph barrier impact) the vehicles sustained damages of $4507 and $1188 respectively. And guess what . . . forces acting on any occupants in the Murano in this case would not have been sufficient to cause injury!

Case in Point: A 1999 Honda Accord rear-ended a 2000 Mercedes ML320 causing $1390 in damage to the Accord and $1101 to the ML320. Our calculations indicated the impact force acting on the ML320 driver was not more than 2.3-3.3 mph BEV, well below the acknowledged 5 mph injury threshold.